Ceremonies in Samoa

[Friday, January 30]

For our activities today, Mike and I split up and took different excursions.  Mike went snorkeling in the reef and I went to see a Women’s Committee at a local village.  (Aren't we both so predictable....)

Preparing fresh coconut

We tasted fresh coconut meat and coconut cream

There were about a dozen women and an additional dozen men, boys and children.  We were given demonstrations of how to use the coconut.  [Our guide told us Samoans are also called coconuts – and they call coconuts the food of the gods.]  We were offered fresh coconut water to drink, given a demonstration on how to peel and crack coconuts and extract coconut cream from grated coconuts meat.  We also saw coconut palm frond weaving and I watched one of the women male a full basket in about 5 minutes.  They demonstrated how to weave their tapas floor cloths, as well as how to make block print patterns on fabric.

The village members sang and danced a welcome for us.  We reciprocated (if you can call it that :-) with 2 songs – Row, row, row your boat in rounds and Happy birthday for little 7 year old Massina.  I bought 2 lovely block print pareo cloths for $16 US dollars.

Back at the Sheraton Aggie Grey, we had a buffet lunch – including a whole roast pig.  We also were entertained with a fia-fia – a ceremony of singing and dance with men and women – which culminated with a fire dance ceremony.  Impressively, the performance was done by various employees of the hotel – the accounting department, the front desk and wait staff, etc.