Last full day of field work in Samoa. We made an early run to the flea market to look at how the tsunami was being commemorated. Tsunami lava lavas (sarongs) and t-shirts were being sold at a brisk clip. We’ve seen 6 variations so far – a simple date, “I survived the tsunami”, “morning of tears”, “tears of sadness”, “Trust in God tsunami”, and “stay away from tsunami”. I am particularly interested in how societies memorialize events like this it and if any of the methods become institutionalized. Stamping “tsunami” on cloth goods is one of the first of the memorial signs. Samoans print T-shirts for many events such as track meets, youth groups, and so forth, so it’s not surprising to see the tsunami goods showing up. Although the tsunami products were selling briskly in the flea market, only one person in our group has seen anyone wearing them and it is not clear if the intended market are tourists or residents.

Today our driver-guide is off with the two engineers in our group so we asked his sister, the owner of the place we are staying, to accompany us. She is a former Pan Am and United flight attended who grew up speaking both Samoan and English. Turns out she is a terrific translator. Her brother would often tend to give a one sentence translation after the interviewee had spoken for a number of minutes. Frustrating not being able to speak the language – so much is lost in translation. We also have the same meteorology trainee accompanying us today.

We drive along the north coast and around the east side of the island. First stop is the village of Amaile. It wasn’t affected by the tsunami but is a very important village in Samoan history and a very powerful family still lives there. It was interesting to me because it was intact and gave us a picture of what the coastal villages may have looked like before the tsunami. We began seeing damage just south of Amalie. First village we stopped at was Sale’a‘unaunua. We were fortunate in having a woman translator with us because we were an all female group and were able to talk to a group of young women that I don’t think would have been as willing to talk to us if we had been a mixed group. One of the women had gotten caught in the tsunami and her leg was stuck by debris. She was barely able to escape when the second wave came. They were aware that tsunamis could follow earthquakes but admitted that evacuating on feeling the earthquake would have been embarrassing and they didn’t want to appear foolish. Of course now they have no such reticence – any felt earthquake sends everyone inland.

The next village was Lalomanu at the SE tip of the island. This was one of the hardest hit villages – the lower parts of the town were completely erased and many people died. Almost everyone has moved away from the coastal area so at first we thought it would be hard to find someone to talk to. One part of the town is high and the houses survived. Our translator hailed a woman in front of one house in Samoan – she replied in English that she didn’t understand Samoan. She was the daughter of the people who lived in the house – a Samoan father and a Maori mother and lived in New Zealand. She arranged for her father to talk to us. He probably had the best view of the tsunami as anyone in his village. The earthquake was strong enough to cause some damage to his house. He was watching the ocean when he saw the water recede and thought that maybe the same thing was about to happen here as in Indonesia. But he was rooted to the spot and not able to move. He could hear a roar and see water piling up. His son finally grabbed him and pulled him to the front of his house. The tsunami surged through the house, reaching the roof line and stopped a few hundred yards in front of it. He lost all of his appliances and the house was filled with a foot of muck afterwards. His house was built only three years ago and had no serious structural damage but he doesn’t like living here any more. It takes him two beers to fall asleep. Several people have mentioned that drinking has increased since the tsunami. His wife is having a very hard time and will go back to New Zealand when his daughter leaves. He was very frustrated by the lack of information about what happened in the tsunami and the initial media reports that suggested the entire south coast had been destroyed.

The physical toll of the tsunami is striking. Even a month afterwards and the removal of much debris, the losses are startling. But the mental toll is also evident. We’ve met a number of people with close relatives that have left the country. While the Samoan village culture is very supportive of people who lost homes, a few people have told us they are concerned about those who are mentally struggling. There is a fear of being identified as crazy and the villages have few resources to help people with long lasting trauma. In most natural disasters, mental trauma expresses itself in a number of ways including an increase in child and spousal abuse, divorces, alcohol abuse, and crime. The areas hardest hit by the tsunami were also some of the poorest in the country and were under stress before the event. The biggest industry was tourism and all of the beach hotels and fales were destroyed.

The last village we visited was Tafatafa and a small resort with beach fales. At first glance we thought the tsunami had somehow missed this spot. Not a piece of debris remained on the beach or the wide lawns. A row of beach fales stood along the coast and the house back a few hundred yards from the coast looked ok. On closer inspection all the fales were brand new and the house foundations were seriously undermined. The owner turned out to be a relative of our interpreter and he explained that his two boats and all the fales had been destroyed in the tsunami and water had swept through his house. He recognized the ground shaking as a sign of a tsunami and got everyone in his family into a car and picked up some elderly neighbors and got them to safety. All of the cleanup and rebuilding had been done by the family – they had gotten no government assistance. They were ready to reopen for business. It was an uplifting way to end what had been a very hard day.