Christmas Samoa-style

Manuia le Kerisimasi! Yes, that's Merry Christmas in Samoan. Given that everyone speaks English to us here, singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" is one of the few things Emma has picked up in the Samoan language. Emma's school had its annual Christmas program last week and we put up our 3-foot tall, somewhat sad-looking fake tree.... I guess this means the holiday season is officially here. Since I was born and raised in Michigan, I just find it very hard to feel like it is Christmas when it is in the high 80s and even higher humidity outdoors. Sure, we've celebrated a few Christmas seasons without snow on the ground, but it is at least cold out there. You can't really roast chestnuts over an open fire in this climate.

But, alas, it is Christmastime in the South Pacific. Despite the outrageous electricity costs here, Samoans get pretty serious with their Christmas light displays. It seems the philosophy is the more lights the better. I described one place as being a bit obnoxious and tacky, but Emma found it enchanting. The strangest thing to me is that the places with the biggest displays are the churches. Many of the churches are absolutely covered in lights and also hundreds of statues of Santas, Pooh Bears and, Mickey Mouses. I wonder if the church attendees are required to tithe more this time of year to cover the cost of the church's electrical bill.

If you have ever seen my husband you may already have guessed this, but I enjoy a man with a beard. There are not many islanders with beards so this one already stuck out, but then you throw on the Santa hat and I had a good chuckle.To get into the spirit a bit more, we baked cookies and listened to Christmas music on Sunday. The whole family joined in and we had a great time with the decorating. Our favorite cookies were the ones decorated with the Christmas spider and the Christmas bat. We're off in search of cooler weather and a non-tropical Christmas in New Zealand so we'll have lots to report on the blog in the new year! Happy Holidays!

Swim Meet

Emma participated in her second swim meet this past weekend. The meet was held at a hotel, which has the biggest pool on the island (at a mere 20 meters long, it is minisclue compared to the Olympic-sized pool Emma competed in last time). Emma swam in several events. She ended up with 4 ribbons:

1st place 20m breaststroke

1st place 40m backstroke

2nd place 40m breaststroke

3rd place 40m freestyle

Emma's favorite and best stroke is the breaststroke, and the coaches are amazed by how fast she goes. In fact, Emma wishes that she could only swim the breaststroke and skip the rest of the strokes. In the 40 meter breaststroke, Em did not dive out as fast or far as the top swimmer at the meet (a girl from Fiji who went home with 10-1st place ribbons) so she started the race a couple meters behind. Emma clearly was swimming a whole lot faster than her main competitor, but in the end, she just couldn't catch up to her so Emma was a bit disappointed with 2nd place in that race. It was such a close race that the two girls finished with less than a second difference between them.

It was a great meet. The kids worked really hard to get ready for it and they all swam their best. Unfortunately, swimming lessons and practices are coming to an end as the swimming association's funding has expired. Some of the parents are hoping to find a coach to hire so the kids can continue with their competitive swimming training.

An Evening With the Governor

I was quite excited to get invited to dinner at the Governor's mansion. It isn't too often that you are asked to dine with the person who is essentially the President of your country. I wasn't sure what to expect going into this evening. I kept jokingly referring to going to the Governor's Ball all week. Unfortunately, I didn't get to wear a ball gown and there wasn't any dancing, but that is probably for the best.

The Governor's mansion is located up on a hill, overlooking Pago Pago Harbor. We arrived at the guard station at the bottom of the hill and were directed up the long driveway. We were greeted at the top by several of the Governor's security men. I felt like these people were under the false impression that we were a bit too important, but hey, it was a fun fantasy for the evening. The mansion is a big, white plantation-style home.

We were greeted inside by one of the maids and promptly led into the "great room" where drink orders were taken. We admired the beautiful room and then Governor Tolioga Tulafono and First Lady Mary Ann Tulafono made their entrance. They warmly greeted us and I was proud as they thanked Paul for the wonderful job he did as the Governor's SCUBA instructor. It was immediately apparent that they are both warm, genuine, smart people.

While the First Lady finished some dinner preparations, the Governor gave us a tour of the house. The house was built in 1903, as residence for the commander of the U.S. Navy stationed on Tutuila. After the Navy left the island, the house went on to be the residence for American Samoa's governors. During the beginning of Governor Tulafono's term, major renovations and restorations took place. As the Governor led us through each of the rooms, you could sense the pride he felt in restoring the house to its historical state. The location of the mansion has cultural significance as well and is called Mauga o Ali'i -- Mountain of the Chiefs.

One of the highlights of the house was the library, with beautiful floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves. Paul was especially impressed with this room. The Governor also pointed out his rock collection and he even said that his wife gives him a hassle sometimes because he is always picking up rocks on their travels. Hmm, that sounds all too familiar.

Dinner was very nice. We sat in the formal dining room. The table was huge, especially for 10 people so the conversation was a bit divided between each end of the table. Paul and I sat right next to the Governor and he entertained us with many stories. After dinner, Paul and his dive assistants were presented with signed copies of an American Samoa commemorative book. We also had a photo shoot, and even the Governor and First Lady wanted lots of pictures with their diving instructor. It was a great evening, but a bit sad to leave the mansion and head back to our humble dwelling.

This is a link to the American Samoa Historical Preservation Office website that has aerial photos of the Governor's house.

Check out the press release of the scuba training on the government's website. It was well circulated on the island, with the newspapers, tv, and radio all picking up the story. Plus, Emma's school Christmas program was broadcast on tv tonight so both Paul and Emma got their 15 minutes of fame today.

Training the Governor

So these past few weeks have been incredibly hectic. I have been running two beginning diving courses concurrently. Why two? Well, because one of my students is important enough that he gets his own class and I can do it during work hours as part of my regular job. That person is the leader of our small pseudo-independent country, the Governor of American Samoa, Togiola Tulafono. Back in August, the annual U.S. Coral Reef Task Force meeting was held in our balmy country. At that time various senators, congressman, white house staff, and a few marine biologists got together to discuss the state of reefs in all U.S. waters. Well, during this meeting it was suggested that it would be a good idea if the Governor could be certified to be a SCUBA diver. This way the next NOAA ship that headed down here (scheduled for this coming February 2008) would be able to take the Governor out with them to see the reefs in his jurisdiction. Now being the only federal dive instructor (and in fact, the only SCUBA instructor on the island) I was asked by the Asst. Secretary of the Interior and several high-ranking NOAA people to certify the Governor. Fast-forward a bit and you find me training the Governor and the Deputy Director of the Am. Samoa Dept. of Commerce.

Surprisingly, it was a very smooth class. I went into it expecting the worst and have been pleasantly surprised by my students’ effort and water skills. The Governor in particular seems very comfortable in the water and had no troubles with any of the training. This past week we had their certification dives. This is when the students get to go on real dives and show me that they have actually learned something from our classroom and pool training. So the first day I decided to do their certification dives in a place near and dear to my heart Faga’alu Bay. This is where me and my friends, and in fact most people I have trained to dive on island, go on a regular basis. It is basically centrally located, has easy shore access (even for night dives), usually has decent visibility, has interesting (albeit dying) reefs, and most importantly we go in at a public elementary school so we can go there on weekends and without having to ask for permission. Did I mention you often have to alert other divers that trash (such as used disposable diapers, etc.) is floating their way? Well, for all these reasons I took the Governor there for his first cert. dives making sure to point out that the school simply throws their trash over the hill behind the school (where it makes its way into the water) rather than proper disposal. They did okay on their skills and as usual Jay (my indentured divemaster) was a huge help, all the more impressive since he was distressingly sick and should not have been in the water, much less diving. For the next set of dives (dives 3 & 4) we got onto the National Park boat, along with Jay and Markus on hand to help with the training, and headed up into the National Park to an area called Tafeu Cove. This area is a protected bay that has really nice coral cover and lots of (small) fish. Again, my students did well enough despite poor visibility from all the rain.

The only really significant part to these dives was that we had a police escort. Now this police escort is not just the marine patrol boat we had along with us (which we did), but in fact one of the marine patrol officers (George) came on our dive with us to watch. Funny for so many reasons, mostly because I had trained George to dive about 3 months earlier. That is not the significant part though. At about 60 feet down I found a HUGE giant clam (a local delicacy) and pointed it out to everyone. George then grabs this clam so he can bring it up and eat it. Never mind you are diving with a park ranger in the National Park. Never mind you are a police officer and it is illegal to fish/ harvest anything with SCUBA, never mind you are diving with the leader of your country. Nope, just mmmmm… tasty. Funny. I gave a good underwater scolding. George is a great guy, but come on.

So after having completed 2 weeks of dive training with the Governor, culminating is his being certified as a “new diver”, Jay and myself got invited to go to the Governor’s mansion for dinner. Not often you get to go to a head-of-state’s private residence. So I asked if we could bring spouses, and since Markus dove with us for the second day of dives I asked if he and Liz could come as well. I found myself actually discussing what I was going to wear with Jay... “So what do you wear to the Governor’s house?” (mind you- He asked me). What did I have to say? Ah, the quintessential flip-flop. Yes it is okay to wear flip-flops and a t-shirt just about anywhere. I say “Ha” to all of you who said I would have to dress like “an adult” once I got a real job.... “Ha.” Anyway, Mel will tell you all about our evening at the Governor’s in a later blog. All I will say is that he is now a certified diver and a really smart and really likable guy. I had a lot of fun training him and look forward to more dives.