Dinner with the Governor

Or as I like to call him, "Sir."
Yes, yours truly has had the royal treatment at the Governor's Mansion for dinner. How, you may ask, did this happen? A lowly midwife such as myself? No, it wasn't to receive any honors for my hard work serving the women of American Samoa.








It's because of who I know. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, "It's all who you know, people." And in this case it was my future husband. You thought I was going to tell you I delivered some important family's grandchild or something right?



















No, it's because Markus likes to dive. And our friend was the Governor's dive instructor. There are few resources on island for dive instruction (Paul and now Jay), few people that dive, and no dive outfitters or excursionists. So Paul and the dive guys are the lucky ones who got to hang with the Governor.







The Governor was apparently a very good student and really enjoyed his experience. He invited his instructors and one very lucky guy with a flexible work schedule (Markus) and their significant others for a "relaxed" (maybe the Gov and First Lady were, I'm not sure we were) dinner at their house. Which is good because Paul wore shorts and flipflops (new flipflops but still).






We were given a tour of the house which was very much like being shown around the White House or something, but the American Samoan version of the White House. The house was recently restored as there had been massive rotting issues. It sounds like it was a down to the studs rebuild and that the Governor was very involved.






We were shown all the Governor's fun collections of rocks, drift wood, art, books, memorabilia and silly gifts from friends. He's apparently a man of many talents, having paid for his law schooling as a traveling Fire Knife Dancer. He was also a free diver in his youth which most certainly made his diving experience easier.







I was a bit taken aback when I got Markus' phone call that we were dining with the Governor. I would usually be planning for something like this days in advance. Of course, I had few clean clothes and I was cursing myself for still not having gotten a puletasi (formal women's dress). I have a bunch of nice respectable dresses but darn if they don't show shoulder (how risque I know!). But I pulled myself together and I had a fun time.




The Governor and First Lady were gracious hosts and Markus and the guys were given a signed book on Samoa.

This is something that NEVER would have happened to me in the states. Definitely one for the blog.

Here is the official press release on the Governor learning to dive.