Afega blowholes, south cost of Savai’i.

I’ve been putting off writing this post, though I’ve thought of it often, at least in part because I keep waiting for the magical moment where I ‘process’ everything. As if, at the end of my time here, the camera of my brain will suddenly zoom out to the big picture and I’ll be able to confidently and intelligently (humorously even, maybe!) articulate a worthy summation of four months spent in Samoa. With less than 24 hours left in the country, I may be forced to conclude that this is just not going to happen. Processing this experience, it seems, will happen long after I’ve left these steamy shores (literally–the rainy-sunny combo is back) and probably continue well into my return to the States. Still, I can’t leave without writing something for both you, my loyal readers (hi dad!), and me to reflect on the unpredictable journey of the last few months.

So, here it is. Samoa in bite-sized chunks.

1. Things I will miss.
2. Things I will not miss.
3. 4-month abstinence.
4. Low point.
5. High point.
6. Conclusion?

1. Things I will miss

Being able to see the sun rise and set over the ocean. When I was in high school and lucky enough to basically live on a beach, watching the sun set on the ocean was one of my favorite ways to spend the evening. When I left California for college, it was something I missed desperately–that crisp coastal air trying to worm its way under your layers, balancing the cool factor of seeing the sun dip below the horizon and the nervous factor of staring directly at the sun, the vivid quality of the sky, the advance of stars… In fact, this is the first time I’ve lived in a place that could match (and surpass!) the number of stars in the sky in Carmel, on a fogless night, of course. It’s different here for sure–for one, watching the sunset doesn’t require bundling up–but I still love it.

When I moved to the East Coast, I optimistically thought that I would be replacing those ocean sunsets with sunrises. Of course, I am far from a morning person, so in 7 years of living back east I never set my eyes on an ocean sunrise.

I finally did here, and it was exhilarating.

The sky. This is obviously related to the item above. But it’s a valid item in itself. I guess it must be the broad expanse of the South Pacific spanning on around us, because the sky here is incredible. Whether it’s spotted with clouds so fluffy and vivid you just want to reach out and grab a fistful, streaked with a technicolor light show to shame any movie’s special effects, or stuffed so full of stars your mouth falls open…I will miss it.

Never wearing shoes. Or pants. While I’ll be going back to the States in mid-summer, so I can continue dodging this bullet for awhile, you just can’t beat going to work in flip flops.

Doesn’t get fresher than this!

Cracking open a coconut on a hot day. There’s really nothing more refreshing. While Samoa doesn’t have the widest diversity of fruits, the ones they do grow are delicious. I will definitely miss drinking young coconuts, eating fresh coconut cream, and being up to my ears in deliciously ripe bananas and papayas.

Watching rugby all the time. Following rugby in the States takes concerted effort and steely determination–sometimes in addition to steep fees for special viewing packages. I will deeply miss being surrounded by a culture that also loves and appreciates my favorite sport, and being able to turn on the TV to watch any major games and tournaments.

Everything being 5 minutes away. If it’s ‘in town’, and you’re driving, it’s hard for it to be more than 5-10 minutes to get to. Previously, my work commute in NYC could reach 1.5 hours on the subway. I am not looking forward to this change of pace.

2. Things I will not miss.

Even “going native” doesn’t fool them…

Persistent and overt racism following me down the street. Literally. This was easily the worst part of my time here. Look, I know the States has our own race issues, but being here was like turning back the clock to an age I was never familiar with, in our country at least. I cannot exaggerate how many times I was addressed, “Hey Chinese girl,” “Hey China,” “Ching chong chong shay,” “(insert any and all imitations of Chinese/made up Chinese words)” by boys and men of all ages, sometimes following me as I walk down the street. It’s okay, generally, if you think I’m from China or Japan–I get it, I’m Asian, both of those countries have a pretty strong presence here. But, for example, during the 50th independence celebrations, there was a Chinese cultural performance as part of the festivities. This consisted of song and dance–not comedy. The second one of the performers opened her mouth and spoke to the crowd, in Chinese, peals of laughter rang out. They continued through her performance (a song) and generally through the show whenever Chinese was spoken.

This is after a 15 minute opening prayer in which the pastor appealed to the crowd to embrace all people, regardless of looking different or being different. The truth is, Samoa has such a homogenous population, I do understand why there might be a lack of education or experience regarding diversity and ‘other’ people. But that doesn’t make it easier to be one of those ‘other’ people.

Mosquitos. Need I say more? I will not miss covering myself in poison multiple times a day, I will not miss being itchy always, I will not miss sleeping under a mosquito net, I will not miss mosquito hunting as a legitimate (for me) form of entertainment at night.

Adele dance remixes. Samoans love music and dancing. This means even if music was not meant to be danced to, they will find a way to make it so, including so many Adele songs remixed into dance music. This also involves taking existing pop songs, and rewriting them in Samoan. Example: Pretty Little Teine. This should remind you very strongly of another song by a certain Canadian 17-year-old…

Singing competition shows. By this, I am referring to American Idol, The X-Factor, The Voice, and America’s Got Talent. I never watched any of these before living here, but took them up as a necessity for conversation. It’s amazing how many conversational doors were opened by having working knowledge of these shows. I will not be missing them because I am a total convert and fully plan on continuing my viewership upon returning to the States.

3. 4-month abstinence.

I have gone 4+ months without:

• Internet access 7 days a week.
• Drinking a beer that is not Vailima.
• Eating a bagel. Among many other things.
• Being able to eavesdrop on conversations around me. And I am normally an avid eavesdropper.
• Access to a gym.
• A couch. You will never appreciate laying on the couch on the weekend as much as when you don’t have one.
• More than 2.5 channels on TV. Coupled with an inability to stream video, this is pretty crippling if you know much TV I watch.
• Being able to drive more than 7 hours without ending up in the same spot I started.

A high point. Literally.

4. Low point.

Obviously, there were a number of difficult moment for me here, whether related to getting sick, frustrations at work, or missing friends back home. However, the low point of my trip, by which I mean an unequivocally negative moment, actually occurred just a few days ago while my mother was visiting.

We were driving on Cross Island Road, which goes up and over a mountain, connecting the north side of the island with the south. Suddenly, in the middle of the road I see a small group of people, about 7 or 8 young men and women. There is a young lady on the ground. At first, I think she’s injured and there’s been some sort of accident, they are moving her out of the way.

Then I realize: she’s injured, but it’s not an accident. There is a man, dragging her off the road by her hair. Her face is bloodied and swollen. Her body is limp. I honk, stunned and unsure. A young man looks menacingly at me and waves me on. I realize there are far more of them than us, and I’m with my mom, who I absolutely do not want subjected to violence of any degree. I drive on.

I did contact the police, and the Victim Support Group (from what I can tell, the only organization working against domestic violence in-country) to tell them what I saw. I was promised an investigation, although generally the police are not responsive to ‘domestic issues.’ And while we were the only ones there at that moment, Cross Island Road is a fairly busy one, and I saw a lot of traffic passing me in the opposite direction. But, there’s no guarantee any of them stopped, or cared, or would have helped her. The attitude here is sadly typical–if a girl shames her family, or not, and they are beating her, it’s a private matter.

I don’t need to tell you how sick I felt driving away, or how helpless and sad and angry I was afterwards. I will tell you that it’s strange how shocked the mind is in the moment of witnessing extreme violence. For a few instants, it tries to rationalize away what you are seeing, until ugly reality asserts itself. And I will tell you, it was a sobering reminder that work against domestic violence still has miles and miles to go.

5. High point.

From the back of a moving truck.

As violent as my low point was, my high point is passive, in the best way. After playing in a rugby tournament one Saturday, one of the coaches told me he would be driving out to the villages to drop off some of the girls that stayed behind to watch the senior men’s club game. There is one road that encircles the island–if you drive west out of Apia, you head towards the airport, if you drive east, you drive along beautiful coastline and eventually into the mountains. He was heading east, and invited me along for the drive. Unsafe as it is (sorry parents), one of the things I will definitely miss is riding in the back of a pickup truck in the cool evening air after a long, hot day.

So this is my high point: wedged into the bed of a pickup truck in a pile of Samoan girls who are all chattering away, waving occasionally to people they know as we pass them; the ocean is crashing on the rocks to one side, villages appear and mountains rise on the other; after sweating all day, I am cooling down at last, my tired legs happy to be resting; the sky, or possibly the whole world, is glowing pink and orange and beautiful, it seems a certainty that clouds are transformed into something else entirely, a magical substance that makes the sky bigger than the earth; someone is playing music and occasionally a teammate shoots me a smile or raises her eyebrows; I don’t understand a word they are saying but I get happiness when I see it.

6. Conclusion?

Even now, my mind is whirring as I try to find words to draw this story closed, the story of Adria in Samoa. But I could type forever, and still, I suspect, have more to say, because this is not the end of the story. I am leaving this country, but these experiences will never leave me, and the story will continue as I search for my way forward.

So I won’t try to achieve the impossible, and just say that this was the most trying personal and professional experience of my life. I learned, I tried new things, I was bored, I was happy, I was sad, I was lonely, I was excited, I was hot, I was tired, I was itchy, I was satisfied, I was fascinated, I was curious, I was frustrated… Most of all, I am grateful. I could have gone my whole life without ever coming to Samoa–after all, it’s quite out of the way, and a Pacific island is available to the US in the form of Hawaii–and I’m so glad that I didn’t miss out. The weather is hot, the culture is strong, and the land is beautiful.

So thank you, Samoa. Thank you, SPBD. Thank you, Kiva. Most of all, thank you family and friends for all the love and support. I probably would have laid down and given myself to the mercy of mosquitos and giant cockroaches if not for you.

For anyone who is interested in coming to Samoa, I’ll give you Lusila’s instructions: “Head to Hawaii, and make a left.”

PS. If you stay tuned, I’ll see if I have it in me to throw up a post or two about transitioning back to life in the States…but first I will be passing through Hong Kong and Poland!

• ‘Island time’ holds fast even during official events. You will be expected to show up early to ‘get a good seat’, but they are not expected to start until at least an hour after the designated start time. This applied to waiting 1.5 hours for a fa’afafine pageant to start (Samoan drag show), showing up at 4am to meet my coworkers for the parade….while no one else got there until 5am, ‘lining up’ for a parade at 6 and not marching until 11:30, watching the 10pm fireworks at 11pm………..the list could go on.
• FINALLY, how to properly wear a lavalava. Of course, the theory of it is easier than in practice….
• Samoan pastors/government officials may be the most long-winded beings alive. Not even swooning schoolchildren can put them off their epic prayers/pronouncements.
• The public arena is fair game for a ‘pants off dance off.’
• How ‘ava (kava) tastes. Which, by the way, is EXACTLY how it looks. Like muddy water.
• I love my country, but I have never experienced the pure pride and wholehearted joyfulness that I’ve seen in Samoans as they celebrate Samoa’s birth.

This will be a short entry because, of course, these are my last days in Samoa, so I will have a longer farewell post for you later this week. In the meantime, I will let pictures serve as the thousands of words that the Samoan independence celebration truly deserves.

Apia Park Stadium

Alright, let’s talk sports.

Except, when I say that, I don’t mean catching up on the latest baseball stats or discussing the Kings’ chance at the Stanley Cup. A self-proclaimed sports nerd, when I really get going it’s not about “Tim Tebow: Savant or Flop” but sport as a sociological lens. What I love is discussing sports as an expression of gender, body politics, group identity, capitalism, and oh-so-much more.

So, sports in Samoa. In spite of their reputation for being rather hefty people, Samoans are also known as great sportsmen. In the United States, this can be seen in the disproportionate number of Samoan football players—these Samoan Americans are usually from American Samoan families (take a minute to think that through), and seem to possess an uncanny athleticism despite, or perhaps in addition to, their large frames. While Samoa doesn’t share the passion for football that is evident in their eastern cousins, they do have a passion for just about every other sport. Cricket and volleyball are played in the evenings in almost every village across the country. Soccer and netball are widely embraced by schoolchildren; weightlifting and boxing have brought much national pride to this country, and it’s not uncommon to see rudimentary weight bench set-ups outside in communal field areas. And, of course, there is rugby.

1. Rugby in Samoa.

No, that’s not the haka. It’s the siva tau.

For those who are unaware, Samoans love rugby with a passion and appetite that is hard to overstate. To be specific, Samoans love their national team, Manu Samoa, with all the rabid fanaticism of the NFL, NBA and MLB combined. When Manu lands back in Samoa after a successful stint, there is a parade of well-wishers to greet them, no matter if the flight lands at 4am. If they play in a tournament overseas, the Samoan diaspora emerges in full force to stun any other spectators who may have doubted this small island nation . Television stations don’t just cut programming to air their games, they devote hours to re-running their wins. Coming from a place where the words “national team” usually translate to controversial “Dream Teams” that demand pay for playing, or a few rounds of patriotism-inspired daytime television watching, it’s hard not to catch their passion for Manu Samoa.

Of course, for me, it was even easier because I already love rugby. And to be honest, Manu is pretty easy to love. There’s no argument about it: Samoans are great rugby players. Whether it’s the fact that they start playing from what seems like the minute they start walking, or the magic formula of solid frame + athleticism that is perfect for rugby and seems to be hereditary, Samoa (among other Pacific island nations) just seems destined to produced rugby greats.

2. Rugby sevens in Samoa.

In sevens, you see lots of sweet moments like this.

Now, for the rugby uninitiated, I will pause for a small lesson. Rugby union, which is the mainstream version of the sport (or as mainstream as it gets), consists of 15 players on each team with 40-minute halves. Rugby sevens is an abbreviated version of the game, which has 7 players on each team playing 7-minute halves. Sevens, as it is called, is played on the same field with almost identical rules, resulting in a fast-paced, high-scoring game, perfect for spectators. In addition to non-stop action, tournaments can be staged in a single weekend, as opposed to 15s tournaments, which take weeks. In fact, sevens was recently approved to become a part of the summer Olympic games, starting in 2016.

Fifteens looks more like this.

“Why sevens and not fifteens?”, you might ask. Samoa is a perfect example of just why. As much as Samoans love rugby, and as skillful and fit as their players might be, it’s almost impossible for such a small country to put up the resources needed to create a powerhouse 15s rugby program to compete with the likes of New Zealand (which in fact has a number of Samoan players), South Africa, Australia, or England. As one might imagine, sevens requires less expenditure of resources—maintaining a smaller player pool, fewer staff–which levels the playing field a bit for the smaller nations. This effect can be directly seen as small Pacific countries like Samoa and Fiji are extremely successful on the sevens circuit, but struggle to achieve the same heights in fifteens. Thus, Manu Samoa is a phenomenal sevens team, undisputedly one of the best—but in fifteens, they have yet to crack the quarterfinals stage at the Rugby World Cup.

3. Me in Rugby Sevens in Samoa.

Initially, I had few doubts I would find a team, but as the weeks wore on, it became the Holy Grail of my time here. Upon arrival, I immediately began inquiries hoping to find a team I could play with. This ranged from dropping strong hints to every Samoan I met (“I’d really like to find a women’s rugby team to play with”) to accosting athletic-looking girls in the street (“Oh, soccer? That’s cool…”). Responses were varied and confusing–no teams existed in the area, they only play touch rugby, the season was not underway, or their trainings were happening but eluding me. It was all very unclear. A couple days after I finally confirmed that a women’s rugby team existed, I saw a small group of what could only be rugby players (there’s just something about them…) walking towards the field. I scampered after my prey and…success! I live in a village/neighborhood called Vaiala, and lo and behold–the Vaiala club has a women’s team.

It’s been six weeks now and I’m done with my Samoan rugby career. They will be starting another six-week block of competition next week, but I’ll be on not-so-direct way home (passing through Hong Kong and Poland) by then. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried…well not really. But there have definitely been challenges as well as highlights.

Rugby girls are rugby girls, no matter where you are.

The Challenges

Language: I figured, I may not know Samoan, but I know rugby. How hard could it be? During halftimes, post-game talks, or practice, it’s common to be berated for lack of communication. Normally this is evident by a pervasive silence during play, but in my case the point was driven home by simply not understanding a word my teammates said. It was one part a matter of learning new vocabulary (fafo=outside, lalo=down, etc.), and the other part about de-Samoanizing words. Like many other languages, Samoan sometimes adopts English words–but the transformation of the pronunciation can make English words just as vexing as unknown Samoan ones. For example, the words for scrum, lineout, and ruck: sikalamu, laina auti, and laku. Sound it out.

This is further complicated by the Samoan alphabet, where ‘r’ is not usually written (l is often substituted), ‘t’ and ‘k’ are interchangeable, and there is no ‘b’ (instead, ‘p’). That means “forward” is translated as “foueti” but could be said as “foueki”.

Names: I am a firm believer in the power of sports to connect people. Of course, the ability to connect can be seriously hampered when you can’t remember anyone’s name. Although not generally a whiz at names, I consider myself pretty good about it, especially when it’s a group of girls that you’re stepping onto the pitch with. Samoan names can be extremely long (Taumainuumau, 8 syllables), chock full of vowels (Faaotaota), and often then abbreviated to a random snippet of name. Of course, none of my teammates took it easy on me by introducing themselves by these shorter nicknames. And remember the pronunciation issues? My teammate Lepeta–her name is Rebecca. People alternately call her Peta or Becca.

The physicality: I was originally pretty nervous at the thought of playing rugby here, picturing being crushed beneath a pile of behemoth Samoan girls. Luckily sevens is much less physical than fifteens–and Samoan rugby girls are not nearly as big as you might think they would be. In fact, since I’m used to being undersized for rugby in the States, their size ended up being the last thing I worried about. So when I say that the physicality was a challenge, I don’t mean that they were big, I mean they were straight up physical. No holds barred, jersey-grabbing, to-the-ground-tossing, physical. Not only was I probably the only person in the whole country to wear a mouth guard as I played, I was definitely the only one to raise a complaint at the practice of grabbing players by the collar of their jerseys and yanking. Case in point: I saw my first-ever, full-on fistfight in women’s rugby.

Luckily, I made it through with all my teeth, and generally intact.

Basic skills: Alright, this is really on me as a rugby player, but given that I had no chance really of playing rugby before I started university, it’s a pretty serious challenge to play with girls who have been chucking the ball around since they were kids. Not to mention, being trained 3 days a week by the High Performance Unit program of the Samoa Rugby Union. My rugby knowledge is just fine, but a 15-yard spin pass I cannot throw.

Not the worst view I’ve ever had while playing rugby…

The Highlights

Fitting in: In a country with fewer than 200,000 people, almost all of whom belong to the same ethnic group, there was never a chance of me truly fitting in. But aside from work, where they are kind to me but I clearly don’t belong, rugby was the one way I could be out with Samoans and feel like…business as normal. It’s not about being here to volunteer, or ‘learning about your culture’, or being taken in as a foreigner. This was about rugby, straight up. This is one of the beautiful things about sports–it can be a platform for connection and understanding independent of other social factors. I’m not going to say it’s the great equalizer–not when I’m out there in cleats playing barefoot girls–but it creates a circumstance where, at least for a short time, things are simple. There is a ball, and we both want it. Everything else is besides the point.

Vaiala A after clinching the tournament win.

Good rugby: I love rugby. I got to play, and learn about sevens. No matter where I am, that will always be a highlight in itself. Most of the teams definitely were not playing good sevens–a testament to the lack of resources/popularity for women’s rugby here, not surprising given how dominantly masculine the sport is–but I managed to randomly pick and join the winning team. The A-side for the Vaiala women’s team had an undefeated record while I was there. Although I mostly played for the B-side, which definitely could qualify as a ‘challenge’, it was still so fun to practice and play with some of Samoa’s best.

Small world: One of the best things about the women’s rugby world (although sometimes inconvenient) is that it’s pretty small. In the States, networking and playing the ‘name game’ is very easy with women’s rugby teams. The purpose of the six-week tournament I just played–each week was a round robin with mostly the same teams–was to select players for Manu Sina, the national women’s team. Because of this, and the fact that I played with the best team in the country, I truly hope that in the future I will see some of these girls again in international women’s sevens and get the chance to cheer them on from the stands.

Playing rugby defined me as an athlete, shaped my image of being a woman, and brought me friends & family for life. It turns out, there’s yet another thing I have to thank rugby for because playing here was the best part of my time in Samoa. So worth the blood, sweat, and tears–thank you rugby! 

Three weeks left here! Stay tuned as I hopefully think of the most entertaining and informative blog posts yet.

One habit I’ll never get sick of: taking endless pictures of the epic clouds here.

Whenever you move to a new place, you expect to pick up new habits. If the move is more minor, say, switching neighborhoods in the same city, it might just be that your habits are re-wired–a new coffee shop to stop by in the morning, a different route to walk your dog. When I decided to spend 4 months living in Samoa, I figured I would pick up new habits that I probably wouldn’t be taking home with me. And that has definitely been true; I’ve become accustomed to cracking open young coconuts on a hot day, taking daily cold showers, drinking instant coffee, assuming all food is for sharing (well that one wasn’t much of a stretch for me)…to name a few things. However, I did not expect that I would get back into the habit of reading the paper.

My oka habit is going to hard to kick…

Now, I will freely admit that I’m somewhat of a news junkie–probably, this started in childhood with the eager devouring of the daily comics nestled in the back of the Arts & Entertainment page, popping bagel bites into my mouth as I savored that glorious time of day known only to children: ‘afterschool’. But where most kids’ affinity for the paper would end at Calvin & Hobbes’ antics or Garfield’s inexhaustible laziness, mine continued with the introduction of “Current Events”, that mysterious subject that saw my older brother occasionally perusing the paper. When my time came, I happily took scissors to the San Jose Mercury, pasting whatever articles caught my 10-year-old mind as ‘big news’ onto my wide-ruled binder paper and practicing the art of ‘summary.’

My news consumption reached an all-time high shortly after I got to college. My God!, I realized. I can read the news online instead of writing papers, and consider it EDUCATIONAL. The transformation was simple: ‘productive’ activities used as procrastination = not procrastination! I gleefully devoured scores upon scores of CNN.com articles–once I discovered NYTimes.com, there was no stopping me. The 24-hour news cycle only viciously fueled my habit. Friends from college still remember the moment I discovered Patrick Swayze had pancreatic cancer, overhearing my dramatic gasps from the living room where I was ‘working’ on a paper (I stand by that grieved response, BTW).

Ahhh, the Sunday edition of the Samoan Observer…

But the practice of reading the paper was largely lost to me. Why carry around that large, awkwardly sized publication that leaves inky residue on your hands and can never be folded up to the same size it came in, when you can scroll through dozens of articles on your crystal clear iPhone? Well, it’s a lot easier to eat a sandwich and read the newspaper than your iPhone, but that may be the only argument in the newspaper’s favor. Upon arriving to Samoa, however, my 24-hour internet plug into the 24-hour news cycle was cruelly pulled. At first, I simply lived in ignorance, stealing peeks of the news on the internet. But after some time spent discreetly flipping through discarded papers or reading over coworkers’ shoulders, I’ve truly re-discovered the pleasure in reading the paper. I will gladly fork over my WST2.50 for a crack at the Samoan Observer, “Your Award Winning Newspaper” of Samoa.

Haven’t figured out if written Samoan or spoke is harder.

Of course, it turns out that reading the paper here is a little different than reading it at home. For one, although I’m lucky that most of the articles are published in English, there is a sizable chunk in the middle of the paper that is written in Samoan (albeit they mostly the same articles) that is basically dead weight for me. I occasionally attempt to practice my Samoan by staring at these articles, but  my mastery of Samoan particles (almost all single vowels) has definitely not gotten there yet, not to mention the vocabulary. The writing quality can definitely vary, but seeing as I’m just grateful to be reading in English, I try not to judge much. There are usually international news items included from other news sources, which I am also grateful for, although I occasionally question the choice of topic, which often includes the most sensational and/or gruesome of US crime stories.

This does make me feel better about my job searching capabilities.

There are also classifieds and ads aplenty–a good reminder that not so long ago, the newspaper was crucial for job searching, selling unwanted items, and even checking on your stocks. Two days ago, I saw an ad for a local coffee shop that said “It’s our daughter’s 2nd birthday! Come by tomorrow for a free cupcake.” Sure enough, the next day, another ad appeared “Today is our a daughter’s birthday! Come get your free cupcake!” The ad space occasionally reminds me of high school yearbooks–if you buy your space, you can put basically anything you want there. This includes Happy Birthday messages, menus, ferry schedules, and TV schedules, amongst more conventional ads.

A shop keeps selling stale bread. Hey, I’d be angry too!

My favorite parts of the paper, however, have come to be those news items that so clearly demonstrate the flavor of daily life, as well as the smallness of this country. I’m no journalist, but I get the feeling that some of these headlines wouldn’t have made it into other papers.  Some favorites include “Stale Bread Anger” and “Daughter Makes Minister Father Proud”–a story about a young woman who recently graduated from the University of Otago in NZ after taking a couple years off, whose father is the Deputy PM and is very proud of her. Touching, sure, but news?? Only here.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet and the digital age. I’m even a recent convert to the Kindle, although I do still prefer serious reading on paper. But there is a feeling of completion and contentment from sitting down and reading the paper from cover to cover, that it’s not possible to achieve with online news outlets. No matter how many articles I read on my iPhone, there will always be more, breaking news or archived. Some habits I will be glad to break when I leave here (not blinking twice at a meal of deep-fried everything, remembering to smile when people don’t know/forget my name and figure “Ching-ching” will do just as well, sleeping under a mosquito net), but I hope that once I get home, I’ll remember to just sit down and read the newspaper every once in awhile.

After all, I might learn something–and be able to eat a sandwich while doing it.

What you think I’ve been doing for the last month.

What I actually do every day.

After a small break from blogging, I realized I’d better dust off my keyboard, lest I disappoint my faithful readers (hi dad!). The truth is, whether it’s a result of getting close to my 3-month mark, a continually stalled social life, or a focus on work in the office instead of the field, I just haven’t found much to be blog-worthy lately. My biggest recent triumph is that I found a rugby team to play with! Hopefully, I can put together something about rugby in Samoa, which is the only thing that really feels like home here. In the meantime, I thought I would write a little bit about (yawn) work, since I realized it’s a little bit unclear what I do here besides go joy-riding in yellow pick-up trucks, battle mosquitoes, and expend huge amounts of energy grieving over what to eat.

1. Borrower Verifications. These are both thankfully and sadly completed already. BVs, as they are called, require Kiva Fellows to verify that the client information on record is accurate. Sometimes, this means verifying that the client exists/is alive (not always as easy as it sounds), but also includes checking records on loan terms and interviewing clients about personal information and loan use. This is arguably the best and worst item on a Kiva workplan. The best, because going into the field and meeting borrowers is pretty much the coolest thing you can do while working in a foreign country. The worst because, depending on the situation, it can cause many headaches in terms of coordination, tracking people down, and sometimes unearthing things that you don’t want to find out. A completed BV consists of a Kiva Fellow meeting all 10 clients from a random sample provided to them by Kiva.

Luckily, my BVs were fairly straightforward, and didn’t turn up anything too surprising. However, if I could go back and do them again, I think I’d probably set it up a bit differently. Since I wanted to avoid inconveniencing the loan officers, who already work on a very tight schedule, I tagged along with them to their center meetings (weekly meetings in the villages where solidarity groups meet to make repayments and submit loan applications) and conducted the client interviews then. Unfortunately, the trade-off for ease of scheduling means that I didn’t get to visit most of the clients’ businesses.

2. Borrower Profile Posting. Each Kiva borrower has a profile on Kiva’s website, with standard loan information, but also a small narrative about their loan and, hopefully, life. Compiling and posting this information is part of the cost of doing Kiva–as usual, nothing in life is free, so 0% interest doesn’t exactly mean there is zero cost of funds. Obviously, some MFIs have more resources than others available to dedicate towards this task. SPBD falls towards the “others” end of the category, so for years they have relied on automated templates created by previous Kiva Fellows. In theory, it’s great–like a game of mad libs, all they have to do is select certain inputs, and the profile generator spits out some text. In reality, the tool is troublesome, and profiles often get submitted halfway-completed or not making much sense anyway. This creates extra work for the admin staff, who then have to sort everything out once Kiva’s editing staff sends the loan back.

Enter: me. Due to Kiva’s change in policy regarding these automated templates, and the often low quality of profiles produced, my mission was to come up with a new system and convince the loan officers, most of whom are not particularly comfortable speaking English or typing (in any language), that it’s better to switch over to a manual template, where they will interact with the text and actually ‘write’ the profiles. (I say ‘write’ because they are still following a pretty well-laid out template.) Not my easiest battle, but I think I’m slowly winning it! The first batch of ‘handwritten’ profiles is live on the Kiva site now. Some MFIs have amazing life stories detailing clients’ triumphs over life’s difficulties and the history of their businesses–we have to settle for a little less, but that doesn’t mean our clients aren’t every bit as deserving of support!

3. Repayment Reporting. Wow. This has been possibly my biggest battle, partly because it doesn’t involve struggling with people, but with the technological capabilities at SPBD. Kiva’s partners are required to submit repayment reports each month, detailing repayments made by borrowers. This seems pretty simple, given the fact that any micro-lending organization is bound to keep financial records of these transactions. Of course, the reality is never as simple as it should be.

Despite the fact that SPBD’s database allows them to tag clients as Kiva borrowers, it does not have any ability to export that information in any way. In fact, their database is extremely inflexible and pretty easily overwhelmed, so for weeks it seemed like it would be unable to produce anything that was useful to me, at all. I’ll spare you the nitty gritty, but the impending vision of manually looking up and entering the repayment status of 800 clients spurred me to fight through my fear of the unknown and become a low-level Excel wizard. The solution I found wasn’t pretty, per se, but it beats the pants off of manual look-up and left me with a newfound passion for Excel. Unfortunately, it’s still not a long-term solution for SPBD, but at least I will be able to leave this task in better shape than I found it.

4. SPI Social Audit. As you all know, the goal of microfinance is not simply to provide access to financial services or create opportunities for microenterprise, but to do so with the result of improving people’s lives. Hmm. The question of how to measure social impact has spawned continually evolving discussions in the development community, and while microfinance may have more hard numbers than other development strategies, the answer is no less nuanced. The social impact of their partners is extremely important to Kiva, so a big project for me has been to implement a tool created by an organization dedicated to the exchange of knowledge between microfinance practitioners, CERISE.

This social auditing tool is called the Social Performance Indicators (SPI), and consists of a thorough evaluation of SPBD’s internal processes. Questions are focused on four dimensions: 1) Targeting and Outreach, 2) Products and Services, 3) Benefits to Clients, and 4) Social Responsibility. The answers are scored, and SPBD can use the results to assess whether they are meeting their social goals, set goals for the future, and figure out what steps they can take to meet them. Scores are also entered into an anonymous database, so SPBD can compare their results to peer institutions.

Frankly, the survey is so hefty, it took me several passes through it just to figure out what questions I could answer with the knowledge I’ve gained upon arrival. After that, it’s just been a series of interviewing staff here, and managing the back-and-forth with Kiva HQ as they look through the answers I record. As I said, measure social performance is such a crucial issue in development work, so it’s been very interesting learning about this method and tool for measurement.

5. Gathering media. I admit, this one I have yet to truly tackle, due mostly to my discomfort with the process. Kiva Fellows can be a marketing team’s dream, with access to a veritable bounty of images and raw footage on a daily basis that would otherwise be impossible to obtain or costly to send someone out for. I’m tasked with gathering images of borrowers as well as b-roll that can be used in the future, but also with shooting video and conducting interviews specifically in support of one of  Kiva’s new social performance projects. Given the language barrier and the fact that I haven’t found many clients to be extremely comfortable on camera, I’ve been putting this one off and will have to dive into it this month.

6. Other stuff. The rest of my work plan is pretty much smaller projects that are even less interesting to read about. Suffice it to say, there’s a variety of things ranging from creating a “how to” Kiva manual, to recording information on loan products offered, to just absorbing as much information about SPBD as possible.

Well, it certainly wasn’t the most exciting blog post, but it’s what I spend my days doing. For those of you that slogged all the way through–thanks, and I promise the next post will be more interesting and have way more pictures!

Nothing says 'vacation time' like drinks with little umbrellas in them!

Well, it turns out the downside of working in a prime tropical vacation destination is that you are, in fact, working and not vacation-ing. That changed for me, all too briefly, a couple weeks ago, when my boyfriend braved not only one, but one-and-a-half trans-Pacific flights (thanks to the inefficient flight route to Apia from LA via Auckland) on top of the cross-country travels that took him from Princeton, NJ alllllll the way here to Apia, Samoa. All the while lugging a suitcase containing a minimum of clothes, and a maximum of ‘family love’ in the form of Chinese soap operas (thanks mom!), forwarded mail, a BUG ZAPPER (thanks dad!), Chinese movies (thanks mom and dad?), and of course, edible treats. Needless to say, he gets brownie points.

Since arriving in Samoa, I haven’t had a chance to do much more than a little basic site-seeing around Apia. Sure, I’ve been all over the country with loan officers, but sweating profusely while financial transactions are completed in rapid-fire Samoan is not quite the same as kicking back on the beach with a snorkel in easy reach. Nik got one restful night in Apia (or not, turns out the roosters, dogs, and 5am church bells are still INSANELY LOUD, but I now sleep like the dead) before we headed off for adventureland. By the way, for those of you who are wondering, adventureland does not include being adequately supplied or planning ahead.

SPBD kindly lent me a car for the weekend so we took off on Friday, which happened to be Good Friday, when Apia actually became a ghost town. The south side of ‘Upolu is known to be the prettier side, so up and over Cross Island Road we went. Naturally, my excitement for Nik seeing the beautiful mountain greenery and epic ocean views triggered a massive rainstorm that seemed determined not to budge off the mountain. Once we finally inched down the other side (where of course the sun was shining), we kicked off vacation-time with lunch and pina coladas at one of Samoa’s fanciest resorts. Again, I emphasize that tourism in Samoa, while certainly an important and growing industry, is definitely not as developed as once might expect to find at a ‘tourist destination’–it’s no Hawaii, for example. We stayed at two places over the long weekend: Namu’a Island and Virgin Cove Resort.

Namu'a Island at low tide

Namu’a Island: Is a small (very small) island off of ‘Upolu’s southeastern coast, near the Aleipata district. It has small beach facing the ‘mainland’ that holds about 10 beach fales, one family’s home, a kitchen/communal dining area, outdoor shower and toilet stalls, and zero electricity. That is literally everything on the island, besides sand, trees, and hermit crabs. This is where we ran into the slightly underprepared aspect of our travels.

In case you're wondering what a beach fale looks like, this is it. Except everyone else's were overflowing with coolers and other useful supplies (like towels. Oops again.).

Thankfully, cell phones have replaced the old method of ‘drive to the pile of rocks and then wave the red flag to get picked up,’ so despite my uncertainty about how to actually reach the island, we got there. However, due to my own fuzzy expectations, and Apia’s virtual ghost town-hood, we arrived at Namu’a (via tiny motorboat) with zero water or food. Breakfast and dinner were fed to us, but lunch was a more difficult matter. Thus, I learned the true amazing-ness of coconuts (more on that later).

A climb (/struggle) to the top of the island reveals that there's not too much on the other side...

Ah, this is it, I thought, tropical paradise. Blue skies, blue waters, nothing to do but relax…of course, if you know me, or my family, you know that ‘relaxing’ is about as far down as you can get on the list of activities that you find an Orr partaking in. Part two of my vacation un-preparedness–I didn’t bring a book. What???? Who brings no reading materials on a beach vacation? As Nik contentedly reclined in the shade with his wildly entertaining book, I settled in for some good ol’-fashioned hermit crab watching. Then hunting. Then attempted-racing. We had some good times, me and those hermit crabs. Between pestering the wildlife (oh, I shouldn’t poke sticks down random holes in the sand?) and forcing periodic updates out of Nik so I could ‘read’ vicariously through him, plus a couple stints of snorkeling that were the least-graceful moments of my life (more on that later), it turns out that ‘relaxing’ thing is pretty nice.

Not a bad life.

Uh, where are we going???

Virgin Cove Resort: Is on the Southwestern coast of ‘Upolu, is a ‘resort’ in the sense that it’s large, and you can buy your drinks and meals there, but otherwise was really nothing like what I was expecting. For one, we basically had to off-road through the jungle to get there–okay, more props go to Nik here because I’m sure me inching over a dirt road, sweating bullets and refusing to take my foot off the clutch as Samoans stared at us rolling through their neighborhood, probably does not qualify as great company. Regardless, it was worth every bit of nervousness for the axels of my car. This place was freaking beautiful. There’s no other way to put it.

Morning swim, anyone?

This time our fale was souped up–a door? pull down panels? a bed? what is this, the Marriott?–but the water still came right up underneath us during high tide. I stole a Tom Clancy novel (hey, everything else was in foreign language) from the ‘abandoned books shelf’ at the front desk, and smugly sat next to Nik to enjoy a little beach-time reading. Except it turns out Tom Clancy novels make me laugh out loud, and not intentionally. Oh well. Between my new wildlife study of the gopher-crabs, as we dubbed them (more on that later), snorting outrageously at my new book “Debt of Honor”, and pestering Nik for periodic updates on his book (whyyy does he read so slow?), I decided this ‘relaxing’ business is actually pretty nice. Especially when you get to kick back on the teeny front porch of your beach ‘fale’ with a beer and discuss the meaning of life as the tide comes in under you and the ocean reflects a full moon. Nope, not even exaggerating, it was that ridiculously picturesque.

Things I learned on my Samoan vacation:

Mmm coconuts...

1. Coconuts are amazing. Despite spending all day on a sunny, tropical beach with zero water or food, we were actually fine–thanks to coconuts. As the afternoon wore on, we put in a request for niu (young coconut), and the family sent someone up a tree, who promptly tossed down a dozen coconuts (deftly dodged and then gathered by the 8 year old daughter). Since coconut water is now en vogue as a sports drink thanks to all those electrolytes, we got both hydration and a tasty afternoon snack after cracking them open.

In lieu of a picture of my snorkel-awkwardness (no waterproof camera), I present this alternate awkward picture of me.

2. Snorkeling is not a natural activity for me. Those masks are not made to fit my face. It took me a mind-boggling amount of time (as Nik first stared, then laughed hysterically in amazement) to wrestle one onto my face, and then it kept filling with seawater. Turns out I better stick to the smaller (possibly child-sized?) mask that I borrowed from my best friend. In other news, I am also scared of water getting deep, water going down my snorkel, and plants touching me. Luckily, I was able to battle all of that and realize that colorful fish are awesome, which makes being slightly freaked out totally worth it. Sadly, Samoa’s reefs were all badly damaged a number of years ago by two back-to-back cyclones, and the coral has yet to recover. Still, fish are cool.

Count the crabs!

3. Crabs are gophers. There were not only an amazing amount of crab holes everywhere, they clearly ruined landscaping efforts and took over gardens. They also disappear amusingly fast into the ground, and do, actually, have sideways, claw snapping showdowns that practically scream ‘Pixar’ because they are so funny and animated.

After a couple more escapades involving sliding down waterfalls and discovering exactly how much harder it is to snorkel without flippers, Nik went home via an extremely direct route (Apia-Auckland-Sydney-LA-Newark) and my vacation time was over. Back to the daily grind…

Nik is really good at sliding down waterfalls...

I take a little more convincing….

Flags at the '09 tsunami memorial.

3. The American. 

Just as Samoa has a definite flavor of New Zealand and Australian influence, the US is reflected–probably even stronger–in Pago. You can see it everywhere–the giant, shiny, new, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs that everyone drives; two McDonald’s, a Pizza Hut, a KFC, and a Carl’s Jr/Green Burrito; the hordes of kids playing rugby replaced by the hordes of kids playing football; fales traded out in favor of Western-style houses. And it’s true that on many fronts, the standard of living appears to be higher in American Samoa.

Am I at the mall back home??

Case in point: the 8-year-old in the family I stayed with walked around with an iPad (granted his dad works in the IT business). Food costs are much lower. The cost of everything seems to be lower, actually, despite the fact that the two islands face almost identical geographic isolation, and Pago represents an even smaller market. Pago is lucky too, because unlike their neighbors they have an industry: tuna canning. The two tuna canneries–Starkist and Samoa Packing, a Chicken of the Sea subsidiary–once employed up to a third of Pago’s work force. Since minimum wage laws were enforced by the US a few years ago, Samoa Packing has closed doors, and Starkist operates at a reduced level, but that is still more than Samoa has by way of industry.

This was just too much for me.

After Aimoto picked me up (in her giant Toyota FJ Cruiser, the A/C blasting and reminding me of summers in California), our first stop on my tour of Pago was…Samoan Walmart. Actually I’m not sure what the store was called, but it sure looked like Samoan Walmart. Next up was Cost-U-Less, eerily reminiscent of Costco, where I could buy cheap candy to bring back to Samoa for my friend Lusila. After a couple months of Samoan grocery stores, my eyes pretty much bugged out of my head at how cheap (and familiar) everything was.

Just to make me feel even more like I was back in the States, it turns out that a huge chunk of Aimoto’s extended family lives in the South Bay back in California. In fact, one of her aunts lives in Saratoga! Way too crazy. By the way, American Samoans are US Nationals but not citizens–so they can travel freely through the States, but they can’t vote in presidential elections. They have a single, non-voting delegate in the Senate. When I asked Aimoto how people generally felt about this situation–expecting perhaps indignant scorn for imperial oppressors, materialistic satisfaction with easy access to cheap goods, snobbery and envy for their nearby independent cousins–she just frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Sheer rocky awesomeness, Carl's Jr, and Coors Light. Sums it up.

I prodded her a bit more, and finally she mentioned that some people did argue for independence, and in fact there has recently been a vote regarding the idea of secession. The majority had voted against it, and in Aimoto’s opinion, that was for the better. Interestingly enough, American Samoa has all but refused to acknowledge Samoa’s name change in 1997 from Western Samoa to just Samoa, as many felt it denigrated their identity as Samoans. Everyone I spoke to still referred to Samoa as Western Samoa, and the people as Western Samoans.

The dynamic between Samoa and Pago is very interesting–it’s like a two way feeling of pity. People from Pago tend to talk about ‘Upolu as ‘such a nice place to vacation’, but felt sorry for Western Samoans because things are so expensive. Some people have the opinion that all Western Samoans want to marry someone from Pago and move there. Amazingly, people from Samoa make fun of people from Pago for being large, as well as dressing and speaking strangely. Both sides told me “You can always tell when someone’s from Pago/Western Samoa….” Aimoto also told me that unlike people from Pago, Western Samoans ‘eat healthy and a lot of vegetables’, which made me snap my mouth shut and not let a sound out.

Sadly, the truth is that people from Pago tend to be genuinely huge. In this case, though, I do think it’s more a question of culture than access. The consequence of food being cheap–especially fast foods full of fat and salt–have created a food culture abomination that does, in fact, make Samoan food feel healthy. Many Samoan foods, like taro, bananas, and breadfruits, are almost unseen in Pago, replaced by McDonalds, KFC, and Carl’s Jr. The family I stayed with was absolutely lovely in their hospitality, but two rounds of instant bowl noodles in less than 12 hours (both times, I had to fend off the jumbo can of Vienna sausage) is apparently standard fare. After a dinner of instant noodles, tuna, and white rice, I took a shower and tried to process the carbo- and sodium-load. As I wandered back into the kitchen, I found my host cooking a dish of corned beef and bok choy–not health food, for sure, but at least there was real food involved–for her elderly mother.

All in all, the feeling of being in Pago is definitely that you are in a different country–both coming from Samoa and the States. But I would be lying if I said that as I took in the beautiful landscape, visions of colonization didn’t play in my mind.

4. The Samoan. 

The malae (common area) of Aoa.

Despite the shiny, bigger, betterness of American influence, there is no doubt that the people from Pago are still Samoan. They speak the same language (although Samoans say that they have weird accents) and fa’a Samoa–the Samoan way–is still strong there. This was clearly reflected both in the village I stayed in and the nighttime entertainment I enjoyed: a local village’s church youth group talent show.

Olyann in a tree full of potential missiles.

Aoa is a small village of about 300-400 people. Aimoto’s mother and father were both from the village, so it’s full of family. Typical of most villages in Pago, Aoa is wedged in between the ocean and the mountains, but it’s also cradled between two arms of the rocky island that make it feel cozy and remote. There’s a sandy beach lining the village, where I spent part of the afternoon playing with Olyann and her little brother Iga. We tried catching baby crabs and hunting for shells, then both kids showed me how high they could climb the trees. They also told me about one of those classic childhood games–plucking hard fruit off the tree and hurling it at each other. “Doesn’t that hurt??” I squeezed one of the projectiles, wincing at the thought of it striking tender flesh. The kids were puzzled. “If it hurts you, then you’re out. If you cry, then you’re out.” Duh.

Olyann took this nerdy tourist shot of me.

Despite the demise of the fale in American Samoa, village life is still strong. Because of limited land area and the smaller population, villages in Pago tend to be even smaller than villages in ‘Upolu. Still, the idea is the same: generations and generations of a family, close ties, communal living. In the morning, I saw many older women from the village gathering in the ‘guest house’ (communally used fale, just for ceremonies but not for living) with various goods…not for trading or selling, but just to share what they have. The house was nicely tiled with a modern kitchen, but the family still all share rooms–I stayed with Aimoto, her mother, a niece, and a nephew. A village curfew means that there is no swimming before sundown. Which sort of seemed to me like a reverse curfew, but the point is, all of these things are very familiar, because they are all part of the Samoan culture. Being in Aoa definitely made me feel like I was not so close to the US after all.

Dramatic re-enactment of "The Prince of Egypt." If anyone is interested in an American Samoan teenage interpretation of "Mulan" with copious amounts of cross-dressing and questionable racial depiction, let me know. I have a video.

The youth talent show I attended (Alao’s Youth Got Talent; people from Pago clearly share their Western cousins’ passion for American competition shows) was put on to raise money for the village church, and was an amazing display of culture and energy. The performances–many of them including an odd amount of cross-dressing–ranged from singing church hymns and modeling traditional fashion designs to re-enacting musical scenes from Disney movies and performing choreographed hip-hop dance moves. The incredible power of the church to fundraise in the Samoas was demonstrated to me first-hand. First, there were donations made prior to the performance. Then, there were raffles raised and drawn continually throughout the performance (raffles combine the Samoan love for mini-gambling and donating to the church). Finally, there was the strange but entertaining practice of contributing as the youth performed. Although there was a box placed on stage for each performance, this consisted more often of marching up to the stage and hurling dollar bills at the performers’ faces–the more you liked them, the more aggressively the bills were thrown. This practice culminated in one of the judges (a palagi who married into the community) performing a traditional Samoan dance as her husband stood behind her with a stack of dollar bills and steadily showered her with them. Making it rain, as it were. The competitive nature of church donations were definitely evident both as the pastor periodically read out family names and the dollar amount contributed and as those in attendance continually one-upped each other with the dollar bills fluttering onstage.

At the core, then, Pago is definitely a Samoan country. But just as the past influences of Germany, New Zealand, and Australia can’t be denied in Samoa, the Stars and Stripes are clearly planted in American Samoa. Despite the microcosmic nature of the country, there is a streak of that “bigger and better” mentality that both troubles my homeland and accounts for much of its success. I would love to someday return to enjoy more of the abundant natural beauty, and when I do so, I will be grateful for the ease of travel that comes from Pago’s territorial status. But in the meantime, I do find myself troubled both by the reality that American imperialism sweetens modern colonization with a euphemistic name and the notion that maybe the country in question has benefitted from it.

Aimoto's friend, me, Aimoto, and a random baby.

The first thing I see upon walking into Pago Pago International Airport.

While I’m sure I’m not the only Kiva fellow who has to make a “visa run” (leaving the country to avoid having to apply for an extended-stay visa), I’m pretty sure I’m the only one whose visa run included a giant chunk of Americana. American Samoa is just a 30-minute flight away and pretty much the only destination that’s not prohibitively expensive to get to, if you want to leave the country. I had never been to a US territory before, and definitely had (and continue to have) mixed feelings about the whole concept. Regardless, my Lonely Planet guide referred to it as “the prettier sister” (ouch) of the Samoas, and my island fever got me pretty excited to travel anywhere…even to another island that’s even smaller than ‘Upolu!

Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango, but the ‘g’ isn’t so hard) is the name of both a village that is the capital and the harbor that defined this island as a US Navy base since it became a territory in 1900. Usually it’s shortened to “Pago” and is used to refer to the village, harbor, island of Tutuila, and the entirety of American Samoa. No one would refer to someone as an American Samoan–they say ‘someone from Pago’. Pago is even smaller than Samoa, clocking in at a whopping 55,519 during the 2010 census. The whole of the country amounts to around 75 square miles, which is roughly the same size as Washington DC. Tutuila is the main island, with 4 smaller islands scattered nearby. The license plates only have four digits. Basically, it’s small.

I was only in the country for 31 hours, but it was an incredible trip. To help me sort out my myriad of thoughts and hopefully keep this readable, I’m going to divide this post into several sections, and two parts. We’ll cover sections 1& 2 here.

1. The travel.
2. The beauty.
3. The American.
4. The Samoan.

1. The travel.

There are two airports on ‘Upolu–Faleolo, which is the main international airport, and Fagalii, the ‘domestic’ airport, with flights to Pago and Savai’i. I was totally unsure of what to expect and how to behave as my newly acquired island pace of life battled with my inner uptight American traveler. When should I show up? What should I plan? I consulted with my neighbor (SPBD’s General Manager), and she pointed out that it was still an international flight. Better get there at 6:30 for my 8:30 flight. My landlady agreed, yes, better to be on the safe side.

The day before I left, I mentioned casually to my Samoan coworker and friend that I was planning on heading to the airport around 6:30 for my flight to Pago. She basically laughed in my face and told me that last time she went, she left her house at 3 for a 3:30 flight. In between laughing, she managed, “I’ll take you to the airport. If you want to be there early, we’ll leave at 7:15, or 7:30.” My inner American uptight traveler rebelled. “How about 7? I’ll come at 7.” “Okay, okay.”

My morning went a little something like this:

• 6:30: Wake up. The sun hasn’t risen. Seriously reconsider how early I need to be there. Visions of missing my flight, overstaying my visa, and giant fines convince me to get out of bed.
• 7:00: Arrive at Lusila’s house ready to go. Lusila is asleep in front of the TV. She wakes when I poke my head in and waves me in.
• 7:15: Lusila shows no sign of moving.
• 7:20: “We’ll just get some coffee and then go.”
• 7:23: The shop is closed. “We’re going to just go pick up my mom, she wants to come along. Then coffee. Then we’ll go.”
• 7:30: We pick up Lusila’s mom. I feel slightly stressed, and unconcerned about breakfast but they are insistent.
• 7:42: Breakfast in hand, I hustle up to the check-in counter, certain that I am late. The agent tells me that I’m too early.
• 7:45: I’ve taken one bite of my breakfast sammie when they announce check-in is open. It also starts pouring rain.

This 'security' desk remained exactly this attended the entire time.

I would just like to pause at this point to mention that I had neglected to book any accommodations, figuring I’d just wing it. Upon hearing this, Lusila insisted on calling up her cousin (really second cousin once removed, or something…but in Samoa, it’s all cousin.) to have her pick me up and show me around and house me. Of course, my Samoan phone wouldn’t function in Pago. So the plan was for her cousin to find me at the airport.

Going through customs.

• 8:20: After a check-in process that involves weighing each passenger and applying a gentle squeeze to my backpack as a security check, I’m seated in the ‘departure lounge’ with 7 other passengers. The rain is coming down so hard it’s bouncing off the pavement. Looking at the propeller plane I’m about to get on, I contemplate my impending death.
• 8:35: Five minutes after the flight was supposed to leave, a man unscrews the fuel cap and dips a metal rod in. He pulls it out, peering at it to determine the fuel level. I consider seriously if I am at peace with my life as I have lived it.
  

  Gotta love the hand written boarding pass.

• 8:40: A small John Deere tractor rolls out, pulling a tank of fuel. They begin fueling the plane. I see a pilot casually hop into the cockpit via what looks like a car door. I decide I have lived a good life.
• 8:50: The propellers start up. How are we going to get on the plane without being decapitated?? The plane leaves. Without any of us on board.

• 8:55: The plane returns from its ‘test run’ and they begin boarding. I think wistfully of my friends and family and climb on board.

Just a casual re-fueling operation.

Although I have been reassured many times by my boyfriend that flight is a miracle of science, not magic, and therefore planes are unlikely to fall out of the sky, there is a tiny grain of doubt that lives inside me whenever a plane is taking off. The anxiety I developed staring at the not-so-big propellers upon which my life depended was alleviated only by the distraction of the view I had…both inside the plane and outside.

The easternmost tip of 'Upolu.

Inner post-9/11 traveler says: AHH.

Upon landing, I emerged from Pago Pago International Airport to find….no one. Uh-oh. I wasn’t too concerned–after all, I could always take a taxi or bus into ‘town’ and check-in somewhere–but I didn’t want to disappoint Lusila by not finding her cousin. I checked the pay phone. No dial tone. A Chinese man walking by noticed my casual investigations and offers me his phone. Success! I call Aimoto, who cheerfully says she’s coming to get me.

2. The beauty.

It turns out that American Samoa is completely, entirely, totally beautiful. At times, jaw-droppingly beautiful. However, due to plentiful government aid, the tourism industry is almost nonexistent, which is kind of weird. Frustratingly, none of the pictures I took really seem to capture the beauty of the island, which lays in the staggering mountain peaks that dominate everything. While there is a small section of flat plains near the airport, the rest of the island is defined by mountains and ocean. Most villages are wedged into a strip of land right on the water, often with just 400m (or even less) between the ocean and where the sheer rock face shoots up, impossibly steep and unusable for farming or living. And yet, these sheer faces are covered in jungle-thick green. A wealthy layer of alive, vivd green, impassable without a machete and often not even then, turns this giant rock in the ocean into an island.

Pago Pago Harbor

Me and my new 9-year-old friend Olyann.

Two-Dollar Beach. Don't let the beautiful sand fool you, most of the island is rocky.

Cool stranded ship.

Turtle & Shark Point. We saw a turtle in the water!

Epic.

Almost all the way to the west side of the island. A storm approaches.

Aoa, the village I stayed in.

If you keep driving east, the road literally ends.

Aimoto was kind enough to drive me all over the island, and in my short time, I was able to cover almost all of it. The one road doesn’t even encircle the whole island–there’s a large chunk of the northern coast that the road doesn’t extend to. A huge part of Tutuila, as well as the nearby Manu’a, Tau, and Ofu island groups, belongs to a National Park, weirdly enough, administered by the US Park Service. I fully plan on someday returning to American Samoa to explore the other islands, which are supposed to be even more beautiful, and hopefully see more of Pago’s beauty from a vantage point that’s not inside a crisply air-conditioned SUV. I can’t even imagine how tough it would be to climb one of these mountains in the tropical heat–but I would love to try.

In the interest of keeping your interest (hah. see what I did there?), I decided to split this into two posts. Come back in a couple days for Part 2, covering what puts the America and Samoa in American Samoa!