I stepped off the plane into the palpable heat of Pago Pago, American Samoa. Uncut, black, wild, and wooly, my afro seemed a poor hairdo choice and my heavy jeans and black tee plied to me in the tropical balm. I fidgeted, waiting at the bottom of the roll-away stairs. Other people shuffled around me, mostly tourists like myself. I tried vainly to shield myself from the stifling sun with my one free hand while the other gripped my single carry-on, a bag stocked with a few odds and ends.
“Should have got that water last time the attendants went by,” I mumbled, licking my dry lips. “What did I even come here for?”
I know what I thought I'd come for. Here I was, my first time setting foot on my Fatherland, and yet I hadn't been struck with any sudden epiphany about myself, about my heritage. I'd really thought it would flow over me—a wave of realization—when I'd planned the trip three months back. I'd told my fiancee that this trip would be my muse, really give me some cultural distinction. I'm half-African American, half-Samoan and she's a French African. Our child, the one she's been carrying for the last seven months, really made me consider heritage and what aspects of my culture I'd want to pass on to him or her, if I truly had any culture to begin with.
My fiancee had been livid, saying something like, “You're going on a vacation? In my third fucking trimester?” I couldn't blame her either. My whole delusional mecca was seeming less and less empowering as our tram—no more than a ramshackle bus painted yellow at the top and green at the bottom—puttered up the tarmac towards us. I pulled my arm from above me and squinted at my watch. It was 1:45 PM. Tuilaga, a friend of my family's, was supposed to gather me up at the airport and show me the way to the land my family owned at 1:30 PM. As per usual, I was late.
The bus screeched to a stop before us and the air-controlled, folding door hissed open to reveal a beaming, rotund Samoan man with gray whiskers and a bald head. “Talofa,” he greeted. “C'mon bruddas, hop on and take whatever seat you like!” I was the last one onto the bus and as I climbed on the driver looked me over.
“Hey, how are you,” I asked.
“Good, brudda, good,” he replied coolly, his round face cracking a bright grin. “Welcome home.”
“Huh,” I said, but I was only answered by the hum of the bus' engine as it lurched forward and left me scrambling toward the rear seats. We pulled away from the plane finally and as I took my seat I checked the time: 1:58. I was late and I'd probably miss my guide.
The airport was a smaller one but it still housed various ATM's, a modest food court that consisted of a burger place and a Samoan fast food booth serving bowls of some ethnic foods, and even a very small coffee shop like you might find in a grocery store stateside. Parched and drenched all at once, I decided on refreshments and so crossed over toward the Samoan foods stand. There was no line, so I went over to give it a try, desperate for a drink. A tall girl with tan skin and a glossy braid of hair running down one shoulder smiled at me with twinkling brown eyes as I approached. “Malo,” she greeted. “You like to try our tuna bowl with yams and rice?”
“Sure, sounds good. Give me something to drink, too.”
“Oh, our specialty dessert add-on is fried banana and our specialty drink, koko Samoa,” she said.
I took the add-on as well and eventually got my meal. Everything smelled delicious, mixtures of syrupy sweetness contrasted against very grainy, hearty fare and topped with a briny, pink-centered tuna steak. They didn't bother with excessive over-packaging as they might on the mainland, instead putting everything together in one overlarge bowl. I asked for a fork and then went to find a seat around the crowded dining tables. Entire Samoan families were seated at tables, speaking eagerly to one another in their native tongue, which to me seemed to have a slight drawl to the syllables as they flowed into the next. Many tables had been annexed by some other travelers.
I came across an islander with long black hair who was munching blithely on a bowl from the same food booth as me. Two other seats at his table were empty, so I approached him and cleared my throat, “Hey, man. Are these seats taken? Can't find anywhere to eat.”
He stopped, his attention turning to me, his hand holding a piece of torn meat and a small ball of rice. Still chewing from a previous bite, he resolved to nod and throw on a stretched, brown-lipped smile over his stuffed mouth, “Mmmmfffmmmff-brudda.” He pointed at the seat across from him.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the seat and arranging my meal on the table. “My name's Joseph. Nice meeting you.”
His eyes brightened and he began to speak incoherently through the food. Seeing my confused face, he took the time to chew and swallow then, unexpectedly, rose from his seat, standing closer to seven than six feet and sporting a gaudy red and orange Hawaiian button-up. He moved toward me and engulfed me in a tight bear-hug, lifting me up and out of my chair with relative ease, “Malo, Iosef! Ua ou fiafia ua ta teiloai! It's nice ta see ya, brudda!”
He set me down, allowing me to take a breath and put a couple feet between us, “I'm sorry, I don't speak Samoan. You're prolly mistaking me for someone else.”
“Nope, I ain't, Iosef! Malie lou loto, sorry, sorry, I'm Tuilaga but folks call me Tui, mostly. You Mana's son, right? He told me you'd be coming today. You early, brudda,” Tui said.
I looked down at my watch: 2:21 pm. “Early?” His sense of urgency, or lack thereof, left me somewhat confused, acquainted as I was to the hustle bustle scheduling of article deadlines, prenatal checkups, editor meetings, lamaze classes, wedding rehearsals, tuxedo fittings, etc.
Tuilaga slapped me hard on one shoulder and went back to his seat, smiling broadly so that I could see his full set of teeth, excepting the ones that were missing. “We'll head out after we eat,” he said even while digging his fingers back into the bowl. I used a plastic knife and fork.
I later found myself at a fairly rural roadside bench on a ridge near the outskirts of Pago Pago sitting beside Tuilaga as we awaited a bus into the wilder country. Sunlight shined through an overhead canopy and splashed a yellow-green glow all around. Tuilaga, well-fed and content, was still picking at his teeth and singing a mellow song in a deep tenor voice.
“That sounds nice, Tuilaga,” I said. “What does it mean though?”
“Oh, that's an old song my tina a lo'u tina—my grandmother--taught me when I was a pepe kama--a little boy,” he said. “It's a story about Samoa and our ancestors. Yah, yah, the first people to live fa'a Samoa.”
“What's that, to live here on the island?”
“Nah, brudda, it's more than just living on the island. Nah, Iosef, fa'a Samoa is harder to explain than that,” Tuilaga said. He pointed back down the road, back toward Pago Pago proper, “You see the sea out in Pago Pago bay?”
I nodded and gazed out beyond the small city, over the endless verdant haze of lofty palms and tropical brush, over the happy, bustling fisheries and villages, and finally to the azure sea where it lapped against white beaches. For a moment, lost in the beauty which had suddenly unveiled itself, I nearly missed what Tuilaga was saying.
“Yah, fa'a Samoa is like the ebb and flow of that ocean. And we, you and I and everyone on the islands, we are like the fish,” he finished in the fashion of a sage, nodding quietly and peering out in the very same direction.
Sitting there, the tropic air breathing around me, I started to recognize what he might have been hinting at. Still, something was unexplained, untold and I could not entirely internalize his metaphors. I started, as if to respond, but Tui stopped me short and rose from the bench.
“Here comes the bus,” he said as it approached, screeching to a stop before us.
I almost laughed, noting the similar color scheme to the passenger bus from the airport—yellow and green—but when the air-pressure door whooshed open I was more than a little confused to see that same rotund Samoan man behind the wheel, lavalava wrapped loose around the waist.
“C'mon on in,” he offered.
Tui hefted his significant weight up the steps of the bus, slapping the driver playfully on the shoulder. I followed, moving along the center aisle of the bus, nodding stupidly at the sheepish grins of sable-haired, sun-kissed girls in the seats, hearing their whispered language as they passed behind. I took a seat beside Tui near the back and the bus groaned into motion.
“You sit back and we'll be at the village in no time, Iosef,” he said.
I sunk into my seat and tried to relax, but the heat inside the bus was overbearing. Tui spoke frequently with people around us, mostly in their dialect. They all laughed together and things were peaceful. At times I tried hard to listen to their conversation, working hard to absorb the vowels, rolling like soft waves. At times Tui would nudge me and translate a colorful joke or yarn. Once, I thought to check the time: 3:46 pm. But as the bus rolled along, its calming gyrations lulling my senses, my mind began to swim and I fell into a tranquil sleep.
I awoke sometime later amidst the burnt-orange gild of sunset with Tui there beside me. Many people were gone from the bus now and I could see a young man and woman asleep against one another. I wiped the sleep away from my eyes and stretched.
“What time is it?” I yawned, forgetting my watch.
“Just about dinner time,” Tui said. “It's better if you come home with me tonight. There's gonna be a big meal for you there.”
“You don't have to go through all the trouble. I'm still good from before, plus I plan to go back into town tomorrow for groceries.”
He laughed.
“Tomorrow's Sunday, brudda.” Tui called to the bus driver, “Fasi, what are you doing tomorrow?”
“Church, Tui, then we gonna have a barbeque. You two, feel free to come, ya,” he said.
“So, the bus isn't running tomorrow?” I asked.
“Nah, but it's okay, you'll stay with me tonight. Tomorrow I'll show you the trail to your house after breakfast and we'll go to Fasi's for lunch,” he said. “Fa'a Samoa, Iosef.”
Soon enough we came to a stop, parked in a black tar parking lot with no lights, no other cars around, and thick foliage all around. We exited the bus, saying goodbye to Fasi on the way, and followed a footpath into the jungles. Along the way, Tui told me about how he knew my family, the Mailaos, and about how excited other families were that one of us was visiting. He informed me that most of our tribe had emigrated to the United States over the last 40 years. To them, he told me, we were all aiga, family.
Tui's home appeared as we turned a bend and suddenly exited the trees onto an open expanse. The sun had drooped way low and darkness was settling in but a chorus of insects and accompanying lights from the house brought the night to life. Tui led the way inside via a short set of stairs, given that the house itself was built about a meter off the ground.
“Alofa, where are you?” he said.
From another room in the house a light voice called back, “Tui, is that you?”
She appeared from a doorway, her brown shoulders bared. She wore what seemed to be a lavalava wrapped just above the breasts and under the arms, so that is seemed more a colorful purple dress than a kilt. It draped over a swollen belly and dropped midway down her slender thighs. She jumped slightly, seeing me but didn't even fuss about her appearance.
“Alofa, this is Iosef. Iosef, this is Alofa, my to'alua.”
“Talofa!” she approached and hugged me without hesitation. “Afio mai, welcome, Iosef. Are you thirsty? You two wait. I'm making dinner now, but let me get some drinks.”
She disappeared back through the doorway, leaving behind the faint smell of jasmine, but was back, soon after Tui and I had taken a seat on the couch, with two tall glasses. I thanked her and sipped on the chill drink, a murky, sweet chocolatey concoction that smelled as rich as it looked. She told us dinner would be ready soon and we spoke while waiting.
“Tui, are you having a baby soon?”
“Ya, any week now,” he said. “What about you? Have any little ones?”
“Well, sort of.” I considered my fiancee, picturing her garbed in the same flattering outfit as Alofa, seeing the darkened skin of her legs and for a moment feeling increasingly homesick, and said, “My fiancee is pregnant back home.”
Tui grinned widely, “You gonna be a good dad, Iosef, I know.”
Meanwhile, Alofa peeked her seamless face in from the kitchen, her eyes fixed squarely on me, “You left your woman and unborn baby?”
I shrunk under her gaze, feeling the same sort of heat I'd received when I had first informed my fiancee that I was going to Samoa. I tried to stammer some sort of response, but before I could she was gone back into the kitchen, but she yelled a few things back out in Samoan.
Tui began to laugh and patted my back comfortingly, “Don't worry, she just says your woman must love you more than she loves me to let you do somethin' like that.”
I frowned and tried rerouting the conversation, “Is this going to be your first child?”
He shook his head, “No, we have a pepe kama, Kavika. He's a quiet boy. He's probably in the kitchen watching his momma cook or out playing by the stream catching minnows.”
He yelled something in his dialect to Alofa and she responded back in Samoan. Tui nodded and turned to me, “Ya, he went to pick pineapples and catch crabs with the other boys down by the jetty for tomorrow's barbeque at Fasi's.”
“Can you really do that here?” I asked skeptically.
“Lots of us on this island don't make much money, especially since the tuna canning plants closed but believe in living humbly and helping family and neighbors, so we all do our part,” Tui explained. “Many families grow crops like taro or bananas and we share with others without work.”
He didn't seem depressed by the prospects, as dissimilar as they seemed to me from mainland life. I felt a growing respect for the Samoan people, living so carefree on their island, surrounded by nothing but open ocean and bounteous nature. I had begun to form a better understanding of these people—my people—and the lifestyle they lived.
Alofa returned from the kitchen carrying an oval-shaped wooden platter with smaller plates on it that each held different fare, “Tui, don't burden him with that talk.” She placed the platter on a bamboo coffee table in front of us and flitted out of the room again, returning with fresh plates, cups, and a pitcher of cold water. She arranged four dishes around the table and began to dole out the various foods.
She first plated thick tranches of sauteed corned beef that released a salty and savory smell. Alongside this she scooped clear, amber noodles with morsels of beef and onions, which she called supasui. This smelled strong of garlic and of soy sauce. There were also fried bananas coated in natural brown cane-sugar and some boiled leafy greens (possibly kale).
From outside I heard the shouts of a small voice from some distance and it grew louder within a few moments. The light patter of feet sounded from the front stoop and suddenly a shirtless boy with close-cropped black hair burst into the room, crying out something heavy with vowels. He stopped short, dropping a wet sack onto the floor and eying me curiously.
“Tina, ua ou fia ai! O ai i ai o lua?” the boy said as he ran behind his mother.
“Boy, you come here and say hello to Iosef,” said Tui. “And speak English, he doesn't speak Samoan.”
With a fidgety disposition the boy came near me, curious but hesitant like some young cub. Somewhat emboldened by his mother and father's approving nods, he came to sit beside me on the coach and squeaked, “Malo, Iosef. I'm Kavika. You want to play with me?”
All us adults laughed and I patted the little boy's head roughly, “Tomorrow I'll play with you, little guy.”
“In the afternoon, after church,” Tui added in a stern tone. The boy looked suddenly sad, but Alofa knelt beside him, kissed his forehead and pulled a full plate toward him.
“Have some food, my little coconut,” she said.
She offered the little boy and myself a fork but I watched as Tui dug into the meal with his hands, just as he had at the airport concourse earlier that day and decided to turn it down. Kavika, whose young hands would likely be sullied by the day to day life of boys, was made to use the utensil anyway.
After we'd all settled some, Alofa began to ask me questions about the mainland and my home life.
“What do you do in America for work and where do you live?” she asked.
“I live outside of Los Angeles and I write a weekly column for a local paper.” Here she grew excited, but I assured her I wasn't considered famous by any means.
For the remainder of the evening we sat together eating and joking, literally digging into our meals. The night waned on and I became lost in the intoxicating smells, the warm company, and the mild island climate. Alofa brought out other drinks once she'd put Kavika down for bed and we three grew rowdy, wassailing the hours away, intoxicated on more than just the lingering odors. Sometime later I settled down on that very same couch, blanketed only by the warm night, and drifted into a quiet repose.
The next morning I awoke and took a much needed shower. Alofa gave me a lavalava to wear so that I would be more comfortable in the tropic heat and look more fitting at church. We spent the early hours in a small chapel—which I noticed doubled as a schoolhouse from the alphabet banners limning the tops of the walls—filled to capacity with happy, devout Samoans. They came in their native Sunday best: starched, white dress shirt; lavalavas; and sandals. Aside from my plain gray tee and my tell-tale afro, I was almost one of them. While there I said hello to Fasi, the bus driver, and he introduced me to his various family members. While the congregation nodded to the sermon and belted out songs of prayer in their language, I either bowed my head or swayed in time with the music.
Afterwards, Tui, Kavika, and I followed a tree-lined path some ways into the forest, again until it opened into a large, flat clearing. I could hear the kree of seabirds and the gentle crash of the waves on some nearby beach as it splashed a salty mist into the island air. Near the center of the open field was a very small hut, complete with a grass-thatched room and pane-less windows. Tui, who had been a veritable caretaker for my family's land and who used the open space for crops, showed me inside.
It was a one room hut, sparsely decorated only by handcrafted chairs and a table. An indentation in the center was encircled by a ring of stones and above it was a trapdoor that sported a rope with which to move it, allowing smoke from a fire to escape. It was a quaint home, perfect for my needs over the next two weeks. Kavika and Tui hustled around, shooing away overlarge bugs and dropping mosquito-net curtains over the windows and threshold. I took one moment to stow my light luggage and we were back off on the forested trails, headed toward Fasi's beachside home for the festivities.
We arrived when the sun was directly overhead, beating down from on high with no clouds to soften the blow. Kavika, his sack of crabs in hand, rushed ahead, mingling amongst other kids and pointing fervently back in my direction. In no time at all, I was mobbed by curious little faces and poked at by the children who intoned the word meuli repeatedly. Parents shouted at the inquisitive bunch but I smiled at them reassuringly, not bothered in the least by the attention.
I followed the youngsters, learning some of their games. They would have one boy lob a ball out into the sea while three others stood by the water's edge, watching intently until it hit the water. Then they'd rush off at top speed, swimming frantically to try to reach the ball first. Another game they played involved racing up two contiguous coconut trees and seeing who could toss one down to their partner first. In this game we all won, using jagged rocks to crack the fruit open and drink down the delicious contents before devouring the meaty insides.
As we romped together I watched them keenly, comparing them to myself as a boy, inevitably considering my unborn child. I recalled times growing up when I would often spend entire days under the beating sun, little need for sunscreen, and ultimately more concerned with testing the limits of my bravery by testing the depths of the sea. I recalled, too, a penchant for scaling anything with handholds. In so many ways we were not unlike one another, myself and the Samoan youths, and my own progeny to come.
Once the children's curiousity had been satisfied, I wandered back to where no less than 30 adults had gathered. They spoke loudly and were in good spirits. I greeted some folks as I passed over toward Tui and Fasi who stood beside a fire-pit which was blanketed by banana fronds.
“Malo,” I said while approaching. I pointed at the pit, “What's there?”
Fasi pulled me in close, wafting the fumes from beneath toward my nose, “It's an umu. We put taro, breadfruit, bananas, fish and crabs under and cook 'em through the day.”
“Oh, it's almost like a clam-bake.”
“Umu,” he repeated.
“It's an old tradition 'round here, brudda,” Tui explained. “Old as the day Tagaloa first made us.”
“Who is Tagaloa,” I asked. Fasi muttered something unintelligible in Samoan and lifted up the banana leaves, checking the food.
“Tagaloa is God,” Tui said simply. Fasi sucked his teeth sarcastically and Tui continued, “Come with me, Iosef, we gonna walk, ya?”
He led me away from the umu, leaving Fasi and the party behind as we traipsed nearer to the jetty, a stretching arm of black rocks which extended some hundred yards out into the Pacific. As we walked, Tui began to speak, gesturing with one hand toward the calm waters, “Many Samoans today have forgotten Tagaloa. When the white man came here he brought religion with him and so folks, like Fasi, think Tagaloa is just a fairytale.”
I stopped, peering down the length of the jetty, the blue yonder painted in the background and asked, “Tui, do you believe in Tagaloa? I know it's myth, or whatever, but do you?”
His face turned serious and his brown eyes glazed for a moment, staring through me as though I were immaterial, “I have told you, Iosef, about fa'a Samoa, the Samoan way. To me our myths are just as real as might be the Christian myths. Real or not, it's something to be proud of. Tagaloa, the maker, made us after he crafted the mighty sea. Some of the older folks even say that we were made from the sea and from the rocks of Samoa herself. I am a son of the sea, so to me it is real.”
Tui took hold of me in his powerful arms, applying another great bear hug as he had the day before. He released me and placed a hand on my shoulder, that constant smile of the isles splaying across his cherubic face and said, before strolling back toward the gathering, “Ya, you can believe or not, Iosef, but from what I see, you are a true child of Samoa.”
I considered his words, staring out dazedly across the open seas when it came to me, that sudden clarity I'd come to the island in search of. I pulled off my shirt and dropped my multi-colored lavalava onto the sand, revealing shorts beneath. I pulled off the sandals I had worn and looked down at my watch simply to unbuckle the strap. From a pocket, I pulled out my unused mp3 player and my phone. All these things I left sitting there upon the beach and with a calm gait I approached the bottom rocks of the jetty, jagged, black, and slick with water. My footing slipped at first as I picked my way along the outcropping, moving from stone to stone, but as the island fell away behind me and the sounds of the crashing ocean were all around me, the saltwater mist breathing new life into my lungs, my pace quickened.
I fancied myself some ancient Samoan, racing, as the kids had shown me, over the rocks—now with such grace as might be afforded by a mountain goat—and toward the deep waters of the Pacific. I came to the end, speeding without hesitation or care, and leapt high and far, soaring out over the water, then down into the life-bearing sea where it embraced me. It was there, amidst the muted roil of the womb of the ocean, where I was reborn, where I was washed over by the glorious realization that I was Iosef Mailao, a true child of Tagaloa, regardless of my mixed heritage. And I knew that my unborn child was also of that same beautiful lineage.
Many kids met me on the beach, screaming gleefully as I swam in to shore, my afro weighted by the seawater. I played with them there, splashing with them under the hot sun. As the afternoon went on we returned to the feast, everyone seated around the umu. Fasi and others passed out the foods, beginning with me, for I was considered a guest of honor that evening in accordance with tradition. So, we feasted on the bounty there long into the night. There was song, there was dance and that night my initiation was complete.
When I eventually left the island, pulling away from Pago Pago, American Samoa on a late-night jetliner, I knew, all at once, I was leaving Samoa, taking it with me, and going home to find it in my child.
