samoa3-paul-iv-olemoe-pulemelei

Sunday, 10 March 2002. Up early and drove off (a good thirty-five minute drive) to the church attached to Paul IV college where one of Van's friends is teaching -- she wasn't there, but we wanted to see the service anyway. Some beautiful singing, and a powerful if incomprehensible sermon (in Samoan). Back to Apia for lunch and hanging out before heading back to the college to meet up with Van's friend (who was back by then). Dinner that night with the nuns, in their beautifully-designed nunnery: very clean, modern, well-suited to the environment. Stayed the night.

Monday, 11 March 2002. We woke up at seven and drove back to Apia; did two hours of frantic errands and drove back to catch the noon ferry; it had engine trouble (or something) and was two hours late. An hour-and-a-half ferry ride later we're hot, tired, and on Savaii, so we pick up Van's friends Sean and Blair and hit the Olemoe Falls: the waterfall wasn't falling that day, but it's a beautiful swimming hole, very magicical and an amazing shade of blue. We fed coconut to the crawfish, who swam off with pieces three, four times their size. We also went up the Pulemelei mound, the largest 'ancient structure' on Samoa. It's a huge mound, maybe 15m high and 30mx20m on top. The theory is apparently that it was used for "pigeon snaring", which was a sport++ that was a huge-big deal back-in-the-day. You pretty quickly come to the conclusion that either a) this big mound was not used for pigeon snaring or b) pigeon snaring was way more important than we understand. Then, finally, back home.