Taking The Bus: My Trip to America Samoa, Part 1

Props to my man, Tanu

Prologue

It will hopefully become clear as I go further in to my account and post more photos, but before I go further, you should understand this much: I was very glad to make the trip. but this wasn't an island getaway. This was a work-related assignment to train nurses in the use of the retinal camera I use and teach on constantly at my VA job as part of a nationwide telehealth program, a program where people can be diagnosed remotely and hopefully treated more expediently if needed. I was doing it in a place with very limited medical even in comparison to the northern New England regions we've trained imagers at before. Nothing but a VA Medical center and the Lyndon B. Johnson hospital, and neither had a full-time optometrist. That was what Honolulu--a five hour plane ride and a one hour time difference with planes going out twice a week--was for.

American Samoa is not a tourist stop. It is an American territory acquired due to (as it was explained to me) its strategic naval location. It is an island in the midst of recovery from both an earthquake and a tsunami, much like the one that Hawaii was afraid of the weekend I was traveling. This was also a place where many people did not get excited traveling to. I heard a lot of disparaging things about the place. "Third World" unfairly being one of them (I had electricity, working plumbing, access to cable news and--as my Face Book friends already know, internet). Another person who heard I was going told me to look out for humidity and witch doctors (he was only right about the former). A person who had been building boats on the island since November gave a horrid impression of his brief stay at LBJ hospital, and here I must interject and say that even though I never entered the hospital, the staff there were incredibly helpful after I had been dropped off there by accident because the bus driver didn't seem to know of the existence of the VA on the island. Plus, I have to add, whatever happened to the boat worker, he was certainly healthy enough to walk around, be in a bar at night and answer questions from annoying Americans such as myself.

That I didn't get the vision of a third world is my point. I didn't get to see the entire island. Out of the areas I did see on the main road (one of two), some reminded me of post-tsunami New Orleans in 2008 (only with greater damage, as American Samoa's disasters were much more recent). Other areas reminded me of the streets of downtown Woonsocket where I spent a good deal of my childhood, prior to the city center's renovation over a decade ago.

American Samoa is very, as the name might hint, Americanized, home to McDonalds (one taller than any of the island's churches I saw), a KFC and even a Carl's Jr. This Americanization of its diet is a good reason why diabetes is rampant on that island and a big reason why I was there and why other trainers were in various other areas of the Hawaiian Islands in recent months. American Samoa made a microcosm of why diabetes is running rampant not just in America but in other countries with Americanized diets.

Maybe American Samoa started as third world. If that's true, it's had America's world injected. At least one of the island's residents seem very grateful for this. A bartender accounted the ability to travel abroad more easily (no passport, which is what I needed) and the health care coverage. "If I were to have a baby," she said, "it would only cost me $20." Anyone from Western Samoa would pay in the thousands. So there are positives and negatives, as there are to anywhere. I don't want to live there, but I liked the people I talked to, and everyone I worked with extended me every possible courtesy. But Americans, please don't call it third world. Maybe fourth world. It acknowledges our existence there, plus it's a cool Jack Kirby refference. If there's something about the place that makes you put it down, maybe that's because of something we recognize as buried in our own back yards. And please, no witch-doctor jokes.


Just outside Logan

Day One

It was Saturday morning in Boston when I left for Logan Airport via cab, though you wouldn't be able to tell from the picture above. Prep work the night before took longer than I thougth, so I stayed up the entire night, surmising that I would sleep on the plane. To miss any flight would have been disastrous. I needed to be in Honolulu that day in order to meet up with the optometrist overseeing the training early the next day. Following that, I would be taking the Sunday afternoon flight to American Samoa (which shall be reffered to from this point as "the island" for simplicity, touching down just before midnight. There was no room for mistakes. There are some of you who might say the biggest mistake was doing an all-nighter, but such was my logic at 2:00 in the morning with a flight time of 7:48 a.m.

By sheer coincidence, I got to see my Mom at the airport before she went with my Aunt Denise and Uncle Brian to the Bahamas for their vacation. She was impressed at how light my baggage was, given that I'd be gone for about eight days.


Aunt Denise, Mom, Uncle Brian


Promising to write

I dressed light for the weather. Just a light raincoat, given that there strong chances of rain on the island during my stay. I sure as hell wasn't going to be wearing anything heavier.

My one stop in the middle of the flight was in Denver, with less than two hours to wait for the longest stretch of the flight to Honolulu.



Oh, yes, that's when the tsunami alert happened. Did I mention that already?



Family called me with the info, which was helpful, given that I was in an airport that didn't even have a bar TV in the bars. With an eight food tsunami potentially heading for Hawaii's shores, I wasn't sure if my plane was even taking off. As it turns out, it was, with plans to detour to San Francisco if Hawaii got hit.

As you can see in the above photo, there were two more flights leaving shortly after mine. I wonder if we still would have gone if we weren't going to such a tourist location on what had to be a a money making flight.


First time in a plane...this big (10 points to
anyone who gets the cultural reference)

Thankfully, the plane was the largest I'd ever been on. A nice bonus, given that with Government rates, I'm confined to the equivalent of a capsule and a slingshot. No problem for short flights, but this one was for almost eight hours. Plenty of time to read while waiting for the captain to tell us whether or not Hawaii was screwed.

About four hours later, it was, "And Hawaii is going to...live." And we carried on.


Had to admire the view even if it
looks the same two hours later


Portrait of The Artist In Coach

Hawaii's people, both residents and visitors, seemed to be breathing a big collective sigh of relief as I gathered my bags and headed for the bus.


Outdoor lobby? Well, I thought it was cool

The Hawaiian Hilton, where I checked in, was pretty much evacuated hours earlier, leaving only these letters in everyone's room, including mine, though I checked in hours after the threat passed.





A little creepy after the fact.

I was prepared for exploration at my final destination. Honolulu on for my first night, on the other hand, just brought out the pure tourist in me. I didn't venture too far out of The Hawaiian Hilton, and it's surroundings, which gave one the impression that I was in some kind of oversized Smurf Village. I kicked back at the local restaurant for most of the night with fish and chips using Mahi Mahi instead of cod or haddock (why not?) and tried in vain to figure out why my camera is so crappy at night, no matter what settings I use.






At least the first one was cool

I decided to try and wait until morning to try and get some images while the sun was up, but given the season, this was as bright as it got on the majority of my days abroad.



So if you're wondering why took so many dark images, it's because that's all the light I could get, and it didn't seem likely I'd get second chances.

I met the Honolulu doctor late Sunday morning after sleeping off the lag. Just enough time to get some statues in the Hilton's various walkways and check out.



Shouldn't you be in the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki
Tiki Room? (another ten points if you
can name THAT reference)



After having lunch with the doctor at Don Ho's Island Grill (think of it as the Hawaiian Hard Rock), we went to his local VA hospital to go through what and how I'd have to teach the group. We use a nation-wide consult system, but as one of my superiors says, "You've seen one VA, you've seen...one VA," meaning every system is a little different. It's customary for me to figure out the individual quirks in each system so I can teach it with 100% confidence. Nothing irritates a student more than a trainer going "Uh..." and fumbling around with a program. After THAT was done, he dropped me off at the airport over two hours early. It was time to utilize my passport for the first time and...wait about another two hours in the terminal for the American Samoa flight.


*Whew* A paper from the
day after the tsunami alert.



If these early arrival/long waits seem silly to you, keep in mind that, again, the next flight to the island would have been the following Thursday. Also, the airline has been known to give tickets away if people do not show for their flight right away, and that is apparently double-true for flying back.

As this is the only flight to the island, I was allowed by work to get a more expensive ticket than normal, which meant for once a flight with a free meal and movie. I spent most of the time either chatting with the man to my left, who I did not photograph. As I said, there was nothing touristy about where I was going, really, so even at my most obnoxious, I wouldn't have dared a picture unless I really bonded with the guy. and really, it would have been no different than if someone took my picture from my flight home last Sunday. It was good instincts, as I found out that he was going home to the island for his father's funeral. As was a good number of the people on the flight. I made small talk as he ate his meal ravenously and drank a small bottle of wine, later mixing it with a mini-bottle of liquor. I asked him if he was nervous, and he said no, but he was nervous the first time he flew to Salt Lake City. Then at one point he said he couldn't wait to fly back home to...Salt Lake City. This was his second plane trip ever.



We had to walk a bit from the plane to the main place. There was a long, hot line of customs, inspections, and American officers with drug-sniffing dogs with most of the home-comers laughing at the ceremony. I have no idea whether or not this was the norm or extra duty for the drug inspectors due to a FEMA worker from Puerto Rico caught with marijuana (as the story goes, he thought he'd be safe, because he thought there were no dogs on the island. When you read part two of this, you'll see how ludicrous a statement this was).

By the time I had found the van to take me to the Sadie Thompson Inn, it ws close to midnight. By the time I finally made it there, it was damn near one in the morning of March 1st, and the hotel didn't charge me one night as a result of the lateness. Most of the island from where we were coming down had been shut down, leaving only a Carl's Jr. open and one general store that didn't sell alcohol, which frustrated the defense workers I rode with before they were dropped of to Sadie's by The Sea. They seemed to react visibly when I told them I was further down the road. Apparently, it was the less cool place to be, and they were already planning their time at the bar once they checked in.



The Quality Inn Tradewinds in the village of Tafuna was where I was originally advised to stay. When I found out there was no vacancy, I chose the Sadie Thompson Inn because the clerk who booked me said it was closer to my work. Trouble is, when I said "VA Medical Center," she thought I meant the LBJ Hospital. So I was further away. In the end, though, I was thankful, as Tafuna is where most of the industry was. I have a feeling that if I had stayed there, I would have always smelled either burning wood or oil, and I would have been less prone to explore after my first full day.

Ah yes, the first day. Find out about that with Part Two. For those of you who don't want the story and want to skip to the graphics, you can find my albums on Facebook here and here.