Hey everyone, I decided to start up a blog to keep y'all up to date with my goings-on in American Samoa. I have a really long post to leave about my first couple of weeks here, but the computer at the library tagged it as virus-infected when I tried to open it off of my flash drive. So this little tid-bit will have to do for now. Hopefully I can take my laptop somewhere with internet later today and post my main update. I hope things are going well stateside!
Thursday, August 06, 2009
A meeting with the chiefs
Last night while we were hanging out at the local Mormon church playing basketball and getting acquainted with some of our future students, Steve met one of the village matai, or chiefs, named Moaga. He told us the matai meet most every night and invited us to come by that evening to meet them. When we got there, Moaga wasn’t there, but we told a man standing nearby that we would like to meet the chiefs and he led us over and introduced us. There were five of them sitting in a half circle in a fale, or open air guesthouse, by the side of the road. They spread out a grass mat for us and told us that we had to learn how to sit properly. We sat down cross-legged, covering as much of our legs as possible with our lava lavas (sarongs).
They asked our names and where we were from. The tulafale, or high talking chief (who is second only to the alii, or high chief), whose name was Laoti, told us that he had been in Washington, DC, where Steve is from, two weeks before for a conference. He had also been to San Antonio before, but wasn’t really a fan. Another chief told me that he lived in Texas for a while back when he was in the army. Laoti expressed how grateful he was that we had come to help his village, and told us we should learn their card game, a Samoan version of gin-rummy. He said we should stop by from time to time to check in with them and then sent us on our way. It was a very cool little exchange and gave me a greater sense of a connection to the village. I look forward to playing cards with them this year.
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So if the Sarong like a kilt? Do you wear anything underneath? I've got to say the image of you in one is rather comical and hindered my processing the rest of the post!
ReplyDeleteUmm...kinda different from a kilt. It's kind of just like wrapping a towel around your waist. I wear gym shorts under it in case it falls off...which definitely happens.
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