The other day I went to buy some produce from the market, and I got to talking to a women selling her fruit there. She asked me why I was here (cause let’s face it, there really aren’t many white people here and definitely not much tourism) and when I told her I was interning for Fagatele Bay she insisted on giving me like ten free giant fat bananas (there were at one point over 30 kinds of bananas here…now there are still over twenty!) and told me she was going to give them to the nuns but that I do basically the same thing…ummm…okay…then she gave me three free papayas (which I now really love and eat with a spoon at the office and spill all over myself) which she said she was originally going to eat herself. I told her I could buy them, but she insisted…man, I’m really not used to people being generous for no reason…it’s weird. If that had happened to my mom, she definitely would have cried…

            Another funny thing is that Kelly and I went with this guy from the Coast Guard to dance at the bar/club establishment Bowling Alley last Friday evening, and it was a site to behold. The two highlights were surely when a group of middle aged men swarmed our plate of French fries while we were dancing, and when we returned, they incessantly tried to feed me French fries. I think they liked watching women eat? Each time I turned my head, there was a new French fry poking in my face. You don’t know how sad they were when I refused. They did get me water though which was quite nice. The other highlight was when this one middle aged man just stood and stared at me, several inches away, whenever I got back from dancing. He then somehow ended up with us in the back of the pickup truck on our ride home and was a little over affectionate. I kept telling him that I had a fiancé and he insisted that it was okay because he had a palagi wife and a child who were returning the next day on the flight. Oh dear…

            Also, I’m working on building a garden at our new facility as part of my project. The land grant program at the American Samoa Community College is helping me out by providing us with the starter plants, some compost and is a great resource on composting ourselves and acquiring some more help with labor and some ideas. Brooke and Ian, a husband and wife here (the husband is Samoan and the horticulturist at Land Grant and the wife is originally from Maine) are helping me out with it. Brooke has designed gardens in Hawaii and set them up for various educational institutitions. She has also taught gardening classes, and she is helping plan it out. Ian showed me around land grant the other day where they are growing a ton of different things you never see at the markets-off the top of my head they have pineapple, papaya, lemongrass, figs, limes, 3 different kinds of sweet potato, 2 kinds of eggplant, collards, a little bit of kale, lau pele, passion fruit, chili peppers, basil, and way more. It reminded me a lot of Costa Rica, and Ian sent me home with a bunch of collards, kale, sweet potato greens, lau pele, eggplant, passion fruit, limes, and this other strange fruit I can’t remember the name of. That day we also picked out and dropped off more fabric to get clothing made and ate at this little restaurant owned by the head of a cooking school where they made me a veggie stir fry with tofu (first time I’ve had tofu on the island and it was AWESOME!). I also bought a book from a used book store entitled “How Animals Have Sex” with pictures and everything.

            That very same day we went to Tisa’s Barefoot Bar where they have a traditional Samoan Umu feast on Wednesdays. Almost everything they prepare is from their own organic plantation, and the feast takes several days to prepare. The umu is the traditional Samoan oven, which slow cooks items in layers over hot rocks and covered with banana leaves over a period of several hours. We ran into some of our friends there, and it was awesome. We ate with our hands out of plates woven from banana leaves, and as for things I could eat, they had taro and green banana and papaya cooked with cinnamon and squash with lau pele (leaves kind of like spinach) and coconuts filled with coconut milk mixed with onion and taro leaves (tastes kind of like spinach dip and called pulasami). It was all very good but very very rich. After our supper under a thatched roof looking out over the ocean, Tisa played ukulele and sang while her granddaughters performed traditional dances. Candyman (Tisa’s expat partner) told us about how they established their own marine reserve and talked to us about preparing food and how he is trying to grow all varieties of bananas Samoa has to offer. It was a fabulous evening.

            Last weekend we also tried to find this beach known as Palagi Beach. We drove out to where we thought it was, tried to scramble across some rocks to get there but couldn’t find it, then eventually kept driving. A family in a truck offered to lead us to a different beach, over some pretty rugged roads our little taupe 2001 Toyota Camry had a little trouble navigating, and we arrived at a beautiful secluded beach area. Turns out the guy leading us was the head of the Department of Agriculture here and we crash landed on a brunch and beach day for football recruiters, most importantly the head coach of Southern Methodist University. It was pretty random.

            So, food. Need to have a little update section on that. I’ve been frying those fat bananas as if they were plantains, and they’re really good. One time AJ and I ate them dipped in chocolate frosting. Another time we sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. My favorite was when I melted brown sugar and water and vanilla in a pot to give it the consistency of tapa dulce and it tasted almost exactly like the platanos maduros I learned how to make in Costa Rica. I also bought these amazing Asian buckwheat noodles and have been making stir fries with them. I bring a lot of the experimental foods to my boss who was raised vegan and loves them. I put in boc choy, onion, garlic, broccoli, wasabi peanuts, sesame seeds, sriracha hot sauce, and some of this gardene mandarin chickin and its sauce. It was awesome, and my boss loved it. Kelly also made fried rice the other night, and she thinks she burned it, but I thought it was awesome. I’ve still been making my weird breads that I love to eat in the morning-really filling and really healthy. I also tried a green papaya salad at this restaurant the other night-it was pretty good and kind of strange since the papaya was kind of like cucumber or something.

            Another cool thing is that we went to our good friend Dave’s tofa (means goodbye in Samoan, so his farewell party) last weekend and there was a woman from Wales who had learned how to fire dance, or Siva Afi, and did a demonstration. We practiced with practice ones which were lit up balls on the end of strings and I totally failed at it. It was really hard!

            There are also the cutest puppies ever that keep showing up at our house, and they look so healthy and furry and adorable and I couldn’t adopt them. But I took a video…which just made it harder.

            Anyway, life is good. Time moves so quickly! Under three weeks left here then it’s off to Western Samoa and Fiji!