Day 158 The village

In the morning we traveled again to the Baha'i temple to enjoy the choir and the ambience of the location and the grounds. Unfortunately, there was some confusion with the bus schedule and we arrived quite late. Nonetheless, we again enjoyed the visit.
Yesterday, we met a well known yachtie Capt'n Fatty Goodlander and his wife Caroline aboard their 38' Wild Card. Fatty writes a column for Cruising World magazine. He has written for this and other yachting magazine for years and because of his sense of humor, he is widely read. Fatty claims to have sailed for 47 years (he went to sea as a child aboard his father's boat) and is on his 4th circumnavigation. Fatty and Caroline came over to Southern Star to interview us and take our pictures - supposedly for an article he is writing.
Fatty, whose real name is Gary, began writing over 20 years ago and he has a thousand stories about his adventures. The good news is that he is indeed very funny so listening is a pleasure. Contrary to one's expectation, he is not fat. He was given the name by his friends in Chicago when as a teenager, he bought his first boat. The name "fat" meant lucky (like "fat city" means lucky in New Orleans) and he used it as a pen name so he could write for different magazines at the same time. Eventually the style he used under his pen name became more popular than those written by Gary so he now is Captain Fatty. For those who read Cruising World, you can look for the article and let us know if it appears.
Sean and Jennifer Myers aboard Soul's Calling wanted to do a charity project during their trip and Andy introduced them to the Peace Corps office here to see if there was anything that matched the local needs with their interests. The Peace Corps uses a small village in the mountains named Manunu as a training site for the three month culture and language introduction given each volunteer. The village is very isolated and contains about 200 people or about 15 extended families. They have a school building that was in very bad need of paint so the Myers family rounded up the paint and with the help of some Peace Corps volunteers they spent a day last week and painted the building. Today was the final Sunday for the volunteers to spend in the village and a celebration was planned. The Myers family was invited so they could be thanked and honored for their generosity and they were told they could bring some guests so Kurt, Andy and I joined them as well as Wendy's Mom and Dad (from Liahona). The celebration turned out to be a 2-hour long singing and dancing presentation held in the church. The voices were quite remarkable although a program half as long would have been plenty.
Most of the villages in Samoa are on the shore. Manunu is different as it has no view of the ocean but instead is surrounded by steep hills. Nearby is a stream with a waterfall and a pool for bathing and swimming. The houses are fale designs meaning there is a perimeter of poles that hold up a roof. The beach fales typically have no walls but these have walls to keep out the weather. Inside is one large room with mats on the floors and a few pieces of furniture. Most of the houses are in a circle surrounding a central grassy area with a church and other common buildings on one side. Everything was exceptionally clean and the landscaping was manicured, similar to the other villages we had seen. All-in-all, a very interesting experience.