Thanksgiving in Manu'a

Manu’a is the name for the outer islands of American Samoa which include Ta’u, Ofu, and Olesega. There are currently 5 world teachers living and teaching on Ta’u and 2 world teachers living on Ofu and teaching in Olesega (the two islands are connected by a bridge). We met and befriended these world teachers in July when we were all crammed into close quarters for orientation, and then they were all shipped off to Manu’a, not to be seen again until the entire group reunited again in December at mid-service. A few of us decided that Thanksgiving would be an excellent time to go visit Manu’a and the teachers living out there. It would be enough time to see everyone and do everything but not too much time to become bored. I have been told several times by Samoans that there is nothing to do in Manu’a besides watch TV.

Getting to Manu’a can be a pretty tricky thing, and even after having gone through the process once now, I really don’t understand it any more than I did before. It seems like it mostly has to do with knowing someone who knows someone else whose cousin’s sister knows someone who works at the airport. That and a lot of persistence and a little bit of luck. The three of us who decided to go starting putting our names on “lists” for flights weeks before the actually flight. Then they would tell us that we were “confirmed” for the flights. I’m pretty sure that no one who works at the airport here actually understands what that word means. They told us it would be best to wait and pay for our tickets later, just in case. Then there is always the problem of the plane breaking down because it breaks down at least once a week. Anyway, many phone calls and “lists” later, I personally, was not 100% confident that we would be traveling to Manu’a until I was in the plane and it was in the air.

Me, Quinn, and Amber with our turkeys!

We were scheduled to leave Pago Pago Wednesday at 11 am. This was also the day of the annual Turkey Run fundraising event at Leone High School. Every year a lot of students, staff, and others who just want to run for a good cause participate in the approximately 4.25 mile run around Leone. The winners (of so many different categories I can’t even count them all) win a giant turkey. I’m pretty sure the amount of money spent to buy all the turkeys for the winners exceeded the amount paid by the participants to enter the race. The race started at 5 am which is before it is even light outside, so Quinn and I figured we could go run the race, pick up our free turkeys, then head home to shower and grab our bags before heading off to the airport, our turkeys in tow. You can’t buy a turkey in a store in Manu’a so pretty much the only way to get one is if your friend or family members bring one to you. At this point you might be thinking, “You can just bring a turkey on a plane with you?” And the answer is, “Yes, of course. This is American Samoa.”

There was one slight kink in the plan, though. When Quinn and I checked in at the airport with our frozen turkeys wrapped in plastic bags and then placed in reusable grocery bags, they told us we couldn’t take them unless they were in a cooler because they would get other things wet. Darn. Then they went into the back room to see if they had an extra cooler for us. Unfortunately, not, which meant we had 30 min to get a cooler or we would have to leave our hard-earned turkeys behind. So while Quinn watched all our stuff, I quick called a cab to take me to the nearby Cost-U-Less, where I purchased a cooler bag that would fit both the turkeys, and then rushed back to the airport just in time. We managed to actually get on the plane and land safely in Ta’u! Of course, we were still a little concerned about getting back even though we were “confirmed” for a flight on Sunday (it is pretty normal for people to get stuck out in Manu’a for days passed when they had originally planned to return), but we were taking it one step at a time. In fact, not long after we arrived in Ta’u we were told that there was no flight on Sunday.  Oh well.

Life in Ta’u is a lot slower, even than life in Leone. There aren’t any taxis or buses so you just have to walk or have friends drive you if you don’t have a car. There are a lot fewer people and a lot fewer dogs. Everything is just a lot quieter and relaxed almost to the point of boredom. The island itself is beautiful and a lot of it is undeveloped or is part of the national park. On our first day there we hiked out to a beach called 2^nd beach. Little did we know that there was a convenient path and instead we took twice as long to scramble up and down and around the huge rocks along the shoreline.

2nd beach in Ta'u

One of the bad things about Manu’a is the amount of mosquitos and ants! I thought they were bad here before I got to Ta’u, but this is nothing compared to out there. Putting on bug spray is necessary even when inside the house. And basically our friends there have stopped fighting the ants and have just learned to co-exist. Every food item has to go in the fridge or it will be devoured by the ants, even things that aren’t opened yet. 

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Cat, Wes, and Mitch’s house which is right next to the elementary school. The two teachers from Ofu came over on a boat on Wednesday for the holiday so we had 10 people altogether. Everyone brought something to share. A lot of it came from boxes, but sometimes that’s the best you can do out here. Wes was in charge of the turkey and it turned out very nicely. We were all happy to enjoy the food and spend the thanksgiving with our friends that we hadn’t seen in so long, even though it’s tough to be away from your family during the holidays.



A Samoan Cocoa


 

Wes with the turkey!



 



The boat we took to Ofu

On Friday went back to Ofu with the two teachers who live there. We got picked up by their  neighbors who  have a fishing boat and like to fish for tuna. It’s about an hour boat ride from Ta’u to Ofu. Along the way we stopped to do some fishing. They can just follow these certain types of birds that swarm above the water where there are a lot of tuna and then they just let out their lines and drive through the birds. Then they reel in the fish and hit them on the head really hard with a wooden stick to kill them and then toss them in the bottom of the boat where you can hear them flop around for a little while. After reeling some in, they tossed the stick to Erin and asked “Fia sasa?” (“You want to hit?”) So then she took over the whacking of the fish heads. Then one of the fishermen started cutting up a tuna and passing chunks around to eat. I was feeling a bit seasick at the time so I didn’t try any but it looked kinda gross when everyone had raw tuna chunks hanging from their teeth. I tried some when we got back to the house and it wasn’t bad, but I prefer it cooked.

Ofu is the prettiest island that I have been to so far. Its beaches have even been ranked in the top 10 in National Geographic so I’ve heard. The snorkeling there is amazing! It’s the best that I’ve seen since coming to American Samoa. I took a lot of underwater pictures but like I said before, underwater photography is difficult, and the pictures don’t really do it justice. The beaches also had real sand! Many of the beaches on Tutuila and the beaches we went to in Ta’u have really coarse sand or sand that is mostly made up of chunks of coral. 

We also visited the bridge that connects Ofu and Olesega. There are only a few people who live on Olesega, but that is where the elementary school is for both islands. Kids from Ofu and Olesega have to go live with relatives in Ta’u or Tutuila to go to high school. The one school bus picks up all the kids on Ofu every day and brings them to the elementary school in Olesega. We crossed the bridge briefly and took a picture next to the welcome sign just to say we had visited another island. The main attraction was the bridge itself. It’s a great place to jump off into the water, but you have to be careful and not jump when the current is too strong or you can get swept away. The bridge doesn’t look that high from the ground, but, of course, it looked a lot higher from the top after stepping under the railing and peeking over the edge.  But it was fun and exhilarating once you could finally convince yourself to do it.

After getting back from Ofu on Saturday afternoon we learned via phone message that we had been “confirmed” for a flight that morning, but had missed it. This meant we would have to be on the standby list for the Monday flight. We called our school Monday morning to tell them we wouldn’t be coming in to teach because we were stuck in Manu’a. They didn’t seem very surprised.

We spent Sunday pretty much doing nothing. Sunday’s there are even worse than Sunday’s here in terms of boredom. We watched a lot of movies and waited until 5pm when we could go get freshly baked bread from the store down the street. In Ta’u you can only get bread on Sundays. You can’t get bread ever on Ofu or Olesega. So this was a special event. The bread was delicious and we even got cinnamon bread!

On Monday morning we headed to the airport hoping we would be able to get on the flight. The only way to find out for sure was to go to the airport and see what happened. The airport people asked why we hadn’t come for the flight on Saturday, but then said we were lucky because some people had canceled for Monday so there was room for us. We made it back only one day later than we had planned which is really not bad for a trip to Manu’a!