Whalerider

The Maori community in New Zealand wrote and produced a film for the local Maori community. The film, Whalerider, has become a world wide phenomenon. The male lead is Wahiri, who has become a friend to us in Pago. He is one of the nicest, most open and enjoyable people you can ever meet. Here is his picture, sitting around with us in the Aiga Tautai o Samoa. The thin man in white pants behind him is our sponsor from Germany, Dieter. The Caucasian in ie fataga (wrap around dress) is from Samoa. The other guys are from Roratonga, Cook Islands. Real people. What a privilege it is for me to know these gentlemen on a social basis. These are real and genuine people who have succeeded on the world stage. They are intent on giving back to the world in an effective way.

Healers

The Festival of the Pacific Arts was larger and more inspiring than anyone expected. Here, we have just finished a prayer and closed a meeting of traditional healers. To the left of the picture is a man from Papua, New Guinea who knew Father Jerome Frey originally of New Orleans, LA. Father Frey is my close friend and spiritual advisor. He is a Marist priest living with the order he founded, The Community of Jesus Christ, Crucified, in Lafayette, LA. Among Fr. Frey's many accomplishments is his work as a missionary in New Guinea. The healer in the picture is renowned all over the world for his work with victims of torture. He has lived and studied in Denmark, a country which is dedicated to providing care to victims of torture from around the world. Of course, next, c'est moi. The pretty lady is a female healer from Hawaii, Christina MacKey. The man in the middle with the yellow shirt and red lava lava is the most famous Kahuna in Hawai'i. He is with Ali'i Lomi and is the scion of a long line of native healers or Kahunas. Then, the last person on the right is a male, native Samoan healer, dressed as a woman, wearing the big headgear. He is a "fa'a fa fine". He is a man who lives life as a woman. His choice is totally accepted in the Pacific Islands. The red hair is real human hair, but, not his. It is a wig. He is wearing woven mats which are much more coarse than cloth.

Rainmaker Mountain in the background

View from Aiga Tautai o Samoa...Roughly translated as the Sailors Home of Samoa, on the beach at the harbor at Pago Pago. Our VAKA (assymetric double hulled canoe) is in the harbor, and Rainmaker Mountain is in the background. This is the night after we were given the sponsorship of our new VAKA.

We were all drinking Tabs with our tuna fish sandwich on wheat toast that night.

Whalerider

The Voyaging Society of the Pago Pago Yacht Club has a sponsor for half of the construction of a 72 foot long sailing canoe (Polynesian catamaran). We have built an AIGA TAUTAI (or boat shed). The rest is to wait for the tropical hardwood (which requires a permit to cut) and build the canoe. Then we sail off to Hawai'i with five other vessels from neighboring island states.

Much the coolest thing I have ever attempted.

Pictures to follow.

Voyager...

We welcomed the crew from the voyaging canoe from the Cook Islands to Samoa with open hearts. We brought them goodies, and expected nothing in return. We didn't even know if they would accept our gifts at the time. We felt a good contact.

This act put our group from the Pago Pago Yacht Club in touch with their sponsor. He had flown to Pago from Germany to meet them here. After all, their voyage was a worthy display of Polynesian seamanship. The sponsor arrived with the star of the movie "Whalerider" in the process of filming a sequel. Multiple meetings later, we now have sponshorship to build a 72 ft. voyaging canoe (catamaran is a European term). We will have one canoe based here, and there will be one on at least 5 different major islands in the Pacific. One use will be to train teenagers from our club in the ancient ways of sailing and navigating. Another use will be to help the public understand the natural ecological systems in the Pacific.

We planted a mustard seed and grew a mustard tree, overnight.

The House of the Rising Sun

After the most impressive up close and personal experiences and conversations with the indigenous people of New Guinea, coastal Australia, Taiwan, Palau, New Caledonia and Tahiti two French TV Journalists and I ate Tuna by the harbor. We missed the Head of State of Western Samoa by 5 minutes. He was being hosted by Measu Atuatasi and his family for supper. "Mace" and I work together.

At the harbor in Pago we found voyagers who had arrived 2 hours earlier from the Cook Islands. They were celebrating finding land at night, without modern navigation aids. Of course, there are lights in the harbor, but, there are also massive waves and rocks. They travel in a large catamaran, using only sail. Most were exhausted having fought 30 knot winds for days. The others were playing guitar. I couldn't help with the Polynesian songs, but, I did remember the words from The Animals "House of the Rising Sun." After all, I was born there...

Somewhere in the world someone had a better time than I did last night. But, no one within 5000 miles had a better time than I did. Pictures to follow.

A balmy night in paradise.

Yesterday was one great day. The night before, I rescued two native Frenchmen hithch hiking in the dark. Turns out they are journalists who work for a TV station in New Caledonia, a French colony in the Pacific. I am a translater for the Pacific Arts Festival as well. So, we travelled around all day and all night eating exotic food and visiting with even more exotic people.

We met with real aborigines from Australia, real Melanesians from New Guinea, real Micronesians and Polynesians from islands great and small. From tiny Pitcairn Island or Norfolk Island to giant Australia or New Zealand almost everyone was represented. Real people doing their real dances, carrying the weapons they made themselves under the stars with the trade winds blowing beats reading about Anthropology in a text. Poor old Margaret Meade has nothing on me now.

Speaking French and English will cover most places, except Rapa Nui (Easter Island) which requires Spanish. However, the leader of the Rapa Nui group is married to a French woman, and his French was much better than mine.

I promise to post pictures of this wild gathering as soon as possible.

However, we are still making news. We hope to climb a mountain to film where the first Missionaries, French priests, were killed and eaten about 150 years ago. This takes a lot of negotiation and permission from land owners, but, I am working on it.

Festival of the Pacific Arts

American Samoa is playing host to its neighbors, similar to our festivals in Louisiana. We last hosted this festival forty years ago. The island has never looked better than right now.

I am a volunteer. I worked late at the airport on a team greeting people from French Polynesia, serving somewhat as an interpreter. We are in the early hours of the gathering...too soon to tell whether this will be more of an exchange of cultures or bodily fluids.

I will tell you what happened, later.