Day 5: East Meets Meritocracy

American Samoa, May 29, 2009

Here are three strong women of the MA in Educational Leadership Samaoan cohort.

“Shhh! Hear that rumbling and grumbling and quaking? It sounds like a volcano about to erupt!” Startled, I look up at these mountains made of lava, and I wonder, Could it be? “But wait! I think it just may be the sound of 10 Samoan students, complaining about my work demands.” Without words, my students shake the ground, expressing their indignation and disbelief. Their faces say, “You mean we have to do something to earn each and every point?” “Unfair, unfair!”

Samoa is a fascinating place for an American teacher and scholar. Here, the size and strength of one’s extended family and village, or ‘aiga, not one’s abilities or achievements, confer status. As one matai (chief) told Margaret Mead, “In the past we had two gods—Tagaloa and the village; the greater of these was the village.”[i]

The village is all, family ties reign supreme, and all men (and women) are not created equal. This paradigm is as foreign to modern day Westerners as infanticide, and almost as shocking. Moreover, one’s standing in the community determines how much slack others are willing to give you. Because this is the paradigm, it feels like the only truth to the people inside the culture, just like Americans can't imagine being handed something just because.

So, I have about 10 students that are insisting (in many nonverbal, but easily read ways) that I should simply give them the points because they are very busy people! Should I? Some of the other students have come to me privately, thanking me for setting a standard for all to abide by.

Just as work is not distributed fairly between men and women, those with lower status tend to do much more work than those with high status. One of the students mentioned that she had asked another instructor not to give group assignments because the burden falls to one or two to do all of the work for the group. I appears that students who feel oppressed by the existing ‘aiga system are very happy to adopt a meritocracy. They are used to working hard without acknowledgment, and I bet it feels good to be recognized for once. Otherwise, I bet life feels like one big fa'alavelave, forever giving and giving and giving.

This gets me to thinking…should cultural norms be admired and sustained just because they existed before, exists now, and probably will go on existing for the foreseeable future? That doesn’t seem like a good reason to me. When people are being oppressed by the status quo, shouldn’t we look to the oppressed group rather than the oppressor for clues on the correct response to a society? Are we being culturally sensitive when we perpetuate oppression by condoning it as a cultural norm? Or are we just going along, like Uncle Toms, because we don’t want to speak truth to power: "Oooh, someone might be oFENDed!" For example, why, as Westerners, are we tolerant of a culture that keeps its women subjegated, beaten down, ignorant, penniless, tormented, and objectified, then covered from head to toe to hide the bruises. Where does political correctness leave off and human rights begin? In the words of my favorite politically incorrect social commentator, Bill Maher, “Don't be so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance."

Yes, I have been alone too much this week. I think I may be brooding. In two days, I will meet Sharon in Auckland, and we will begin our adventures in New Zealand. I leave Western Samoa on Sunday at 1:00 PM and arrive in Auckland at 3:30 PM Monday, four hours (and 24 hours) later. Sharon and I have been laughing about all the cool Star Treky things that might happen while crossing the international dateline. We think that the most likely impact will be a temporary breaking up, like a bad Skype connection: "you're breaking up, Scotty! (zap zap)", only to be reassembled a moment later. I'll let you know how it goes in a couple of days.

I may or may not be able to post tomorrow, Day 6, depending on the availability of internet service. I certainly will have time on my hands. It looks like I may be in the Apia (Western Samoa) airport all night. Don’t ask…

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[i] Smitz, P., & Farfor, S. (Samoan Islands & Tonga, 5th Ed. Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet

Photos

From top to bottom: Maria, our facilitator; Sam, Rod and Pooch (on table); Sam & Rod, catching Pooch; Pulotu

Day 4: Enough Solitude, Already!

American Samoa, May 28, 2009

One of the good things about traveling alone is finding and redefining one’s margins. On this trip, I have located my absolute outside margin for solitude, and it appears to be four days. Aside from class time and a couple of social contacts with Maria and students, I have been quite alone. I hate eating alone! Traveling solo could be a great diet plan for me, but I wouldn't last long without getting depressed. Even the beauty all around me is starting to make me feel sad.

Therefore, I will distract myself, and you, with wonderful pictures of my students. Above are some of the folks I have been working with this week. They are all dressed up as several were presenting last night. The traditional dress for women in Samoa is the puletasi, a modest, two piece garment that replaced cooler, more comfortable bare skin and little else (thanks to the missionaries). Puletasi are custom made and quite gorgeous. In fact, getting clothes here means buying fabric and taking it to the tailor who measures you head to toe and produces your garment in a day or two.

A wonderful thing about Samoan culture is tolerance for individual expression of gender and sexual orientation. One of our students identifies as fa'afafini, or third sex. As I mentioned a couple days ago, the prefix fa'a means, "the way" or "in the manner of." Fafini means either sister or woman. I could not get an absolutely clear answer on that. Males with orientations that differ from the norm have always been valued in Samoan society. Although Fa'afafini do not suffer the kind of deep misunderstanding and discrimination that we see in the states, I could still detect some derision in the voices of students as they discussed the issue. However, could you imagine an open transexual, gay or lesbian school administrator in the United States? Fa'afafini have valued roles in the arts (what else?) as well as in education and business here. I would say the attitudes of people range from tolerant to accepting to embracing. This is a long way from the good old U.S. of A. where attitudes range from tolerant to rejecting to murderous rage! Just goes to show you that gender truly is socially constructed. Each culture has its own take on these issues.

There is a myth that some boy children have been selected by their parents to be raised as girls in the past. I searched the web and didn't find any evidence for this. To an extent, Samoan boys are permitted to define their own gender preference. Like all matters at the core of a person's identity, sexual and gender orientation can be joyfully expressed, or repressed and distorted, but it can't be extinguished.

To fracture an old saying, for every silver lining, you can anticipate a big, 'ol' gnarly cloud.The picture is not nearly so rosy for women and girls who are lesbian or transgendered. But, as my mom always told us when we were kids, life isn't fair.

See you on Day 5, the last day of class.

Day 3: Samoa Is a Breeze and a Kiss

American Samoa, May 27, 2009

Samoa, or SAH-mwa, as pronounced by the people who live here, sounds like a gentle ocean zephyr rustling the palms, followed by the softest kiss to a baby’s fragrant head. It is a sweet sound, a gentle sound that evokes emotions of warmth, beauty, and family. So much feeling in such a short word!

Samoa, or seh-MO-ah, as pronounced by Americans, is also fully present here, living happily beside SAH-mwa. Samoa is lots of chubby babies, strapping children, and great, big men and women, happy and strong. It is volcanic mountains, hulking, jagged, and verdent, reaching up into the sky. It is endless, unfathomable expanses of blue water, forever bonded to her blue sky, climbing billows to heaven. Big and small. Now and forever. Banal and holy.

But I wax poetic. I return to the narrative.

Last evening I was reading a travel book. I laughed when I came across this passage: “skinny Samoans are as rare as hawkbill turtles.” I googled hawkbill turtles: they are critically endanged. This should be a strong warning to Samoan to avoid dieting!

Samoa a small island—it only takes four hours to drive all the way around it (even going the 25 mile an hour speed limit).

Big Samoa is exemplified by one of my students, a great man with shaved head and strong, confident voice, wearing a lava-lava (wrap-around), taking control of the room as if it had been his all along. He and our other two men in the class demonstrated "trust." I will ask the guys this afternoon if I can used their photos on the blog. That way, you can see big Samoan guys and lavalavas, all at the same time.

There is also visible and invisible Samoa. Both visible and invisable Samoa are big, in my view, but they are two different kinds of big. It's the women who construct invisible Samoa. Let me explain.

I never met my 19 students--16 women and three men--until Monday. I have been conducting my class through distance technology. That means we email, we Skype (sort of like video telephoning), I provide pre-recorded presentations and structured activities to make sense of the readings. Maria, my host, coordinated it all on this end. She is a vary able teacher who provided the eyes and ears I needed to make sure students were getting the concepts.

The capstone assignment in the class is a presentation. The class was divided into seven groups, each of which was tasked with presenting an hour-long lesson on a different theory. My assumption was that groups would divide the work and share it, roughly equally. Following is a passage from the reflection paper of one the women concerning her group project:

"My group gave me their trust to develop and plan our presentation...This whole experience of planning and writing our group project got me to realize that...one must have the compassion to do something in which others depend on it."

The group handed the task to this highly capable woman who must have worked herself to the bone to single-handedly create a well-researched, coherent and highly entertaining lesson for the class. (I would not assign a group project in the future!) I was struck by the fact that the only male member of their group ended up being the moderator and leader, and that the other female members very ably did their parts. However, it was apparent all through the semester that this one woman bore the burden of success or failure of the group. She did it with a quiet competence and grace that I find difficult to understand.

This is fa'alavelave; giving and giving. I am guessing there are moments of bitter resentment with all of this giving, so one must have fa'amahalo; forgiving. Giving, forgivinng. I don't know this for sure, but I think these are women's work here in Samoa, and maybe all over the planet.

I wondered about the fa'a prefix, too. It roughly means "the way." So the Samoan way is fa'a Samoa. Giving, forgiving; the Samoan way.

Day 2: Falling Victim to Fa’alavelave

American Samoa, May 26, 2009

This is the view from my hotel. No wonder Paul Gauguin, the impressionist, moved here and never left!

I did my homework before I traveled to Samoa. I knew that part of the culture was a kind of generosity that makes mainlanders grimace in pain, clutching their hearts. The tradition is called fa’alavelave, and it means, loosely, give until it hurts. Ceremonial giving is an expectation, not a choice.

I’m not sure what I was thinking yesterday when I admired the lovely, colorful traditional outfits of the three women who were presenting in class. Maybe it was jet lag. Maybe it was the humidity. Today, one of the students picked me up at the hotel, ostensibly to talk about her progress in the class. She said “Want to go fabric shopping?” I said, “Sure! I love to look at fabric.” We looked at about a hundred bolts of nice cotton poplin, one print more bright, bold, and savagely beautiful than the next, and I picked out some fabrics to buy. I had heard that there were tailors in town who could measure you and produce a custom article of clothing in a day, so I thought I might do that. I stood at the cash register, wallet in hand. Of course, not knowing Samoan, I had no way knowing that my student had paid. I argued in vain. I blushed. I protested. I may have even stomped my feet. I’m sure I seemed grotesquely American during those moments to onlookers in the shop.

Once I calmed down, my student said, “let’s go get your measurements.” I said, “Sure, but I pay for this. I really do want to pay. This is already too big a gift.” We drove behind some shops to a little dress shop called ‘Amy’s.’ As she, Amy, I presume, measured, we all chatted, and I pulled out my wallet, “Do you need a deposit?” “No, it’s taken care of.” This time, I politely said thank you and rolled my eyes. All the women in the shop cracked up. These Americans!

Well, I’m picking up my newly tailored things on Thursday. In the meantime, I am fiendishly plotting how to outdo my students’ fa’alavelave with one of my own, something that will delight and surprise them. No, I’m not planning on automatically giving everyone As. But I will think of something and now wish I had brought gifts from the states. I’ll need to scramble. A warning to Nan and Chuck, the instructors who are coming here after I finish: the fa’alavelave is alive and well in Samoa. Be careful what you wish for.

I have learned something important about this culture, and it has to do with the role of women here. This is still a very traditional, patriarchal place. Whereas women have always been responsible for family, home, children, church and village, they are now also working in very demanding jobs outside of the home, which means they work and give incessantly. I’m not even sure they would comprehend the idea of “me time.” Selflessly, tirelessly and uncomplaining, they labor day and night for the benefit of family and community. The women in our program are directors, principles, school counselors and teachers. They make key decision every day and the buck stops with them, many times. Moreover, at least one of our students is a matai, a chief, which means she is a primary decision maker on village issues—in addition to all of her women responsibilities as the mother of 36 (not all birth children, of course) and grandmother of 9.
I learned another Samoan word last night, one that women use constantly here: fa’amahalo—forgive. They gently admonish each other, “fa’amahalo” or “just let it go.” If they didn’t, they might just die of resentment.

I think there is a relationships between the extreme burden put on women and the epidemic of obesity. There is no complaining, there is no getting away, there is no saying “no,” there is no talking back, there is no stop to the onslaught of expectation that they give and give and give. The only choice they have is to stuff their feelings. I wonder if anyone has done research on this?

As promised, today, I did get those pictures from my hotel. The beauty and quiet of this place is almost overwhelming. I have not felt so centered in a very long time and I am enjoyed the unstructured hours for reading and thinking, oh yes, and for blogging.

One more thing…

I forgot to write about the animals. There is a cute little cat that lives in the restaurant. She doesn’t look to be more than 5 months old, but she is full of kittens already. Yesterday at breakfast, she got up on my lap and we had a pet fest. There are stray dogs, too. I was warned about them by the uptight attorney who sat next to me on the plane from Hawaii to Pago Pago. However, the dogs seem shy and sad and harmless, even to me. Dogs really do need relationships with people to be happy. These mutts are a gloomy bunch. My favorite, though, are the chickens. Glossy black and red-brown chickens that just appear anywhere and run around aimlessly like a bunch of harebrains. Why not? It’s Samoa!

I’ll be back to you on day 3.

Day 1: Impressions of Pago Pago

American Samoa, May 25, 2009

View from my hotel room.

The hotel? I am staying at Sadie's by the Sea, a former brothel. It’s right on the water, which explains the extreme mustiness of my room. A half day of air conditioning seems to have improved that situation. The accommodations are adequate and clean. I slept well and awoke to a most glorious view out my window. See above.

The rest of American is celebrating Memorial Day, but I will be conducting class with 19 seasoned educators , most of whom will receive Master of Arts degrees in Education from San Diego State University this coming December.

My arrival on the island was a steamy surprise. Although my host had suggested that I not attempt to step out of the plane in anything heavier than a loose tank top, I disregarded her advice. Afterall, it's winter here. Silly me. The moment I hit the air, my glasses steamed up, making debarking down the aircraft’s stairs a little dicey. I’m not sure I ever experienced the sensation of exploding with perspiration before last night. Even our summers in Champaign, Illinois could not compare to a Samoan winter night. No, Nyna and Jae (former colleagues at the University of Illinois), I kid you not!

Maria, the on-island facilitator for my course, has been a wonderful host. She and her three handsome sons, I'm guessing they are about 17, 15 and 10, met me at the airport. Since planes land here only twice a week, the airport is a happenin’ place on Sunday night. At 10:00 PM, there were families everywhere—babies, little kids, grandma, dads and moms and aunts and uncles. Maria’s eldest daughter was on my flight, returning from her graduate degree program on the mainland, and we waited for her to appear so that Maria could hug and kiss her before she was swept away by another contingent of their extended family. She and the boys helped me check in and get settled. We needed to walk down a very dark walkway and up some stairs to get to the room, so I was glad to have people with me. Maria and her family are truly lovely people with all the Samoan warmth, gentleness and hospitality I have read about.

After completing a couple of hours of work, I went over to the restaurant. The food was very American with the exception of Spam and eggs. (I know, that’s American too, but the WWII meat substitute seems to have really caught on here.) I order the matai (meaning ‘chief’) omelet, and it was tasty. I have never been served FOUR slices of toast before, though. Portion control would go a long way toward solving Samoa’s weight problem I bet. I ate one, not four, if you're interested.

I am debating on whether to tell you about the views or the people first....Okay, I’ll start with people, but I promise to come back to the former. As a preview of the latter, though, I now understand why people call this place paradise!

People: Yesterday in the Honolulu airport, I saw a couple of men in skirts. I initially wondered if these were the Samoan fafini (transgendered folk) I have heard about. When I studied the situation further, I realized that no self-respecting fafini would crop hair close, wear men’s glasses and go without makeup. Duh. I had not realized that men in Samoa still wear traditional wrap skirts. It makes a lot of sense, considering the climate. Maybe I'll bring one back for Sharon so she can surriptitiously wear Samoan drag. It will be our little secret!

Of course, the wrap seems more popular with the older men, and young guys wear jeans which are a lot less comfortable, but more western. I wished I had my camera earlier to photograph a police officer with the coolest uniform: Red baret, black shirt with all the quasi-military buttons and ribbons, and a black skirt with red stripes around the bottom. This might read like a description from a fashion show, but believe me, this guy was über butch!

There are plenty of beautiful Polynesian women of all ages and sizes. The restaurant manager was the no-nonsense type who walked and talked fast, wore a form-fitting dress (as she didn’t have any reason to wear a mu-mu), and had intricate tattoos around both knees that you could see, but just sometimes, as she rushed back and forth, ordering people around. Okay, I know bossy women are not everybody’s cup of tea, but as a fan of Hillary, Martha and—dare I say it—Piedad (but not Condeleesa), you know I got a major kick out of this. I hope she is there tomorrow…

The views…the views…. As I said, I made a little video which is causing me fits. I also missed the opportunity to photograph women doing something like kayaking out there on the water this morning, so you’ll need to imagine long, traditional boats with 6-8 people in them and a long, parallel float to the left, probably designed to stabilize the craft in rough water. My colleagues who have been here numerous times and know island culture will be smirking at my cross-cultural discoveries, but for the rest of you, I’ll work on getting a picture.


I’ll be back to you on day 2.