One Samoana

Can You KOOH KOOH KOOH? – Revisited

In the ville, our Notebook Scribblers are assigned topics to blog about. One of our first assignments was: What is your favorite memory of Samoa? I love these entries so much, I thought they deserved another highlighting.

Our Wrydah’s favorite memory has to do with beloved family and talking to chickens.

One of my most fondest memories of Samoa is feeding the chickens lol. Papa and I did it every evening right before we had loku and ate dinner. I was probably about 4yrs old? Maybe even younger.. but standing at the top of the stairs ...Read more ››

Translation for Falealili Uma – a song of victory

As with many traditional Samoan songs, Falealili Uma is not one that you can fully understand in English with a simple word for word translation.

Even fluent speakers of Samoan still need to know some history, a few idioms and a little bit of geography to really grasp the meaning of this song.

Thank you to the elders in my family for graciously helping me with this translation. It was such an enlightening conversation. This song is so old and so popular – you hear it at just about every upbeat Samoan gathering – that I ...Read more ››

Secrets of the Samoan-style pineapple custard pie

(Skip to the recipe)

If your family is like mine, someone’s bringing food home at least once a fortnight from a church, family or other social function. Usually the food is great … okay, I lie. Most of the time the food is yuck, a consequence of either cheap catering for lots of people or all the good stuff got swiped before the take-a-plate-home-ers got to the table.

To me, it’s no coincidence then that pineapple custard pie is often amongst the dishes we still gratefully (as in, we still eat it cause it’s a ...Read more ››

POETIC JUSTICE ~ SouLaYesz of OneSa

... even as the …

SWEETEST SOUND

... what is the SWEETEST SOUND your ears have ever heard??? ... read the tale of a deaf girl that found love in GOD's healing when stripped of everything and everyone she ever loved ...…

Mangono

Hullo there.

Miranda [Mir-and-duh] here!

My story is called MANGONO. This is just a synopsis. The story will begin soon enough.

Somewhere, out there, there was an atoll called Mangono, home to one tribe.
During the pass of seven moons: ten daughters and ten sons were born upon Mangono.
No more children were born for two decades;
when those 20 children became adults and wed one another.

This is the story of the Seven Moon Twenty upon Mangono,…

Class photo!

Sophia came across an old class photo from her days at primary school. “I’d almost forgotten about this photo” she said smiling at the chaotic scene captured eternally in her twenty year old photo frame. She couldn’t help but burst out a name “Jackson!!” as the memory came streaming steadily to mind just like a movie scene. She giggled remembering the brave soul that dared to orchestrate the biggest prank ever in the history of Gladstone primary school, and she unknowingly was his…