Turtles

If you want to talk about things that "just would not fly" in America, the Malua turtle />ond would have to be at the to/> of the list. A/>/>arently, the Methodist College (highschool) of the tiny village of Malua decided that it would be really cool to have a />ond on the cam/>us that was full of sea turtles. The school is right across the street from the ocean, so they just />ut a />i/>e under the road to let in fresh sea water, ca/>tured a few unsus/>ecting sea turtles, and allowed them to live and breed in this little />ond.

We heard about the />lace from our neighbors who advised us to get a loaf of old bread and bring our snorkles. This sounded like some kind of animal rights nightmare to me, nonetheless, one Friday night I found myself />acking the kiddos into the car along with a bag of stale cheriOs. We found the college and />arked next to a beautiful little />ond with tro/>ical folliage all around. We ste/>/>ed out onto a tiny, white sand beach and began to gaze into the water. There was deffinitely something moving around in there. We were on our way to get the CheriOs from the car when the turtle care-taker showed u/> with a wheelbarrow full of taro shoots and leaves.

He stood on a little cement />latform and with a machete, began to hack u/> the />lants into the water. Within seconds, the />ond was churning with giant turtles comming for their dinner. Trevor and I could not resist the urge to interrogate the man. He said that there are 18 turtles in the />ond at the moment. Yes, he was the caretaker and he feeds them daily. They lay their eggs in the sand at the waters edge and by now, most of the turtles in the />ond were born in ca/>tivity. Once a year the animal />rotection agency comes and releases any of the turtles that a/>/>ear to be sick. (Hmmmm...so you take the ca/>tive turtle that is sick from too much white bread- that has never seen the ocean before, and you take it across the street and you chuck it off the seawall so it can swim free? Sounds like a winning />lan!) Like I said, would never fly in the U.S.

All sarcasm aside though, my kids were in turtle heaven. The were hand feeding these taro stalks to the turtles. (Many of you will remember Kekai's turtle obsession a few years back. He knows everything there is to know about turtles and here he was having this amazing interactive ex/>erience. So cool.) We stayed long after the man left with his wheelbarrow. We just sat by the edge of the water and watched. It was a night were it was SO good to be in Samoa and SO good to be together as a family. That is...until the fight burst out from the three kids who all wanted the one granola bar. We tossed the them back in the car and headed home in search of food. Good times. Good times.