Retrospective 1: Scene from the Plane

Day 11: A Good Day in HNL; On My Way Home

Well, unless I come up with some retrospective to post in the next couple of days, this will be the last thing I put up. Waikiki was amazing today--warm weather, bright sun, cool water, warm sand, all good. Spent a big chunk of the day recovering from the near-sleepless night on Hawaiian Air #277. Overall, it was a beautiful end to a beautiful journey.

Day 10: Heading Back to Honolulu

Well, the end to a great trip has come. We're heading out to Honolulu tonight, and I'll be back in Houston by noon on Tuesday. Good times.

Overnight flight from Pago Pago to Honolulu. I barely slept an hour on that flight. Got another overnighter tonight, from HNL to IAH. Def going to be tired when I arrive at school Tuesday morning.

Day 9: Scenes from Snorkeling and Hanging Out at Tisa's Beach

Perfect day at the beach. We started out thinking that I would see lots of new sights around the island. Soon, however, we all realized that we were pretty worn out and ready to just chill. So we made one stop, back at Tisa's (where we had a umu feast earlier in the week), and it was all we needed. The sand was soft, the sun was warm, the sea was full of life and beauty. (No kidding, we must have seen more than 100 species of fish while snorkeling the reef.) An absolutely perfect postlude to our week on the island.

We'll head back for the mainland tomorrow night. It's been an incredible trip, but I miss the kid and the wife quite a lot after 10 days away, so I'll be ready to head back when it's time.

Day 9: Last Full Day, At Tisa's Beach

Day 8: Birthday Singing in Samoan

Day 8: Tupa'i: Manuia lou aso fanau!

The Chief's 60th birthday party was a good time. A long time (4 hours), but a good time. Met some very interesting people, like Pete, who is the Acting Director of the Dept. of Agriculture on the island (and who, in the '90's, almost singlehandedly saved the Island staple Taro from a deadly bacteria), his wife Dona who is a Deputy Director in the Dept. of Education. Then, there was Lawrence and Jane French. Larence is well into his 70's now, but has led a very interesting life (30+ years of which they have lived in Samoa). A standout story about Lawrence is when he and his 2 sons took a small sailboat on the open Pacific from the Hawaiian Islands to the Samoan Islands (about 2400 miles). Leasi's wife hosted the party. She is a director at the local community college. The entire guest list read like this, and I heard many interesting voices and heard great stories. Happy Birthday, Chief.

Day 8: Painter Wears a Skirt

According to my son, who asked my wife this week, "When is Daddy going to wear a skirt?", I wore a "skirt" to the Chief's birthday party on Friday night. It's actually called a lava lava, and truthfully it was pretty comfortable. Shorts underneath are recommended.

Fa'a Painter: Deconstruction is What I Do

Day 8: HIgh School Visits: Pix from Samoana H. S.

Somaona students head to lunch.







An English III class plays charade/pictionary Jeopardy with SAT vocab words.









Art students have decorated some of the outside walls with their mascot (the sharks) and a mural featuring traditional Samoan symbols and figures.

Day 8: High School Visits: Tafuna and Samoana

(The bell at Tafuna High School--made of a used WWII-era shell casing--hangs in the school courtyard.)

I had the good fortune of visiting two American Samoa high schools today. Because of some arrangements made by the Chief's wife, I was able to participate in four English classes and two music classes. It was all very interesting. The students seemed to be thrilled by our presence, not like it would have been had I visited a large high school in the States. They each would try to catch my eye at some point during the class time, loved it when I played vocabulary charades with the Samoana students and when I gave a little thank-you speech to the Tafuna choir, each wanted to shake our hands before they left class. The teachers were all good, every one with her/his own style, each one working with clear objectives and enjoying mutual respect with their students.

I especially connected with Carmel (pictured below), who was teaching her students to use "Carmel" notes and had an interesting "talking stick" system with kids for participation grades. Nanikim was a 2nd-year teacher, who was obviously dedicated to her kids and working hard to help them connect with the material. She also came across a bit overwhelmed by the task, and she asked and asked for any strategies the we might have to help her. Another class (teacher's name is not here remembered; sorry) played 50 minutes of charade/pictionary jeopardy to learn the essence of SAT words. I got in on that and successfully acted out the word "fabricate."

There is a teacher shortage here on the island, not surprising, considering the starting salary here of about $8k/year. Classes are about the size of our classes back at HHS, but behavior management in the classroom is an almost nonexistent problem. A tightly woven community makes it nearly impossible for a student to keep bad behavior at school secret from his family or village. If a family does not succeed in correcting the behavior over a period of time, the village elders can exact fines of money or service from the family, or worse. The threat of this shame and the potential severity of punishment seems to reinforce for most students the importance of behaving respectfully and honorably.

Here are some pix from the day.


Tafuna's school-wide learning goals are posted in multiple places in the school and in every classroom. They seemed pretty good to me.









Carmel teaches advanced and mainstream English II. She was a creative teacher with great student rapport. I especially liked her "talking stick" idea for assessing student participation. Seriously, the kids seemed to love her. Incidentally, Carmel is heading to Texas next week to see her husband deployed from Ft. Hood for his 2nd tour in Iraq.


Carmel's class. All the students wanted to shake my hand. Kind of made me laugh!

Day 7: Just Snorkeled

Day 7: Island Sightseeing and Snorkeling, Pix

Day 7: Island Sightseeing and Snorkeling

Day 6: Tisa's Barefoot Bar

The chief and his wife went all out to treat me tonight. After a long day of travel back from Samoa to American Samoa, we showered and headed out to the east end of the island to Tisa's Barefoot Bar. It's a great spot, right on the beach, with an eclectic mix of tables, decks, sand, drinks, and setting the stage for an occasional umu (oven) feast. Everything--meats, starches, spices, bananas, etc.--is cooked on hot rocks in the ground, covered with banana leaves. We ate with our hands and cleaned up later. Good times.

Painter & Tisa
The Candy Man
Tisa sets the table
The bar

"All"

I am
crammed in
among a people.

One
in a place
of difference and variety.

Not my own
but neither another,
My own and yet other.

Who is this that we are?
Who is this that are they?
Not we or they,
but all.

Obese and waif,
Towering and diminution,
Old and child,
Human and power
ascend or descend into
All.

Who am I
to define
a people?

"To be named..."

I am riding the waves aboard the Lady Samoa. Early on in the voyage, I dazzled some local children sitting around me with American cartoons, playing some “Bugs Bunny” on my notebook. The battery eventually went out, and they all quickly fell into a disappointed snooze. A little girl, Algonia (sp?), and two little boys who refused to tell me their names, were quite enamored with this giant Palagi in a crazy orange shirt. Now the lights are out for the Samoan kiddos; they know that the best way to make this ride quick is to sleep it off.

It’s a strange thing, refusing to be named. These boys, at peace in their rest by my side, never allowed me to name them. I don’t know if the language barrier prevented their understanding of my question. I don’t know if they were scared of me. I don’t know if they were playing we, little Samoan teases. But I do know one thing I will likely never know: their names. In our short-lived friendship, and forever in my memory, these children hold almost all of the power over me. They have something that I can never acquire, something to which I have no right. And, therefore, I will never name them, never “know” them, hold them, represent them, control them.

To be named, I have quickly learned, is not on par with being known. A name is many things, but it is not a person’s essence. A name is a marker, a category, a representation, a definition, even a re-creation. If I forget your name, I may still know you. But, if I never know you, then your name will be no use to me, except if I will to exert power over you. To forget a name is forgivable. But, to reconstruct a person through naming, to artificially represent one to my own liking or to my own benefit is worth fighting over. If I do that, then please put up a big fight.

Slow down on giving out your name, your title, your label. Open up and share the person you really are. Wait as long as you can to be named. Earn your name; let me earn the right to know your name. I must delay the label, the title, the superficial text, so that I may earn by my simply being me, the right to be named.

What do I know about these kids to my left and my right? I know very little. I know they are content to sit with me, to laugh at my cartoons, to wonder at my skin and my frame. I do not know who they are. I do not know what all they like, what all they dislike. I do not know what frightens them or delights them. I do now know what are their hopes or what are their inhibitions. I do now know their family. I do not know where they are going or where they have been. I do not know their names.

Day 6: New Friends, Video 3

Day 6: New Friends, Video 2

Day 6: New Friends

After the chief headed off to bed last night, I took the liberty of walking back across the street to see what interesting folk I might run into at the resort bar. Turns out, I ran into some quite interesting people indeed: Jacqui Blanchard, a photographer from Auckland, NZ, and John Ioane, a former high school art teacher and now professional artist from the same place. They were warm and interesting people, and we connected well, especially when John said of Americans, "You guys give us a lot to deconstruct." Well, of course I took that bait, and I was fascinated in his work, in using multimedia to deconstruct, specifically, the "exoticization" or the ideal of islanders. We deconstructed and dreamed of deconstructing into the night, and picked up again with new intensity the following morning over coffee. They hitched a ride with us back to the warf, and I was able to pick up three quick videos of John about being Samoan and representing the islands of Pacifica through his art. Here are the clips.

Day 5: A Better Room

It was a great day, being shown around the island by Leasi. We hiked the jungle, lunched at the beach, and I relaxed with some quality time at our new beachfront village, thanks--I would like to think--to my turning on the Painter charm with the lady at the office. Now we have complimentary towels & soap, coffee & coffee pot, and A/C! Here are a couple of pix, including a picture from dinner this evening with Leasi.

Day 5: The Jungle

Leasi shows us around the jungle.
Now, Painter is HIKING the jungle. Miracles...
Tide was out, cool scene with the boat rocking back and forth on the rocks.

Day 5: Family Meeting in Sasina

Leasi & Tupa'i

Leasi, Tupa'i, Tupua'i, other Mata'i and family

My father-in-law, affectionately referred to in this blog as "the chief" is actually a matai, counselor to the paramount chief in the village, and a chief in his own right. A couple of years ago, the matai council in Sasina bestowed the title of "Tupa'i" on him, which means "mighty warrior." Because of some of the work he has done with the town in advising them on some economic development projects, esepecially a 400-room resort in their share of the jungle, and his close friendship with Leasi, the paramount chief, they gave him this title to honor him for looking out for the interests of the town, literally protecting the village in these times of change and new kids of encounters with the industrial world. Here are some pix from our family meeting, on our first full day in the village.No'osa shows me the family church, next door to Leasi's home.

The "old man", the old Leasi died last week. Until his burial (this Saturday), all work has stopped in the village except preparations for his funeral. Here, a woman prepares a 30' fine mat to present to his family.

Nu'usa shows me the family church.

Day 5: Talking Chief Welcomes Us to the Family Meeting

Day 4 Concludes: Stevenson's Beach "Resort"

Okay, so there are a few people reading this who know that I love to travel, and I love to stay in really great hotels/resorts more than I like camping. Because of my wife's influence in my life over the last 14 years, I like beaches and blue water very much. I like snorkeling, swimming, volleyball (surprised?), reading books, listening to the i-pod, and all the other "beach stuff" that most people like to do. So, when we arrived at Stevenson's (for Robert Louis Stevenson, who spent most of his life and writing career on the islands of Samoa) Beach Resort, I was ready to kick it back.


Well, we had some well-laid plans that all got messed up during day 4. It began when we found out that the rental car company with our reservation was 20 miles from the airport, so we had to seek out new rental services. Then, an unexpected holiday, causing full ferries back from Savai'i on Tuesday, forced us to stay on that island for 2 days instead of 1. This screwed up plans for a resort stay in Apia on Tuesday night, and made a highly-anticipated trip to the market on Wednesday morning nearly impossible. Third, after travelling for a full day to arrive in Sasina, our "resort" had lost our reservation. No beachfront villas were available (which provided complimentary towels, soap, coffee maker, etc). Instead, we would be staying in the cheaper rooms. Towels would be an additional $5 (tala, not dollar); no soap would be provided; tiny outdoor showers were available for our comfort; dry rotted floors, creaky doors, and screened-in wall would be no extra charge.

Air Conditioning, Delux Accomodations

Update: to top it all off, a cat ate the chief’s fish right of his plate tonight in the restaurant. After the waitress performed a minor inquisition to find out why no one was watching the food (of course, it wasn’t THEIR fault that cats roam the place freely), she agreed to provide a replacement meal. Total comedy of errors.

I also met Leasi tonight for the first time..