White Christmas

Okay, so there’s not exactly snow on the ground. But traditionally Samoans all wear white to church every Sunday. So at least there was a prevalence of white this holiday season, albeit in a different form. (Sitting here sweating in my tanktop and shorts I have to say I’m fantasizing a bit about “winter” at the moment.) Myself and a few others from the group returned to Falevao this weekend to spend Christmas with our families there. Almost all Samoans are observant Christians since missionaries brought western religion to the islands in the 1830’s. (Needless to say I was not able to dig up a menorah anywhere yesterday. I briefly contemplated fashioning one out of coconuts, but I’ll be traveling all over the country for the next week and it would hardly be portable.) When I arrived on Saturday morning we went to a service at the church where there was dancing and individual members of the village came up and gave little prayers or sermons (my Samoan is good enough to know that the general gist was thanking god and everyone else for life in general and Christmas and referring to bible verses and the like)- it was a nice occasion in that it was an opportunity for members of the community that don’t usually speak at public gatherings since they’re not matai’s to share their gratitude and feelings. Then we went to a big fiafia across the street where there were about four hours of dancing and singing and eating. I was quite excited because my favorite Samoan food was made and served- fa’ausi. It’s taro that’s been boiled in coconut cream and sugar. It rocks. There were also church services all day yesterday on Christmas which was the main activity for the holiday. (I guess when Christmas doesn’t fall on a Sunday people often take afternoon trips places, but the rule of Sunday here is that you’re not supposed to do anything except go to church and rest and eat, so things were pretty low key.) After morning lotu (prayer), we went back to our houses and had the traditional Sunday “to’ona’i” brunch meal where they cook tons of food in the umu and you stuff yourself at 11 in the morning to the point where you can’t eat again until after sundown. Then you’re so over-full you have to nap to attempt to sleep enough of it off that your brain can function again :) Mainly the weekend consisted of a great deal of tafafao (hanging out). It was really refreshing after spending the week prior to it running around doing errands and cleaning up the house and getting moved in and generally being high-strung. (who me? high-strung?) It was really nice to see my family again and spend time with them and also use my fa’aSamoa that I had hardly gotten a chance to in the past week and a half. It makes me realize that especially during the times when school is not in session so I won’t automatically get time to use it everyday I want to make a real effort to make sure to use the language and not let it sort of drift to the storage lockers in the back of my brain. That’s pretty much it. I came back home this morning and spent about two hours doing my laundry since I’ve been letting it pile up. Doing laundry here consists of filling a bucket with water and some detergent, adding a few items and pounding them around in the soap for a while and then adding more water and continuing to mash them around until soap stops coming out of the clothing when you beat them around. Then you hang them and pray it doesn’t rain until they’re dry. It’s quite the aerobic activity. Given how much I ate in the village this weekend I could probably have stood to do a couple dozen more loads :) Happy holidays!!!