Fagamalo Trail

Life Is For

Real Along The

Governor John M. Haydon of American Samoa made a “periodic inspection” of some Samoan villages the other week. Ed Engledow, the government informa tion officer, went along with him. He wished he hadn’t, and here he explains why.

I took a walk the other day the like of which I damn well guarantee I’ll never take again.

Letting loyalty override judgment, and following the theory that if my boss will put out an extra effort for a good cause then I should do the same, I agreed to accompany Governor John M. Haydon and some of his staff members on one of his visits to remote Samoan villages where he talks with the people about their needs and problems, most of which are pretty basic.

The first leg was a pleasant bus ride to Poloa, a picturesque village on the extreme northwest shore of Tutuila. It offers a view of blue, endless ocean which makes Diamond Head second-rate.

There was the traditional and inevitable kava ceremony, despite the Governor’s advance pleas that such visits be informal and that the villagers forget their traditional hospitality and just talk about their problems.

For Poloa, the Governor had some good news. A contract for a school will be let in August. Their cross island road is scheduled for improvements this summer.

He’ll try to find $2,000 for repairs to the village seawall.

Then the Governor’s party straggled out on what is called, with a great stretch of the imagination, a trail, which runs from Poloa eastwards along the north shore to the villages of Fagalii and Fagamalo.

The trail is rocky and at times just clings to the side of the cliff and the walker feels that he is dangling over the lacy surf which pounds the rocky shore maybe 50 ft below.

There are some level stretches which are not too bad.

But the trail is laced with small, rocky streams which bob up all too often. Thirty years of desk work, three packs of cigarettes a day, uncountable vodka tonics, compounded by loafer-type shoes and bifocals do not combine for safe passage on such terrain.

First fall: A real back-buster when my feet went 90 deg. forward and I slithered seaward only to be stopped by a massive boulder. If I had been agile enough to fight it I probably would have ended up in the sea. Result: A puncture wound in the left forearm, a badly bruised left shoulder.

Second fall: A real belly-buster on the slick, white volcanic rock floor of another stream. Result: Skinned knees and elbows.

One of the greatest Samoan traits is devotion to your friends. Shortly after that mishap I looked up to find Fa’alepo Fa’alepo, Jr., our government photographer, waiting by the trail. He had been leading the pack, became worried about me and turned back.

Fa’alepo, who has the strength of a bull, made sure

I didn’t fall again, despite the fact that he was loaded with camera gear.

We struggled through the quiet village of Fagalii which was sort of slumbering in the early afternoon.

Then came the shocker. The alleged trail literally went straight up a sheer, 600 ft jungle-covered cliff.

And it took a lot of looking even to find it. The thick vegetation was wet and slippery.

A third of the way up Fa’alepo was dragging me like a rag doll and at one time even wanted to carry me piggy-back. My heart was pounding, I wasn’t breathing.

I was gasping.

Half-way up we stumbled onto Public Works Director Jerry Clark and Internal Auditor Ambrose Oderman who had met Tuese Tali, a rugged Samoan teacher at Fagamalo, on his way back to Poloa.

I lay on my back on the trail, continued to gasp and thought about a couple of friends who recently had suffered coronaries and decided to let them worry about what to do with me.

I went through the act of a feeble protest and then consented to have Tuese and Fa’alepo rag-doll me back down the cliff to Fagalii. Clark would use the Fagamalo radio to contact the government launch Manusina, which was to pick up the Governor’s party later in the afternoon. It would pick me up at Fagalii, Tuese dribbled me like a basketball across the last stream and dropped me at the home of the Reverend Simati Sunia, the Fagalii village pastor.

That kind man proved to be one of action. He stretched me out in a comfortable chair and produced an endless stream of pitchers of ice water. His wife boiled water, cleansed and dressed my wounds.

I sat back and looked at the ocean, listened to the sounds of the village and couldn’t have cared less if the Manusina never came.

But she did arrive after about an hour and a couple

This is Tutuila terrain of the kind that brought Ed to his knees. Some Governors are tougher.

of dozen delightful Samoan kids, who had appeared from nowhere helped me totter down to the rock-strewn beach, screaming and laughing with (not at) the fat, crippled palagi.

Half a dozen rugged teenagers put me in a small paopao, and swam behind it to push me over the reef to the Manusina in which there were cold drinks and bunks. I put them to good use for two hours before the Governor finished his visit to Fagamalo and boarded for the return trip to Pago Pago.

The rest of the party did the route and most of them looked it.

They told me that Fagamalo’s basic problem is a lack of potable water and it can’t be solved in the normal fashion because most of the young men of the village have had to leave and take jobs in the Bay area because the trail is just too rough for day-to-day com muting.

So there’s no local labour to build a water tank to replace an ancient catchment built in Navy-government days. The Governor arranged to provide government materials and prison labour to build a new water tank.

So far as a road to Fagamalo is concerned, he could only tell them that an aerial survey is being made now which may determine where it should run. He said that every other village has similar problems and in spite of an increased federal budget American Samoa is years away from solving many of them.

And he promised the villagers they would continue to receive the best boat service the government can provide.

At his next staff meeting, Governor Haydon announced that the village visits will continue as often as possible but that he’s not about to try another one the hard way.

Even if he does, he probably will not invite me.

He has an aversion to dead staff members.