How do you put food in your belly?

Riding the bus from Apia to Lotofaga, I found that if I sat in a window seat, children would run from all directions at the bus, pointing at me and screaming PALAGI!!!  I was prepared to be a celebrity.  When I arrived in my village, most people were napping, a few women were weaving mats, and a few men with red eyes tending sitting around an umu (a hot rock oven thing).  I made rounds meeting whoever was awake-- roughly 15 people (out of 30+ people!) in my aiga (extended family), but was astounded at how little activity was going on. I thought to myself, man! Everyone here is so lazy! Nobody even has a job? While the adults slept or gossiped, the children excitedly buzzed around me, some gently tugging at my hair and grabbing my hands while others played peek-a-boo.  I decided that it was time to confirm their suspicions, that I was, in fact, from the future.  I pulled out my ipod as proof, and sounds began to pour out through the speakers. They watched me and the ipod with half-smiles as if something else was supposed to happen.  They were slightly more impressed with my camera...

Va'ali'i (my host sister who behaved more like a mother as Samoan siblings do) showed me where I could put my things and encouraged me to malolo (nap), but within 15 minutes came to wake me up telling me I needed to do my chores, so I shuffled to my feet to go pick the rubbish up from the ground and feed the pigs. 

When the chores were completed, the family gathered in the main fale and proceeded to sing the most beautiful hymns I had ever heard in the most beautifully arranged harmonies.  The older men covered the lower register, and even the 5 year olds screamed in a perfect soprano harmony.  Every single person sang with every ounce of breath in their bodies.  With chilled skin and teary eyes, it became clear to me why the kids didn't give a damn about my ipod. 

As the last song concluded, I couldn't help but notice a rather attractive man, still wet from the sea, materialize with a basket of fish.  The rest of the family scattered to bring out a parade of dishes like they were ready to sing "Be Our Guest!" from Beauty and the Beast.

An example of a typical Samoan meal

I sat alone at dinner with the matai (chief) while the rest of the family waited to eat once we were ma'ona (full).  The pressure to eat was on.  I knew from my Samoan language teachers that if I wanted my family to like me, I would be able to eat all my food and then some.   I ate a dinner of i'a  (a whole fish), taro root and ulu (breadfruit slices) with palusami  (a "dip" with taro leaves and coconut cream)  and a stew with maukeni (pumpkin) and karoti (carrot).  Unsalted, unprocessed, not saturated in grease? My Western tastes were reluctant, disappointed and confused.  I knew that although it was just the matai and myself, many other eyes were watching.  I accidentally made eye contact with the fisherman, and immediately heard giggling and whispers from perceptive siblings.  Lani, my sister who was around my age, approached to clear a plate and said "so you like the fish ah? Siavea caught them this afternoon" I eagerly nodded, separating bones and intestines from the meat.  She called something in Samoan out to the dark which ignited an eruption of whispers.

Feeling the pressure, and not really understanding why, I ate until I couldn't.  In my mind, saying ma'ona was the equivalent of saying uncle.  As soon as the word came from my mouth, the rest of the family quickly came in to carry the remaining plates of food to the back fale.  While everyone else distracted themselves with the food, the fisherman approached to collect my plate of fishbones.  In a low whisper said "I will catch more for you tomorrow". 

my first coconut husking

my first taro!

Each day I was assigned a new chore.   One sister said to me that she  assumed most white people were lazy, because they heard stories about how we sit in chairs at desks pretty much all day without doing a thing.  My mind was officially blown.  She nailed the "American way"- act busy, do nothing. I realized how delicate they assumed me to be, as they started with the easier tasks.   I scrubbed clothes and dishes with the same bar of soap.  I husked and cracked coconuts, grated their insides with a tuna can, and wringed the excess with a cheese cloth to produce fresh coconut cream.  I thought I had earned my creds when I was entrusted to harvest and replant taro from the ma'umoga/ wetlands, and returned with welts all over my face from namu bites, but then it was time to kill a pig.

Sieki, our program director, arranged for our first time to be at her house (probably knowing that she'd have people like me).  I'd played with the pigs at my house, not paying attention to the live pigs in bags on buses, or thought much of the one Sieki discretely snuck on her palagi-mobile. I had psyched myself out that I would be the one to help put the pig down, but as much as I wanted to be able to do it, I ended up crying indelicately and uncontrollably. The pig was about as big as my dog, and they bagged him and laid him on his back while he bleated and squealed.  A gagged wail escaped from underneath a pole laid across its neck while a boy and girl balanced each other on each side of the pole-- not poetically somber and teary-eyed like I imagined our Native Americans might have been after a kill, but non-chalantly shifting their weight. Seeing it all, I came undone.

Removing the intestines of a pig

I cried all afternoon until I had mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted myself.  By the time I pulled it together, I had this inexplicable urge to go spearfishing.  Going to the water was something I had to do daily anyway, just because it was so hot I needed an excuse to cool off.  But this day, I wanted to kill fish.  I went to the matai and asked "e mafai ona fagota?" (is it allowed for me to fish?) and he nodded, and Siavea appeared with the sling.

As we slipped down the hill and into the water, he just illustrated a few key points: never chase a fish; never shoot a fish that doesn't seem afraid of you; always level off before you shoot; and always pin them against something.  I was amazed at how intuitive and natural it was for me to spear these fish. Being alone with Siavea, the fish, and memories of a squealing pig, I became ravenous.

That night, everything tasted so satisfying-- the squash and taro that I had tended to, the fish that I helped catch, and the coconut cream that I helped make.  I found myself wanting to watch the others eat as they watched me the first night, feeling satisfied together in all our work.  When I finally called ma'ona, Va'ali'i gave my belly a playfully/painfully aggressive thump, and not only did I pass her test, but I consider this a point of being initiated from just being a delicate and clumsy palagi, into something else.  From then on, I was introduced as a kauseni (cousin) or at least an afakasi (half-Samoan). This is my proudest accomplishment, thus far.

my political herstory

I've always been fascinated with understanding how minority parties and demographics are represented in politics. When I interned at the Texas Capitol under a Democrat in the House, I was eager to draft legislation regarding prisoners enfranchisement, women’s issues, and other minority issues.  Unfortunately, I was discouraged to find that in a GOP-dominated legislature, the name of the game was to stay on voting laws, electoral redistricting, and other pieces that would affect re-election. That sucked.  

The next semester, I went to Samoa, where I conducted research on Women in Parliament (or lack thereof).  I found that there were few explicitly binding rules in the structure of the Parliament, but subtle barriers for women to be elected and other procedural difficulties once they are elected.  I began to see how Westminster Style Parliaments inherently prefer masculine deliberation, treating grace and cooperation as vices, rather than virtues.  Samoan culture prefers collaboration (communal lifestyle) over competition (capitalist/American lifestyle). Ultimately, the Parliament introduced by New Zealand doesn't seem like it fits Samoa, but the interesting thing is that other women's organizations are doing the actual governing in Samoa.

So, when I returned to America, rather than going back to the Capitol,  I came to the conclusion that my efforts would be better spent “getting my hands dirty”. Since felon enfranchisement was important to me, I spent several years in Georgia, North Carolina, and Hawaii working as a Wilderness Instructor for juvenile delinquents and at-risk youth. I felt like Thoreau… separate from a corrupt government living in a cabin in the woods that I built by myself (and a small group of teenagers). I felt proud doing this, and would boast that my altered career path was making more of an impact than I ever could at a desk drafting legislation. But one by one, these camps (except for private run Pacific Quest in Hawaii) were closed for lack of funding.  It seems like affairs in North Carolina and the Texas Legislature should be unrelated.  After all, we are just a bunch of nominally "united" States.  A friend once said that if you were to flip the map of the United States, Texas looks like the head on a really weird animal.  That image is stuck in my head. Texas is big, has a lot of money, and holds a lot of influence, but you have to flip the map to be able to see it.

TBC...

Edward Snowden be like...

GIFSoup

Kupira Marimba

I am a part of a Zimbabwean-style marimba band called Kupira Marimba. 

I work part time at Fiddlers Green, an acoustic strings shop that has a lot of American "traditional" musician clientele (bluegrass, folk, etc).  When asked if I'm playing with anyone, I usually mention the assertion above, which in turn gets me a few raised eyebrows...

While it may or may not be obvious, I am not Zimbabwean.  Nor have I ever visited.  So what business does a Texan girl like me have in playing traditional Zimbabwean music?



My Summer Shield

I played classical marimba through grade school, and when I moved back to Texas from Hawaii I inherited one.  I boasted that I wanted to start Austin's first marimba band, but was pleasantly surprised to hear that there was a guy named Joel LaViolette who had already spear-headed that.  So I introduced myself to him, and learned that he had studied traditional Shona music while living in Zimbabwe, and he wanted to form a group that would maintain a focus on just that.  As someone who does "alottamovin" and is fascinated by other cultures, this piqued my interest...

I showed up to our first practice casually late, and my hair was still wet from swimming at Barton Springs.  Joel glanced down at his watch, and looked disapprovingly back at me.  I had a sudden flashback to my old band hall... feeling my gut sink when the band director caught me trying to slip in late.  This was the first indicator that Joel wouldn't be just another free spirit making some hippie music in Austin, TX, but that he was disciplined and there would be structure around what we did.

He asked what our intentions were for the project, I replied that I basically wanted to play gigs and inspire people to dance.  I imagined playing something like this:


In my initial mindset, the western music theory I understood would just transfer over. The music would maintain an African sound, but still allow me to keep one foot in the comfort of my own American music heritage.  I would be in my element, and I could show off my skills. My ego would remain intact.

Such is a summer shield.

On learning traditional Zimbabwean music
(from the perspective of a Western musician who has never been to Zimbabwe, but has a history of going places she knows nothing about)
Within the first few practices, it became apparent that this was going to be like learning a foreign language.  You can memorize the dictionary in another language, but to be "fluent" you have to understand context, cadence, and be able to pick up on subtle queues from those with which you're communicating. 

Learning the music, Joel would show us our individual parts, and then pair us together (one person is the lead- Kushaura, and the other person's part is relative/responsive to the lead- Kutsinhira ) in another room to interlock our parts.  Then we'd bring it together as a group and play the same song until we fell apart.  The songs move in cycles... there's not really a clear cut way to end most of them.

Reading sheet music/ being able to repeat what I hear have always been relatively easy for me.  In Kupira, the individual parts are pretty straight forward and repetitive.  But the way we interlock polyrhythmically is so foreign.  To a westerner, one might say most of the songs are in 12/8... but it still feels like a western rule being applied to a totally different way of thinking.  In fact... the more I draw from my previous music education while I play with Kupira, the worse I am at playing it!

And then there's the Hosho. It's a pair of gourd shakers with hundreds of seeds inside.  Hundreds of variables that snap, swish, roll, etc... The right hand of the hosho drives the pace... and yet the left hand maintains a laid back swing that implies "be patient... I will arrive when I've arrived".   In this style of music, time is not as rigid as western styles.  The hosho reveals all...

The only way for me to really understand the music is to spend time with it... to play the cycles over and over and over until I stop thinking about it... and start feeling. 

My Winter Shield

Most Texans I know dismiss the idea of a "rite of passage" or any other ritual as some hippie shit.  And yet we've still managed to create our own... How do we celebrate being alive for 18 years? Porn and cigarettes. What did you do on your 21st birthday?  The point is, these are markers of a place and time where we are about to change.  They give us a sense of significance.

While I was working at Pacific Quest, we facilitated rites of passage for troubled teens using the School of Lost Borders curriculum.  The idea is that our mind/bodies/emotions go through a similar cycle as the seasons.  Being sensitive to nature helps us understand this. Each season sends us through an "initiation" that prepares and develops us for the next. This curriculum is great for teens, because they change so much and so rapidly!  But this curriculum can be applied to anyone... we all go through these cycles, and at different rates.  This allows us to forget about where we think we "should" be, and acknowledge where we are, with understanding that the only constant in life is change.

A doodle of my "Four Shields"
North Shield- Winter

East-Spring

South-Summer

West-Fall

I've been back in Austin for almost a year.  I haven't had a real winter in almost 3 years... and as mild as it's been, I remember a time in Hawaii when I realized I needed to feel that change in seasons.  Living there, everything felt so abundant in so many ways.  But I almost felt overwhelmed at times with so little direction. 

For me, winter has been a time when I conserve my resources.  I don't take as many risks, I don't connect with as many people, and I go into something of an introspective hibernation. Some people might call it a gumption trap. 

"Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding."
-Pirsig, ZATAOMM

Literally and figuratively, winter is a time of barrenness. So now, I'm developing my Winter Shield.  It's a time when I'm accepting the fruitlessness of some elements in my life, but learning how to nourish them for the next seasonal cycle.

Okay, so real talk... an example of this "barrenness" is how my creativity suddenly dried up.  In the spring and summer, I cannot write enough.  I cannot make enough music.   I want to push the envelope and create new styles.

Now that it's winter, I am less inspired.  My creative buds aren't blooming... but I do feel that this is a time for me to be obedient to something.  To observe where my energy does go when I feel like I have less of it... to learn what it feels like to be devoted to something.  Now is the time to work, to be dependable, to observe, apprentice, and learn. 

... TBC