Samoan Independence Day Part I

The first of June marked the 44th Anniversary of Samoa’s Independence as a nation. To mark this occasion there is a public holiday… well actually two this year, I guess because it was a Thursday it was just too good an opportunity to make it a really long weekend.
Amanda went to the Flag raising ceremony at 8am. She worked out the reason why this required her to be there at 7.30am when there was a 40 minute traffic jam to deal with. Unheard of in Samoa. Apparently every school child in the country was also down there to parade in the sun for half a day.


I took the opportunity to avoid these action packed events to go in search of some waves with a couple of guys up the road… wise choice!We (surfers) did get back to catch the highlight event of the day …the long boat races….

Unfortunatlely there was not an international flavour to the competition because the American Samoan’s didn’t send a team (oars were not of the traditional type or some such problem). The harbour shores were packed but we managed to get a few glimpses of the boats zip by – each with about 40 big strong guys, plus a drummer for entertainment, plus usually a big fat guy steering and barking out orders in the back. I say usually because there was Zeta’s boat which replaces the big fat guy with the far from fat Zeta who with her team took on the Americans and won a few weeks back in their race. In the end another boat pipped them at the line this time, with another 6 boats spread back about a km behind.

There was a bit more marching and parading on offer in the afternoon, but there is only so much of that any sane person can take in one day, especially when its 30 degrees and 90% humidity.