Day Eight (September 1st)

The next day we woke up and followed the regular breakfast routine, gathered our belongings, and headed to the main office to take care of our tab. After the girl behind the counter spent ages calculating our tab, we slapped our credit/debit cards on the counter for the swipe. Who would have known they don’t accept card payment of any type for payments that could easily top the hundreds. Nervously, we scrambled up all the tala we had and threw it down… $305.20. Not quite the $460 or so we needed. We stood there dumbfounded for about two minutes until finally one of the villagers said he was heading into town in about an hour anyways in an hour and he could drop us off at the ATM and later onto the ferry. Phew! “Fa Fa Ti (Thank You). That sounds wonderful I replied.” It actually worked out for the best! This transportation meant we didn’t have to pay for a taxi ride to the wharf. The Tanu beach employee dropped by the ATM machine in town and unloaded us at the ferry station. We paid the man and decided to head up the road for some grub because we were starving. We found a local market a few kilometers up the road and took turns guarding our luggage as the others rummaged about the store to find some appetizing snacks. All of a sudden I hear a beep and an familiar voice. “Kristi... Kristi?” Who would have known? It was Lo Lani, our cab driver friend from a couple days earlier! He asked us how the rest of our trip has been going and what our next plans were. We explained to him that we were heading out on the 2pm ferry back to Upolu and were unsure of our next step, in regards to where we planned on staying and what we were going to be doing. He nodded his head for a moment and then quickly began typing numbers into his cell phone. I had thought maybe he had forgotten about a taxi appointment or something he had to do that day which would explain this random outgoing call, so Kristi, Dan, and I started discussing what we wanted to do next. About one minute later, Lo Lani broke up our conversation to announce that we could stay with his family in Apia!
I thought to myself… His family?! This ridiculous; but how cool would that be! I looked over at Dan and Kristi and noticed that all of us were carrying glowing smiles upon our faces. “That would be awesome!” Dan replied. And within seconds, we began loading our bags into the car. Lo Lani dropped us back off at the ferry and instructed us to meet up with his brother as soon as we arrived off the ferry in Upolu and explained that he would drive us to his sister’s work in Apia. I was kind of confused about how everything was flattening out, but I was used to the unpredictableness of this country and just decided to ‘smile and nod,’ knowing that things would work out fine.
The ocean was choppy and the ferry bounced around quite a bit, but we still managed to make it over to the mother island in an hour and a half. Just as Lolani said, his brother was waiting for us on the other side with a hand to assist us with our bags. We hopped in the hatchback vehicle and were on the move AGAIN. On the way to their sisters work, we stopped by their other siblings lava lava shop as he showed us around. I really didn’t have much casual money to spend, but Kristi and I did split the cost of ¼ yard of a cool material to make headbands out of. When we arrived in the city, Lo Lani’s brother lead us into modernized corner café and introduced us to his sister Tex. Tex pretty young, about 23 and was wearing a black ruffly dress, that still didn’t seem to cover her developing pregnant belly. Haha. I’m not very good with predicting this kind of stuff, but it was pretty obvious. She was also absurdly nice and offered us any sort of drink on the menu. As we sipped on our fruit smoothies and Vailimas on the patio, we discussed our excitement. We were jumping into things with no expectations or plans and it was awesome! After Tex got off work, we walked back through the familiar town of Apia to their home. I was shocked that their fale was located directly behind the bar strip that we had attended on our first night! Here we were being invited to stay in a local family’s household, watch tv, sleep on the floor, and eat meals with a true Samoan family. What better way to experience the Samoan lifestyle. Before we walked in, we slipped off our shoes outside the door. We were introduced to their mother, father, Tex’s husband, and her adorable two children who were two and 6 months of age. Her mum gave us the tour and showed us to the room in which we would be staying for the night. We dropped our stuff and took seats on the floor as we went listened music and got to know the family. Lola, the two year old, entertained us with her dancing/flying skills. She was so funny. I was still in shock of the opportunity we had swallowed ourselves in. This was so cool! Later that night we grabbed a Hawaiian pizza around the corner and shuffled to and from the bars with Tex and her husband later in the night.