Tattoo festival

A man getting a tattoo tapped into his chest

Tattoos or "tatau" have been an important part of Samoan culture for thousands of years. The art declined in the 18th century with the arrival of missionaries, but is still a common and important practice. The tradition tattoo for men starts at the waist and continues to knees, while the traditional tattoo for women is smaller and covers most of the thighs. The traditional method is performed by tapping the ink into the skin. The artists uses a special tool made of a wooden handle with a sharp animal tooth connected to the other end. This is dipped in ink and then rapidly tapped with another stick as it is moved along the skin in the desired line to imbed the ink (I took a video of the proccess but the internet is too slow to upload it). The skin must be held taught and blood and ink must be constantly wiped away from the tattooed area. From what I've heard and observed, it is an extremely painful and long process. Large tattoos, like the traditional ones, must be completed in multiply sessions, and each session may last for hours.



The tapping tools



The tools and techniques have not changed very much over thousands of years, although it is now an option to get tattooed with an electric gun rather than the traditional, and more painful tapping method. It is easier to create smaller details, as well as curved lines with the gun than with tapping.

 

Traditional women's tattoos


The tattoo festival in American Samoa takes place every October and was started by the owners of Tisa's Barefoot Bar. The festival starts on a Friday night and continues until Sunday aftertnoon. People who have gotten tattoos show them off and there are contests with a variety of categories for all the artists involved in the festival. Anyone can come and get a tattoo as long as they put their name on the waiting list. There are artists who do the tapped tattoos, as well as ones who use a gun.

Wilson, one of the tapping artists there creates very unique and personal tattoos. He likes to get the know the person he will be tattooing and then design something that fits with that person's character and personality. You can tell him where you want it and the approximate size, but after that you just have to faith that he'll create something you'll like.

Kasey getting her tattoo

After being at the festival for about half an hour and watching a lot of people show off their tattoos and get tattoos, Kasey decided she should put her name on the waiting list for a tattoo! "I can always decide not to do it later," she said. But 20 min later, armed with her Vailima, she was getting the outline of her tattoo drawn on with a sharpie. She chose the gun rather than the tapping method but from the look on her face it seemed like it was pretty painful still.

The final product

Her's turned out pretty cool, so then I decide I should get one too--a sleeve covering my left arm. Haha just kidding!! (Don't freak out mom and dad! No ink for me!) I'm not ready for something so permanent, not to mention painful. But they are really interesting to look at on other people.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Even though parent teacher conferences happened a long time ago, I haven’t been able to write about it mostly because of computer and internet problems. But better late than never.

Parent teacher conferences happened the day after our attempted palolo hunting. We got back at about 3 or 3:30 am and I had to get up for school about 3 hours later. Those of you who know me, know that I do not do well on less than 9 hours of sleep. So that morning I was even more Crabby Abby than usual, and I basically had no idea what to expect at school that day.

What happens is that the kids get their grade sheets in their first periods and then they go to all their classes and the teachers fill out grades and comments for each student every period. This was stressful for a number of reasons. The kids didn’t have a lesson so a lot of them were just roaming around the classroom looking for trouble. Meanwhile, I was hurriedly trying to fill out all the grade sheets before the bell rang for the next period because all the periods had been shortened. This was especially bad in the classes I had 25 or 26 kids.

During the process, I also noticed that previous teachers would write “fail” instead of simply “F” or write “minus” instead of a simple “-“. I was slightly curious about this, but in my frazzled and hurried state, I didn’t give it much thought. Well, I learned later (after I had filled out all my grade sheets) that teachers do this so that kids can’t turn an “F” into a “B” or a “-“ into a “+”. Interesting. Oh well, too late now.

The grade sheets also asked for the number of absences from each student. At the beginning of the day I started filling this out, but after several arguments with students about how many days they had missed (stupid because neither side had any hard evidence) and noticing that a lot of teachers just left these spots blank, I stopped filling it out. At least next time progress reports come around, I will be prepared.

Since the periods were shortened, all the kids went home after lunch. The teachers had to wait around until 3 pm for the conferences to start. Too tired and hot, to do anything. I put 3 desks side by side and took a nap under Quinn’s most powerful fan. It was not very refreshing.

Me at PTC

The conference took place in the gym. The first time I saw the gym I thought it was weird that it didn’t have walls. It’s just a big cement floor with a roof over it. But I guess this makes sense when the worst weather you have to deal with is rain and the temperature doesn’t get below 76 degrees. (80 degrees or below is cold and everyone puts on sweatshirts. For me, this is the only time I stop sweating.) If the gym had walls it would probably be more of a large sauna. Anyway, there were long tables and chairs set up in the gym starting at 3pm. Parents were supposed to come between 3 and 5pm, pick up their child’s report at the main table, and then make their way to each teacher, who were sitting by grouped by subject.

Most of the parents that came to talk to me were the parents of the students who were doing well in my class. I think I only saw one parent whose child had below a B. This is probably a universal trend for parent teacher conferences. The biggest concern of most parents was whether their child was behaving in class and being respectful. Respecting parents, teachers, and older people in general is a very important part of Samoan culture. None of the parents asked me about the content or curriculum of what I was teaching. Most conversations were very short and went along the lines of “Hi, nice to meet you. Your son is doing very well. He’s one of my best students. He’s very respectful.” But one mother decided she needed to tell me the entire life story of her daughter. So I just listened and nodded and smiled a lot.

I only saw about 20 parents out of my 110 students. Talking to other teachers, this is a pretty typical turnout, even on the high side. After talking to my students the next day I found out that a few parents had come to the conference but had not come to talk to me while they were there. As I was not especially busy (only 20 parents in 2 hours), nor especially hard to identify (I am one of 3 white, female teachers), I suspect they may not have approached me because they felt uncomfortable or unable to speak to me in English. There’s nothing really I can do about this, but I’m glad they at least came to talk to the other Samoan teachers.

After being here for over 4 months, it’s become apparent that most parents are not very involved in their children’s education. There is a lot of pressure from parents to get good grades but beyond that I don’t think there’s much communication about school. Students are told to pay attention to the teacher and do their work. I think this may be because most parents don’t really know where to start to help their child because they were a victim of the poor education system themselves. It’s a struggle sometimes to be one teacher fighting to impact the education of so many students. Changes definitely happen slowly.

Western Samoa

About a month ago during a 3-day weekend I traveled to Western Samoa with a few other World Teachers. Western Samoa is made up of two islands, Upolu and Savi’i (one of the biggest islands in Polynesia), which lie just to the west of the main island of American Samoa, Tutuila. Tutuila is actually closer to Western Samoa than to Manu’a, the outer islands of American Samoa. Western Samoa is officially the Independent State of Samoa, but everyone in American Samoa refers to it as Western Samoa or just Western. While America Samoa is more supported and influenced by the United States, Western Samoa is more influenced by New Zealand and Australia which has created differences in their cultures.

The tiny little plane we flew on.

We left for Apia, the main city located on Upolu, on Friday right after school. The airport here is so small and laid back that you could probably show up 10 minutes before your flight and still be ok. In fact, you could probably show up 10 minutes late. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4:40 but we didn’t board until a little after 5. After checking our bags (the plane is so small that you have to check everything except what you can literally fit between your feet), we sat in the waiting area. I was expecting to have to go through some kind of security or something but we didn’t and I could even take my water bottle with me. The security guard came and sat with us and it turned out he was the son of someone that one of the other teacher’s I was with knew. When it was finally time to board we said goodbye to our new friend the security guard and walked outside and boarded the tiny plane. The plane is so small that when you check in they weigh you with your carryon luggage to determine where you should sit so the weight of the plane is balanced. My seat was in the very front, right behind the copilot, but I made the rookie mistake of boarding the plane almost last so I had to squeeze through a row of Samoans up to the front.

The cockpit of the plane was open and since I was sitting right behind the copilot I could see everything the pilot and copilot were doing and see out the front window. I discreetly tried to take pictures of the pilot while he was flying, but I’m sure I looked like a dumb tourist to the rest of the passengers. The plane ride got a little bumpy at times since the plane was so small but it was only about a 30 minute flight so it wasn’t that bad.

When we arrived in Apia we had to go through customs since we were technically entering a different country, but basically all they did was glance at and then stamp our passports. We were then on the search for the hostel we had booked for the night. Thanks to Lauren, who had the foresight to bring along a travel guide book with maps, we thought we could just walk from the airport. It turns out there are two hostels with the same name and we walked to the wrong one. But it was ok because they were owned by the same people and they just let us pile into their van and drove us the rest of the way.

We checked in to our very basic and very cheap accommodations for the night. Quinn and I got upgraded to a room with a bathroom and shower (woohoo!). But the shower turned out to be a small trickle of water coming from metal tube above my head. You get what you pay for. Anyway, we were very excited to eat at the Indian restaurant up the street that had been highly recommended to us. The food was excellent. For us, any variation from the norm of pasta, tuna, sandwiches, and cereal is cause for a celebration.

The next day we explored Apia and the giant crowded market. We had come on White Sunday weekend which is the busiest time of year in Apia. But even on a normal day Apia is a much busier place than we had experienced in the past 3 months. It was pretty overwhelming. White Sunday is kind of like Mother’s and Father’s day only for kids. And they wear white. I asked some students why they wear white and they said they didn’t know. This is a typical response when I asked them questions about anything, or else they just make something up. The market in Apia is huge compared to the market in Pago Pago. They sell all sorts of food items as well as jewelry (a lot of it made from coconut shells) and clothing.

We had a lunch of fish and chips at the market because it had been recommended by some friends. A little Samoan boy from the table next to us became very interested in the oasis of white people that had just sat down next to him. He kept wandering over and sticking out his chubby little finger and saying “Palagi” and then we would smile and laugh. Eventually he decided it would be a good idea to pull up chair and join us so he dragged over his plastic chair from his table and situated it between me and Lauren. I gave him a few of my French fries. When he wanted some more he would hit my arm and say “Palagi” so that’s how it went until my fries were gone. I tried out some Samoan phrases on him but he would just stare blankly with his big eyes and munch on his fries. He was sad when we had to leave.

After lunch we headed to the big bus station to catch a bus to our next destination: Lalumanu, over on the east side of Upolu. It turns out that the bus was full and by talking to the locals we discovered that we had the option of waiting for the next one which would come in 2-3 hours (maybe…) or taking a taxi. Since there were 4 of us, we opted for the taxi. It was about a 1.5 hour ride on roads winding through the undeveloped, lush, tropical land of Upolu. Upolu is a lot larger than Tutuila and it was very noticeable how much more undeveloped land there was. We saw a lot more vegetation and even saw some cows! (I’ve seen a total of one cow on Tutuila, although my students tell me there are more.)

This photo looks exactly like the picture on the Roxy ad.

We stayed for 2 nights at Taufua beach fales in Lalumanu, which is basically a bunch of open and closed fales located right along the beautiful beach. The beach is so picturesque it’s like something you would see on an advertisement for Herbal Essences or something. And later we saw an ad for Roxy posted on the wall of the main fale which showed a photo that had been taken in Lalumanu. This confirmed that we were actually in tropical paradise, or at least what advertisers at Roxy think is a surfer’s dream.

We stayed in an open fale, which means that there were no walls, just tarps that could be pulled down and we were sleeping about 15 feet from the ocean so we could hear the waves all night long. Also included in the deal was breakfast and dinner every day, as well a lunch on Sunday. During meals all the guests sat together at a long table and delicious food was brought out by the staff, one delicious dish after another. We got to meet a lot of the other guests, many of whom were from New Zealand.

The delicious lobster course we ate on Saturday night.

Saturday night was fia fia night which means “happy.” There was a performance of traditional dancing and fire dancing. Of course it was all done just for all of us tourists watching, but, hey, I’m allowed to do touristy things. At the end it turned into a giant dance party and everyone in the audience was invited and encouraged to join.

During the day we did a lot of swimming, snorkeling, and relaxing on the beach while drinking out of coconuts. There were a lot of different kinds of fish that were cool to see but almost all of the coral was dead. Lalumanu got hit pretty hard by the Tsunami 2 years ago which killed a lot of the coral and destroyed all the fales along the beach. I tried out my underwater camera for the first time while I was there. I knew that the camera was made to go underwater, but I was a little nervous the first time I put it in the water! It turns out that underwater photography is a lot harder than you might think. You can’t really see the camera screen while you are taking photos so I would just kinda point and hope I was getting what I wanted. I think the key is to just take a ton of photos so that when you delete the bad ones you still have a few good ones left.

We left Lalumanu on Monday in the late morning to drive back to Apia and catch our flight back to Tutuila. I was sad to leave the relaxing atmosphere knowing that I was heading back to the craziness of teaching, but I hope that I’ll be able to go back before my year of teaching here is done.