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!