Day 10 The King, Beach, and giving away T-Shirts

Day 10

It seems fitting that today is day ten, because it was a ten indeed!

The morning started with us meeting at coach’s house, where we packed up the cars with shirts and computers for the Head of State (King) and his family, and headed up to his house.  When we arrived there, the speaking chief was in the middle of a gift exchange following a funeral that has previously taken place.  It was a fun experience to see how these things really happen in the Samoan culture, although we could not understand a word of the shouted phrases.  Once the exchange was over, the Head of State’s wife took us inside to meet with him.  Sam visited with him for quite some time, and then Maddy and Kisha were asked to present their gifts, and knelt down in front of the king which made things kind of awkward and we all laughed way hard.  Once all of our gifts had been presented, we took pictures, and hopped back into the cars to head back home. Back at the house everyone pitched in to stuff the vans with t-shirts to throw and pack lunches for the beach!  After we were all ready to go, it was back into the cars for the hour-long journey.  We threw balls and t-shirts to the people along the whole ride; they were all so excited to receive these small gifts and it felt amazing to be able to make someone so happy.  Finally we got to the beach!  We spent the day swimming, snorkeling, photographing, tanning, playing cards, and throwing around a rugby ball.  Lena stepped on a sea urchin, and one of the Samoan ladies nearby had to come help clean her foot up, but the spines are still stuck.  Coach taught us how to drink out of, and break coconuts, which made us pretty ecstatic. After a few fantastic hours at the beautiful beach, we ended our day and left for home, throwing out more shirts on the way.

-Kiahna Steiner and Kalani Norris