Samoa Journal #3 – Citizen Art, Citizen Science
A lot of giggling today. Giggling girls are one of the joys of life, so it’s fair to say it was an excellent morning.
We all trooped off to the Vaisigano River for the first phase of the citizen science workshop: getting to know each other, getting to know the river. Turns out a river isn’t necessarily a river. The Vaisigano river is considered a river system, not a river – in Samoa the same body of water has different names depending on where you meet it. The place we went to with the giggling girls is called Malifa, and the river there is Loto O Samasoni, or the Deep Waters of Samson.
The Übersee-Museum staff were accompanied by a sizable contingent from the university, including two teachers (Sene Taupega-Satau and Asonei Leauga), two lab technicians (Taua Veni and Ietitaia Simi) and the man of the hour, Ieremia Gale – an artist in the Ministry of Education. He arrived and immediately got all the subdued students to start laughing. We also had Fa’ainuseilamalie Latu, lecturer at the university’s science department. There were drivers, videographers, photographers, and several energetic young boys who enthusiastically joined us.
I don’t mean to dismiss the intelligent young women on the trip by calling them giggling girls. Yes, they giggled and that was wonderful. But each one had the bravery to wade into the river, to play with paint, and to stand up in front of the crowd and explain her painting. And whoever I talked with seemed serious about her studies, and either had a plan for the future or was open to one. Audrey, for instance, is president of the student association. She is a very good biology student. She chatted while adding paint to some ferns and then pressing them on canvas. She is interested in both sustainable development and bio-engineering, and hopes to go to New Zealand for graduate work. I hope she makes it there.
One student who was late because she’d been to church got a rapturous reception when she got on the bus. Eventually a boy joined as well, but the day definitely belonged to the women.
While the exercise was supposed to reveal the students’ deep connection with the river, it turned out they had none. They only go to the beach. Things didn’t start off on a very good note, as the path down to the water was very steep and everyone hesitated. There was a fresh pile of garbage. There was human feces between the river and the road. There was a distinctly foul odor in one section of the river. All this happened overnight – when the team checked it out yesterday, the spot was pristine. But then – the sun was shining, the water upstream was sparkling, the waterfall looked very enticing, and suddenly we were clambering down and splashing in the water. It is heartbreaking that this is the reality all over the world now: you go to paradise, and are greeted by the plastic bottles and the smell.
Well, if we’re going to do citizen science, we have to deal with reality. And soon enough, the beauty of the day, the water and the trees took over the smells and garbage, and when the exploration and wandering were done, everyone sat down with paper and canvas, drawing, painting. They all started by saying they are science students, not artists, and then they proved themselves utterly wrong by:
- using bits of wood to stick onto their canvases
- finger painting
- looking at pictures on their phones and working from those
- mixing paints, creating glorious swirls and hues
- sticking on bits of plants, flowers, pebbles
- getting lost in their work except for some obligatory giggling
They are definitely artists. A dollop of yellow in blue – aahh! Who can resist?
After a most satisfying feast and show-and-tell (Audrey got a laugh for her beautiful creation when she explained, “I’ve romanticized it so I’ve removed all the bad things.”) we dispersed, to meet again next week for the more scientific part of the project. The students will collect specimens from a different area of the river system that they saw in a new way today, I will lurk and take notes, and culture and science will exist side by side, as they should.
Samoa Journal #4 – My House is Your House
Sunday in Samoa. We were told it’s a special day. We certainly had one.
Sunday in Samoa means church, food, family, rest. It’s clear to me now that any institution that wants to promote an understanding of Samoa must immediately send staff to the country to spend a Sunday. Once you do that, you get a sense of how land works, which is crucial to understanding any society. You also get a sense of how family, spirituality, and food works, and really, what else is there?
Our Sunday was in a village on the south coast. Every village has chiefs – matais. Every family has matais. Each village has several matais, who are responsible for their own families and their own land. Eighty percent of land in Samoa is customary land, owned by families, and controlled by matais. You can’t sell customary land, so everyone in Samoa technically owns some land, and homelessness is simply not possible. This sounds wonderful and in many ways it is. But. There’s always a but.
Your matai is in charge of “your” land and you can’t do anything without his (or her; usually his) consent. If you just sell or build without permission, it’s sacrilege. Imagine, if you will, moving away and living in another country for a couple of decades, dreaming of the day you go home and retire. Then you come back to your beloved island, all set to build a house. You need to get consent from your family, spearheaded by the matai. Perhaps you get it, along with all the support you need. Everyone’s happy. But perhaps you don’t. If you start building without permission, you might be stopped and left with a half-built house.
Who owns what? This question is always on my mind, lit up in neon. I’m from a country that the British thought they owned. My travel companions are from a country that thought it owned this beautiful jewel of an island. Ownership is at the core of the conflicts and comforts we experience all the time. And at the heart of the questions that we are here asking, as a museum: who owns knowledge, and how do we share it? Who keeps the trophies, who writes the stories?
In Samoa, you “own” land but someone else controls it. It’s family, not individual ownership. In Germany, the US and India, you can just own land outright, often with many restrictions – zoning, tradition, corruption, and of course climate, which makes fools of us all when we think we actually have control. But for me the most interesting question is what owns us. In India, we don’t ask each other where we’re from. We ask, “Which place do you belong to?”
And that sums it up here as well. All day today, I was filled with a genuine feeling of warmth, surrounded by a loving family who look out for each other, are there for each other, cook for each other, stay in each other’s common houses. It’s just lovely. I think of all the lonely desperate people in New York City and this seems like paradise.
But! There’s always a but. What if your family isn’t that loving? Surely there’s no society on earth where everyone is kind and devoted, and has your best interests at heart. What happens if your matai is power-mad or an abuser? What happens if one Sunday you just don’t feel like going to church, or you’re allergic to the traditional palusami dish that is part of every Sunday toonai? Something to think about.
Our feast was worthy of its name. Umu is the Sunday meal cooked on hot stones. This means that on Saturday young men fish, chop wood, and generally gather supplies. Young women do their own chores. Traditionally, the fire has to be out by the time the sun comes up on Sunday morning or people will see your smoke and know you slept in. Some villages have laws that everyone has to go to church except one or two people to watch the food and make sure everything is ready. (Again, the annoying New Yorker asks: suppose you just want to sleep in?)
The church service was wonderful, partly because I didn’t understand a word. This left me free to appreciate the woodwork in the ceiling, the stained-glass windows with fish and bird motifs, and the rows upon rows of splendid ladies in splendid white hats. I don’t know what the minister said, but that was probably for the best, because I could tell myself he was saying really wise things and feel uplifted and enlightened.
As for the feast that followed, by the spectacular Pacific Ocean under an almond tree in the perfect weather, describing it to anyone who wasn’t there would simply be cruel. Suffice to say, it involved a whole pig and much coconut, and will go on the list of Greatest Meals of All Time.
Then a walk through the village that was beautiful and deserted after everyone had feasted. Then a swim in the Pacific and a hike in the rain forest. It’s a visit to paradise. And paradise looks different from every angle. The skeptical New Yorker might find it restrictive. The traditional Samoan might find it comforting. The restive villager might find it maddening. The children running up and down the church aisles might feel it belongs to them and they belong to it, and isn’t that what we’re all looking for?