Monday, September 29, 2008

Savaii Day 9 - Safua Hotel

This has been such a great day. We switched from Safua Hotel to Faga (pronounced “Fanga”) Village homestays today. And so far it’s been an unbelievable experience.

I’m always nervous starting a homestay, cuz I’m a little shy, and esp in a completely different culture where there’s a language barrier. And since we’re never told a lot of information beforehand, we had no idea what to expect.

When we got to the village, we had an “Ava Ceremony” with the chiefs of the village, which is their way of greeting us into their village and families. We had to drink this ground up ava root and some water – tasted like dirt. Then we were all separated into each of our homestay families. I buddied up with Sarah for the homestay, as we couldn’t be by ourselves in a house. It’s interesting here cuz the family consists of all the extended family – they all live on the same land, but each has their own fale, so there are 6 of us staying in the whole extended family, but just Sarah and I in one of the fales.

I think the name of the woman hosting us is “Molee”. She’s really nice, and speaks broken but decent English. She brought us to her home and gave us a coconut to drink and fanned us for like ½ hr, and asked us some questions about ourselves. Then she and her family served us lunch, and she has us sit and eat at our own table, and brought a ton of food out for us. She fanned us the whole time we ate. Awkward.

Molee then took us out to a beach fale, where we’re sleeping for the next 3 nights! Sweet! Literally right on the beach. :) With the coconut tress right next to us, a beautiful sandy shore, and the waves lapping at the base of our fale. How sweet is that! I get to wake up each morning to see the gorgeous teals and blues of the ocean over the coral reef. Omg, this is really one of my lifetime dreams come true. Ahh, I’m so happy right now. :)

We relaxed on the beach and hung out with people in the afternoon. It was really relaxing. I felt so lazy in the heat with the ocean and everything.

Molee has 2 daughters that are similar to us in age – Eva, 17, and Tiota, 15. They’re sleeping with us in the fale. They invited us to their church youth dance practice for their White Sunday holiday. That was fun to watch them all sing and dance. Some of the songs were even in English, which I knew.

Apparently the table we were eating our meals at was only taken out for Christmas and Easter, so it was a big deal for us to sit there and eat while everyone else in the family ate on the floor in another fale. And they fed us so much food. We were always stuffed. They’re so hospitable, it’s amazing.

Leah

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness! So amazing! I am so jealous right now... ;)