A word about our buses

Since I didn't start this blog until a year into living in American Samoa, there are many facets of everyday Samoan life that I never blogged about. The buses are one of those. While Michele was here, Emma played tour guide and took her grandma out via bus a couple of times. The buses are pretty entertaining, at least for a visitor. For me and Paul riding the bus quickly lost its appeal, as the music is deafening and often of the rap variety. Just about every song you can think of has been covered by bad Polynesian singers. Somehow they even managed to make a salacious rap rendition of “Lady in Red.” The buses are called aiga buses, with aiga meaning family. The buses are homemade by a family or village from a converted truck bed. The small buses are the most nerve wrecking for me, as with every turn in the road I am praying that the wooden bus doesn’t fall apart or tip over (especially when there is a large number of Samoans all sitting on one side). The buses are often packed full of people and it is not uncommon to see adults sitting on each other’s laps. More time is spent on the decorating of the buses than working on their engines (I have had to disembark several buses after they broke down on the side of the road). Some of the buses have beautiful island scenes airbrushed on them – my favorite is the coral reef bus. The inside is also decorated, typically with feather boas and bright fabric. Emma loved being responsible for making sure her and her grandma got where they wanted to go, which isn’t too hard as there is one main road here. You can flag down a bus anywhere, hop on, and when you want to get off you just knock on the wood frame. This can make for quite a long trip as people are constantly getting on and off, even within just meters of where the bus last stopped. I am officially done riding the bus as loud music, no seat belts, and the occasional cigarette smoke are not acceptable for a baby.