Cultural Exploration 56: Fa'amavae

I admit when I left for the Peace Corps, my goal was to essentially sneak out of the country under cover of darkness. When my roommates and my family asked about throwing me going-away parties I asked they be small in order to minimize the number of goodbyes. When you leave for the Peace Corps, there’s a tendency for people to treat you like you’re dying, and I wanted to avoid that. So I didn’t tell most of my friends I was leaving for Samoa until I was at LAX getting ready to board my flight. I have a feeling leaving Samoa won’t be so easy.

Fa’amavae, or going-away parties, are a big deal in Samoa. My group’s first Samoan fa’amavae came near the end of training when we left the training village. We spent a good 5 or 6 weeks preparing for the event, including rehearsing a song, a play, and several Samoan dances. The party took on a fiafia structure, starting with a big dinner and eventually evolving into an exchange of talents and musical numbers. Most volunteers went home after the public event for private celebrations with their host families, which probably included an exchange of gifts and even more food.

Now that group 81 is getting ready to leave our permanent sites where we’ve lived for considerably longer, the stakes are a lot higher, and some of us are starting to get nervous. Much of Samoan culture is considerably more formal than American culture, and I personally feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells, hoping not to say the wrong thing or inadvertently slight anyone—and that’s just normal life. Just like in America, special events in Samoa—weddings, funerals, Christmas, going away parties—bring on heightened stress.

Most Samoan speeches begin with an apology. “I’m deeply sorry if any of my past actions have in any way offended you...” Et cetera. I guess I can handle that. Maybe throw in some biblical allusions for good measure. Round it off with a long list of thank yous. I guess I can do that.

Maybe I’m more worried about the exchange of gifts. It’s somewhat common for a school to give a departing Peace Corps Volunteer money, which is nice, but it definitely puts the pressure on the volunteer to reciprocate, and it’s difficult to know what’s appropriate. Giving money back? Not appropriate.

For host families, several Peace Corps staff have suggested framed pictures, or some sort of photo album. I feel like the magazine I created for my school might be enough of a gift, but I don’t know how fresh that will be 2 months down the line.

In any case, volunteers often throw our own fa’amavaes where we get together for one last hurrah. Group 81’s shouldn’t disappoint. And then, of course, there’s the typical congregating at Aggie Grey’s—from where the airport shuttle departs—for hugs and a final Vailima. I’m dreading / looking forward to that.

Back to regular blog programming tomorrow.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Me dancing at our host village fa'amavae.

The Battle of the Minds finals I scrutineered on Saturday morning.

The Battle of the Minds studio audience during a brief break when Digicel did a promotion.

Cultural Exploration 55: Recycling

There’s something post-apocalyptic about it. It reminds me of “Mad Max” or “Waterworld” or even “Wall-E” in which people (or robots) trying to survive after the world has ended re-commission everyday items for new purposes—think of Kevin Costner filtering his waste with a modified Mr. Coffee or Wall-E with his cache of treasures he’s found in the dump. The practice in Samoa isn’t quite so dramatic, but it’s still a little off-putting the first time you think about it.

This trend is noticeable on the trip into town from the airport: even from the road it’s easy to see the Samoan thatched fales securing the roof with old tires. Some houses use the left-over scraps of the rubber sheets used to cut out the soles of Jandals. The foot-shaped holes form a sort of rubber net that holds a small sheet of corrugated aluminum that keeps the fale waterproof.

Culture Day in the village provided some more examples. Rather than using a vegetable peeler or a knife to peel taro and breadfruit, it’s common in Samoa to cut a tin can about an inch from one of the bases and to use the jagged edges as a peeler. In addition to using banana leaves and breadfruit leaves to cover the umu, the above ground fire used to cook whole pigs among other things, I’ve seen people use old refrigerator boxes.

Re-usable food containers are all over the place. Tip-Top Ice Cream—perhaps the most popular in Samoa—comes in a plastic blue box. My family used these tubs as jewelry boxes, containers for storing important papers, and as cheap substitute for Tuperware. Other popular reusable food cartons include SkyFlakes cracker tins and large plastic Best Food mayonnaise jars.

Sometime about halfway through training I tried not to notice as different members of my host family took large swigs from a plastic bottle of well vodka. It was only when they gave some to the baby I realized they were using the vodka bottle to store water.

I’ve actually adopted this technique, although it’s not something I picked up from my host family. It was Cale and Sara who pointed out water tastes better from a glass bottle than that from a plastic bottle. So pretty early on I acquired a finished bottle of Absolut, and I’ve used that as a water jug for nearly as long as I’ve lived in my house.

My own re-commissioning of everyday items doesn’t end there. When I couldn’t find a cooling platform for my laptop, I bought a cheap plastic basket at Big Bear. I lowered my shower curtain using the wooden pegs the biology kids used on their field trip to Mt. Vaea. Scout eats from old Skippy’s peanut butter lids.

And sometimes when I’m watching her eat, I feel a little like Mad Max.

Tomorrow's Cultural Exploration (the last Cultural Exploration): Fa'amavae

I hope you're well. Pictures below.

I noticed this while watching Lost last night. See that oxygen tank hanging in the background? That's a makeshift bell. Those are used everywhere in Samoa. I think it's safe to assume every village has at least one of those. I can hear them ringing outside my house from time to time. Hats off to Lost for its eye for detail.

Note: Kindly refrain from leaving comments about Lost. Thank you.

Phil and me, mustachioed, peeling taro with tin cans.

Scout and her food dishes. The dark blue (i.e. the chunky) is for food. The light blue (i.e. creamy) is for water.

Cultural Exploration 54: The Big Laugh

There’s a scene in “Annie Hall” where Albie goes to visit his friend Max, who produces a sitcom in Los Angeles. In the scene, Max is supervising an audio technician who is adding a laugh track to the sitcom. “Now, Charlie,” he says. “Give me a big laugh here... And a medium-size chuckle here.” The scene demonstrates America’s nuanced spectrum of socially acceptable laughing. If something is a little funny, there’s a quiet laugh. If something is hilarious, laughter is more uproarious. In my experience in Samoa though, laughter is rarely quiet or nuanced.

It doesn’t take much to get a classroom full of kids to laugh—a witty remark, a wardrobe malfunction, a clumsy misstep—and when my kids laugh, they laugh hard. When some of my fellow volunteers get together, we often trade stories of good and bad moments we’ve had at school, and many of these stories involve students laughing for one reason or another. When recounting these stories, volunteers sometimes use a laugh similar to that of the miserly Muppets characters Statler and Waldorf; that is, a huge belly laugh with a “BWAAA!” sound and an accompanying rolling back of the head. It captures the zero-to-sixty nature of students’ laughter.

During a free period in the middle of the day, I’ll sometimes come back to my house, and I can often hear the sounds of classrooms full of students bellowing with unbridled laughter. The sound is loud and it carries.

The Big Laugh certainly isn’t limited to students. While there might be less screaming and whooping, the laughing that goes on during staff meetings is often just as big and hearty. The laughing doesn’t seem limited by geography; we noticed the big laugh during training on the south side of Upolu, and volunteers from around the country have attested to The Big Lausgh at their sites. I remember sitting outside Tanu Beach Fales on Savai’i waiting for a bus and overhearing the family church services going on in the open fale nearby. About once a minute there was a great big, “BAHAHAHA!”

It’s conceivable that things here are simply funnier; the slapstick more over-the-top, the irony more brutal, the comedic timing more crisp. Perhaps. But in my experience, the same tired “O fea lou teine?” jokes never fail to garner The Big Laugh.

As far as I can tell, The Big Laugh seems like a great thing: most medical research on laughing seems to point to the bigger and more frequent the laugh, the better. So more power to you, Samoa. My only qualm is this: with The Big Laugh, I feel like I have a stacked audience. I crack one small joke in my science class, and immediately my kids are in stitches. It makes me think I’m funnier than I am. But I guess I can live with that.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: TBD

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Mike 83 and other trainees en route to the beach last Saturday.

Danny 83 and Samoan boy blowing bubbles in the ocean.

Jenny 83, Chris 81, Rachael 83, and OtherMike 83

Dan 81 opening a can with a large knife in the Peace Corps office. Nothing new for AJ.

Cultural Exploration 53: Honking

Once, when I was very young, I called my grandpa an idiot. Confined to a car seat in the backseat of the car, I was unable to see out the front windshield. As we approached the intersection at Hesperian and Win ton, my mom saw my grandpa in his car across the intersection, so she honked and waved. When I heard the honk, even at my young age, my Pavlovian response was to shout, “Idiot!” This kneejerk aversion to honking has stayed with me, which has made life in Samoa difficult.

Spend ten minutes riding in a car around Apia, and you’ll hear no less than 8 honks; probably more. Taking a taxi across town is a veritable symphony of car horns. Backing out, pulling in, passing, being passed, assuming right of way, acknowledging right of way, saying hi to your cousin walking down the street. I think even if you drive in a straight line at a constant speed in Samoa, it’s customary to honk every two minutes, just for good measure.

In addition to honking frequency, there’s also high value placed on a having an elaborate customized honk. Lately I’ve noticed a lot of drivers around town have installed a new horn that honks once and then echoes that honk over and over and over, slowly fading to silence. There’s also the ever-popular synthesized catcall. I’ve also taken cabs where I didn't realize the weird sound I was hearing was the taxi’s horn until we were nearly at our destination.

And as I’ve mentioned previously in Cultural Exploration, RPCV Cale once had a million-tala idea that involved inventing a car horn that simply sounded like a long kissing noise.

The one time I drove a car on the island, I had a difficult time perfecting the staccato Samoan honking technique. On occasion we do a similar thing in America in which we punch the horn with the side of a fist, but the American style is a little too short. On the other hand, the normal, open-handed American honk is way too long of a tone. I get the impression it’s an acquired skill.

The worst part of Samoan honking, for me, is getting honked at while I’m on my bike. I’ve been told drivers honk at cyclists as a means of making the cyclist aware of the car’s presence. And because the practice is essentially obligatory, riding a bike down the street inevitably means honk after honk after honk after honk from a line of drivers passing.

The sound never fails to grate on my ears, and I sometimes feel an un-diplomatic urge—one which I’ve never acted on, one which might be described as Pavlovian—to yell back at passing cars, “Idiot!”

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Laughing

I hope you’re well. Pictures will be posted later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Cultural Exploration 52: Ska Kupe

Growing up outside Berkeley, attending college in downtown Los Angeles, and living in San Francisco for a few years after, I’ve experienced a fair amount of panhandling. It’s an awkward, narrow line to walk balancing budget and compassion, and so inevitably we make up arbitrary rules about who we give to along the street. There was a guy who hung out near the Embarcadero BART station who used to repeat over and over, “A nickel and a smile will last a long while.” I would usually toss him some spare change. And there was a piano player who would play with a keyboard and amplifier downtown during the day and huddle in our neighborhood laundromat at night. I’d toss him a dollar whenever I’d see him around. But for whatever reason, “Ska kupe” doesn’t bring out my giving side.

As several visitors have pointed out in the Guest Contributor series, Samoa has relatively few conspicuous homeless. The streets of Apia are mostly empty at night, and those that are out tend to keep to themselves. Panhandling is, for the most part, limited to young children around town during daylight hours singing the unapologetically direct, “Ska kupe.”

“Ska kupe” is a slang contraction of the phrase “Aumai se tā tupe,” which technically translates to “Give me our money”—How beautifully collectivist is that? “You know that money in your wallet that is both yours and mine? Give it to me”—but in the modern lexicon essentially means, “Give me some money.”

The first time I was ska kuped was shortly after I moved in walking back to town from Ming and Hana’s Supermarket. Two children walking toward me, a girl no older than 7 and her younger brother. On seeing me, the girl stopped, pulled the boy back, and whispered in his ear. When she let go, he trudged right up to me, and with as much assurance as I’ve ever seen, he stuck out an open-faced palm and commanded, “Ska kupe!”

No.

Ska is used with other objects, of course. It’s not uncommon to hear teachers to call out to students during Interval, “Ska tea!” When I was in the front office today, I used “Ska flash drive” talking to the librarian.

Still, the brash entitled demand of Ska kupe is not lost on Samoans. Consider the following situation. In Samoa, rather than accepting gifts and money and drinks from your friends on your birthday, it’s more traditional to buy drinks and food for others. So earlier this year, after computer class, one of my year 13s revealed it was Luana’s birthday. So without missing a beat, I turned to Luana and said, “Ska kupe.” The class seemed wholly entertained.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Honking.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

These are the kids from PCV Leah's school on the south side of the island. None of them gave me a ska kupe.

Leah's kids.

The view from behind the camcorder.

Cultural Exploration 51: The Question Melody

Sometime back in 2006, I recall I heard some jazz artist on the radio talking about his new album in which he converted the intonations in peoples’ speech to musical tones, and from there he would compose music around that melody. His favorite, if I remember correctly, was a melody string he’d taken from a Hong Kong reporter reading a long string of stock reports. It was a fascinating collision of music and linguistics, and since then I’ve tried to keep an ear out for distinctive lingual melody strings. One that every American seems to notice upon visiting Samoa is the question melody.

When RPCV Dylan returned earlier this year, he told a story about having a phone conversation with RPCVs Cale and Sara when they were fresh off the plane in Los Angeles last December. According to him, Sara couldn’t shake the question melody, and understandably so: the question melody permeates a volunteer’s English very early in the Peace Corps experience, and I can only assume it will be a difficult habit to break once I leave.

I’ve written out the question melody above in its most simplistic form. This 4-note string captures short questions like “Where are you going?” or the Samoan “Te alu i fea?” Each word is assigned to one note; syllables don’t matter. “What are you reading?” “O ai lou igoa?” “How is the morning?” All of these follow the most basic pattern.

Things get trickier as the question gets longer. The jump from the G down to the C seems to be present in every question, but the number of syllables attributed to any one of the tones in the pattern changes depending on the question. For example, in the question “What are we doing for dinner?”, the first two words “What are” are intonated on the F, the “we doing” on the F#, the “for” on the G, and the “dinner?” on the C (“we” could also be said on the F leaving only the “doing” for the F#).

There are also exceptions, of course. When asking “What time is it?”, “What” starts on the G, and then “time is it?” would all be intonated on the C. The Samoan version of the same question, “Ta se fia?” would also skip the F. The “Ta” would start on the F#, “se” on the G, “fia?” on the C.

It’s unclear where the question melody comes from. I hear it’s the result of New Zealand influence, but while I recognize British, Australian, and New Zealand English speakers all have distinct question lilts, none seems to be the direct predecessor to Samoa’s.

The question melody is so far off from the American English question melody—we intone up at the end of our questions rather than down—volunteers can often be heard making declaratory statements in the question tone. Around the Peace Corps office, this practice works out fine, but on occasion I’ve made statements to my classes using the question melody. This usually results in students looking at me quizzically, confused about whether I’ve actually asked a question.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Ska Kupe.

I hope you’re well. Pictures will be posted later this afternoon.

Cultural Exploration 50: Fe’au

At my middle school and high school, students were allowed to take one period off in their schedule to be a Teacher’s Aide. While TAs in college were usually graduate students who would assist in teaching lab classes and take on other teaching duties, TAs in middle school and high school would do menial tasks like marking multiple choice tests based on an answer key or walk around collecting attendance sheets. While this isn’t the same sort small-time job as would be asked of a student doing a Samoan fe’au, the diminutive nature of the task is as close a parallel as I can find.

The literal translation of fe’au is an “errand” or “something to be done”. Within the context of school, this usually means an errand a student is running for a teacher. At my school it’s not unusual for a teacher to pull aside a trusted student, hand that student $5, and have the student walk across the street to buy Digicel phone credit or a cup of Ramen noodles. Often when asking a student to fulfill such a task, a teacher will ball up the $5-bill and toss it in the student’s direction, and the student will pick it off the floor.

Though fe’aus don’t always involve retail transactions, most involve moving a object from one place to another. Having a student do some heavy lifting or sending a message to another teacher via carrier student are both acceptable uses of fe’au; I’ve heard other volunteers talk about sending a student to retrieve items from the volunteer’s house.

Rules also differ from place to place. I heard from another volunteer that at his school, if a student is sent on a fe’au to buy phone credit, and the fale’oloa down the street is out , that student needs to keep walking until he finds phone credit. He’s essentially not allowed to return to school until the fe’au is completed. This mentality of not resting until the job is done is okay though because running a fe’au is a completely acceptable excuse for not showing up to class on time.

I am fascinated by the fe’au phenomenon for 2 reasons. First, most tasks seem either too menial or too risky to warrant a student’s participation. I don’t feel justified in asking a student to carry a stack of books thirty meters when I could just as easily do it myself, and I’m always a little terrified some kid is going to get hit by a car crossing the street to buy me phone credit.

My second fascination is choosing the student to run the fe’au. When I have a task in mind, I will think of a specific student and then seek out him or her. Whereas other teachers seem willing to trust any random kid to run an errand.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I never could have implemented the fe’au system in Oakland Unified. I would have been fired for child endangerment, and I would have been out $5.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: The Question Melody

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

This kid approached Dan and me to sell us pens. We chatted with him.

Jackfruit growing at Blakey's pule's house.

Cultural Exploration 49: Birthdays

The ID at left is the staff ID I came up with for my school. I’m still unclear on how these IDs will ever officially be used for anything, so when I came up with the design, I was unclear on what information should be included. In the end, I opted for name and title. This is a staff ID, not a driver’s license or an official government document. I thought this was sufficient, but since I started printing these, 90% of teachers have returned theirs asking for it to be re-printed to include date of birth.

At first I was confused by this. From what I’ve seen and from what I’ve heard from other volunteers, birthdays aren’t a big deal in Samoa. When I first arrived at my school, I was a little worried because my birthday falls in February (i.e. near the beginning of the school year), and I wasn’t clear on what the proper fa’asamoa is for celebrating one’s birthday. As it turns out, it seems the custom is to do absolutely nothing.

RPCV Dylan told a story during our training about how he knew it was one of his co-workers’ birthday once. So when he saw him on campus, he gave him the normal “Happy birthday!” The co-worker gently shushed him and told it to keep it under wraps. When it’s your birthday, you’re obligated to throw the celebration, and his co-worker would have had to buy everybody lunch if word had gotten out.

My students seem to regard birthdays in the same way. I had to type a bunch of the registration papers for the Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate exams last year, and I noticed one of my computer students had a birthday coming up. So on the day, I called her out and asked if it was her birthday. She honestly had to think about it.

There are exceptions, of course. I’ve been at restaurants in town when there’s been a Samoan family celebrating a birthday. Asolima’s birthday fell during training, and we made a special trip into Apia from the host village to go to the movies. I went back to the village for Keleme’s first birthday, and there was a small party with cake and ice cream—my host family has no freezer, so the ice cream had to go fast.

So why is my staff so incensed about getting their date of birth on their staff IDs? I think they want it because it’s an important fact. While birthdays don’t seem to hold the same sentimental value in Samoa as they do in the west, age is very important. It also seems like birthdays aren’t a big deal except when things are official. It’s a like a social security number in America; it has little personal value, but its use brings weight to a document or a process. The DOB makes the ID card official.

Or that’s my theory, at least.

Back to normal programming tomorrow! I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Keleme's first birthday.

Year 12 Lamauta squeezes coconut cream to make the pe'epe'e during today's internal assessment for the year 12 Samoan classes.

Chicken's feet abound.

These girls prepared food for the umu.

Cultural Exploration 48: Salt

Most of my family quietly referred to it as “The Salt Capital of the World”. It was Bancheros Italian Restaurant in downtown Hayward, California; one of my late grandpa’s favorite places to eat. My family would joke that the menu, in addition to offering the battered half chicken and eggplant parmesan, also included a regular salt lick for those who wanted to take it straight. Based on this, I think my grandpa would be right at home in Samoa.

It’s hot here, and people sweat a lot, and when the body sweats it loses salt. In training the medical officer actually told us it might be a good idea to increase our salt intake to compensate for the climate. When I make popcorn, I’ll get the salt shaker out while the corn is still popping. On occasion my craving for salt will be strong enough I’ll pour some into my hand and lick it while I wait. I figure that sort of craving has got to be a sign the body is lacking salt. So perhaps salt’s prominence in Samoan cuisine is the result of a sort of dietary evolution.

Whatever the reason, salt has its place at the table. Coconut cream is salted to make pe’epe’e sauce. In my experience, whenever eggs find their way to the table, they’ve first been doused with a heavy layer of salt. At the pizza places around town, the plate of condiments usually has crushed red pepper, oregano, Samoa’s Own Chili Sauce, and salt.

The ubiquitous white canister of salt with the blue lid (as seen above) is seen at nearly every meal, but black pepper is a rarity. I’m not sure why that is.

And then there’s salt’s juiced up cousin, monosodium glutamate.

I don’t remember the last time I had MSG in The States. It seems more popular to explicitly say there is no MSG at a particular restaurant, and the few places that do use MSG use so little that it goes under most eaters’ radar.

Here the use of MSG is a little more relaxed. MSG is available in bundled packages at the grocery store, and it’s a popular ingredient at many restaurants. I was an official at today’s Zone A Athletics meet, and the lunch I was provided had a hearty helping of sapasui, the Samoan version of chop suey. I took a few bites that tasted like angry salt and sunburn. Mmmm. MSG.

MSG poisoning is not uncommon among Peace Corps volunteers. Symptoms range from tingly lips and a rash inside the mouth all the way up to vomiting and dizziness.

In the end, salt is a necessary evil. It’s a thin line between deficiency and hypertension.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Birthdays.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

As I was saying, we had our Zone Athletics meet today. It rained. A lot. This is Year 11 Sunula running 1500 metres.

The stands.

The junior (?) girls' 4 x 100-metre relay.

Cultural Exploration 47: Entrepreneurism

We had our first exposure to the Samoan small business when Phil’s host-cousin Onosa’i opened his own fale’oloa shortly after we moved to the training village. It was all completely legitimate— Onosa’i had the permits he needed and the blessing of the matais—and one bleary Monday morning, he propped open the storefront window and opened for business. Onosa’i put a lot of work into opening his fale’oloa, but often in Samoa, starting a small business is a lot more casual.

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of innovation, and that’s true to an extent in Samoa. At some point a while back, some hungry bus-rider looked at the wealth of other passengers, and s/he decided those people would probably like to buy a snack. And thus tala chips were born. Sometimes the bus waits at the bus stop for more than an hour, and during those times it’s likely a man (or a child) will approach riders from outside the bus offering them chips from a laundry basket.

And the level of copycat-ism and piggy-back-ism would make any capitalist proud. Once there was one boy that sold taro chips. Then there were many. Then the boys started diversifying their product, adding banana chips and little candies to their product line. It’s to the point now that when you get off the ferry and on to a bus on Savai’i, you can buy a full dinner with taro, palusami, chicken, and curry.

In Apia, the current small business fad is to set up a tent and some speakers in front of your house on Saturday, fire up the grill, and charge ~$8 for a plate of barbecue. These setups aren’t always on the beaten path, and I have a difficult time imaging how a lot of them do much business.

Another popular small business involves setting up a card table in front of the Frankie Molesi Supermarket and hocking perfume and sunglasses and matches and deodorant and small trinkets. In this case the copycat element creates an elastic market because all of the ladies out in front of Frankie Molesi sell exactly the same perfume and sunglasses and matches and deodorant and small trinkets.

At first these practices are baffling. How does anyone expect to make money when they’re selling the exact same products as everybody else? How can a barbecue pull in customers when there’s no signage and very little foot traffic?

I’ve talked to other volunteers about this, and the theory we’ve come up with is most of these small business aren’t intended to be money-making schemes. No one’s trying to get rich quick via $8 barbecue. Setting up a barbecue on a Saturday is just a fun way to pass the day. Like I said, you set up speakers, play some music, chill with the family. And it’s the same with the ladies out in front of Frankie’s. Saturday at Frankie Molesi is a place to see and be seen.

A paying customer is icing on the cake.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Salt

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Today was Cover Your Face Day in the staff lounge.

I've started taking pictures for the upcoming magazine. This is 9.4. I like the kid second from the left in the second row.

Cultural Exploration 46: Student Life

For a brief time while I was in high school, I had to wake before dawn to catch the bus. The city where I grew up is built around a single freeway exit, and when the overpass was rebuilt it caused massive surface street traffic. In order to get all students to school on time, the district implemented a plan, which among other things involved my bus picking me up while it was still dark outside. I get the feeling this is a constant state of life for many of my students.

Part of this stems from the fact lots of work gets done in Samoa before dawn. With the oppressive heat of the tropical climate, people prefer to work while it’s still cool outside. A typical day for most of my students involves waking up well before dawn, and most are responsible for making the saka, boiling taro or bananas, for breakfast each morning.

Every student in the country wears a uniform. Once a student is outfitted and ready, he catches a bus into town. Many students move to Apia to attend school. They often live with extended family most of the time and return to their rural villages for holidays and special occasions. So most live relatively close—at most an hour’s bus ride away.

Each week one class is the duty class, which means they have to arrive early to clean the school grounds and stay after school to clean more. Morning chores involve picking up dead leaves and sweeping out bathrooms and the teachers’ lounge. The duty class arrives around 6:45 a.m., everyone else gets in sometime between 7:30 and 8:00.

The first bell rings at 7:45. Students congregate in form room classes (i.e. home room), where one student leads a prayer and the form room teacher gives announcements. Outside, one of the student prefects blows a whistle to signal the flag being raised. Everyone outside freezes in place while another student prefect raises the flag. Once the flag reaches the top of the pole, the whistle is blown again, and business carries on.

Unlike my high school where teachers had their own classroom and students moved from class to class during the day, here students stay in the same classroom all day while teachers move around. As a result, there are no lockers because students keep everything in their assigned desks.

Classrooms tend to be austere. Some teachers put up motivational posters or decorate the teacher’s desk with a table cloth and flowers, but I find this has little effect. Classrooms have cinderblock walls, cement floors and chalkboards made by painting semi-glossy black paint on wooden panels. Rustic desks seem like they must have been furnished by a shop class 15 years ago. Shop class is no longer offered at my school.

After school, the flag is lowered and while some students hit the road as soon as they’re allowed, others trickle out slow. Inter-school fighting has been a problem at the bus stop in town, so students are required to be out of uniform 90 minutes after school gets out. Students often have a small amount of spending money, and you can find many sitting at the tables at the market eating kekepua’a.

After a while they catch a bus home. And 12 hours later, it’s time to do the whole thing over again.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Entrepreneurism

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Desk.

Painting(?) that was drying on the cement in front of 11.3 or 11.4 when I walked to school this morning.

Suasami, the teacher I usually sit next to at Interval, confiscated these from some girls in 10.1 this morning. I'm unclear what this product is called in English. It's stuff you put in your hair to create temporary streaks of color. One is purple, the other is silvery white. But the best part of the packaging is how it says "My hairstyle be my mind". What does that mean?

Cultural Exploration 45: Non-Verbal Communication

“Hey, I’ve got a million tala idea,” Cale once said to me while we were walking down Beach Road. “Someone should make a car horn that goes mwwwwwiiiii.” Excuse the onomatopoeia. He made a long, drawn out kissing sound, which in Samoa means, “Hey! Look over here!” It’s just one of many non-verbal cues infused in Samoan culture.

The most prominent of these cues has got to be the eyebrows. Much like a nodding your head in the west, raising your eyebrows a couple times quickly in Samoa means “Yes”. The more still you can keep your face while your eyebrows wiggle, the better. My dad’s side of the family has a history of strong eyebrow muscles, and my sister and I both inherited the trait. The affirmative eyebrow wiggle came pretty naturally to me right off the bat.

Slightly more difficult—not for me—is the negative response: one eyebrow wiggles while the other stays still. I normally introduce visitors to the eyebrow wiggle in the taxi/shuttle on the way into Apia from the airport. When I told Luisa about the one-eyebrow negative, she shook her head in disbelief. “People do not do that.” Yes they do.

The double eyebrow wiggle is also a greeting. When you pass a stranger in the street, you can greet him with a “Fa,” or you can simply raise your eyebrows. This one’s dangerous though. Sure, it’s cool here, and it’s so common, I do it all the time. But walking down the streets of Sydney in January, it happened several times where I’d pass a woman on the street and raise my eyebrows to greet her. In the west, raising your eyebrows at a woman has a certain connotation, and the couple times I didn’t catch myself I ended up feeling like a total sleaze.

At least by American standards, Samoans beckon upside down. When I want my friend to come nearer to me, I put my palm face-up and bend my fingers back toward me. In Samoa this gesture is done with palm face-down, which not only doesn’t look like the American “come here,” but looks a lot like the American “go farther away”. The first several times my host mother gave me the “come closer” gesture, I waved and walked away. Oops.

Perhaps the most common form of Samoan non-verbal communication is the most literal. When on the bus or waiting in the queue to get on the ferry, I’ve often seen two Samoans, separated by a distance greater than 5 meters, have an entire conversation in which they only mouth the words. It’s difficult what it feels like to see two people communicate in complete silence; I suppose it’s like watching 2 mimes catch up on old times.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Student Life

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Yes.

No.

Come hither.

Cultural Exploration 44: "O" Nouns and "A" Nouns

Spanish makes things easy. Nouns are divided into masculine and feminine, which dictates whether they’re spoken of with an “el” or a “la” respectively, and the great majority end in an -o or an -a clarifying male versus female. Sure, there are words like “reloj” and “calour”, which don’t end in an “o” or an “a”, in which case you just have to know. Samoan o’s and a’s work slightly similar to this, with the exception that there’s no clarification. For all nouns, you just have to know.

O’s and A’s only become a factor when using possessives. Mine, yours, and his/hers are lo’u, lou, and lona or la’u, lau, and lana depending on whether the noun is an O-noun or an A-noun. For instance, “My father is Joe” would be O lo’u tamā o Joe. See the possessive? Tamā, the word for “father” dictates whether it should be lo’u or la’u.

O tends to be for the more important things in life. Parts of the body are all O-nouns, as are family, places, and certain articles of clothing. A is everything else.

In language training they told us the best way to guess whether a noun is an O or an A is whether it became a part of Samoan life before or after the missionaries showed up. Tools, money, eating utensils, church, and most animals fall into the A category because they’re all a little Johnny-come-lately. Matai titles, genealogy, boats, and lavalavas all have proven themselves worthy of the O.

There are, of course, some strange exceptions. Though almost all family falls into O, “wife” or āvā is an A. Hair, head, chin, and neck are all O, but “beard” or ’ava is an A. The generic word for plantation, fa’ato’aga is an A, but any specific type of plantation—a taro plantation (ma’umaga), banana plantation (togāfa’i), coconut plantation (togāniu), etc.—is an O.

Our trainers were huge sticklers about O’s and A’s. They’d stop us mid-sentence to make a correction. I guess in Spanish it would sound goofy to say la gato or el mariposa, so maybe it makes sense.

Then again, the line between O and A in Samoan seems to be a little blurry. I’ve been called out for many many things during my time here, but never confusing a lou with a lau. I’ve talked about this with other volunteers, and some say they’ve observed the same person use the same noun in two different contexts and used lou for one thing and lau for another.

But as they told us constantly during training, Samoan is a context language.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Non-Verbal Communication.

I hope you’re well.

Cultural Exploration 43: Livestock

The roosters got the memo. I leaked tonight’s story last night, and I swear the obnoxious birds were on full offensive this morning. At quarter after 6 there must have been at least 4 of them camped outside my window, and almost as though in unison, they crowed their terrible call. There’s little in my house to absorb the sound; in fact the bare walls seem to amplify and echo the dreadful call. Usually it only takes one bird’s call to get me to spring out of bed and into action. It’s to the point now where I need only open my front door to make the chickens flee in fear. This morning’s coordinated attack had me in particularly angry, and they knew.

But then they came back! They’ve never done that before. Usually if I throw one rock, that’s enough of a message. But today, no more than 10 minutes later, the same jerks were outside again, making my walls shake.

My situation isn’t unique to Samoa. Loose chickens are a way of life on most family compounds. And since most schools have long-term residents, most schools have chickens too. My pule’s got pigs as well, but they’re of the penned-in variety.

Driving around the island, pigs are everywhere, most of them on the loose, wandering about, digging up yards. I’ve never given in much thought, but I assume that’s why my pule keeps his in a pen: they’d wreck the rugby field if they got out.

Pigs are a hot commodity in Samoa. They tend to be spoken of in terms of their size. Sizes range from 1 to 10, with 1 being little more than a piglet and a 10 being a full grown hog. Many size 2s lost their lives to Group 81’s 3-month village stay. Phil told me about how he likes to make a game out counting size 3 pigs when he’s bored on the bus.

It’s a pretty big deal if you hit a pig while you’re driving. If you hit a pig it’s common courtesy to pull over and work it out with the pig’s owner. Either that or drive directly to the police station and turn yourself in.

Horses and cows are less common in Samoa, but I see them occasionally. Since most families don’t have any fence to speak of horses and cows are usually tied to a post or a tree. Horses are used as pack animals carrying supplies to and from the taro plantation. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t recall ever seeing anyone ride a horse in Samoa.

At my house in the training village, they name the pigs (before they eat them), but they always name them the same thing. Large mother pigs are always called “Suka”, which means sugar. Younger male pigs are always called “Koli”. I’m unclear of the meaning there.

Most families have a way of gathering the animals to be fed. My host family would drum on an empty cracker tin to get the chickens to congregate. Here on campus I heard my pule’s daughter doing a very melodious call. It was almost pretty.

But then the roosters showed up.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: O Words and A Words.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

During our first week of training, our bus had to wait behind this herd of cattle.

One of the Kolis. It was ridiculously difficult to get this picture. Koli had escaped from his pen, and he wouldn't stand still long enough for a photo.

Asolima feeding the chickens. Doesn't the rice look cool?

Plucking chickens at last year's Culture Day.

A family of pigs crosses the street during last year's perimeter run.

Cultural Exploration 42: Traffic

The San Francisco Bay Area consistently ranks within the top 3 of areas with highest rates of traffic in America. And after growing up there, I moved to Los Angeles, which—along with Houston—also always ranks in the top 3. As far as traffic goes, I’ve seen my fair share, and one would think coming to a developing country for 2 years would provide a respite from all this gridlock. For the post part, that thinking is correct, but more and more, the streets of Apia have been seeing their own bottlenecks, hold-ups, and bumper-to-bumper jams.

Of course, most of this traffic is a result of development. Whether it is because of a simple growth in population or because of a street closure for a new sewer system, necessity breeds innovation and innovation breeds headache.

Given I live 60 metres from my job, I don’t face any real commute, and it’s rare I’m on the road during rush hour. The few times I’ve been stuck in traffic before work in the morning, it’s been bizarre how quickly the urgency and stress sets in. When my parents visited last May, they came out of baggage claim relatively late, and it was a mad dash to get back to my house before school started. With the traffic-induced aggravation, I may as well have been on the 10 freeway in West L.A.

Part of all this obstructive development has been the effort to widen the road. The same situation happened in my hometown during high school: in order to widen the road and expedite traffic, construction crews would have to block large sections of the road, and counter-intuitively slow traffic to a halt.

Traffic on weekends is bi-polar. Saturday morning between 6 and noon, downtown Apia is bumper to bumper just about everywhere. It’s a mad rush to get all of your shopping done before the shops close. But by 12:30 p.m., the streets are empty.

Another strange factor of Samoan traffic is the sizable amount of backed-up cars are taxis. Most families in Samoa don’t own a car, so traffic can be quite monochromatic with long lines of white taxis. This can’t be economical for taxi drivers since cabs here are not metered and fares are only calculated by distance. The driver has quite the disincentive to wait in traffic.

And yet they do. Long long lines of cars all over Apia as the city struggles to catch up with its own development.

That’s all the Cultural Exploration until we start again in July. Thanks to everyone who submitted ideas. I’ll work on those in the upcoming months.

I hope you’re well. I’m on Savai’i right now, and I forgot my camera’s USB connector. Pictures will be posted Sunday.

Cultural Exploration 41: Evening Prayer

I grew up in a progressive Catholic household where we said Grace before dinner each night, but that was extent of any sort of family prayer. Our Mormon friends had Family Night every Monday, during which they’d watch a movie together or play board games or something else along those lines, and I assume there was a fair amount of prayer there. But their habits still don’t compare to the evening prayer custom here in Samoa.

As I understand it, evening prayer should be timed so that the sun is completely gone just as the prayer comes to a close. In Samoan, this time of day is referred to as Sā. Usually bells are rung to alert the entire village that it’s time for prayer. During Sā, all activity stops; a temporary curfew goes into effect, fale’oloas close, children come in from play. In general, very few people are out on the street—families can be fined by the village for not abiding by Sā.

Peace Corps aren’t necessarily held to such penalties, but it’s still a good idea to go inside and keep quiet, whether it be out of respect or simply to avoid dirty looks in your village. Of course, different villages view Sā with varying levels of severity. Cale and Sara’s village was quite strict; my school’s compound, not so much.

But by that hour of the day, I’m either inside my house or completely off campus, so it’s rare that my presence would interrupt Sā.

Either way, I admit I enjoy Sā even though I don’t partake. You see, since Sā coincides with sunset, the temperature inevitably drops by 5 or 10 degrees just as the bells ring for prayer to begin. Then, off in the distance, I can hear at least 3 different families begin to sing, often in multiple-part harmony. The effect is quite calming.

When I stay in the host village, I am given a central role in the family prayer. The sequence would go as follows: Mele would say a short prayer, we’d all sing 3 or 4 verses of a song, I would read the bible aloud in Samoan (it’s a phonetic language so it’s quite easy to read, even with a complete lack of comprehension) (also, Akanese has started taking over this job as seen above), Mele would say a really long prayer, and then we’d close with a short song.

As I said, all of this happens in Samoan, and I can follow here and there, but inevitably I zone out. But zoning out can be quite Zen-like, and even without hearing the formal structure of the prayer (or maybe because I couldn’t hear the formal structure), I can appreciate the practice. It’s not a terrible way to end the day.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: TBA

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

Note: Jane emailed to point out village bells are often made from empty propane canisters. I never really thought about this before, but she’s totally right. Next time I see some, I’ll get pictures.

Luisa is here.