Three Samoa Moments

There are some moments that we have on a daily basis here in American Samoa that pass without much notice. Things that would be very out of place on the mainland and may be against the law, violate various moral codes and otherwise not happen. A few recent examples from last weekend.

I went over to a friend's house for a barbecue on Saturday. I did something unusual for the island, I showed up at the scheduled time. In the palagi community, no one shows up until and hour to an hour-and-a-half after the scheduled time. However on this Saturday, I was lounging around our house without much to do, so I opted to be punctual.

Being on time left me greeted with a few of my friends butchering the meal in their front yard. They were hacking apart a yellow fin tuna, a mahi mahi and a wahoo in the bed of pickup truck. The fish were still frozen solid, straight from the hold of a purse-seiner. So "hacking" literally means bludgeoning a knife/machete/cleaver through solidly frozen fish with a hammer or using a serrated saw to part the head or the tail from the body. Imagine someone trying to saw or hammer their way through a 30 pound ice block while trying to leave the ice block in a few specific sized chunks.

It was gross and bloody work, especially after the out layers of the fish started to thaw. The flies were everywhere, eating up all the stray chunk of flesh that were scattered all over the ground and the pickup bed.

After about an hour, they were left with a giant cooler overflowing fillets, steaks and other cuts of the fish and a massive mess.

This also served as a welcome back to one of our friends who left 8 months ago. He had arrived back on the Thursday flight and moved in with the good Doc. He was moving from his grad student life in San Diego to the lifestyle where you could be asked to gut a fish at in afternoon for your evening meal.

Another thing he got when came back was a beater, island pickup. It was previously owned by one of the attorneys on island. It had sat around for three or four months before its new owner got back to claim it. Let this be a testament to how hard the climate and air is on everything. The roof of the truck had rotted out in the months it was sitting here.

It rotted enough that there were large holes located where the windshield and the roof meet. With as much rain as we receive on Tutuila this is a problem. Once our intrepid grad student got on island, he set about fixing the leaky rook. First, this took the form of keeping the rain off the roof and the interior long enough to get it to dry off in the Southern Hemisphere wet season. No easy task.

This solution took the form of an umbrella stuck directly into the holes in the car canopy. A site I'd never seen before. The truck's new owner was starting to sand off the rusted sections of the truck roof in anticipation of bond-o/sealing the holes.

It's a testament to the corrosive powers of heat, salt and water how quickly metals break down in t his climate. I've had paperclips rust apart in my backpack in only a few weeks. A few months will lead to some extreme results here.

 The last of the uniquely Samoan phenomena that needed cataloging was the toad we encountered in the pool on Sunday.

Sara had already gotten in the pool at our housing complex when I noticed something swimming around the deep end. Turns out a cane toad had fallen into the water and couldn't make its way out. I had a bit of a moral dilemma about this situation. On one hand, the cane toads are an invasive predator that has gone a long way towards displacing a number of native reptiles, amphibians and birds in the environment. They are poisonous and have overrun the ecosystem around where we live. On the other side, a dead toad floating around the pool would probably decommission one of our few reprieves from the wet season heat. It's one of the few perks of living where Sara and I are. We regularly host a wide swath of our friends on hot weekends for cocktails and pool times.

With a little debate with Sara we opted to keep alive our escape from the heat and humidity. I fished the toad out of the water. He'll live to eat and reproduce. Sigh. Only in American Samoa do you need to fight these little battles on a daily basis.

Super Bowl

Just like on the mainland, Sunday was set aside for the Super Bowl. The Coast Guard Lieutenant hosted a barbecue at his house for the game. He rotisseried two pigs (that had been hanging out the previous day) and otherwise welcomed us for general revelry. We'd hoped to spend the day outside and watch the game with the benefit of a friend's projector, but the rain and wind conspired to keep us bottled by in the apartment.

After a half of jockeying for position to see the game, Sara and I bumped over to some friends of ours who were neighbors and opted to watch the rest of the game in the comfort of the couch.

One abnormality is that none of the TV station we receive in American Samoa have commercial access to the Super Bowl feed. Instead they mooch off the military feed for the game. This is great except for one unanticipated aspect: we don't get the commercials. The military feed has a number of military specific public service announcements in place of the commercials, think "loose lips sink ships" and the ilk. These are not allowed to be shown on civilian broadcasts, so instead American Samoa gets video feed from various churches during the commercial breaks. This seems to be the best alternative the broadcasters on the island could come up with.

As a person that does not go to church, this is a nice reminder as to why I prefer to spend my Sunday doing outdoor activities. Every image that is shown from these churches is people falling asleep in the pews or looking deathly bored. There's occasionally shots of the priest or preacher talking, but no sound comes through and they usually quickly pan to people dressed up in their finest outfits, sweating their way through Sunday. It's truly a testament to how much sway the churches hold here, that the local population all go to church and spend their Sundays looking insanely bored.

Glad I only have to experience during commercial breaks during the Super Bowl. But it also means I need to waste time later in the evening tracking down the commercials online.

Australia Day

We got a fully down-under accented email yesterday:

"Stone the f*%kin crows mate - it's australya day tomorra an we're gunna av a do at our place to celebrate. Yous guys are all invited so don ya thongs and ya green an gold clobber an rock up ere round 7 for tucker. We'll chuck some rissoles on the barbie (not bloody shrimps!) an will ave all the trimmings wif good ol lammos and pav for afters. Alls ya need to bring is yourselfs and some stubbies o piss or longneck coldies of amber nectar (or some plonk!) for drinkin' an we'll ave an esky wif ice. Aw yeah, and if yas are one of those vedgie types and meat just ain't ya thing, ya might wanna bring somefin else for ya burger.

See yas tomorra ya flamin galahs.

Hooroo,"

Who can say no to a celebration of Australia Day. The day commemorating when the British settlers of a penal colony first sailed the majority of their fleet into Sydney Cove after giving up on settling Botany Bay. Just as inspirational as the signing of the declaration of independence, if you nation was a commonwealth nation consisting of six self governing colonies and other territories that federated together into a parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the head of state of Britain. Bureaucratic negotiations totally trump a revolution.

Not to be one to deny an excuse to get together an celebrate, I eagerly agreed to participate. After a post-work paddle in the harbor that took us past the iconic Fatu ma Futi, I rinsed up at the pool showers at the Sadie's by the Sea Hotel and headed over to Coconut Point for the Australia Day celebration.

This mostly consisted of hanging out on Aussie Ben and Sarah's front porch, which Sara and I have written about a few times before. This time it was spiced up with burgers (and veggie burgers) with authentic Australian toppings like beet root, pineapple and american cheese. We also had it explained to us that Australians don't say "shrimp," those are called "prawns," thus the saying "throw another shrimp on the barbee" has been ruined for me.

That said, nothing's more Australian than a barbecue in January. Sara wasn't feeling well, so she missed out on the evening. Luckily I was able to bring her some of the traditional "lammos" and "pav," a.k.a Lamington and Pavlova. Those will help you get over anything that vexes you.

Halloween Pictures

Here are some context free photos from the Halloween Party our co-workers and friends Sarah and Joey hosted out at Lion's Park. A thanks also goes out to Meg and Sean, who decorated the party and out did themselves in a party reminiscent to a Lair-type gathering.

Halloween and Melbourne Cup

Monday started out a little different from a usual week. Sara and I were walking up the stairs toour office when we saw the Commissioner of the Workmen's Compensation Commission and one a member of her staff. They were carrying several large tin trays of food up to their office. After engaging in a little conversation, we were invited to come by their office at 11 for lunch. I said I would come if my trial that was scheduled for that morning didn't go.

Turns out the attorney for the plaintiff couldn't reach his client and therefore got the trial taken off calendar. This was the third trial date set in this case, sigh. Litigating in Samoa can be a little frustrating, but with my morning freed up, I was able to get back to the office much earlier than I anticipated. After using the rest the morning drafting discovery responses, I chatted Sara and suggested we go over to the Workmen's Comp Commission Office in the Executive Office Building.

We walked down the stairs and over to the WCC and came in and said hello to the staffer at the front desk. She welcomed us in and had the Commissioner come out and greet us. The Commissioner's husband was also there (who also happens to be the judge I was in front of earlier that morning).

Together we walked over to another department and were greeted to a number of government employees in costume starting to set up some 6 huge tables for food. We were introduced to the crowd, many of whom were in costume (and a large percentage of those were dressed as doctors or nurses, a statement on how the scariest thing in AmSam is the hospital), and were welcomed to their lunch. After a few pictures and fielding some requests for me to take pictures with the young ladies who work in that office, we were ready for the meal. Each person there had brought a large tray of meat or platter of dishes. There were several portions of pig, corned beef, pizzas, chicken, fish and chow mien. Sara and I were whisked to the front of the line as "guests."

Being the finicky-diet-people that we are, Sara and I had to work hard to put together a full plate of food we could eat. Selective picking at the chow mien and macaroni and cheese we were able to serve up our plates. We then sat down at a counter that usually handles HR issues for the American Samoa Government employees and had our lunch. I had to bite my tongue a little, since I ended up sitting next to the judge that I'd appeared in front of that morning, no ex parte communications can sneak into the conversation. We enjoyed our meal and managed to slip out before we were piled high with take-out trays filled with more food. It was an unexpected Halloween surprise and let us put off eating our left overs until the next day.

Later that day, our Aussie friends invited us over to their house. They told us to be there at 4:30 sharp. The timeliness was necessary since we were gathering to witness the running of the Melbourne Cup. We headed out of the office at four and drove out to Coconut Point for the event. There was a $5 buy-in for the race. With 24 horses scheduled to run, each of us there got to pick two horses out of a cap with the winning horse paying out $25, 2nd place $15, 3rd place $5 and last place $5. We drew lots and settled in for the race. With such a large field, it made for some relatively entertaining 3 minutes of racing.

It came down to a photo finish, by the tip of its lip Dunaden won the Melbourne Cup. This netted me 1st prize, as I'd drawn that horse as one of my two horses from the pot. This gave me another win in my streak. Not bad, I'll take it, hopefully some of this luck will carry through to the trials I've been having.

For the rest of the evening we were treated to some Samoan Halloween celebration. We've heard horror stories about bus loads of kids from all over the island being trucked into the government housing for contract workers. There are also incidents of teens pushing their way into people's houses to get candy. Out at Coconut Point it was pretty mellow and most of the kids' costumes were adorable. Plus they all sang "trick or treat, trick or treat, give me something good to eat, au mai si, o'u lole fa'amolemole, Happy Halloween." It made for a nice evening out on our Australian friends' porch.

Goodbye Barbecue and Games

A frequent social gathering for the palagi community here on American Samoa is for goodbyes. With almost all the of community being contract workers, there is almost always someone whose contract is coming to a close and is making to depart the island. One of the Department of Marine Wildlife Resources staffers had her going away party over the weekend. Her Aussie neighbors took it upon themselves to build some entertainment for the party. Always looking for an excuse to play with power tools, I let a hand. We built a set of cornhole board and a pair of washer toss boards. Basically any game that lets you hold a beer in one hand and participate with the other. The games were a big hit, though the numerous children around did do some damage to our home made bean bags. Those will need some repair prior to their next go around. We also barbecued.

Being the attorney for DMWR was also interesting, since many of the attendees to the barbecue were the Samoan employees for the agency. I got drafted to participate in a conference on fisheries management and village level oversight. Sometimes work and leisure intersect in interesting ways.

Amalau Camping

A little partied out from the preceding weekend, neither Sara nor I were sure we could muster the necessary enthusiasm for the Spartacus themed-party that most of the palagi community was going to this weekend. Thus, we jumped at the suggestion from our Aussie friends to go camping at the Amalau "resort" for Saturday night. Resort is used loosely, since the facility is little more than a collection of open-sided fales along the beach.

The campsite is on the beach in a small cove on the north side of Tutuila. The village of Amalau is on the hillside above the camp. This is easily one of the smallest villages remaining on the island. It only has three or four houses, all along the driveway in to the camp. That makes finding the camp a little challenging, since there isn't anything more a driveway and a few trashcans on the main road to indicate the presence of a the camp ground. On our own, Sara and I would never have found this place. That's the advantage of meeting some AmSam veterans.

The fales are little more than wood platforms with roofs and an electrical light in the middle. They were a prime place to hang out and read our books. We set up tents in the fales and used our memory foam mattress pad as a sleeping mat.

We showed up on Saturday afternoon and started setting up camp. We managed to work in some beer drinking, beach walks, cocktail hour, lawn bocce ball and barbecuing that afternoon. It was just like camping on the mainland, but it's on the beach in paradise.

We also forgot a few key items for camping, namely a pot and a barbecue. We managed to improvise a barbecue from a sawed in half oil drum. Not ideal for efficiency, but it let us grill our dinner and heat a pan for breakfast. The lack of a pot was a little more difficult. We ended up finding an old coconut that had be opened up and the contents drained. We ended up scrubbing it out and heating it on the grill. It took a long time, but we managed to make a pot of coffee in the french press and show our camp MacGyver skills at work. The coals ran out before we got to try it again, but next time we're going to work a little harder to remember the basics.

One of the highlights of the camping was our bonfire on the beach. Sara and I turned this into a bit of a ceremonial event. We had been trying to figure out what to do with our pallet since our shipment from the mainland arrived. We'd toyed with the idea of making some furniture from it, but once we figured out how many tools we'd need to purchase it didn't seem to make sense. With that plan blown up, we'd left the pallet in the corner for over a month. When camping came up, we knew we had a final use for the pallet - a beach bonfire. It was our symbolic cutting of the cord with our mainland life.

Sunday morning we were woken up by the local chicken population scratching around the camp for forage. The roosters were also making themselves known a little before sun up. Not ideal, as we'd been up late in the evening enjoying our bonfire.

The one negative to come from the weekend was on Sunday. When we woke up, the wind was raging hard at the camp. We'd hoped to go out to the Vatia tide pools, which were located at the point at the end of Amalau Bay, and snorkel back to the camp. However, with the winds whipping through hard, the visibility was shot. We tried to wait out the wind, but after a few hours of it being too windy to read a book we packed it in and made for home.

Manu'a Flag Day - Let's Play Sloshball

Friday was Manu'a Flag Day. Meaning that 110 years ago, this was the day that the Manu'a Islands cession to American Samoa and thus the US. Nobody here on Tutuila makes a big deal about it. The Manu'a Islands are pretty small, remote and difficult to get to, only Ta'u is large enough to get commercial flights. Next year we may try and get there for the holdiay and see if the population of 800 people gets up and does anything special to celebrate. The one things that gets anyone's interested in Manu'a Flag Day on our island is the government gets the day off work. With most of the Palagi community off, one of our coworkers hosted a wiffleball sloshball game.

The game was hosted at the other large government housing facility, Lion's Park. We showed up on time, which was about an hour before everyone else. Oh, Island Time. The version of sloshball played here is team pitch wiffleball and is played on a pretty small field. No gloves or cleats are used and pegging a runner gets the fielding team an out. Runners must open a beer at second-base, which conveniently is a cooler. The beer cannot be put down until the runner finishes the beer, this includes after the runner gets out, takes the field or even comes up to bat again, otherwise it's normal softball rules.

We were blessed with some excellent weather. The unprecedented dry spell that's been lingering over the island gave us blue skies and a dry field, other than a pregame squall that rolled over the nearby lagooon. The experienced players had stories about deep mud, rain outs and brutal humidity marring past sloshball games.

We played a little over seven innings. With our team staging a comeback from being down big early in the game before the it was called due to darkness. This was fortunate, since the game was tied when it was called and neither team could claim bragging rights for this competition of skill and beer drinking.

Once the game was done the event turned into a barbecue and party. Most people had a good time hanging out after the game. A few of the World Teach Teachers stopped by after their orientation. Most of them were being prepared to be shipped off to outlying islands in a few weeks. That would make for an interesting experience for a year.

Overall it was an unexpected success. We had a great time hanging out, and outside of some late night antics by some uninvited Samoan guests that ended the evening on a poor note it was a fun time for all. Hopefully we won't have to wait 5 months until someone plans another sloshball game.

Monday - LMS Girls School and BBQ

To assist in my new Kiwi friend's plans to recreate one of the original European structures on Tutuila, a group of us headed out to the old London Missionary Society's girls school that was built here in the late 19th century. It's an old, abandoned structure that served as a school for over half a century on the western edge of the island. Just west of the village of Leone (one of the larger towns on Tutuila, that had received extensive damage during the 2009 tsunami).

The building was condemned in the 1990s (after having been converted into apartments), as the he structure was not well maintained and started to fail. As of now the building is well past saving. The floor in the 2nd story had collapsed in several rooms and the surrounding jungle had moved into the structure. A bamboo forest and overtaken the courtyard and several plants had taken root in the wooden floors that remained on the top floor. My Kiwi friend had been here previously 4 years ago, at that point the top floor had still been intact through the whole structure and he had been able to take detailed measurements of the building. This trip was meant to pick up some of the measurements and details he had neglected to take previously.

The building is noted as being a good example of Victorian Colonial architecture. Growing up with a contractor/architect father and spending several summers working construction has left me with a deep appreciation of architecture and built structures. I couldn't refuse an opportunity to see what the historical architecture that graces our small island.

I was also able to climb up into the second story masonry portions of the building. The wooden portions showed extensive termite damage and many had collapsed. The original ceilings were 14 feet on the first floor and almost as high on the second. All the rooms had large vents to allow the air to flow through the building and keep it cool. Even with all that building volume and ventilation, you could feel the heat of the Equatorial sun beating through the tin roof.

I'm glad I made the trip, based on the rate the vegetation is taking over, there won't be much left of the structure in another decade or two. I'm glad I could see a little of the history before it's reclaimed by the rain forest.

This is the Kiwi, draftsman taking field measurements on the column details and the foundation. It was also fun to assist him and use a few of the skills I learned helping my father over the years. It's not often that knowing how to sketch and draft a building in the field comes in handy. Hopefully our measurements will get turned into a reproduction of the building down the road.

The markings of the London Missionary Society, who built this school, are still visible on the exposed wood. Some of the legacy of the strong influence that missionaries exerted over the Samoas at the turn of the 20th Century.

We also met a mother from the local village and her two sons at the site. They came to investigate who was poking around the ruins. We introduced ourselves and she proceeded to start telling us the local legends of the structure. Apparently the old girls school has taken on quite the reputation as a cursed/haunted place among the local residents. The local mother, was actually very afraid of the place and she came to warn us of the demons and curses we would incur by being there. She actually screamed at her two boys on a few occasions when they were making enough noise to catch the attention of the spirits that haunted the place.

She also mistook us for the Ghost Hunters TV show production crew, apparently they are on island right now and were potentially going to shoot an episode at the abandoned girls school. The highlights of the curses the woman warned us of were that women who wear red hibiscus flowers in their hair, near the site, are cursed by the former headmaster of the school and if you eat from the mango tree located near the graveyard, you will get possessed. Needless to say we immediately went to find the graveyard and old headmaster's residence located further up the jungle hillside. We however didn't find any ghosts or edible mangoes. Though the Kiwi did his best to screech like a ghost the whole hike up and back through the swampy forest.

After returning from our trip to the girls school, three of us did a jog/walk out along the coastal cliffs west from the Freddy's beach housing complex. Along the shore there were some spectacular lava cliffs. Along the route I was happy to be shown some of the local features live an explosive blow hole driven by waves, a cliff jumping spot, a flat picnic rock and a few mean spirited dog packs. I also discovered my fitness was not what it used to be, a four mile run/walk should not give me such fits. Especially the last quarter mile sprint after some rest. Time to commit myself to regular exercise, otherwise I may end up with the physique of the native Samoans.

The second part of my day was spent getting to see a part of the local Samoan culture up close. On Sunday, on a walk along the beach/cliffs near where I live I met a few cousins having beers under some of the trees. After joining them for several beers, a rainstorm, and a little bit of conversation on the local history I ended up hitting it off with my new Samoan friends. We ended up hanging out for several hours and I got to know Lawrence and his cousin Abraham well. Before we parted ways that evening, they invited me to a barbecue on Monday. Wanting to branch out and meet some people outside of the contract worker community I readily accepted.

The barbecue was in a fale located in the front yard of Lawrence's family's home. One feature of the barbecue I had not anticipated was sharing it with the family's father, mother and grandmother, who are all deceased and entombed in aboveground graves inside the fale. Memorial Day takes on a new meaning when you spend it with the dead. Especially when the father's tomb had a glass window in it, so you could look in on the coffin.

The food was abundant and the company was great. Lawrence's whole family welcomed me in and never stopped pushing food on me. It was like having every member of the family acting like an Italian mother, making it difficult to refuse plate after plate of food offered. They have a large house where several of the siblings all live together. The only ones who don't live at home are either living off island or with spouses. Several aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews were there. It was an all afternoon family event. We talked the afternoon into evening, had a few Vailimas and I was sent packing with a huge plate of food. It was one of the most generous gatherings I ever had the pleasure to experience and they are ready to welcome us back when Sara arrives. This is the Samoa I am ready to spend the next two years experiencing.

Memorial Day Weekend - Friday-Saturday

The weekend was packed, everyday brought a new adventure. Starting out late last week, one of my coworkers informed me that there was a dying tradition for new pulangi arrivals on the island to throw a barbecue within their first week on island. Not being one to deny tradition or refuse a beer fueled event, I accepted the gauntlet. Thursday I sent out emails to the list serv that links the (mostly) contract ex-pat community in Tutuila. On Friday and Saturday, I spent some time day planning and gathering supplies.

Part of the challenge with starting from zero in a household in a new place is not having the basics. Everything you need requires a trip to the store. Your usual routine of stocking up on the items you know you recently ran out of and grabbing one or two special items because they were on sale or specifically needed no longer exists.

This situation gets compounded when even kitchen hardware and gadgets fall into that same situation. For example, I don't have a cooler on island (I shipped two on my pallet, but the pallet is still in transit and likely won't arrive for several weeks). Coolers are expensive in American Samoa. The cost of retail items here is almost directly related to how much they cost to ship here. The biggest driving factor in shipping freight overseas is the volume, not the weight of the cargo. Coolers, being large, bulky items that don't nest or pack close are costly. A standard backyard barbecue friendly cooler costs over $100 here.

Thus being cheap and inventive rather than a solution-focused consumer is often the best solution when making purchases on the island. For this BBQ, the chosen method to keep drinks cold was a plastic bin some my kitchenware set came in. The grill I used was a rusting heap that had remained from a prior tenant on my back porch. A few grocery runs and I'm set to host an event.

We set up at the pool area of my housing complex. I'd been warned people would show up late. With a 6pm start time, no guest who lived outside the housing complex came before 7pm. Everything here happens on "island time" even the pulangi. Despite the late start, approximately twenty people showed up and hung out until around midnight. The BBQ went well and I was glad to meet some more people. Definitely the right way to start off my social gatherings here in American Samoa.