Fa'amati
Trip Start
May 12, 2006
1
15
22
Trip End
Ongoing
Vailoa,
Samoa Western
Monday, March 12, 2007
On Thursday I attended the Fa'amati. This is an activity that happens every year in March for the pastors of the Christian Congregational Church of Samoa, the predominate church. Other churches do this at other times i.e.: the Catholics do it in July, Fa'ajuli. Anyway, what happens is that the women of the congregation give presents to the pastor and his wife. These presents are in the form of different types of hand woven mats, household goods and cash. Each woman is responsible for making a certain number of mats. Consequently, most of the women have been busy for the last six weeks or so working on mats (see last journal entry for a description of the process) and raising money for the other items. On the day of the Fa'amati the wives of the pastors, a church official and a few village representatives for each village in the church "district" go from village to village in that particular district and count and record every item given to each pastor
Counting the mats
. The gifts given to our pastor are as follows:101 large mats with yarn around the edges
41 mats woven with dyed fibers
52 mats of a coarser weave like sleeping mats but nicer
90 sleeping mats
2 ia toga (really fine mats that cost 1500-2000 tala)
20 large bath towels
22 sheet sets and tablecloths
2 bedspreads
18 plastic serving trays
36 dish towels
3 floor fans
63 woven palm leaf place mats
dishes, teapots, silverware, knives, serving utensils, glasses, teacups, bowls, teakettles an electric skillet, a refrigerator and
$5000 tala
As you can imagine, the women are all relieved that it is over
Homework
. For us, it means that we can get more attention from the village on projects though Ray is thinking seriously of throwing over this Peace Corps gig and becoming a pastor. I was really surprised when the pastor's wife gave me 2 dyed mats and 2 yarn edged mats. One of the dyed ones she gave us is the orange on in the picture.Ray has been busy working with Craig, the new computer teacher, on the layout for the computer class room and the design of computer tables. They hope to get the tables built soon. Ray also wrote a funding proposal to New Zealand AID for money to build his work benches. The school committee was unable to find the funds since they are still trying to pay off the house that they built for Craig to live in. Ray has also been doing homework with neighborhood kids almost every night.
I am in the final design phase of my pig farm proposal and hope to turn it in to the FAO soon. I just heard last week that I received funding to paint 2 world map murals at the local primary and secondary schools. Actually, I got the funding twice. I hadn't heard from the original source a week after the deadline so I mentioned the project to the Chicago area RPCV group. They got the e-mail just before their board meeting started and agreed to fund the project. The next time I checked my e-mail I had responses from both groups. Now I am waiting to see if the Chicago group wants to redirect the funds or have me expand the project to more schools in Samoa.
