A view from the harbor in Fagatogo, today, as we watched the boat races.
April 17th is the 110th anniversary of American Samoa becoming a territory of the U.S.A.

There were nine boats and each boat had a large community of support.

In the picture below they are launching one of the long boats. The boats are 115 feet long, weight around 2 ton. There are 23 rowers per side, which makes 46 rowers with a captain running the rudder and yelling the commands. There were heats yesterday and one of the boats swamped, because of the rough water in the ocean and today, they won the race of the year. This is a long and much celebrated event, I would assume it has been going on for the all 110 years. It has never been canceled and they usually row in the rain, which they did today.

We went to two night of celebration of Flag Day. There was much music and local dancing. It rained both nights but there were tents to protect the crowd. Many of the groups were local schools presenting various traditional dances.

I am so impressed with the buses on the Island. There are between 40 and 50 different buses running between all the little villages and the main part of town. Any person or family can prepare a bus for hauling passengers, without a special license. Wilbur thinks I got carried away with pictures of the buses. I wish I had native music on this blog for you to enjoy as you enjoy all the different styles.

This one is picking up some high school boys.

Most buses have wood bench sits and we plan to ride one before we leave Samoa.

What a cutie?

Much clearing and cleaning up has been going on in many villages, preparing for the April 17th, Flag Day, celebrations. Plantings, can just be stuck in the ground and they root and grow into large shrubs. American Samoa became a U.S. territory in 1900. A.S. celebrates with much to-do. We plan to watch the Long-Boat races, next Saturday. There will be 40 rowers in each boat. Hopefully, we will have pictures of the celebration to share with you.

There are 96 villages on the island and 90% had tsunami damage. There are 97 christian churches on the Island. Every village has at least one church. The Methodist church in the photo above is about one block from our compound here in Fagalele, in the village of Leone (pronounced Lay own a) . The Catholic church in the photo below is just around the corner.

Many of the churches had repairs and were repainted since September.

Enjoy the beauty of the ocean. This whole island is lava rock from a volcano.

The mountains are covered with vegetation, you would never know its lava rock below.

I hope you had a good a wonderful Easter. There were many crosses in the yards here in the neighborhood, celebrating Easter.

This is the house that MDS is working on now. We have been laying cement block, putting on a new roof, and various other jobs, trying to complete their tsunami damaged home.

An interior picture of Nua and Lee's home.

This is a detour created by the earthquake in September.

Another home repaired and rebuilt by MDS.

Damage from the tsunami, a block from our compound.

Easter Sunday, we attended a Samoa church, A few words were spoken in English.

Wilbur and Chief Tau and Lisa, his wife, in front of the church.

We went for a drive on Sunday afternoon and saw this really large Banyan Tree.

Verna Martins and I went to a roadside stand for fruit and vegetables.

Many roadside stands were selling fresh flower bouquets this weekend to be used for decoration in the churches and the tombstones.

There are many beautiful flowers on the Island. Here are a few that I photographed on Sunday.