Radiohead Lagoon

Craggy Point tide pool

Craggy Point hike:

Start near the national park fale on the road in between vatia & afono. The level of the hike is graded as easy and takes around 20 minutes each way. The nicely cleared path travels down through the rainforest and out to the point, passing nice viewpoints along the northern coast. There is a small loop at the end of the trail, which provides access to the tide pool. The path down to the pools may be a bit overgrown, though, and is a moderate scramble; but it's well worth it. Climb down the volcanic rocks until you reach the water. On calm days or at low tide a wonderful coral encrusted pool is found beneath the rocks. Once at the foot of the rocks, you overlook the seething tide on one side, and the inviting water on the other, and you are suddenly overwhelmed with the unfettered freedom of youth, calling out to you to jump right in; ignore the intermittent waves that crash over the opening, and sink yourself in its emerald embrace. After all, this is American Samoa. There are no 'No Swimming' signs, no bureaucratic hubbub, and no 'adult' supervision looking over your shoulder. Just you, the water, and-- oh look -- one of the coast guard guys taking a hike, blandly saying even he wouldn't jump in. Oh well, he turns around and leaves you in peace.

ER SAMOAN STYLE

The chickens file past the entrance of the ER as a flatbed pickup pulls up. a patient too large to fit in the regular ambulance is helped from the truck and placed on a hospital bed, to be wheeled into the mayhem. the chart rack is filled, patient wait time 5 hours. people of various ages and ailments line the interior of the ward, iv poles next to breathing machines, in front of the xray lightboard, and so it goes. the office i see patients in doubles as an ekg room, a woman with a cellulitic ulcer lays on a stretcher in one corner, as i diagnose pregnancy via urinanalysis to an unsuspecting young mother in the other. a cpr code is called in the trauma room, sometimes conducted on a patient already deceased to ease family grief. unfortunately it's the weekend, and all mothers bring their screaming infants to the only game in town, as pediatrics is a mon-fri gig.

I fumble through a differential diagnosis for a right lower quadrant pain, keeping in mind the (1 and only) swedish radiologist left town a few days earlier, and there won't be another one til august. the patient tells me they used traditional fofo medicine consisting of leaves for treatment. No problem, order some labs- well, they may take 4 hours and you may have to go to the lab yourself to ask where the results are. otoscopes on the wall all have their heads mysteriously missing, keep an eye on your bag. trying to speak a few words of samoan, it comes out like gibberish, making no sense to the patient or myself- time to get the translator/nurse.

Welcome to Samoan ER.

South Central Pago

Searching for a house is always an adventure in itself, but in American Samoa it can border on the absurd. Mitch & i were lucky to secure a solid new abode, with little drama, despite the former tenant being completely insane. Others housing seekers were not so lucky- having excitedly answered ads in the paper, only to find houses w/o water, stove, fridge, water heater, or cabinets. Our 2 bedroom pad is perched over Pago Pago harbor, with excellent views of the forested mountains & tranquil waters below. Songbirds fill the background over the distant hums of the tuna cannery down the only road. Fruit bats fly overhead as the busy harbor sleeps once again.
Anytime you move you feel a sense of freedom & of the possibilities that may lie ahead. Living in the south pacific is a wonderful base camp for exploring the surrounding territory- be it remote the Manu'a islands , traditional Western Samoa, wild New Zealand, or hedonistic Tahiti. One of the greatest things about our location on Tutuilla is that it's less than 10 minutes from LBJ Hosptial & the launching of a kayak into the harbor is footsteps. On an island this small you can be hiking into the remote north side within 30 minutes. Of course you must utilize jedi mind tricks to ignore the wild dogs, 2-story mcdonalds, and tuna cannery olfactory delights.
Here are a few photos of the house.

Survival Guide

Permanently relocating here in American Samoa (at least as permanently as Tim's wanderlust allows), you certainly get the feeling that you are far removed from the rest of the world. Some have referred to it as "falling off the edge of the world," "living in a parallel universe," or "weeell, this cert-AIN-ly ain't rural Missourah!" (okay, I can't reproduce the accent, but it's there, trust me). However which way you might call it, it is certainly different from the ubiquitous American way of life.

For starters, most tv broadcasted here is about two weeks late. This isn't too much of a hardship, since most everything on tv is garbage anyway. But watching news (i.e. daily show and colbert report) two weeks late is a little disconcerting, bordering on prophetic (you already know how it's going to end). Also, there is only one theater that plays the two worst possible movies currently in circulation (as of posting date, Mall Cop and Hotel for Dogs), which explains why there are so many dvd rental places for a place this small. The speed limit is at most 25 mph, and everyone actually follows it (but you don't hear anyone cursing or honking at the slow pace). There are no street signs; if you need directions, you get landmarks instead ("make a left on that banyan tree after ks mart, you can't miss it"). Everyone seems to "step out" of their offices for hours at a time (just try getting something done at any government office in one day). Banks have the weirdest hours (they think that they are government offices too). And $20 of gas can last you for almost 2 weeks (even though we use our 97 Ford Taurus every day, there's just not enough roads to drive on). Overall, life is just slooooow (one recent expat complained that when he sent an email to the college here, he received the automated Out-of-Office email after five days -- apparently even the servers here are on island time).

Unfortunately, American culture has still left its indelible mark on this island. There are about a dozen fastfood places here for a population of 60k (which shows on the 99% obesity rate, according to LBJ Tropical Medical Center statistics). Rampant capitalism is covered up with a cutesy mascot (Starkist had recently changed hands and is now under Korean ownership owing to the impending minimum wage hike -- which forebodes a relocation for Charlie the Tuna). And a very expensive, state-of-the-art sound booth for children is installed in the hospital, but funding has been drastically cut for off-island medical services (which means that any serious illness would have to be treated in AS, whether they have the facilities or not). Aaah, the American imperial ideals of foreign markets, economic globalization, and profligate government spending is alive and kicking here.

And so to keep sane here, there are a few survival techniques that various people have compiled.

1. It's not what you know, it's who you know. This particular nugget of wisdom was due to the fact that we would never have gotten our car off the docks, if we did not run into a stevedoring big weight. In less than an hour, we got our car from the crate and through customs (he's ours, by the way, we're not giving his name to anyone!!).
2. Get a hobby. Seriously. An island this small, you're going to need one. The greath thing is, there are so many activities here, you can try them all and still not exhaust them. Some of the ones we know: hiking, scuba diving (get your own gear), snorkeling, swimming in secret beaches, rockface climbing (at your own risk), paddling single-outrigger canoes, kayaking, golfing, gardening (limited, since area is so rocky), fishing (fresh fish is so awesome!), gutting fresh fish (not so awesome), bowling, dancing in the single nightclub here, bumming out in one of the fales, barbecuing (on holidays, the whole island reeks of bbq sauce, that I think they dump them by the barrels in the harbor and just cook all the fish in the reef -- it's hot enough to do so, anyway), playing the usual court sports, and playing one of those weird outdoor British games (cricket, rugby, euro football, and euros jogging around in just lavalavas -- talk about body hair overload).3. Get a food place. They have one of the best ice cream places here, that I think I just died and went to heaven. We also have a regular "fish person" that sells great fresh seafood just along the road, freshly caught from the sea (they also have octopus, but we haven't gotten any yet).
4. Get an after-work watering hole. There's the back of Sadie's, with the great view of the harbor, there's Tisa's Barefoot Bar, with one of the most interesting characters in town (Tisa and Candyman both), and there's Rubbles, which looks exactly like how a bar ought to look like (cheesy decor, cheap beer).
5. And, most important of all, don't recreate your previous life here. Listen, you came here because it's different, so don't look for similarities with US towns. The most common thing that trips up expats here is that they can't adapt to life here. They keep looking back to the lives they left behind. It is different here, so celebrate that diversity instead of condemning it. There are going to be things that don't work or isn't available. Deal with it.

Driving back to our temporary housing, with the mountains in front of you shrugging into their mantles of darkness, the ocean rushing back in to reclaim its place, and the realization dawning that this view cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world, you get the feeling that you're in a different place. Many people have different names for that feeling. I only call it by one word: happiness.