Power Struggle (Written 12/3/05)

Today was definitely one of the most mentally draining days of our training so far – it made me glad we only have a week left in the village. We experience our first taste of a village power struggle and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Tonight we were suppose to have our Farewell FiaFia for the village (which is like a farewell party) because the mayor of the village asked our trainers to move it to this week instead of next Friday. Well tonight was also our gift giving party from the church and the women's committee – which we were told about 2 weeks ago. The problem was that no one knew exactly when these events were going to take place – we asked 3 different women and got 3 different answers. So we were not happy because it seemed that nothing was settled by Saturday and we had already made plans to go to the cave pool nearby (because originally the women committee and church were going to take us to the beach). So after our morning language activity we set down as a group and discussed what was going on. We came to the conclusion that there appears to be a power struggle between the mayor and the pastor because both seemed to be moving their plans to one up each other. So as a group we discussed our options  which included not going to the cave pool (which would have made some people, including myself, upset), giving the village a time constraint on their activity (which doesn't work in Samoa and it's rude), not doing the FiaFia tonight or – what I call the suicide pill – leave the village early. The group was very much divided over this issue with some trainees saying they wanted to accommodate the village because of their generosity, others wanting to not upset their Samoan families and then there were some – like me – who thought that if the village power players continually abused our flexibility we leave. Some of the trainees were like "it would be hard to leave my family", well my thinking is if you could leave your blood family whom you've known all your life you can easily leave a family you've known for 4 weeks. We didn't come to a consensus but everyone was getting upset. So after lunch we went to the Piula Cave pool which is a freshwater spring that sits inside two caves underneath a theological seminary.

 

The Piula Cave Pool

 

It was freezing cold but it had no salt in it – it was great. It was a good time of relaxation and getting away from the politics of the village. The great thing about freshwater pools in Samoa is that they tend to be located next to the ocean – so you can hop out of the freshwater and into the salt water which was so warm today, it was great! We were only there for three hours but it was a great break. So then we headed back to Falevao and finally confirmed there was no FiaFia tonight, only the gift giving presentation, so finally some concrete information from the village. So at 7pm all the trainees and trainers met in front of the church for the ceremony, everyone – except me – was wearing a brown tiger stripe pattern on their shirt and pulatasi. I was wearing a blue ie faitoga (a formal lavalava) and technocolor shirt – apparently the tiger pattern was our "uniform" for the night but my shirt had a button missing.

 

Josh and I – the technocolor dream shirt!

 

We thought this would be a little service only by the women's committee but nope it was a big deal because about half the village showed up for this presentation. So we started the presentation with the pastor reading Psalms 113:1-2 and during the prayer my aunt came and got me. She had fixed my shirt and wanted me to change into it during the prayer. So at the start of the prayer I was different and at the end I was wearing the same clothing pattern as everyone else – thank goodness for long Samoan prayers. After the prayer was the actual gift giving and the women's committee gave a lot – there were hats, purses, shirts and 85 lavalavas plenty for the group. It was during this part that I found out that this prize giving was a gift from the women's committee and church only – not the village. And the reason the pastor wanted to do it this Saturday was because he thought the village (represented by the mayor) would do something for our last week in the village and he didn't want to disturb that. Once I found that out, things made sense – we thought the FiaFia and the gifts were both "village" gifts. Anyway, after the gifts the women's committee fed us a buffet of food which was so good (but so strange because we at in front of the church while the villagers watched us – or as Holly said "This is what royalty feels like!"). After we were done eating, as a gift to the committee for doing this we performed the sasa (a Samoan dance) for those in attendance which the audience loved. So we gave the audience a taste of our FiaFia and hopefully we get to actually perform it during our final week. All in all the gift giving definitely ended this rough day on a good note. I realized today that the village determines if we have the FiaFia – not the Peace Corps. The FiaFia is our gift to the village but if they have nothing ready for us we can't do it. The matai's of the village will have their meeting on Monday and maybe then we'll find out if we're having a FiaFia. So the ball is in the mayor's court now – we'll see what he does. It's just to bad that either the pastor of the mayor is just ruining this village's reputation by playing these games and not giving us straight answers. Ah well, as of today we are one week from being gone – the race is on!