12.27.2010

A South Pacific Christmas



If there was a word that could describe our (first) American Samoan Christmas, it was nostalgia.

Even though we both had been living here for two years, last year did not really count, since we were off exploring Fiji, drinking kava, and generally celebrating in a grand tourist festive mood. This year, though, we had our winter trip early (see previous Tonga post), and decided to spend the holidays in good ole Pago Pago.

We started it off by (trying to) watching the much-vaunted Christmas Choir in the open-air stage in Utulei. Parking two blocks away in the new market (all spaces were full with the traditional Samoan big trucks), we skirted past the (unarmed) police sitting by the side of the street (hey, this is the Pacific, cops don't stand!) and took up a post to watch the event. We mused quietly about how, as palagis, we would always be strangers looking in through the Fa'a Samoa window, no matter how long we've stayed here.

The day before Christmas, when everyone held their breath and looked out of their houses in anticipation of waiting, was spent chatting up families and sending greetings through the wire. We had spinach lasagna for our Christmas eve dinner (it's got red and green -- counts as a christmassy food, right?), and reminisced about our families' holiday traditions (the Brinkers are nothing if not a ritualized clan). Old Christmas songs (donated by a friend) played in the background, and sighs rang out as we viewed the harbor at night, intermittently lit by garish lights, but otherwise serene beneath the shadow of the Samoan mountains.

We closed up our windows on Christmas day to go hiking on Mount Alava with the Swedish radiologist, and talked most of the way about departures, trips, adventures, travelers, and the people that always get left behind. We had our post-hike ice cream, instead of at our traditional Samu (home-made!) stop, in the local McDs, with Tim slightly sick at being seen in such a nefarious place. We did admire the beautiful glass-paned windows through which you can see the yachts sleeping on their moorings.

Craving for ham, guaranteed great dessert, and other people's insight, we headed over to another couple's house for dinner. Over glasses of wine/beer/water, we watched the sky darken to twilight, and smiled as the stars announced their arrival. It was, after all, like a black-and-white picture, a memory, a window to the past, that could only happen once in a while.