American Samoa Flag Day-April 17, 2007

Tuesday, April 17 was Flag Day here in American Samoa. It is a commemoration of American Samoa becoming a U.S. Territory on that day in 1900. Everyone here describes it as “like the fourth of July” but like the “anti-Independence” version. And, sadly, there are no fireworks, which I had secret hopes for-envisioning fireworks blazing over the South Pacific.

For Flag Day, the country usually gets two days off-the day of and the day after. Why pray tell, wouldn’t you get the Monday before the holiday, making it a four day weekend? Well . . . nobody knows, or at least nobody that I know. Maybe because you need the day after to recover from celebrating too much? Or as one person surmised, Monday (a payday) was already an unofficial day off for “Check Cashing” day by most employees. The lines at the bank can take all day to queue here in AS. Thank the lord for automatic deposit.

The weekend before Flag Day there was a Samoan Performing Arts Festival on the downtown Pago stage. It was in the evening, which sounded like just the ticket.

Especially, compared to the all day, bake in the sun, end up in the hospital passed out, dance/singing performances in the Football Stadium the day of Flag Day. There are some nice photos of the dancing at the stadium from the Samoa News: Samoana H.S., Leone, PolyTech H.S., Fagaitua H.S., and Manua’a H.S.

The groups are from villages, churches and schools. The dancers are men and women, the performers both dancing and singing. They are accompanied by their own village musicians playing everything from CD players, to wooden standing drums, to guitars, to Vailima bottles, to conch shells.
The performance is almost always a story, unfortunately all of which was lost on us, as it is in Samoan. The dance is large on hand gestures, sitting dances and group interplays. The men will sing, then the women, then everyone all together. Samoans have some of the most beautiful singing voices I’ve ever heard and they are (almost) always on key.

Flag day itself is slated mostly for activities at the Stadium, with the morning heavy on speeches from every single important person in the country, the Fono (think of this as the Senate or Parliament) and the Governor. Again, we decided to skip this, especially as it would all be in Samoan.

Wednesday was boat race day. The boats are called Fautasi. There are 45 crew members and a captain. They are about 92 feet long. It seemed these boats are only pulled out on Flag Day. These boats were traditionally used for long treks over the ocean. The teams don’t practice all year round. When I got here in February the teams were just forming and starting to practice. As the day got closer we were able to watch the local teams practice in the harbor in the evening from our house. The hills would echo around our hillside with their “HO, HO!” The last week or so the local team was even getting up to practice in the early morning in addition to their evening practice.

There are two courses for the boats that are dependent on the weather. If the water is choppy, the course is 3 miles; if it is calm, it’s 7 miles. The thing is, they have to row out and then they race back in. The morning of the race it was flat as glass-perfect for the long race. The Coast Guard was in town and provided escort for the boats. You can see their ship in the background in a few of the photos.





The race was scheduled to begin at 8am. I always get up early these days, literally at the cocks crow (thank you multiple neighborhood roosters). I saw them going out at 6:30 am! Apparently, they were so excited to be done, they started early.








The race was both televised and on the radio. We couldn’t get the radio tuned and don’t have a t.v., but we knew the race had started when the groups at the boathouses and our neighbors out in the yards all cheered. There was various cheering in response to the action on the water, as we sat waiting with binoculars for the boats to come in.






The thing with such a long course is you don’t get to see it start to finish! We finally saw the boats coming in and there was one sure winner that was far ahead of the others. Two other boats came in soon afterwards. And then one after another, the boats made it back to shore. We walked down to the waterfront to get a closer look and then one sad boat made it back in half an hour after the first boat.





They looked like young kids and I felt sorry for the underdogs. I was told afterwards it was The McDonald’s boat—hmmm, less MickeyDs and a little more McRowing! I was also informed that many of the boats were heavy on teens because last years winning team was a high school. According to some, this strategy backfired for the teams. What was the winning prize? $10,000 to the winning team! It will go to the village but I was told it will also pay for a good party or two as well.



Our friend Mark was on his way to the race and pulled over when he saw the winning team coming in and got some great shots that he’s letting me use for the blog. Thanks Mark!









It was a nice couple of days getting to see the Samoan culture. For fireworks though, I guess I’ll just have to come home.