The easiest part is hand-delivering all the invitations. Both families (and by “family” I do not refer to the father-mother-son-daughter idea of family, but more to the father-mother-sonS-daughterS, uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins… kind of family, or, to put it into short terms, nearly the whole village) are involved in the wedding. They need to provide fine mats, money, gifts that will be joined together and then again redistributed between the chiefs and the rest of the families. Apparently, not many gifts actually make it to the couple.
The church ceremony was nice, but the reception was truly great!
(Me, in the blue dress, taking a pic of Tumau and the maids of honors)
We had a couple of hours break between the two (time that the family use to do their fa’a samoa gift exchange) in which we made sure to go to the local store to change some money to have $1 bills available for the siva (the dance). The siva happens after all guests are seated, according to their status, and before the food is served. During the siva, the newly wed couple dance with a support group as other guests throw dollars at them. At the end of each song, the couple goes back to their table to rest for about 3 minutes as the kids collect the money and somebody (like our director) makes another speech and invites another group (like our working group) to dance. Tumau and Kitiona were dancing all the time!
(Tumau and Kitiona -in white- dancing in front of our working group -on the background-. Notice the dollars on the floor!)
There is something here in Samoa that gives an agency director some extra power: if he says “sing” then we have to go to singing practice (this happens every Christmas when all government employees have to sing for the governor and practice 2 hours everyday for a month); if he says “pull the weeds” then we have to pull the weeds from the parking lot and clean the cars and the cubicles; if he says “paddle” then we have to get out with the outrigger and give our lungs for him (this also happens on a regular basis when we have intra-agency paddling races); if he says “dance” we have to get up and dance. When I first came on island, it felt bizarre. I used to think, “this is not in my job contract”, but you actually get used to it, and I am now very proud to represent my agency. And so we danced, in front of all the guests, with Tumau splendidly dancing in front of us in her white wedding dress. Although I don’t think our dance made lots of money, sorry Tumau!
After the guests speeches and the following siva finished, the food was finally served. High chiefs from the bride and groom’s villages were first served, then the ministers and priests, then the ranking members of the extended family, then the parents of the groom, other important guests, and all the other guests. The food is not served into plates, but comes directly into plastic trays with plastic covers, ready to be taken home and shared with the rest of family. It is so much food that few persons could eat it all by themselves, and anyway it is meant to be eaten in one day only. My tray even had a lobster! Plus canned corned beef (of course!), 2 fish steaks, cooked pig, Samoan chop suey, macaroni salad… the only vegetables presence in the entire serving was represented by a few skinny carrot’s strings in the pasta salad.
(this is Nate in front of his tray - he got a crab-. PS: I love that yellow flaming shirt!!! You can get one just like that if you come to live here!)
Toward the end of the meal (well, how long do you need to dwell over such a plate? Weeks??), the best man took the microphone and gave his speech. Apparently he was a good speaker and everybody was paying attention and laughing. Not me, because it was all in Samoan and I could not understand anything and Elena and I were chatting about something. Then he started his speech again in English, for those English-speaking guests. He said how he does not like to speak English but if a woman can only say a word in Samoan then his heart would be hers. In particular, there was an English speaking woman at the reception that caught his attention, and he already asked her director to have a dance with her, and he is all for her if she makes a sign. She was the palagi woman wearing the long blue dress. At that point, everybody turned around, looked at me, and started laughing (he was looking toward me during the entire speech, so it was quite obvious where I was…) and the people around me were patting me on the shoulder “Malo, Barbara”, “Well done, Barbara”. I was so embarrassed that I could not even understand the rest of his speech, all I know is that people were still staring at me and laughing… And by “people” I mean 300 plus guests! Even today at lunch, my office-mates were still talking and laughing about it.
Providentially, the cake came, moving the focus away from me. Of course, if you have a title, you do not get only a piece of it, but a whole cake to bring home. We got a whole one for our agency that is now patiently waiting in the office fridge for the director or Tumau (I guess) to cut it. I am quite startled by that too, because food in the office fridge disappears very fast (but do not worry, no one will ever touch your salad), but there is deep respect toward a wedding cake.
I had my dance with the best man, and then Nate drove me home, a quick rest before Poker night!Texas hold’em, or maybe I should say, Barbara hold’em, considering my impeccable skills. I was originally planning to go to sleep early because the day after I planned to go out with the boat again, but I ended up playing with Aaron until 2:40 a.m., when finally I got the idea to split the final prize and go to bed
instead!!! EUREKA!
and me with my $$$$!!!
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