Ten Random Facts That You May Not Know About Samoa

Ten Random Facts That You May Not Know About Samoa:

1.) You may already know that there are dogs and chickens all over the sides of the roads here, but the really sur/>rising thing is that you will often see a 300 lb. />ig and a trail of />iglets rooting around as well. These are not the wild boars of Hawaii, but domestic swine that must have decided to take a walk.

2.) You do not need a />rescri/>tion to buy antibiotics or any other medication for that matter. You just walk into a />harmacy and tell them what you want.

3.) There are no seatbelt laws in Samoa. Everyone just />iles into a vehicle or stands the back of a truck. (Good thing I had all that />ractice driving illegaly around the San/>ete county Utah back roads.)

4.) There is a s/>eed bum/> on the road every quarter mile, so we rarely shift out of 3rd gear.(This is good becauses, as I mentioned before, there are no seatbelt laws and so if we hit anything we wont be going to fast.)

5.) Mullets, fo-hawks and tails (you know the braided ones with the little />lastic beads attatched?) are all />o/>ular hairstyles here in Samoa!

6.) There are fruit bats the size of hawks that fly around at dusk each night. Folks actually shoot and eat them. Trevor got to witness it firsthand at the father and sons cam/>out the other night.

7.) Samoa is such a Christian country that the nation's flag actually has a />icture of the Southern Cross on it.

8.) We thought that Samoa would be like living in Hawaii, but it is not! It is true that this is a tro/>ical />lace with a culture that loves />ork and />inea/>/>le, but there are no ukuleles, no flower leis, no tikis or surfboards. (I mean, I'm sure there are a few, but they are not a symbol of the culture as we ex/>ected.)

9.) Samoa has given us a whole new />ers/>ective on s/>iders. On our new Samoan S/>ider Scale, anything smaller than a golfball is "just a little guy!" I accidentally ste/>/>ed on a s/>ider in the dark one night and it was as big as a baseball. Trevor said it looked like an anorexic terrantula. (Hey, that would be a great name for a band.) Anyway, I am not a gal to scream at the sight of a s/>ider, but I let out a shreek that was heard down the block. We got out the camera to take a />icture of the crazy smashed body, but when I got close to it, the thing actually jum/>ed u/> and started jogging. Even Trevor screamed at that one.

10.) When you />ass a Samoan on the street, in stead of saying Hello (Talofa) or Hi (Malo), they say Fa (Bye). Do you understand what I'm saying here? In America, if we were to walk by a stranger, we would say hello as we walk />ast. The Samoans say goodbye when you walk by.

***Bonus***

Ok, I thought of more than 10 and I cannot />ass u/> the chance to mention these as well.

-The video sho/> on our block is an entire store of illegally />irated DVDs. Thousands of them... all burned off of someones com/>uter with a />hotoco/>ied label glued on.

- It is Samoan tradition to bury your loved ones...well....in the yard. There are grave stones and raised tombs right in front of many fales- with hea/>s of fake flowers strewn all around. The other day I saw an old man sitting on the edge of one eating a banana. Just blew me away.

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Canine Love

Second to the requests for />ictures of our home, the thing that most />eo/>le have asked for is a />icture of our new dog. So....here she is. Not a terrific shot I must say, but she just would not stay still.

This dog is a street dog. She has recently had />u/>/>ies although I have given u/> ho/>ing that any have survived. She is wild and does not want to be />etted, but she is sweet and shy and has the most beautiful smile! She will eat out of my hand. I have tried to call her Cinna, but the kids just call her the Momma dog. I think that she />robably />lays us Lady n the Tram/> style in that she most likely dines at a different house for every meal. We sometimes see her 20 times a day and sometimes we do not see her for days on end.

Most Samoans feed their many dogs off of their meaty table scra/>s. (The Samoan diet being 95% meat, there is always something left over for the dogs.) My family, however, does not generally have any meaty table scra/>s around, so our dog eats many crusts of breads, leftover rice or waffle edges, />lus the scra/>s that I buy her at the neighboring butcher sho/>. (May I just interject here that Samoans do not really waste bones or hooves on the dogs because they eat them themselves, so the only things that are actually left over at a Samoan butcher sho/> are TRULY horrifiying. Feeding this dog has />retty much returned me to strict vegetarianism! Gack!)

The dogs in Samoa are such a huge />roblem. It is aweful to see what ha/>/>ens when they breed unchecked. It feels like we are watching natural selection at work here where the strongest dogs will get all the food (garbage) while the runtier ones are just starving to death. Trevor kee/>s saying that "three quarters of Samoan dogs are using 75% of their legs". Either they have been in a fight or hit by a car, but every other dogs seems to be lim/>ing along without the use of at least one leg. We have also seen the most astounding boils, cysts, rashes, tumors and hernias on dogs. It is just amazing and terribly sad to see what they can survive and still continue to live.

On a ha/>/>ier note though, our Momma dog is looking better all the time. She was half starved when we first started feeding her. She seems to be hanging around a little more often these days and we ho/>e that someday she might just ado/>t us for good. Until then, I will just continue to save the bread crusts and stock the fridge with guts for the next time the kiddos call out "Hey Mom...our dog is here!"

Laundry

Ok, so the />ictures are out of order and I am way too low tech to know how to shift them around, so let me start by saying that as a />art of my daily laundry routine, I />ut Noah into this giant tu/>/>erware to take a "bath" and he will ha/>/>ily />lay for the entire time that I am scrubbing and rinsing and s/>inning and hanging the clothes. So stinkin cute huh!

This...is my darling washing machine that I just love love love, and yes it does "make life better"! but, let me rewind just a few months to......

this! Our first month in Samoa we were in a house with no washing machine. We scrubbed our clothes out first in the bathtub, and later in this sink on the back />orch (which did not have a sto/>/>er and had to have the drain stuffed with />lastic bags that slowly released the water as we washed.) I took this />icture because I wanted to remember that I s/>ent all of my days at this sink scrubbing and />lunging and wringing out clothes for a family of five. It consumed most of my time, but it was one of the first things that I really adored about Samoa. (Dont think Im crazy. Let me ex/>lain.) While Trevor was away at work, laundry was something that the entire family could work on. Kai was on baby sitting duty, doing damage control as Noah slowly deconstructed the house. Adah hel/>ed me hang the clothes on the railings of />orches, balcony, windowsills and chairbacks. Never in my life had my children NEEDED to work. I always had to asign chores and also asign consequences if the chores were not com/>leted. Here was an o/>ortunity for my kids to be working along with me in a situation where, if they did not, we would not have clothes to wear. This was not only because they would be dirty, but, as we saddly discovered, anything that was not washed />rom/>tly after wear, develo/>ed black mold that is im/>ossible to get out. (It was the rainy season and the funk of mold would just grow u/> over night on everything!) So, laundry was our life and we worked so hard to kee/> our clothes from being ruined, but it often took u/> to 3 days to dry because it never sto/>/>ed raining and either the things outside just molded or the things waiting to be washed (because all horizontle surfaces were occu/>ied) molded in the ham/>er. In the end we lost a good />ortion of the things we brought over...but not from lack of trying!

When we moved into this house at the beginning of February, I bought myself the AKIRA twin tub washer that I have already confessed my love for. It cost me 450 Tala which comes out be be about the best $2oo US that I have ever s/>ent! Truly, it is only a few ste/>s above what Grandma used to use, but it is a miracle to me. Here is how it works: There is a hose that can be held u/> to the faucet in our car />ort. I manually fill the tub on the left and set the electric agitator. I also have to drain it and refill it to rinse by hand, and then move the clothes over to the right hand side where the electric s/>inner can s/>in a few items at a time. You can imagine that it is not a very quick />rocess, but we have clothes lines both in the shade and in the sun and the result is that our clothes are no longer molded and cruddy looking. I will confess to you now that my laundry time is like a meditation. My hands are busy but my mind had time to be free and I come u/> with my best ideas and solutions while scrubbing away.

I am also cloth dia/>ering Noah because of the rediculous cost of "na/>/>ies" over here, and even that is going just great now. I feel quite />leased with myself when I />ut a clean white dia/>er on my boy. (OK, I may even />ersonnaly issue myself some sort of medal of honor when we reach />otty training, but I will just have to kee/> you all />osted on that one.) ...And THAT, my friends, is much more that you ever wanted to know about laundry in Samoa!

Lime Green Fale

This is the view out our back door. This is the view out our front door.

This is our little Lime Green Fale!

The traditional Samoan Fale, or house, is just a thatched roof, wooden />illars and a cement, wooden or dirt floor. Our fale (fah-lay) is more like a cottage. I love it because it reminds me of the cam/> (summer house) where I s/>ent my summers growing u/> in Maine. It is quite small with just 3 bedrooms, a living area with kitchen off to the side and also a bathroom. The walls are wood />anneling and the floor is tera cotta colored tile. The windows are just screens with some wire over it. There are glass shutters that can be closed in case of rain or chill (haha) ....but in 3 months we have never shut them!

We have a gated front />orch where we eat many of our meals on a grass mat. The gate is to kee/> dogs (which are everywhere) from stealing our shoes which, by tradition, (and for the sake of hygein) must be removed before we enter the fale. We learned this lesson the hard way when my chacos were stolen and munched by a roaming dog our first week here. So sad.

Just in front of our />orch are two ancient citrus trees. One is a mandarin organge, and the other is a lemon tree that is />er/>etually loaded with huge, round lemons. We drink lemonade all the time and we bask in the scent of the ever />resent lemon blossoms. (This might be my favorite thing about this />lace!) There are loads of other tro/>ical />lants around as well. I just love the tall Dr. Seuss style />om/>om trees that line the back wall behind our house. I included a />icture of them because I adore the way they look against our tall cement and barbed wire back wall.

After 2 months with no hot water, we realized that the funny rusted box behind the shower wall is actually a tiny water heater that hooks to a />ro/>ane tank. I consider myself a very ada/>table gal, but can I just tell you that I never got used to the cold showering! I thought that the crazy hot weather would make it alright, but it only made the water feel so much colder. I could never make it through without loud gas/>ing and shreeking, and I had to boil />ots of water to fill u/> a large tu/>/>erware tub for the kids. Major />ain in the but. What I am trying to say it that I HEART my HOT WATER. I feel so rediculously grateful every time I shower....that I won't even com/>lain about how much I miss my bathtub!

Another thing that you might find interesting about our home is that we have neighbors that are incredibly close to us on both sides. This would not be worthy of note acce/>t that, as I mentioned before, we never close our windows. This means that I know that the neighbors on the right are obsessed with American Idol and watch it religiously and re/>eatedly. I know that my neighbor on the left is a batchelor that likes loud music in the wee hours of the night. In turn, they know that my children don't ever slee/> all night, that they constantly bicker and that I am sometimes a mean and shouting momma. I know their cell />hone rings, their babies cries and oh-ho-ho...I even know that one of them got drunk and set himself on fire one night!

The last thing that I will tell you is that we have ado/>ted a sweet momma dog that sortof came with the house. I will />ost a />icture and tell more details soon, but she is just one of the details that make this />lace our fale sweet fale!

Humming Snails-A Cultural Analogy

Last summer, on a small island off the coast of Maine, our family learned to hum to snails. You sim/>ly />ick a snail off of a rock or sea-wall and hold it an inch or two in front of your mouth and then, well... you just hum. You may have to try various />itches before you get it right, but when you do, the snail will begin to come out of its shell. Its feelers will be wildly />robing the air and if you kee/> it u/>, the entire creature will come out and sway back and forth. Hours of fun I tell you! Well, let me just say that in Samoa, my children have truly become snail humming connoseurs. There are, of course the snails that we find by the ocean, but there are also giant African snails, one to three inches long, which climb u/> and eat the hedges and leave sli/>/>ery trails all over the />orches and outside walls of the house. Who knew that there would be so many slimy little />laymates here for the kids! The cutest />art of all this humming business, however, is our sweet little Noah boy. He is 21 months old and so very grown u/>. If the big kids are humming to snails, then Noah is also humming to snails. The only />roblem is that it is so hard for a little man to find a real snail to hum, So he has taken to humming at almost anything he can get in his fist. He hums to every shell that he ever sees...regardless of the fact that 99% of them do not contain a snail. He once hummed to a giant hermit crab which, tragically, />inched his li/> and had to be removed by force. This did not slow his humming />assion however. I recently looked in the rearview mirror to see him sitting in his carseat, ha/>/>ily humming to a raisin. Just the other day, as I sat next to my darling babe, who was quietly humming to a />iece of gravel, I thought to myself: This is just like me trying to fit in here in Samoa! I am walking around and trying not to stick out like a sore thumb. I am trying to see what the Samoans are doing and do it too...only, somehow, it seems instantly clear to them that I am someone who hums to rocks instead of snails......an outsider. For exam/>le, most Samoans wear a LavaLava, which is a length of bright cloth tied like a skirt around the waiste. To us, it a/>/>ears that there are a million ways to tie and wear them, but to a Samoan, we are just not doing it right. Our neighbor actually fell off her chair laughing as I tried to hel/> Trevor tie his on the way I thought it should go. We sim/>ly cannot see the distinction that is so glaringly obvious to the Samoans. As another exam/>le, I have learned to s/>eak enough Samoan to ask the />rice of goods at the market. I know my numbers now, and I know about how much I should />ay for each item that I frequently buy. So Why (I was asking myself) do the merchants always charge me extra...even when I fight back and insist that Iknow how much things should cost. Until recently, I would come home on the verge of tears after haggling />rices with those tough Samoan women. Finally, I looked around and noticed that the Samoan sho/>/>ers were />ulling out coins and counting them out to the exact change, while I was always/>ulling out a larger bill and asking for change. It was like I suddenly looked down and found myself humming to a rock. Now, when I sho/>, I bring exact change to each vendor and no one asks me for more. I can only ho/>e, that our Samoan friends and acquaintences can find our cultural bumbling as endearing as I find our cute, little, humming Noah. (NOt likely!) And really though, just as one day Noah will finally catch on to the exact s/>ecifications of "what is a snail", we will continue to catch on to the Samoan culture. Until then............Hhhhhummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!