Let's take a quick look at sports in American Samoa. Paradoxically, they don't do many water sports here; we palagis will snorkel swim, and there is a bit of surfing. The Samoans do some fishing, mainly with nets from the shore. There is no hunting, since there are no mammals here to hunt. In fact, the only mammals around are huge bats which fly around mainly at dusk. When I say huge, think the size of ducks. These are big bats. But harmless, no vampires here. No snakes either. They do canoe racing, but that's mainly once a year on their Flag Day. These are huge boats with about 50 paddlers. When that happens, I'll be there to watch and my faithful readers will get a full account.
FOOTBALL – that's the Samoan love. You know that they send quite a few players to the NFL; and many more get college scholarships for football. I saw, in a small village still reeling from tsunami damage, a brand new Iowa Hawkeye banner hanging outside a house. Samoans love football; they are built for football, and they are good at football.
Saturday was the high school football championship game, Tafuna H.S. versus Fagaitua H.S. I went to the stadium and watched. Fagaitua was the Vikings – black horns on red helmets. The stadium was packed. Here's a few photos; the pre-game ceremonies lasted a long time because dignitaries gave speeches, the Samoan and US anthems were sung (by 4 girls who sang beautifully) and true to form the microphone system went bonkers and never really worked well thereafter. I even have a video of the opening kickoff:
Right after the start, it rained. And rained. And then rained some more. Here's the half-time show – the kids were drenched but happy. Note in the video the rather hefty young lady in the red dress way on the other side; she was dancing around and her crowd was loving every moment:
She wasn't a she; she is a fa'afaa – a man raised as a woman. Things are different here. The game wasn't close, Tafuna dominated. But I was impressed by the discipline and the sophistication of the teams; they were darn good. Even in the conditions, which resembled more water gymnastics than anything else:
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| Pre-game - introduction |
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| Junior ROTC Color Guard |
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| Game action! |
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| The final score |
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| Wet conditions, as you can see |
Now, GOLF! There is a course. I saw it. One course. It's actually not too far from my home. Here's some pictures of their course. They charge $8 for 18 holes of play. I saw men and women playing. I haven't played yet; I saw the rental clubs available; shall we say uff-da? The Samoans love to use the carts. They often run out, then you can't play until a cart comes back. You can walk, but remember it's high 80's and either rainy or so humid it may as well be rainy. Today was rainy. It's been rainy for 4 days in a row. But it's cooler when rainy. Soon I'll play a round and delight my readers with an account of golf, Samoan style. Probably on a Sunday, since Samoans don't do much but church on Sunday. Speaking of which, I walked by a church today and listened to the singing; WOW, it was powerful. During communion, they sang Hallelujah (the song used in Shrek, which I find hauntingly moving) and I was almost in tears listening, it was so fantastic. Anyways, golf:
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| Illiili Country Club |
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| Parking lot, club & pro shop |
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| The First Tee |
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| The Driving Range |
On Saturday, Junior took me to a cricket game. Samoans love cricket too, mainly (I think) because you can stand around a lot. Junior tried to explain cricket, but I was something of a dense audience. All I gathered was that you batted until you made an out, then another guy batted. A few guys seemed to bat forever. Sometimes you would run from one wicket to the other. Mostly, you didn't run. I think you get a point if you ran there. Usually they didn't bother. Sometimes the batter whacked the ball way out over everyone's head, which meant 2 points. If you did that, you didn't have to run. Everyone preferred that. Scores of well over 100 were common. Some guy with a whistle was the umpire. He blew his whistle a lot, and when he did, people moved around a bit. The spectators watched from some nearby fale and liked to comment on good (and bad) plays. They were having a pretty nice afternoon. The best part about this game was the last photo; see, I took the photo of the game, then turned around 180 degrees and stood in exactly the same spot, and took the photo of the ocean. Boredom does have its compensations. Whatever you think of baseball, it's a real big step in the right direction from its origins in cricket:
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| Cricket on a Saturday afternoon. |
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| Nicely landscaped fale near cricket field. |
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| Photo from same place, turned around. |
Next post: Tisa's, Shark & Turtle, and Charlie the Tuna.
Great scenes, Rick. I'm really enjoying your tales. By the way, Bruce gave me a Christmas present, a round-trip flight to Pago Pago, that I'd like to cash in on sometime in late winter/early spring. So, we need to make a few plans!!!!!
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