I’m sitting in the big fale next to the faife’au’s house enjoying the SIT kids’ farewell fiafia, when all of the sudden I’m accosted by several zaftig Samoan women. They have me by the waist all turned around, tying feathers around my middle and in my hair, along with a beaded headdress around my forehead. I am then informed by Teki, the faife’au’s wife, that I will be performing the final dance of the evening. Not just dancing along with everyone else, but performing a solo, impromptu siva of my own. I had, apparently, inadvertently become the belle of the ball.

Allow me to provide some context, or some exposition to the preceding scene. Since I’ve been in Lotofaga, I’ve been hearing about the “other Peace Corps” that are coming to visit in September. Now, I was pretty sure all along that they weren’t Peace Corps, in fact, I was downright certain. Well, I finally got the story this week – they’re American exchange students in Samoa for the semester, and they visit Lotofaga for a week-long village home-stay as part of their program, and there's a group every semester. (I was more than a little annoyed at first that everyone in the village calls them “Peace Corps,” but last Sunday I was walking with a local girl down the road, when someone asked if I was a Peace Corps. She said, “No, this is Lisa.” So I apparently am my own separate category of palagi now.)

So anyway, some of the village ladies who’d hosted them put on a farewell fiafia at the end of the week, which I was invited to attend. (I had an amazing meal there, by the way, green salad, pasta salad, I even got a lobster tail – amazing.)

So after the college kids had done their dances, and the village ladies had done theirs, I was called on the finish up the evening – though I’m not totally sure why. But using the moves we’d learned for our farewell fiafia in Amaile, I managed to get through it without pissing myself or running away in shame.

Actually, it was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward now to Peace Corps Samoa Group 81’s welcome fiafia next month.