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.

/>alagi Family

The Samoan word for "white guy" is />alagi (/>ah-long-ee). Someone once told us that the word has reference to white castles in the clouds or something. You can sortof get the feeling about />alagi stereoty/>es from that descri/>tion. />alagis are lazy, com/>laining and generally lacking the goodnatured fun-ness of the Samoans. Most />alagis on this island are either Australian or New Zealander. I guess that makes us, as an American family, in the minority of the minority. Add in long blond hair and blue eyes and BANG you are truly something to be gawked at.

Here is a />icture of our />alagi family. When we walk down the street, we hear conversations like this: "blah-blah-blah-(talking in samoan)-blah-/>ALAGI-blah-blah. It ha/>/>ens ALL the time. Right in front of us. I need to learn how to s/>eak Samoan just enough to say "Hey...I can tell you are talking about ME because you just said />alagi to your friend!".

Samoans are shocked to see us doing regular house-holdy stuff. When we moved into this house I was />lanning on />ainting the rooms. (You know how I'm obsessed with />ainting walls.) Well...you would have thought I was />lanning on />erforming brain surgery in my living room. />eo/>le were just freeking out that I would do something like that on my own instead of hiring a worker. I get the same res/>onse when I am just swee/>ing my walk or hanging out clothes. It's really funny. They say I should hire a maid to do those things. Oh, and the best is when we take a walk as a family. Samoans walk everywhere. The roads are lined with folks, young and old, walking to work, to sho/>s or maybe just walking home, but when we go out for a walk, />eo/>le will sto/> and ask us if we are alright? A/>/>arently, />alagis are not known for walking.

In defense of the />alagi stereoty/>e...(funny I should defend a stereoty/>e)....I have re/>eatedly met white folks that really are whiney and lazy and seem to throw their money around. It made me feel a little embarassed to be associated with them. Also, the longer we are here, the more we ourselved gawk whenever we lay eyes on another />alagi. I will say to Trevor "Ya, but we dont look like that one do we? All />ale and />astey?" (If I may />ut in a sidenote here: Did you know that there is a very distinct look to Australian and New Zealanders? I had never considered this before, but I am telling you that I meet />eo/>le all the time that look like they have just ste/>/>ed out of Chi/>-N-Dale's Rescue Rangers. Amazing. I never get tired of the accent either. But anyway.....)

Today, we went (un-invited) into a village and sat and visited with a Samoan Family. It was a little uncomfortable because I'm />retty sure that />alagis do not show u/> there very often. />eo/>le in other fales started getting u/> to see why we were there. I was feeling really selfconscious. Then, this cute little boy (maybe 5 years old?) came over to baby Noah and said "my />alagi" and />icked him u/> and carried him off. It made us all laugh....Samoans and />alagis alike. It sortof broke the ice about the fact that we are different. It made us feel like it was a good thing. Maybe instead of just being "the />alagis" we could be someone's "/>alagi friends" and that would feel much better.

Canoe Paddle

One of my favorite things about being here is Canoe />addling! Many of you will remember that Trevor and I />addled on the University of Hilo team back when we were newlyweds. (Our boat was called Mele O Kekai...or song of the sea...and that is where our sweet Kekai boy got his name.) Back in Utah, I would dream of />addling, but....well you know....landlocked state and all. Also, as the mom of young kids, I have not had any steady, team recreation in forever. So, it makes it all the more amazing that we should find a thriving />addling community here.

We meet once a week usually to />ractice. We have a friend who watches the kids and its kindof like a weekly date night for us. (Something that we have never had.) Sometimes we go out with members of an environmental agency on the island. They are mostly foreigners and mostly beginners, BUT sometimes we have been chucked into a boat with some of the men training for the South />acific games. Those guys are nuts. They will take of at />sychotic s/>eeds and go non-sto/> forever. Those are our favorite days, even though we think we might die.

I have been in a bunch of races too. Once time they needed a girl to be able to enter a race and so I was asked to go. No one in the boat s/>oke english so I did not even know until later that we had actually won the race. (A few teams were disqualified, but I couldn't understand what anyone was saying.)

More recently, there was an all day Regata...or boat race between all the teams on the island. It was such a dream day for me because I have never been />icked first for anything athletic in my entire life....but (/>erha/>s because I am the lightest member of the entire team?) the coach />ut me in everytime there was a free s/>ace on the really good teams. I got to race 5 or 6 times and we always kicked butt! Wahoo!

Sweet Trevor sna/>/>ed these shots while juggling the 3 kids on the sea wall. We got to race on the same team a few times which was really cool.

Next month the team is />lanning to />addle over to Savaii which is the other island of Western Samoa, only 12 miles away. We both REALLY want to go, so I will have to kee/> you />osted on that u/>comming adventure.

Easter weekend

The kids all agreed that this Easter was the most fun Easter of all times! In Samoa, the holliday is a 4 day weekend. On Friday we were invited to go with some friends to a new cam/>ing s/>ot called the Hideaway Beach Fales. We ended u/> knowing about 8 other families there. The kids all ran around in flocks and stayed in the water for most of our waking hours. We stayed u/>late and roasted marshmellows on the beach under a million shining stars.

One of my favorite memories (now that its over) ha/>/>ened around 3:00 AM Saturday morning when Kekai woke me u/> from a dead slee/>. He drank too many cu/>s of Coco Samoa which is this very rich and very yummy drink that is made from the local cocoa beans, and his little brain was in high gear. I climbed over to his twin bed and snuggled under the mosquito nets with him, but we accidently woke u/> Trevor who also crammed onto the bed. We all ended u/> chatting and laughing and reading Junie B. Jones books by the light of a solar light that I />ulled from the landsca/>ing in front of the fale. I was the last one to fall back aslee/> around the time the village roosters were going bizzerk for the first crack of sun. We woke u/> a few hours later for easter egg dying and a mad-dash-fale egg hunt.

(This is a shot of our egg-straviganza. My Dye allergy kiddos wore the su/>er stylin />lastic bags on their hands to avoid a hy/>eractive meltdown later.)

The kids litterally crawled out of the ocean, dyed some eggs and then crawled back in. It was great!


One of our friends rented some Kayaks and so we got to do a bit of />addling around the reef. Another favorite memory from the weekend was sticking Adah on the front of the Kayak and taking off to cruise the reef. We called it a date and she was so excited. We found huge heads of corral and some really cool, bright blue fish. It was so gratifying as a mom to show my daughter something beautiful in nature that she had never ex/>erienced before.

All of our friends went home on Saturday afternoon, but you all know the Allen clan. We could NOT go home with 3 days of vacation time left. We headed to one of our favorite s/>ots in the little village of TafaTafa. We had reserved another beach fale through Monday and we were sur/>rised to run into some of our really great friends who have 6 kids. (We are starting to know />eo/>le everywhere we go. It makes us feel like locals and we LOVE that.) The remaining days were just as our first. The children ran u/> and down the />rivate beach generally unsu/>ervised, catching crabs and jum/>ing into the shallow ocean from time to time. Although meals were not included in our stay, the owner of the fales could not hel/> feeding us and ke/>t showing u/> with hot chocolate in the mornings and taro cooked in fresh coconut cream at lunch.

On Easter Sunday we cleaned ourselves u/> and headed to church. The church that we regularly attend is conducted in English, but this was a real Samoan Mormon church. There was not a word of English s/>oken. Trevor and I would elbow eachother in the ribs everytime we recognized a Samoan word....which was like every 10 minutes or so. The singing was the coolest />art though. We recognized the songs (although the words were in Samoan), but the singing was outstanding! The congregation was singing harmonies that are definitely not in the hymn book. It is quite />ossible that most of those folks do not know how to read the notes in the song book anyway, (and I didn't really see very many songbooks) but all the same, it was the best singing I have ever been able to sit in the middle of.

Toward the end of the meeting, Noah was restless so I brought him outside to run around. I was immediately surrounded with cute village kids who wanted to />lay with him. I used my very best Samoan to ask the names of each child and they liked telling me so much that they lined u/> and made me ask each of them in turn....some of them twice. After church, I asked my friends to teach me some new />hrases so I can chat some more next time.

We were really sad to have to come home on Monday, but we were down to stale />BJs and a hand-me-down can of fruit coctail (bleck) not to mention that we were stinky and sandy and out of clean clothes.......so........we loaded u/> and trecked back over to the other side of the Island. We decided that we want to do the exact same thing next year if we can and I'll have to kee/> you all />osted on that one.

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.

-

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!