March 11 - Apia

Today we cruised into the port of Apia, which is the capital city of Samoa. The Independent State of Samoa, until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands, Savai'i and Upolu and several smaller islands. Samoa is located between Hawaii and New Zealand.

Visits by American trading and whaling vessels were important in the early economic development of Samoa. The whalers came for fresh drinking water, firewood, and provisions, and later, they recruited local men to serve as crewmen on their ships.

After several civil wars, involving tribes backed by the USA, Britain and Germany, the Germans prevailed. The German Empire then, governed the western part of the Samoan archipelago from 1900 to 1914. The colonial administration governed on the principle that "there was only one government in the islands.”. All matters affecting law, lands and titles were under the control of the colonial Governor. There was no Samoan Tupu or tribal king allowed.

In the first month of World War I, on 29 August 1914, troops of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force landed unopposed on Upolu and seized control from the German authorities, following a request by Great Britain for New Zealand to perform this "great and urgent imperial service." After repeated efforts by the Samoan independence movement, New Zealand terminated the Trusteeship Agreement and granted the country independence as the Independent State of Western Samoa in 1962 and, was admitted to the United Nations in 1976.

The weather is truly tropical. It is hot, humid and feels very oppressive. Even the heavy rain showers do nothing to offer relief.

We decided to take a tour of Apia and the surrounding area. Our first stop was at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. Christian missionary work in Samoa began in 1830 and today the country is predominately Catholic. The cathedral was built in the late 1880’s and has been renovated many times since. With its magnificent wood carved ceiling and bright interior, Marg ranks this at the top of all churches she has seen in her travels. I loved it for the sense of serenity it offered.

We then crossed the road to the Samoa Cultural Village. Here we were provided with an hour-long tour of pavilions that demonstrated Samoan customs.

The first pavilion showed how food is prepared in the village.  River stones are heated under an open flame. Then banana leaves are layered between the food, such as fish, coconuts, bananas. It was pointed out, much to the applause from the female audience, that cooking is the duty of the man of the house. Two young Australian brothers, both who appeared to be under 5, stole the show when they volunteered to be part of the cooking demonstration. They asked multiple questions and mimicked the adult men doing the cooking.

The next pavilion was a tattoo station. Here members of a family receive a body tattoo that tells the story of their family. A male tattoo takes up most of the lower bode and can take twelve sessions, with each session lasting up to seven hours. It is a very painful process. The lady who was getting tattoo seemed to be in severe pain.

In the last pavilion, we got to see a tribal dance. The females were elegant and the males were very energetic with yelling and dance moves that showed off their strength. This was finished with a fire dancer.

We then went to a local village market.  It was nothing special. The alleyways were very narrow with usual clothing, jewelry, and produce. Marg did not feel safe in the maze of booths as she was accosted by a lady asking if she was alone. 

Our last stop was at the home of Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped, lived here during the last four years of his life. He was revered by the Samoans because he integrated into their society and was a champion of their rights. One of the more interesting aspects about the house was that largest bedroom belonged to his mother and Stevenson slept apart from his wife.

The entertainment tonight was Mikey Volano. He is a singer and arranger, who takes modern songs and rearranges them into 50s Rock & Roll. Apparently, he has been streamed on Spotify more than a million times. 

Tonight, we will cross the international date line. So we will go back a day in time,, meaning that we have two Saturdays, March 11.  It also means that I need to reset the date and time in three different places. I need to set the time zone on Windows, Android and Google calendar. Each has a different procedure and each has a different way of finding the proper time zone. All this should be automatic, except that the network here, believes we’re Vancouver, so we are stuck doing this manually.