There comes a moment when you realize that was probably a reason for the way things were done “in the old days.” I mean really- why wear so many clothes? And why sleep in buildings with walls? Clothes and walls are just one more barrier between you and the breeze…just one more thing to trap in the sweat and humidity and heat. In terms of actual temperature Texas might be hotter, but in terms of humidity and lack of A/C Samoa definitely has us beat. The A/C or lack of it is probably one of the biggest things. I wake up every night drenched. And the heat really wears on you too. We had this afternoon completely free so I went to take a nap. I easily slept for a good three hours.
But enough about the heat. This morning most of us woke up at 5am to go to Apia to watch the Fautasi (long boat) races. They happen twice a year so we had to go. I didn’t count exactly how many rowers there are to a boat but my guess would be two rows of twenty-five boys or fifty total. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very close race so it wasn’t that exciting but it was still something to see fifty people working together as a team. If one person is off the whole team suffers. Watching that was pretty cool, as was watching the sun rise over Apia and the water because we were there so early! Although the race started at 6am it was five miles long so watching the end meant they didn’t come around the bend until 6:45. Think of all that extra sleep…
Our lecture today focused on religion and culture. Coming in I’d heard nothing but positive things about Christianity and Samoa, but I’m hearing a must different side of things here. The first missionaries here were from England- the LMS or London Missionary Society. They were soon followed by the EMMS or Evangelical Methodist Missionary Society and the SM or Society of Marists, the Catholics. Apparently one of the big issues for the natives is that they feel like Christianity eliminated some of their cultural heritage without ever becoming something that they felt was their own and no
1 comment:
The boat race watching sounds so cool!!
And those are very interesting thoughts on religion, Catholicism, and culture. Especially interesting to me, as I am currently in a land with MANY centuries of Catholic culture behind it and yet not Catholic of itself today. So, for example, (public) prayer is not the taboo issue here that it is in the States, but it's not because of any particular fervor on the part of the French - simply a residual religious culture whose remnants are clinging to modern France. In a sense, it's the direct opposite of Samoa's case... definitely food for thought.
Post a Comment