felolo le Faasamoa in the fire!

in the pics: white sunday, best dress in white, three boys in my family (a miracle I got them to stand still long enough for the camera); valuvalu taro a special way to make it--faausi; the tattoo; and my culture: Finnish food and the sauna...sweetness.

10/22
Fire in the mouth. OK, so it’s mostly hot outside, but this morning there was a fire in my mouth—no not the hot sauce, but close. A PC staff gave me some supposed pulu (bubble gum). This gum happened to be an atomic fireball. Ahhhhh, brings back grade school memories of seeing who could put the most fireballs in their mouth for the longest time.

10/12
So it’s been two years and I think my Samoan language is about 40-50%, which is pretty good considering I didn’t reallyreally focus on it. Here are some respect words (of which I know even less) when giving food as a mealofa (of which there was a lot of mealofas to my samoan father—the high chief and pastor in our village). Yesterday was White Sunday, a big day for the children—they get special treatment, new clothes, eat first, and I bought the box of ice cream for everyone.

(Folafolaga o meataumafa)
Silafoga maualuga maia
Lau afioga Tuala ma le faletua.
O le a ou folafolaina atu.
Ua iai le vaimalau
Ua faliu ma fafao iai le susuga ia Mataio.
Faafetai teu, faafetai fa’aaloalo.