This Ain't My First Rodeo

“I was sitting at the bus stop, waiting with 5 or 6 other people, and I was clipping my fingernails. That was when I knew I’d finally become a bus rider,” my friend Liam told me once. After we’d lived in San Francisco and ridden the public transportation system Muni daily for a substantial amount of time, a couple of us hopped on BART, and we were amazed by its posh decor. By Muni standards, BART was built for a king, what with its cushions, carpeting, and capaciousness. “These people are spoiled,” said Liam.

Cut to yesterday’s bus ride to the south side of the island. I got on the rickety wooden-roofed bus at 3:40 p.m. With an nebulous departure time, I took out my book and read to pass the time. Usually by Friday afternoon I’ve worked up a lot of sleep debt, and after 5 or 10 pages, I hit a wall. Since buses here tend to be packed to the gills with people, and since the hard wooden benches have seatbacks that are only about 8 inches high, sleeping on the bus in Samoa can be difficult. I chose to fold myself at the waist and fell asleep resting with my head on my own lap. This takes practice; I don’t think I could have done this when I first arrived in Samoa.

I’m guessing I slept in this position for roughly 25 minutes. I woke up when some kid tumbled past me. Not too long after I awoke, the bus driver started the bus’s engine, and a slew of stragglers got on.

Once the seats are filled on the bus, the common practice is to si’i, people sit on other people’s lap. So as a bunch of guys boarded, the girl across from me asked if I would be willing to have someone sit on my lap. I nodded and told her that was fine.

She handed the child sitting on her lap to the woman next to her, and then got up and sat on my lap. I should note this is slightly unusual. For the most part, unless a male and female know each other—usually family members of some sort—women sit on other women and men sit on other men. So there was a little bit of social rule-breaking here.

In any case, she sat down on my lap and then turned to me. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Lē afaina.” No problem.

Very slowly she swiveled her head to look at me. “Have you spoken Samoan the whole time?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked.

“Almost two years.”

“Two years?!”

Yeah, lady. I just folded myself like a map and took a 20 minute nap in the middle of a crowded bus. That’s an advanced skill. It’s not nail clipping, but it’s proof that I’m a bus rider.

I hope you’re well. Pictures from the village below.

Me and the baby. New Facebook photo?

Akanese (in the middle) and friends.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but Akanese is playing jacks with these small rocks.

Keleme again.

The Prodigal Host Son

I didn’t receive any inheritance from my host family, so I therefore didn’t squander it, also there was no slaughter of a fatted calf; but there was an air of guilt in my return to the host village last night because I hadn’t been back in 3 months. I guess I could attribute it to the string of visitors I had mid-April thru late May, but that would be making excuses. After living in Apia for a year and a half, my life is a lot busier than it was at first, and there are a lot more weekly commitments. But whatever. I was welcomed with open arms.

The adults in my host family smiled when I showed up, but Keleme, the baby, started yelling when I still pretty far from the house. “Mati! Mati!” She wore only a pair of tattered shorts and her hair, which is finally beginning to grow out, was all over the place. It was as good a welcoming party as one could hope for.

Much of my host mother’s children (i.e. my host siblings?) have moved to New Zealand or American Samoa, but right now one of the sons, Solofa, is back in the nu’u. I said hello, and then sat down at the kitchen table where Asolima offered me whatever leftover breadfruit and some fried fish that was sitting under the fly-cover.

Akanese, whose excitement was muted at first, quickly found her old giddy self, and suggested we go on a walk around the village.

I feel like my IMDB celebrity rating in Fausaga has dropped a few percentage points. People shake my hand and greet me cordially when I run into them along the road—many of whom I don’t recognize at all—but no longer do I feel like a curiosity. No one shouts at me from far off in the distance, no one really stops what they’re doing.

Though dinner was nothing special—we ate the leftover fried fish I’d declined earlier—there was a brief moment of red carpet when I tried to pour my own cup of tea. I was admonished by every adult in the room. “If you want tea, you tell Cousin Fialupe to bring it to you,” Asolima scolded me. Thankfully, when I slipped away from the table to fill my cup a third time, everyone let it pass.

Bingo is a primarily female activity, but no one raises an eyebrow when I show up anymore. Asolima let me play my own card, although she took over for me when I carried a sleeping Akanese home and then later when I did the same with Keleme.

I returned in time to tie for 3rd place in the jackpot round! My prize, which I donated back to my family since they had sponsored my bingo card, was $0.60. I think the jackpot round is so-called because of the large first place prize. Third place is menial; even more so when there’s a tie.

In the end, the best part of the visit was how un-spectacular it was. Nothing feels more welcoming than not having the red carpet rolled out. No one put on a show. It was all the hospitality with none of the fanfare. How nice.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Akanese.

This was a strange moment. Out of nowhere Akanese tosses a bunch of boxes of medicine at me. She then asks me to pop open one of the pills for her. Yeah, yeah. In America 6-year-olds are given medicine and everything else is kept out of their reach. Blah blah blah. She clearly knew the drill with the pills so I gave her one. Then she asked me for help with filling a spoon with a syrup of some kind. Yeah, sure. Whatever.

Akanese and I watched USA lose to Ghana in the World Cup this morning.

That's big baby Filipo (named for Phil 81) on the left and the baby's cousin (Apologies for not knowing her name) on the right.

Hurry Up and Wait

“Mati!” Akanese called from nowhere. I was napping on the living room floor. The rest of the family gathered around the TV at 11 this morning to watch “The Chronicles of Riddick,” which one of the two national TV channels was showing without commercials. Though I am a huge Vin Diesel fan, I decided to have a little snooze. I dozed off for about an hour when Akanese ran in shouting long strings of 5-year-old Samoan. I caught the phrase sau le pasi, the bus is coming, and I sprang to my feet. It was 12:19.

I packed in a rush, haphazardly throwing things into my bag. The promise of an early bus ride is worth the disorganization. I kissed Mele on the cheek, said goodbye, and headed out the door. I patted down my pockets, and realized my camera was missing. Akanese shouted (in Samoan), “It’s in your bag!” How did she know that?

Anyway, Asolima was sitting on the porch of the house next door, so I went to sit with her. “The bus is coming, Mati,” she said. “It’s better to take this one and take Tiavi [the more direct route to Apia] , than to catch the one at 2:00.” I agreed.

“Do you want some tea?” the neighbors asked. I declined the offer. After all, I had a bus to catch.

Oge came out with a bag of taro and papaya for me to take with me. I then realized I hadn’t given Asolima the can of corned beef I’d brought. She appreciated the gift, but scolded me for not giving it to her last night. “Then you could have had some,” she said. Exactly, thought I.

After a while Fialupe, a cousin of my family, came walking out of our house. Asolima told her to wait with me in the falekomiti, the open fale where the women’s committee holds their meetings. We went over, and Fialupe, Akanese, and I passed the time quizzing each other on verbal spelling. “Saw—ee—pee—ooh—nu—ee,” I called out. “Sipuni!” Akanese sang back. We played this game for some time, all the while watching for the bus.

Asolima came over and asked for my phone to call the bus driver, who didn’t pick up. She proceeded to play a lengthy game of Nature Park while the spelling continued. “Faw—ah—law—ay—saw—ah,” Fialupe threw out to the group. “Faleese!” shouted Akanese. This was funny because Fialupe had spelled falesā, which means “church,” but Akanese guessed faleese, which means “toilet”.

Still no bus.

The rain let up after a while (it had been raining), and we headed across the street to the church. I think this is my family’s week to sweep and dust the church and decorate the altar. Together Fialupe and Asolima swept out the entire church while we waited. It was 1:39. Something had gone wrong.

Asolima called the driver again. “He’s in Lefaga.” The next district over.

I tsked. “Mamao.” Far.

Asolima sat down with the kids and Fialupe finished the sweeping and I opened my book and read for a while. When I looked up, Asolima and the baby had disappeared.

The bus came. We yelled. It didn’t stop.

“It’s turning around,” Fialupe explained.

She was right. It came back and stopped promptly in front of the church, headed in the direction away from the more direct route to Apia. It was 2:05.

Right on time.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Keleme. Photogenic as usual.

Me. Excitement just oozing out.

Akenese. The most darling child to ever eat sugar cane.

Fialupe. You can almost see her face in this picture! A triumph in photography.

Rude Awakening

“Mati! Mati! MATI!” Asolima charged into the room where I was sleeping, throwing on clothes over the ones she slept in. A commotion of dog barking and men’s voices shouting outside. I checked my phone. 2:11 a.m. It was safe to assume my family had just received the same news the Peace Corps texted me about a half-hour before: There had been a large earthquake in Chile, and there was a chance a tsunami would hit Samoa. Again.

I sat up lazily and put on my t-shirt, “This about the tsunami?” I asked Asolima.

Since I already knew, and since I was pretty composed, Asolima was intrigued. “What do you know?”

“It’s not supposed to hit until tomorrow morning. Probably not for another six hours.”

After last September’s earthquake and tsunami, the entire country seems to be on edge about facing another one. On one hand, this is a good thing—there should be urgency in a situation like this. On the other hand, peoples’ lack of understanding about how tsunamis work can lead to unchecked fear and panic, and that’s no good.

My words sunk in, and Asolima seemed reassured by my calm. She took a deep breath.

By then, the whole family was awake. Mele grabbed mattresses and mosquito nets. Fialupe had turned on the radio while she packed dishes and food. The baby walked around with her diaper half off, offering every one Cheetos.

The Peace Corps Security Officer called me to make sure I’d received his text messages and was acting on them accordingly.

There was a lot more hustle and bustle, and I tried to help where I could, and stay out of the way when I couldn’t. Eventually, satisfied with everything packed in the car, my family sat in a circle in the living room. The conversation: where to go. The family’s plantation is a couple miles back from shore and well above sea level. It’s the spot the Peace Corps recommended while we were living in the village, and even the spot where the village was supposed to evacuate during the national tsunami drilll—a drill in which no one from the village participated.

“The maumaga is fine,” I told them.

“But what if the wave is REALLY big?” Asolima asked.

I shook my head. ““The maumaga is fine.”

Finally, at 3:00 a.m. we were on the move. With all the mattresses and blankets and pots and pans and mats and bags—and more importantly, with others in the village who might need a ride—it was decided Fialupe and I would walk to the maumaga and rendezvous with the van there.

I admit I enjoy emergency situations like this one—not in a creepy, morbid kind of way, but more in a Jack Johnson “Breakdown” sort of way. I’ve certainly never walked through the village at 3 a.m. and there was a full moon and there were lots of people in the streets getting ready to mobilize.

When we passed Phil’s house, his family was pouring out. Phil’s sister Fipe and another guy, Tasesa, joined Fialupe and me on the walk.

Fipe is a goofball. She cracked jokes as we dodged cow pies and cowered when she thought a lady coming down the mountain was a ghost.

When we finally arrived at my family’s maumaga, there were a troupe of elderly people waiting for us in the faleo’o. We sat around for a while, shooting the breeze and listening to the radio, which blared Celine Deon.

By then cooler heads had prevailed, and while there was a slight air of nervous tension, conversation was light and people laughed.

Eventually someone told me to go to sleep, and I was more than willing to comply.

When I woke up around 8:30, there was tea boiling and panekeke on the grill.

After breakfast I went on a hike to get water from the river with a couple other people in our party, and on our walk back I got a text message from the Peace Corps giving the All Clear.

Up until now, I’ve heard nothing about any tsunami hitting, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a couple small waves like the ones that hit Hawai’i.

I rode in the van back down the mountain, and a bus drove through the village just as Asolima and I turned on to the main road. And now I’m back in Apia, and everything seems mostly back to normal.

Maengi told me she was still awake watching a movie when the alarm bells rang. She’d been counting on sleeping well into the morning. “That plan was wrecked,” she told me. “But maybe we’ll cancel school on Monday to make up for lost sleep on Friday,” she laughed. Maybe.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

The baby in the loaded van.

Me and Phil's host sister Fipe.

Akanese and Keleme in the faleo'o.

Breakfast in the faleo'o.

Getting water. This wasn't a particularly important part of the story, but I just like the picture so much.

The ride back to the village. Joad style.

In-N-Out with Koa

As Phil and I observed during our December trip to Fausaga, it seems like when we go back to visit, someone is assigned to keep us entertained. I’m not sure if there’s a concern we’ll fine village life dull or too slow, but for whatever reason, it will be the job of a sibling or cousin to pal around with me and suggest ways to occupy my time. It’s thoughtful, but it can get tedious after a couple days. So occasionally it’s nice to pop in and pop out before the freshness of the visit dissipates.

Upon arriving back in Samoa, Koa heard news his host-mother had a baby boy and had named the newborn “Koa”. With all this Peace Corps hoopla this week and school starting next week, there was little time for Koa to visit his namesake. But as it turns out, Koa’s host-father is a taxi driver, and he offered to take Koa down to the south side of the island to Fausaga for a short visit this afternoon. Koa invited me to tag along, so I did.

On the way over the mountain, we stopped at Myna’s Faleoloa to pick up a few loaves of baked bread. Sodas and banana chips were purchased for the ride, and we set off. It’s amazing how much shorter that drive is in a car rather than a bus. We rolled into Fausaga 45 minutes after I’d left my house, which is pretty short considering a bus ride averages between 2 and 3 hours.

Akanese ran out of the house to greet me when I walked up. When I first met her last year, she spoke with the garbled fluency of a 5-year-old, which made it difficult to communicate—particularly since I spoke with the garbled fluency of a non-speaker. But my Samoan has improved and hers has too, and it’s fun to actually talk to her now.

Popping in unexpectedly—I texted Asolima to tell her I was coming about 30 minutes before we got there—gives a pretty good snapshot of village life on a lazy Saturday afternoon. My house was the usual social hub. Phil’s host-father was at the kitchen table chatting with Asolima. Dan’s grandmother was watching “The Lion King” in the living room with my host-mother Mele. Akanese kept begging to go swimming in the village pool, and the baby’s nose was runny (as always).

Fialupe was there! Early blog-readers will recall the controversial Fialupe who Asolima introduced to me one morning with the gruff, “I hate that girl.” Back then, she was a miserable 19-year-old used to “fast lane” in American Samoa who’d been forced by family obligations to move here. A year later she’s adjusted like the rest of us, and she seems happier. I think she appreciated that I remembered her name.

Akanese showed me how she’s learned to ride a bike. Asolima fried up some chicken. I played informal volleyball with a couple kids who live nearby. And then it was time to go. I was sent home with taro and esi, and I assured my family I’d return soon. As long as they promised to keep me entertained.

I hope you’re well. I accidentally left my camera in the car while we were in the village (Don’t worry. I got it back when we left.) , so I was unable to take pictures this afternoon. Below are some old pictures from past visits.

Akanese and the gang at Catholic Bingo.

I think this picture is so dorky of both of us. And therefore awesome. I wish it was in focus.

Phil's sister Tafale and her friend Tone.

Volleyball action shot.

Back to Fausaga

As much fun as last Christmas was in the nu’u, Group 81 has opted to spend the holiday elsewhere this year. Blakey, Erin, and I will be the only volunteers in the country, in fact. In lieu of spending the holiday there, Phil and I decided to go this week. November was a busy, and it was the first month I haven’t made it back to Fausaga since training. Phil hadn’t been back to the village since Easter. We met up at the Fish Market on Thursday afternoon and headed out.

Christmas preparation is in full swing in Fausaga. Phil and I were invited to choir practice on Thursday night, and, perhaps more importantly, a truck came Friday afternoon and brought new sand for the volleyball court where the annual tournament will be held. Beyond that, things seemed much the same.

My host brother Malo and his nine-year-old daughter Aiga are staying at our house because he lost his job at the Samoa Packing Corporation in American Samoa. He and Oge have been sleeping up in the plantation to protect the taro crop from pigs and thieves. Aiga is withdrawn, but seems sweet. Perhaps because she’s the oldest child, or perhaps because she’s not Asolima’s, she seems to have Cinderella-type responsibilities.

Akanese is bubbly and goofy as ever. When I handed her the bottle of coke and small bags of chips I’d brought, she offhandedly replied, “Thank you” in English. I called her out on it, and she refused to say it again. She happily repeated her old standard, “Oh my gosh!”, which is still cute, but not as much as it used to be.

The baby Keleme has entered into the preliminary stages of the terrible twos. During evening prayer on Thursday night, she began ripping up pages of the book of Revelation, all Sinead O’Connor-style. So I quietly took the pages away from her. She started screaming. Mele, my host mom, had to stop the prayer to comfort the baby. She turned on the TV, and that was that. And thus I wrecked evening prayer on Thursday. I felt bad at first, but every time the baby started crying the rest of my time in the village, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Let’s hope she moves through that stage quickly.

The most shocking and amusing moment of my stay came after choir practice got out on Thursday night. Asolima and Mele attended Catholic bingo, so I wandered over to see what was up. The children built a small bonfire out of bingo cards with Akanese taking the lead. She ordered the younger kids to go and collect more cards while she and a few deputies slowly dropped more cards on the fire. Asolima kept half an eye on things while she blotted the current round of bingo. Occasionally the fuel supply would run out, and Akanese would seek out Asolima’s cigarette to light the fire anew. I was mostly entertained until I imagined some kid growing up with horrible burn scars. And then I started pulling the children away from the flames.

A lot more happened, but it’s difficult to capture the world of the village in one post. Maybe I’ll tell you more in the next couple days.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Akanese and me.

The bingo fire.

Phil's host sister Tafale playing volleyball in her puletasi.

Girls hanging out on the cricket pitch. Akanese on the left, Aiga in the center. I don't know anyone else's name.

It's Hot

Whenever there’s an opportunity for hi-speed internet, I like to sign on to Facebook and see what’s going on in the world. And I’ve consequently become a frequent user of Facebook’s chat function. I still use my regular “How are things?” to initiate conversation, and inevitably the person at the other end asks, “How’s Samoa?” And for as long as I can remember, I’ve almost always had the same succinct response: “It’s hot.”

I’ve been meaning to pick up a PDF copy of the 2008 PSSC from the Peace Corps office, and I finally walked over there tonight. And walking home in pitch-black darkness at 8:30 p.m., it was probably in the mid-90s. And though I say it all the time, I had to stop and say it again. “It’s hot.”

Samoa is 14° south of the equator, so it abides by the seasons of the southern hemisphere, and thus is technically heading into summer. The terms “Summer” and “Winter” aren’t really usually replaced here by “Wet season” and “Dry season” respectively. Nonetheless, the southern hemisphere winter months—i.e. June, July, and August—tend to be cooler, and the Summer months—i.e. December, January, and February—are noticeably warmer.

Group 81 arrived in October 2008, so we’ve been through one hot wet season already, but this year the change feels different. Last year, we were newbies, and the warming trend was not relative to the dry, cool Samoa, but to dry, cool America. We got here and we expected it to be hot. It’s in the damn tropics. And as it got hotter, it only made more sense.

But now, after spending a cool dry season (that should really be called Slightly Less Hot and Slightly Less Wet), it’s time for the hot wet season to begin, and it’s hard to imagine things hotter and wetter than they already are.

I was walking in town with Blakey a while back, and I remarked on what a hot day it was, and Blakey told me she’d given up trying to discern the heat and humidity from one day to the next. “It’s always hot,” she said. It was a fair point with which I couldn’t argue, but there still seems to be times when it feels good to affirm the obvious.

Part of the differentiation springs from the fact that we’ve adjusted our lives to better deal with the heat. If I had errands to run back in February, I’d leave right after school to walk into town. Now, I usually spend an hour or two after school laying on my couch, and only after the heat subsides in the late afternoon will I venture into town.

Yet even with behavior adjustments, the heat seeps in. Teaching my year 13s at 4:30 this afternoon, we had all the computers off and all the windows wide open. I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts as is my custom during after school “camp” classes, but I could still feel the sweat running down my back. My kids nodded at me as they fanned themselves. Yeah. It’s hot.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

The family's new cow, Supo.

Akanese and me.

The baby, Keleme.

Three Stories from My Trip to the Village

Bus Fun

Since the bus ride to the Safata district is roughly 2 hours long because the bus is slow and the path meanders around the island, there’s a customary stop at a faleoloa either leaving Apia or rolling into Safata. I like to use this stop to pick up a bottle of coke and a couple bags of chips for Akanese and Keleme.

So yesterday our bus rolls into a faleoloa on the south side of the island. I’ve been standing in the back the entire way, so many people get off before me. I make my way to the back of the store and pull a coke from the bottom shelf.

For whatever reason, the bottle slips from my hands and falls to the floor. Rather than simply shattering, the coke bottle—with all of that compressed carbonation inside—essentially explodes. The store goes silent. The shopkeeper’s eyes are on me, as are the other 140 eyes that just got off the bus.

I get a few cuts from projectile shards, but mostly I want to dig a hole and hide in it.

I am one of the last to get back on the bus, and as I climb the steps the driver released the parking break. The bus lurches forward, and 140 eyes that just saw me explode a bottle of coke see me fall from the bus’s sudden motion.

A woman tsks and says pitfully, “Kalofai.” Poor boy.

Where the Babies Have No Names

Phil’s host sister Tuese just had a baby, and I’d heard she named it Filipo—after Phil. This was my first time back in the village since the kid was born, and my family piles in the van to go see the baby.

Wanting to allow Tuese to tell me the news herself, I lob the question, “What’s his name?”

“Mati!” She yells, claiming the baby is named after me. This surprises me and I tell her she’s lying. “Filipo! Isaac!” She claims. I stare quizzically. “Leai se mea.” She laughs. He has no name.

The kid turns 3 weeks old tomorrow. I’m pretty sure his name is Filipo.

Rock Movers

Asolima’s nephew, Malo, has moved back to Fausaga after his job at the Samoa Packing plant in American Samoa shut down and he was laid off. He and Oge leave the house before I wake up this morning, and while I ask Mele about hemming my ’ie, Malo walks up and dumps a pile of dead coral on the ground.

He looks at me. “Fia o i le sami?” Do you want to go to the beach with me?

I have no swim trunks, but Asolima is quick to bring me a pair. She hands me a t-shirt, which I decline.

My mistake. We wade into the marsh and walk through 300 yards of waist-high mud to get to the beach. Oge meets us there. We fill 5 gunny sacks with rocks—as it turns out, we’re re-paving the driveway.

Oge hands me a sack to carry, which must way upwards of 70 pounds. Ha. I’m able to carry the thing, but my shoulder is quietly sobbing. Luckily, the plan is only to carry the sacks out to the small outrigger canoe, which is on the near side of the 300 yards.

When we finish carting the 5 sacks, Oge and Malo and I bathe together in the community pool. Fun times.

I hope you’re well. Village pictures below.















Tuese, Keleme, and the nameless baby.















Fipe, Keleme, and Akanese.















Crying baby on road.















This is the home of the family that owns Sina PJ.  A lot of the buildings in Tafitoala tai are still standing.















Oge, Keleme, and Malo at the kitchen table.

Cultural Exploration 28: Card Games

For me, one of the saving graces of training was playing card games. I could play cards for days straight and not get bored. I don’t think of myself as very competitive (although I’m sure others will disagree), and I swear the allure isn’t winning the game; I think the allure is in the quest to win. But maybe that sentiment is the mark of a competitive person? In any case, we played Euchre when we were among our fellow trainees, but in the evening we played Samoan card games with our host families. Here is a rundown:

Suipi
I’m not sure of the English translation of the name, but Suipi seems to be the Samoan favourite. The game is played with 2 players or 2 sets of partners sat across from each other like in Bridge. Half the deck is dealt and four cards are turned face-up. The first player either matches a face-up card with one in his hand and keeps both in his pile, adds two or more of the face-up cards with one in her hand and keeps all in her pile, or places one of his cards face up if he has no match. Once everyone’s played their cards, the second half of the deck is dealt. The process repeats itself.

Scoring is nuanced. The team with the most cards gets 3 points. The team with the most spades gets one point. Aces are 1 point each. The 10 of diamonds is worth 2 points. The 2 of spades is worth 1 point. Oh! And if at any time during the game a team clears all of the cards by matching all of the cards in the table with one in her hand, that team gets a suipi, which is worth 1 point.

Suipi experienced brief popularity within our training group, but it became overly competitive and confusing (since rules seemed to vary greatly from family to family), which made the game lose its fun.

Adding up my points always seemed to take a while since there were so many things to look for and count. Phil’s sister could look through her cards in a matter of seconds and tell you how many points she had and how many points I had. It was very Rain Man.

Asigi
The name translates to “donkey”. Asigi is essentially the same game as Spoons with a limited deck. In Spoons you play with the whole deck whereas in Asigi you play with as many cards as there are people in the circle multiplied by four. The object is to be the first to collect four of a kind. Everyone passes at the same time and sings, “Asigi, A – si – gi!” Good times all around.

Kā Isu
Literal translation: Cut off the nose. The game works in tricks like Hearts or Bridge, but has an element of BS. Players must follow suit unless they have none of that suit, in which case they must pick up the other players’ cards in the trick. The object is to get rid of all your cards. The last person with cards gets his nose “cut off”; that is, he is hit on his nose with the cards left in his hand. There definitely seem to be style points for the person doing the hitting. There’s clear technique.

Pa’uelo
I think the name translates to slang for “stinky”. The kids in Fausaga refer to it in English as “Never Take a Shower.” Haha. It’s essentially Old Maid.

Lami
Samoan Rummy. Fans of the blog will recall Lami as the most frustrated I ever got during training. Lami is just like Rummy with seemingly arbitrary limitations. Any run of three or more cards is allowed, but books are only allowed for aces, threes, fives, and sometimes sevens. Red aces are worth 1,000 points; red threes, 300; red fives, 500; and red sevens, 700. Once I had a grip of the bizarre rules, I got to be pretty good. But up until then, it was like walking through the dark in a familiar room in which the furniture had been rearranged.

We’re done with Cultural Explorations until January! Back to normal posts tomorrow.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Akanese broke out the cards within the first hours of me meeting her.















Sadly, I have few photos of card-playing in the village. In this picture, you can see Asolima shuffling.















This should have gone up yesterday. Playing Bingo at home with the family.

Cultural Exploration 27: Bingo!

Despite the weekly bulletin an- nouncements, my family never attended church Bingo back in The States. In fact, the only time I ever interacted with church Bingo was at Our Lady of Grace religious education fundraisers, which was called by Bubbles the clown. Beyond that, my Bingo experiences are of the secular variety, playing in elementary school and Spanish classes and such. I’ve never “made it interesting,” so I have no real baseline to compare. But in Fausaga on a Friday night, church Bingo is the place to be.

Before leaving for Samoa, the Peace Corps sent lots of information about how church life is important in Samoa and how it would be important to attend services regularly and how it might even be a good idea to join the choir or find another way to get involved. So our first Sunday in the village, we were pumped. Phil and I attended choir practice the night before, we got decked out in our white-on-white threads, we sat attentively through a half-hour sermon (though we understood none of it). And when church was over, everyone went home. When we asked our training director why there was no socializing going on, he said, “Go to Bingo.”

Most Bingo attendees are women. Occasionally a husband shows up to play, but for the most part, the fale is filled with older women, younger women, and girls. The church treasurer, who is male, sits at the front collecting money, a man goes around distributing the bingo papers, and I’m there playing the role of the token charming palagi.

The games are tense and have a cut-throat feeling to them. Money is scarce in many families, and a Bingo win can be a big deal. Bingo is also a game built solely on luck; sure, it requires skill to quickly find and mark the numbers and to recognize when you have Bingo, but beyond that, it’s a lottery. In my opinion though, the tensest aspect is the Bingo caller.

In order to allow for all the women in the village to play, a girl, somewhere around 12 years old, normally calls Bingo. The girls tend to go fast, and each caller tends to have her own style.

The Samoan number system allows for variation and abbreviation. For example, the number “54” might be lima sefulu fā, lima fā, or lima ma le fā. That is fifty-four, five four, or five and the four. Sefulu, the word for 10 and also the suffix signifying a multiple of 10, can be abbreviated sulu or fulu. So with all these variations, Samoan Bingo can be quite a challenge for the novice speaker. After the third hour, my brain is reeling.

The role of Bingo night in the community is palpable though. Ladies laugh and gossip between rounds, children from the village play outside, women sitting next to one another compare cards from the last round and stories from the week before. Bingo is the lifeblood of modern Samoan collectivism.

And I don’t mind being the token charming palagi. If nothing else, I get to practice my numbers.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Attendees at EFKS Friday Bingo in Fausaga.















Me.





















Akanese does origami with finished bingo sheets. Often such sheets are used for toilet paper, no joke.





















Asolima keeps an eye on my sheet when I play.