Saturday December 20, 2014

Today was a "free day".  Tangra was on call and had to stay at the hospital.  Matt and the Broge kids came at 8:45 to drop Tangra off at the hospital.  Matt took us, along with Dr. Cosman and his two sons, over to the other side of the island for a hike.  All the land in American Samoa is privately owned by various families, and there is no Real Estate.

We decided to hike to a place called "Massacre Bay", a remote bay that was the site of a French Massacre in the 1780's. The history is very controversial, but basically the story goes that a French ship stopped off in the bay to get provisions.  Apparently some of the French accosted the polynesian women, who were naked, and it angered the villagers, who attacked the French and killed 12 of them.  According to the French account, the villagers then ate some of them - a detail that the Samoans deny.

To get there, we had to drive across this guy's land and park at the top of a mountain.  The owner directed us to the trail, which went into the jungle and down the ridge for about 3 hours. The bay is very secluded and is owned by an ex-army man named Tony.  He lives by himself and is rebuilding the site of his ancestor's village in the hope of bringing in tourists to the site of the massacre.  He told us the story and took us to a monument that was built on the site of the massacre by a French priest in 1882.  We spent about 2 hours on the shore there, and I got some incredible photos.  The water was very blue - much clearer than anything on St. Maarten -  and warm.  There were also tons of fish everywhere.  I got very sunburned.

The hike back was almost entirely uphill at a steep incline and quite strenuous.  Neeli got tired and had to be carried, but overall the kids did very well.  It was unbelievably hot and humid.

We got back to the hospital only to find out that one of the kids we admitted was now in the ICU with septic shock, coughing up blood and bleeding everywhere.  I was going to go spend the night at the Broge's house tonight and go to Church with them in the AM, but basically when that kid coded and went to the ICU, all the peds team came in to work (was only supposed to be Tangra today).  I ended up going into the ICU and helping out for about an hour. 



Photos:
1 - a large hermit crab (these are crawling all over the mountainside)
2 - The view from the ridgeline
3 - Matt and Neeli
4 - Nolan
5 - The beach at Massacre Bay
6 - another view of the beach at Massacre bay
7 - The monument to the French sailors who died, erected in the 1800's by a French priest
8 - Tony and his dogs show us around the bay
9-11 - more views from the hike