Cape Taputapu

The idea of living a vacation rather than waiting for the typical 2-3 weeks off per year from the modern"slave" economy always seemed like a good move. Time is the thing most people want back or desire more of at some point during their lifetime. I wanted to live in a place that could capture that idea every weekend or even after work. Tutuilla is filled with enough amazing landscapes and adventure to satisfy that concept.

Easter Egg Hunt

Palangi Tide Pool

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was filled with the joyous hymns sung by the local congregations as hiked out to Palangi beach. This virgin strip of sand is one of the islands most beautiful, but requires wading into chest deep water, rock scrambling, and determination to reach it. The name "palangi" is the Samoan word for white people or literally people who fell from the sky. There is a wonderful wading pool and lookout from cape taputapu. Meditation feels easy as you dead man float into another time.

The Road Less Traveled

In life we are only giving a certain amount of time to walk the face of the earth. Sometimes it barely moves at all-almost freezing, at other times its gone before you know it- time is truly relative. Whatever your belief system, at the end of it all you will probably sit down and think about- how did i use this precious time? Most people in today's society spend it chasing money in one way, shape, or form. This is indeed an illusion and forms the basic unhappiness of our world today. As an existentialist, i ponder what would be the most interesting, valuable experience i could have at any given time. This of course must be synthesized into living within the constraints of the modern "slave" economy, where i too succumb to the wear/tear of the system. The true path lies behind man's search for meaning (Viktor Frankl)- did i take this job for the money or the experience? did i buy that car/house for practical purposes or my neighbor/social groups envy? The answers are self-evident by the way we go about our daily business. Why not make your decisions base upon meaning or experience? Gross Domestic Happiness.

If you spend your whole life within the confines of your "safe little" world, you may never truly learn anything, especially about your self. Ive found people struggling with change instead of embracing it; where in the entire universe are things static? Release the chains that bind you, do not make walls in order to climb over them. From my humble personal experience, those seemingly impossible tasks or difficulties have a solution- walk through the pain and into the light.

The trials & tribulations we experience as humans are similar, but the way we react is truly where the differences lie. When one has a once in a lifetime opportunity, they must shift through the muck and recognize it as such. The pain & pleasure experienced are the things we remember when the sun sets upon the horizon.

Rained out

It's Friday, 5:30 pm, and on our way home in the constant drizzle, we go by the open air market, where local growers usually sell their wares. You only really catch them in this market on a Friday night, and it is almost sacrilegious not to come in and check their latest offerings. We pick up some cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, pineapple, and the local mixed drink of banana, some kind of nut, and some kind of something else. Don't ask me what. I just know it's good.

We got into the house and started a discussion of how good our life is (after all, it IS a Friday). Living a life in Baltimore may be enough for some people, but you do miss out on some of the quirkiest experiences. In the east coast, especially, people follow an established script for dealing with everything, whether it is calling about cable services, seeing your doctor, or just driving to work. You don't really deal with people. You deal with companies or departments or agencies. Take your pick, it is well laid out and structured. Out here, you have to ambush someone to get any sort of reply to your email, you know the first name of the person handling your cable service account, and you actually get to spend more than the 30 minutes with your doctor as mandated by your HMO. It's just different, that's all.

We cautiously look outside our house, and finally see a sky that is not raining, after FIVE full days of getting drenched. We take our wine glasses (not filled with water, thank you), and just sit outside on our camp chairs (we still have to get our outside bench, but we'll get to it soon). We crank up iTunes to play all Bob Marley, and just look out over the Pago harbor. It's 7 pm and hardly any cars (or honking of) reach us in our house up in the hill. The only lights that we see skirt the mountains standing majestically along the island. Virtually none are seen on its slopes. Humanity worships the mountains here, bringing out their pitiful electric candles and hoping that the seas don't rise up in indignation. They most definitely don't impinge on the mountains domain.

Slowly, ever so slowly, we shed our "working" skins, if there is such a thing in American Samoa. One co-worker actually advised me to "slow it down" today. Imagine that. We can actually slow down on a Friday? I thought that was just for the government people? We slowly (well, compared to some) sip our $10 bottle of pinot, and talk about how other people's lives are going to hell (come on, you can't help it if you were in our position). No, we don't have it perfect, but damn it all, we definitely have it better than most.

Bob is singing about stirring it up, but we're just too lazy to even get up from our chairs. We're supposed to meet another couple for dinner at Sadie's Inn (a lady of the night who appreciated the charms of Samoa), and we just couldn't summon the strength to get on our (almost) new scooter and drive down the five minutes to the restaurant.

Aaaaah, in whatever way you slice or dice it, life is good. Easy skanking indeed.