The next morning it was off to Savai'i - but first we must wait in line to have out car sprayed for the infamous giant african snail. We parked in line along the road and waited. My parents got out of the car because of the intrinsic oven quality of a car w/ broken windows sitting on a tropis isle, even in the shade. My dad tried sitting in the car w/ the door open, but that let in a mosquito and I was not pleased.
My mom quickly made friends with the Samoan parked in front of us, leaning on his piki-apu (pee-kee-up-oo) truck. His name was Fitu (Seven) and he studied agriculture at a University presumably in Fiji. He was not the seventh child in his family, and my mothers other questioning proposals on what might have led to the name were only met with laughter and we were forced to conclude that the name was randomly assigned. He had the ideal giggly, warm laugh that we had heard so often on the islands and I got distracted with thoughts of how a laugh can be cultural. It seems like a laugh is a natural process that would sound the same no matter where you were raised, but I guess not. My mom asked him if he could climb coconut trees - somehow it came up in conversation - and he told us a story about some palagi friends of his who had visited the island - colleagues from the University perhaps. There were 3 couples and he had been socializing with one of the couples on the beach while the other two were in town. They asked him if he could climb a coconut tree, and in generous Samoan style, he demonstrated his ability to do so - even though he insisted that it was a chore his mother could never get him to do at home. The couple was notably pleased and quite impressed. Shortly after, the others returned and were told all about it. They were dissappointed they had not been there, and the first couple was disappointed they had not captured teh moment on their camcorder. They all gathered their cameras and turned to Fitu for an encore performance. He laughed and told us they were trying to kill him. He didn't say, but I bet he climbed it again anyway.

After our car was thoroughly sprayed and all the giant african snails hiding in our radiator had no doubt fallen dead onto the ground, Fitu helped me buy passenger tickets for my dad and I - my mom was included with the car. On the ferry, my folks sat inside watching some sort of Japanese parlament proceedings on tape while I stood on the deck marveling at the blueness of the water. The vividity here is sometimes overwhelming and it's like being on psychotropic drugs. After oh I'd say five minutes, my mom sent my dad out to check on me. Since I was fine he went back inside.
One of the young Samoan men scattered across the deck informed me that I could sit down to, so I did. I struck up a conversation with him. He was going home to Savai'i since it was Sunday. He works all week in Apia and returns home on Sunday to his mothers fale. He was quite shy and conversation was peppered with silences - but never awkward as he had the good humor of any Samoan. He finally asked me - and I could tell he had been waiting to - if this was my natural hair color. The fire engine red I dye my bangs in the states had somewhat faded to a coppery tone, but I was still a little surprised. I pointed to the back of my head and said this was my natural color, brown, the front was dyed.
Occassionally I'd mention my amazement at the color of the water. The look on his face prompted a lengthy explanation about the color of the water on my said of the same ocean until I gave up and quit talking. Conversation continued however, about my trip and life in the states and his commute between islands until his shyness wearing thin, he asked me if I had a friend. Well sure, I thought, I have lots of friends. But I suspected that 'friend' in this context had similar meaning that 'special friend' does when used by members of Kai's family. I instead said 'a boyfriend? Yes. He works on computers too.' My new regular friend, who had told me I could call him 'cheif' or 'matai' then startled me with a burst of unselfconscious bluntness. 'Darn. I am looking for an American girlfriend.' I laughed and told him I'd introduce him to Mary if he visited the states. (Don't worry Mary, he's not going to visit the states.)
I later borrowed a pen from another palagi on deck and gave him my email address. He said he had email access from a computer training school he attended so this was not a case of Australia sending computers to Tuvalu arrogance. He invited me to his mothers house and gave me his number. Samoans invite you to their house and church abruptly and often. He asked when I'd call. I had not thought of giving a specific time, but I guess that probably makes since seeing as how there's probably like one phone in his village and it's not likely to be in his mothers fale. I said I could try around 8 that night or if I didn't make it the next morning sometime. He said he was going back to Apia the next morning at like 7 am so I quickly cancelled the next morning idea.

Leaving the ferry, we followed our map to the first stop - a waterfall my moms co-worker Steve had raved about. We turned right, down a track several yards before encountering a creek. There seemed to be a bit of track to the left along the water and what looked like the remains of a track continuing on the otherside of the creek, so we turned left. We got about 2 car lengths before giving up and getting out to peer around the next bend on foot. While peering, two small boys materialized behind us and asked 'where are you going?' I walked back to them and asked 'is there a waterfall over there?' They said 'it is here' and pointed to the water flowing over the broken track we had opted against. 'This is the waterfall?' The boys nodded. 'Ok, thanks.' The boys ran across the creek and up toward the plantation house on the hill. I returned to the car and told my mother that her friends definition of waterfall was very broad.

Next waterfall on the map was more interesting. We had to leave dad in the car parked in the middle of the road while mom and I paid two tala each to walk through an old womans yard, past a wall-less house of people watching us, to the ocean. There, a creek plumeted straight down from a cow under a coconut tree into the ocean.
While we took pictures, the womans granddaughters ruthlessly hounded us for tala. Frenchmen in train stations and hippies on the Ave have nothing on these girls.
Our third and final detour on the way to the hotel was the - much touted by my moms now unreliable in my mind friend Steve - Savaiian blowholes. We took a track to the left through a village until we found the little fale where we paid our 6 tala each to see them.
Past the fale, the track continued quite a ways along the beach to a turn around where a little old man in a skirt ran up to our car with a coconut. His Enlgish was choppy, but he was eager to lead us down the beach, so we were eager to follow. We didn't really know what was going on, it looked like there were blowholes right there, but he was pointing and down the beach and chattering away as much in Samoan as anything. We stopped mid step when he half turned around and, holding the coconut out in front of him at head level said 'coconut!' He paused for a minute and then 'blowhole!' and he lowered the coconut quickly to waist level and bending his knees, he sprung up lifting the coconut above his head 'sppllooossshh!' He resumed his pace and chatter until he reached a spot where he pointed at the ocean. A huge wave crashed against the rocks and a second later, a jet stream shot up from the rocks of frothy salty water which the wind politely shoved in our faces. Tofa (Goodbye) handed my mom a coconut and ran into the jungle. We looked at my mom and she looked at the coconut. A moment later, Tofa came back with four more coconuts and shuffled them with my mom and the sand like a Bob Hope comedy act. My mom was still holding one of the coconuts and deciding whether or not she was going to follow this guy onto the slippery wave beaten rocks to drop it into the canon of brine when he took of running toward the hole. 'Big wave come, I drop coconut!' he explained several times complete with mimery. A big wave came and he ran back to the sand, coconut still in hand. He ran back out and waited out a few smaller waves, then he tossed the coconut and ran! The coconut, on a pedestal of furious sea water, shot up from the rocks and got lost in the clouds! (See blow hole avi on journal entry page)
He did the same with the other four coconuts with less impressive results and then returned to us, laughed with us, and said 'forty tala, please.' We could have paid less, some other tourists told us later that they had paid five, but I had been gritting my teeth waiting for this guy to get washed out to sea and was happy to pay forty tala to him as a reward for surviving as long as he had. Going back to the car, my parents walked ahead talking and laughing about the experience while I kept pace with Tofa, politely smiling and nodding at his chatter. Then he said 'Tofa has no wife.' I said 'hmmmm' and nodded sympathetically. THEN he said 'What is your address. You give me address. You be Tofa's friend.' Well I had already learned the meaning of 'friend' on the ferry ride over. I considered the prospects of marrying a seventy year old guy in a skirt, living in a house with no walls in the jungle, and throwing coconuts into blowholes for a living. 'That's ok,' I said. 'No... that's ok.'



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