Tastes Like...

Tastes Like Wahoo (Tuna with Chili in Oil)

One of the interesting things about living here is seeing products on the shelves you don't see on the mainland. Canned wahoo is one of those products. Wahoo are normally a sport fish, not frequently commerically caught as they don't school frequently like yellow fin tuna due. They're usually solitary hunters that occasionally end up as by-catch in purse seine nets or on long lines. Thus American Samoa is one of the few places in the world where you can get canned wahoo which they use the by-catch to produce when there's enough around. Canned wahoo is very popular, more popular than demand so that's what causes things like can pictured above.

One of my observant friends picked up a can of this. It has the same color and layout of normal canned wahoo, only with the words "tastes like" sneaked in above "wahoo." There's also the yellow star that says "TUNA with Chili in oil." Very stealthy, Talofa, but we're on to you and your seasoned tuna impersonating wahoo.

Last Weekend of the Bachelor Life

It's my last few days before Sara arrives (yay!). Thus there was an endless number of things I needed to get organized and in order for her introduction to The Rock. The first of these issues I tackled was on Friday. Seeing an email go around that one of the palangi living nearby was selling his truck, I made an appointment to see it and take it for a test drive after work. Unfortunately that afternoon I wasn't able to make it to the bank to get the necessary cash. Coming from the mainland, I was stunned to see that the banks close here at 3pm. So, this was going to be a look only test drive.

Giving directions on the island is a bit different than the mainland. There are no street names here. This is fine for the Samoans. They grew up here, they know every street, alley and back road on the island from since they were children. As a person who's been here all of three weeks, I'm at a severe disadvantage compared to them. Directions here need to be in narrative form, starting with well know land marks and guiding you from there. A paragraph that reads like "Turn right at the white wall with blue accents that after the curve to the left" is what you have to follow to reach someone's house. Following directions takes on a whole new element of complexity when they read more like a list of local features instead of a connecting set of street names. Following the half a page of instructions I wrote down, I got to the seller's house and got to see the truck.

On the test drive, took advantage of the seller and made him be my captive guide. This way I got to see the truck and a few back roads along the way. I discovered the village of Ottoville and found the beverage distributor for island is located there and is willing to sell to the public. I might need to follow up on that next time I throw a party. I also got to see how the truck handles in the water, since Lake Ottoville formed in the middle of a low-lying section of road from the runoff from the rainstorms earlier in the day.

The truck seemed good. It was an older Toyota pickup. The truck reminded me of the old GMC my father owned for 20 years. It was simple, like I like; no electronics amenities, a non-functional stereo, and an unworking AC (though it may just need a freon charge). It's a manual transmission, which might not be the best for island driving. The max speed limit on the island is 25 mph and the road usually is clogged with slow cars and drivers. The constant stop and start nature of the driving here would be a test while using a stick. But as a veteran manual drive, I like to think I'd be up to the challenge. There was a little rust on the body, but on this island everything steel gets that way soon. If the car's still available on Tuesday Sara and I may be heading over to pick it up (or at least get her opinion of it).

Another thing to come out of the test drive was an invitation for that evening. When I showed up at the car owner's house they were busy preparing a pad thai dinner for a roommate's birthday. As I'd hosted the truck owner's household the previous weekend at my barbecue, I was invited to come back and join in the celebration. Not having any plans for the evening, I happily accepted. The pad thai was good, the drinks were great and I was able to meet a number of new people who attended the party. After things winded down there most of us headed to the airport bar and had some fun with karaoke.

It was a good mix of Samoans and our group of palangi. The locals took their songs seriously and we were treated to some great vocal performances. One Samoan lady pulled an archeologist, from our group, up on stage and serenaded him and stole a kiss at the end of the song. I had a great time there and I have a date with the birthday girl to go back to the airport bar tomorrow, since both of our spouses are flying in on the same flight. Apparently the airport bar is the central social hub of the island on flight night.

Saturday was a get-stuff-done day for me. Most retailers on the island have limited hours on Saturday, so headed into town early and started running the errands that needed to happen before Sara's arrival. I stopped and snapped some photos of the dramatic scenery around Pago harbor along the way. This is a shot looking east across the harbor to the Starkist tuna cannery.

The harbor is one of the biggest resources Tutuila has. It's one of the few places that larger ships can land in this part of the Pacific. It's what makes Tutuila one of the more populous areas in this region. Supposedly the harbor is the remains of an old volcano cone. One side eventually eroded into the ocean and left a nice natural harbor in it's wake.

It was nice to play tourist for once. I've been seeing these sights everyday on my commute into the office, but I was happy to spend a rainy morning stopping to snap some pictures of the coastline and waves. I'll need to take some better pictures when the light is better and I've got a better camera than my old cellphone. The scenery around here is definitely worth sharing.

After playing tourist is was back to shopping around for the things I need to get the house up and running. Another attorney with the AG's office, who arrived on island a week ago, joined me for a run to the Ace hardware, the fabric store and a sewing shop.

The Ace hardware here is closer to a Home Depot back home. It's a large warehouse that sells most all the tools and hardware used on island. It was bustling when we were there. I even ran into one of my opposing counsels (who was wearing leather Ugg slippers, when it's 88 degrees and 100% humidity) shopping with one of his clients I have a case against, I'd also met this client on the hike to Fagatele Bay my first weekend here. The criminal AG I came with also saw one of the people that she charged with a misdemeanor on Thursday. I'm still adjusting to how small the community is here.

After Ace we went to ask a sewing shop about having curtains made. It was almost a sweatshop, with 10 little Chinese ladies huddled over their sewing machines. We got a price quoted and were told to go purchase the fabric and they'd have our custom window coverings in a few days. The fabric store was great. It had a huge wall with nothing but Hawaiian print fabric. It was tough to decide which bright color combination of flowers and leaves was going to grace my house for the next two years. Selections made, we took our materials back to the sewing shop. Should have our curtains ready on Tuesday.

We got invited to another gathering Saturday night by a neighbor of ours. It was at the house of an Australian couple out on Coconut Point. CP is one of the few communities close to Pago harbor to keep a more traditional Samoan feel rather than the suburbs-lite feel that seems to have crept into most other local villages. The houses are all clustered along one dirt road that run the length of the peninsula that divides ocean from lagoon. Most homes have traditional open-sided fales in their front yards, with a modern cinder block house behind it. People gather and hang out in the fales and keep their possessions in the modern buildings. The home we were visiting was down near the end, looking out over the ocean.

The gathering was mellow. We hung out on a covered front porch, drinking Stienlagers and talking. For most of the evening there were more Aussies than Americans at the table, even picked up a Kiwi later in the evening. I didn't know the rivalry between the New Zealanders and Australians ran as deep as it does. A little back and forth ribbing ensued, but everyone was a good sport and it was some great hang outs overall.

Once we got back to Freddie's Beach and dropped off the first member of the carpool at her house we had a bit of a mishap. Our (sober) driver accidently drove the front wheel of our work truck into an open hole left over from the ASPA repairs to a water pipe from a few weeks ago. After some late night efforts to free the car failed to yield any results, we decided this was a task best left until morning.

It took some pushing and shoving, but we were eventually able to pile enough rocks under the wheel to drive the car out. We were glad not to have to call for a tow of our work car. Somehow that would surely get back to our boss.

We even had some help digging out from the puppy Lulu.

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.