Case in the News

One of my cases has been making the news in this otherwise quiet territory. It's even been catching some media attention in New Zealand and other places. Looks like resolution is close, at least on the American Samoa side of the matter, so it'll be back to the day in and day out of litigation here again.

Only in Samoa...

Sara and I took a quick coffee run to the McDonald's Drive-Thru (ironically one of the only places you can get a decent cup of joe on the island) this morning. In the line for ordering saw one of the odder moments that has happened tin front of us here. Someone was ordering their meal from the back of an ATV. This had us both laughing out loud.

Transportation on the island is pretty laissez-faire. It's frequent to see 5 or 6 people riding in the back of a pickup truck and aiga buses are colorful and loud substitutes for public transportation that often fill up to the point that new riders need to sit on the laps of people with seats. That said the sight of a four-wheeled dirt-bike grabbing a bite at McDonald's was new on us. Just another reminder that even though we've been here for 7 months this island will still find ways to surprise you.

Pese is in full swing

On my way back from High Court this morning, after arguing an interesting case, I was greeted with quite a set of sights and sounds in the atrium to the Executive Office Building. One of the government departments was in full rehearsal mode doing choir practice. It made for a livelier walk than usual back up to the office.

With the first night of pese scheduled to start tonight the American Samoa Government departments are doubling up on their practice time. This whole week there has been music echoing through the office building as well as long practices for our office every afternoon. Even at Court this morning the witnesses I had were bragging about last years' performances and talking up their shows for this year. Should be quite a festival over the next three evenings.

Sara and I were among the members of our office to help pick out the pese uniforms for the Department of Legal Affairs. This meant that we got to go to the fabric store pick the fabric that all the members of the Department would use to make their uniforms and then had sample designs knocked up by one of the local sewing shops for the men's and women's uniforms to show the rest of the office how to have their's made. It was classic group decision making, with several opinions pulling the print and design their own direction, but we were happy with the end product and are looking forward to seeing it on display at our televised performance on Friday.

NOAA Station

Following a wonderful umu meal at our friend Visa's house and a short side trip to feed our "take away" breadfruit to some stream fish, Sara and I decided to explore the NOAA observatory and weather station out on the Eastern tip of the island. A few of our friends had visited the facility a few weeks before and reported back that it was worth the trip. It had been a few months since we'd been out to the east end of the island, so we thought it would be worth the trip. The drive out there is full of interesting sights and well worth it.

This is only the second time I've been out to the Eastern tip of the island. It's a beautiful drive out there and I love how once you get past the canneries in the harbor, the island quickly transitions to small quiet villages that are dotted along the lonely single lane road.

The NOAA weather station that sits out on the Eastern Tip of the island is one of the few permanent presences of the federal government here in American Samoa. It has the unique distinction of being the spot with the cleanest air in the world. Or at least the place that NOAA uses air samples from to determine what the "clean-air" baseline is. I find this a little odd, since the people of American Samoa burn their trash and waste on a daily basis and a healthy majority of the vehicles on island do not have any pollution controls, but I guess when the wind is blowing in the from east, the air there has come from a thousand miles of open ocean to reach there.

The turn off to the Observatory is unmarked, but it's pretty obvious which of the dirt tracks runs to the top of the hill at Cape Matalua, the NE tip of Tutuila. We followed the road up past a few homes and came to the gate of the NOAA facility. The plateau of the mountain was filled with the observatory proper and a number of instruments scattered around the grassy area. Sara and I spent some time trying to determine what each's purpose was.

Once we had explored all the sciency things at the Observatory we came across one last highlight, the stairway down to the cape. It is a long wooden staircase, containing over 200 stairs at a 45 degree slope down the mountainside. The thoughtful designers even placed several benches in to make sure there'd be places to rest.

The climb down wasn't bad, but knowing we'd have to go back up was a tickling in the back of our heads as we headed down.

The Cape at the base was beautiful. It's a peninsula that was bare rocks covered in moss and grass with the crashing Pacific on all sides.

We hung out for a bit and just appreciated the remoteness and ruggedness of our little island. Well worth the trip out.

All that was left was our hike back up. Thankfully we've been doing enough hiking that it wasn't too much of a challenge.

Thankfully, all that was left to cap off this Sunday was a stop at Tisa's on the way back to our side of the island.

Pese Practice has Begun

A unique Samoan cultural event has started to happen this week in our office. For an hour each afternoon, the whole office shuts down. All the employees filter out of their desks and head down to the lobby for Immigration. We then sit on benches and chairs pulled in from the Immigration Office. In the center of the room is a Casio keyboard. We then start practicing Christmas songs for an hour. In a few weeks our department (and all other government departments over the course of three evenings) will perform at the stage across the street from the legislature in front of the governor and the performance will be broadcast on TV. The name of this who deal is Pese.

As a person of limited musical talent, this is a bizarre use of my work hours. All but one of the songs we are working on are in Samoan, a language that has me struggling to say the name of the village I live in. Singing in it adds a whole other layer of difficulty. Not mention being asked to memorize lyrics has me wondering what I signed up for. Oh yeah and the lyric sheets we were handed out had several lines that we aren't singing. No one's bothered to explain this to us first-timers. We need to figure it out as we got or get yelled at in Samoan when the song leader takes umbrage with our signing. Worst of all, apparently the television cameras inevitably focus in on the palagi faces in the crowd. I'm sort of dreading this recital.

One fun component of all this is Sara and a few of our friends were tasked with choosing the fabric and design of the matching uniforms everyone from our department will wear for the performance. This meant that we went to the fabric store picked out a fabric that had a large enough amount to make shirts for the men and pulatasis for the ladies. The four people on the uniform committee had to debate and compromise their way to one fabric and design they could settle on. To ensure the printed fabric wouldn't run out, the rolls of it were placed on reserve. Our next task was to take the fabric to a sewing shot across the street and started having them knock up the samples that we can show the rest of the office the design. We were measured and the design was described, we'll be modelling the designs on Monday for the office.

I never thought I'd be using my law degree to entertain quite in this way. We'll hopefully be able to get some video of the performance to post...

Soccer

American Samoa takes its sports seriously. The sports most people focus on are football, volleyball, rugby and cricket. So it was big news when AmSam's "National" soccer team won their first game this week: http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/dirty-tackle/post/Worst-ranked-American-Samoa-win-first-ever-FIFA-?urn=sow-wp6950

We'll see if the sport takes off here.

James "Jim" Allen Sayles

I got the worst of news this evening. My grandfather, James Allen Sayles passed away this evening. For nine decades, Jim exemplified everything I hoped to be as a person. He was independent, an explorer, his own man, successful, the person who drove me to improve as a person and my namesake. You truly were one of the great influences of my life. You will be sorely missed.

Sara and I were both glad to have had a couple of opportunities to

visit my "Grampa" and my grandmother while we were home for Spencer and Britt's wedding. We managed to celebrate my Great Aunt Janet's birthday together and you let your "old school" guard down long enough to allow Sara and I to bring lunch to your place in Kensington, from Tacubaya. The problem with a trip as short as that was we did not get to spend more time with the people we love the most.

Grampa, you will be sorely missed. You were the man who held me to higher standard and taught me that good enough was not good enough. Even your surly attitude infused me with a patience and sympathy that will be a part of me for my entire life. Grampa, your sense of adventure and outdoors spirit were a major influence on my life and who I am today. You taught me to shoot a gun at 5, to fish at 4, to hike and explore my entire life. You always brought the perspective of an engineer to every problem in life and gave me a logical framework for dealing with every trial in life. These are skills that I relish and continue to expand on to this day, your influence will not end with you. It's hard for me to imagine going on without you, but sad as it may be, I will have to.

I will never be able to drink a glass of "pinch bottle" scotch without thinking of you. We are all proud that you were able to leave this world under your own terms and with you people you hold most dear. You may be gone, but you will not be forgotten. Even from American Samoa, you memory will live on, you old sailor. I only wish I was able to see you through until then end...