The divas of Samoa

I’m beginning to settle into my Samoan home; the weather doesn’t seem as debilitating when I wake up in the morning in a pool of my own sweat, the language is becoming more familiar, and the people I’ve met have continued to make me feel welcome and willing. I felt it this afternoon when I was walking across campus listening to the marriage of distinct Pacific languages. I’m so at ease here, where island time is bleeding into me. The only thing that’s hard to fully embrace is the isolation from the rest of the world. I have access to internet once a week if that, especially now that other students are on campus, creating competition for computer and internet speed. But alas, it has helped me in a lot of ways to replace those lost hours of interneting with lots of volleyball (aka volley), conversations out on the common lawn, and Samoan dance lessons.

Vailima, the best Samoan beer

Last Thursday our pālagi (white kids) group ventured to a bar called Malie Mai in the city that prides itself on its fafafine performances. The fafafine are Samoa’s third gender. One can become a fafafine for a number of reasons, but they especially occupy a necessary space when families have many men but too few women. Samoans genuinely appreciate the important role women play in the family structure. With too few women, some young men adopt the role of fafafine. Ironically, they are completely integrated into this conservative Christian culture because fafafine were a part of Samoan culture before the missionaries arrived; they weren’t dismissed as counter to Biblical mindsets, but maintained their important social role. Of course, tourism has created another space for fafafine, especially in these bars where performances similar to drag shows attract pālagi because, for Westerners, gender is such a delicate and awkward concept such that it can become entertainment. The show was fun, but I’m not sure I need to indulge in as many pālagi tourist attractions much more while I’m here.

Fafafine at Malie Mai, the "divas of Samoa"

Friday was the day the other USP students arrived. We had been on campus almost a week with the company of other Pacific Islanders, but minimal Samoans. It was pleasant to finally meet some people from the island. Two girls, Amelia and Sitte, kindly befriended me and were able to open up some more private (and younger generational) parts of Samoa. The ‘ava ceremony that was a part of orientation was something they understood very differently than what was explained to me; the traditional nature of the ceremony is changing in the minds of this generation, such that these two girls didn’t understand or treasure everything that was presented during the ceremony. It’s expected, I guess, that traditions aren’t static and my anthropological brain is reminding me of the fluidity of time, space, globalization, and the generational shift.

Regardless, it was a cool day and I felt embraced yet again by more Pacific Islanders who are willing to show this pālagi how they do life. I’ve collected quite a few friends to help me celebrate my 21st birthday, let’s put it that way.

The office, aka home base

The weekend, unlike what I’m used to, is actually spent relaxing. Pacific Islanders take relaxation very seriously. Especially in the heat, there’s little else that you want to do but sleep and eat, which is what I did. Our other escape from the heat was spent at Sliding Rocks, or Papase'ea, which is a series of river waterfalls smooth enough to slide down. The ethereal beauty of this place is hard to capture in photos, but we did our best.

The descent

And so the rest of my week will be busy with more class than I can even fathom (Samoan language all morning and lectures all afternoon). I just got back from a dance lesson for a dance we’re meant to perform for the villagers of Lotofago next week during our homestays. Samoan dance is breathtakingly beautiful, incorporating hand movements and slow, flowing beats. I’m anxious and thrilled and primed for this homestay that will hopefully require me to use more Samoan than what’s been required of me so far. I’ll write more when I return from that even more isolated world.

I just love Sanaa.

My reality!

Thank God for 'ava, mafutaga, and fa'aaloalo sāmoa

There are no fitting words for arriving in your new home. You have very little influence on the way it is or will be, but somehow you love it, you feel connected to it, you see the possibilities and the challenges almost immediately.

The night before leaving for Sāmoa is hard to describe. Our flight left 5am Feb 8, and I was too high on life to convince myself that sleep was worth it. I pulled my body from landmark to landmark, stringing together the memories I had created into one last all-nighter. The friendships I created in Honolulu fulfilled the parts of me that I had been meaning to work on most of all. The spontaneity, the creativity, the willingness, the laughs, the heated conversations, and the several hour-long walks where we’d end up on the far east side of Honolulu made for a week-long dream. I pushed myself to do things I had never done before, sitting on the beach for hours into the night speaking with these extraordinary people.
And so, I stayed up all night Feb 7 speaking to two men, Marc and Jesse, who were staying at the hostel. Marc was from Australia making his way back from a two-year-long travel experience, while Jesse was finishing up a thesis on the connections because physics and spiritual energy. I felt alight with energy that these two strangers gave me, praising the end of my experience with such positivity.

Arriving in Sāmoa was surreal, as every abroad experience seems for me. (For the record, it’s pronounced sA-mo-ah, that’s what the ¯ symbol is for, also known as the fa’amamafa). We were picked up from the airport, driven along the coast toward Apia, bought fe’e (octopus) from a roadside vendor, and were dropped at USP Alafua campus. I proceeded to leave my phone in the taxi van and it’s lost to me forever. Luckily it was little use to me here, but just so all of you know.
The drive from the airport always happens so fast. There’s too much stimulation to fully understand where you are, who you are, and that this place exists without your being there. That’s the weirdest part: there is a world outside of mine.
We had a drop-off the same day, where I went with my friend Amy into the middle of Apia and were told to meet at a restaurant at 6:00. I was welcomed into a village and a home, played with children, explored a church, played rugby with a group of men, and understood the city and its people on a whole new level. There’s plenty of damage from cyclone Evan, with flood zones covered by debris and trash and mud. What this drop-off taught me most of all was the generous, kind, and easy-going nature of Sāmoans. There are few places in this world where I could be so easily welcomed into someone’s house, church, or rugby game without so much as a question.

The time since then has been busy with learning fa’asāmoa (the Sāmoan language and culture); buying lavalava (a sarong type of cloth); meeting my adviser’s family; being fed a huge ceremonial welcome meal with fe’e, a DELICIOUS coconut sauce called palusami, talo (taro), breadfruit, and koko sāmoa (cacao drink); and meeting Pacific students at USP. That’s by far the most satisfying part. Surprisingly, there aren’t very many Sāmoans at Alafua but more Fijians and Tongans. I met a group of them a few days ago through Melonie, a Fijian on campus. We were able to taste ‘ava, a calming drink made from the root of the ‘ava plant.
It’s hard for me to describe the experience of tasting 'ava. Unlike drinking, there’s a ceremonial aspect to ‘ava drinking. We sat in a circle in a very particular order of people, listening to two men play guitar and ukelele while singing Tongan songs between ‘ava rounds. It’s a very calming effect and the whole experience, looking back, feels like a dream. They were so warm and welcoming, asking us how we were doing, and we ended the ceremony with a prayer thanking God for this experience and hoping we’ll be able to do it again. How beautiful it was to feel so included, so opened to a world I was unaware of two weeks ago. When I see them on campus, we have a sort of friendship that is unquestioned.

So, as my friends and family, you all should know that I’m feeling calm and comfortable in this new home of mine. We have a village drop-off tomorrow where my Sāmoan will be more necessary than it is in Apia, but the pure, gentle kindness of these people is unsurpassed by any I’ve known (even Minnesotans aren’t this nice). Island time, culture, and living is seeping into me and I’m looking forward to nestling in to this tropical atunu’u.

Mālō le aso ma lo alofa. ‘O le ‘ā ou toe sau!




Here are some pictures:

Downtown Honolulu with Amy and Mickey

Bus craziness with Amy, Sanaa, and Aly

The beautiful Honolulu

Nick, my love

Downtown Honolulu with Nick, Aly, and Amy being losers

Hostel disaster zone

View from my door in Sāmoa, on the USP campus

 

This is what 'ava looks like; it tastes like dirt water

Ka pioioi

Here's the video of the Māori dance I mentioned...

Sefulutasi

The Pacific is a vast place. For the past several days my class sessions have not only opened my eyes to the diversity of languages, cultural groups, geographies, and appearances all present in the 20,000+ islands (and even more cultural groups) located across the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. Question 1: did you ever realize that the Pacific region covers over one third of our entire world? And yet it's the least acknowledged region for most Americans.
So I guess one word to describe my thoughts so far is bitter. I've learned more about the Pacific in the last four days than I've ever learned about any other region of the world. By far the most pressing issue is global climate change. Question 2: have you ever considered the direct, immediate effect global warming has on the people of the Pacific? Probably not, because I never had. One of the professors from the University of Hawai'i (where I'm staying) put it simply, there's no recognition of environmental refugees. Take the people of the Carteret Islands for example. Their islands are sinking...literally sinking. Covered by salt water from rising sea levels, land that was once optimal for raising crops like taro is no longer usable, causing these people to starve. Shipments of food and water come into the Islands, but what is the greater issue at hand? Carteret Islanders can no longer inhabit the land that has been occupied by their people for 3,000 years. This issue isn't a problem of future generations, this is here and now. We can talk about polar bears and deforestation, sure, but never before did I believe how most environmental activists evade this devastation.

What's most frustrating for me is the realization that I never knew (or tried to know) any of this before four days ago. To me, the Pacific was an ocean with some islands here and there. I'm quickly becoming enthralled with the complexity of the people and places this region harbors.

What's beautiful is that Pacific Islanders don't view the ocean as a barrier to communication; it's a super highway available to any who have the skill and persistance to navigate. Consider this: the coconut was introduced to Hawai'i by migrants; prior to the peopling of the Hawai'ian islands, there were no coconuts this far north in the Pacific.

Aside from these passionate ramblings, my time here has been filled with splendor. I haven't sat down for more than an hour at a time; my friends and I have gone hiking, beaching, or partying in Honolulu and Waikiki every day. I feel like my life is on fire. I have more energy than I have in years, which I attribute to the life-giving sun and the green mountains constantly in my view.
A quick run down on the activities I've been able to do: swam in the ocean at least once a day, hiked Manoa Falls, saw Pipeline (and Jack Johnson's house), bonded with a sea turtle, body surfed, went to a Chinese New Year festival, learned pieces of the Sāmoan language, learned a Māori dance to the song "Kapi oioi," and tasted more tropical fruits than I can name. And I'm not even in Sāmoa yet.

So as my friends and I like to say, sefulutasi. It's the word for the number eleven, but to us it has come to mean YOLO.