Barbara mentioned to Mr. Fort, the director of education, that she was interested in visiting some of the Samoan schools. The next time he made a trip to one of the outer villages for a meeting with the local school board, Mr. Fort took her with him. She visited a number of classrooms, waxed indignant over the folly of trying to teach reading to Samoan pupils from stateside-oriented textbooks—“Mother and Betsy are going to choose wallpaper for Betsy’s room”! Why, these kids have never even seen a room with walls, much less wallpaper!—and sat in on a “Board of Education” meeting in a little village called Lauli’i.
Afterward, when Mr. Fort introduced her to the various chiefs and “talking chiefs” who make up any Samoan village council, there was so much interest shown in the Phoenix and her cruise that Barbara felt called upon to offer hospitality. Remembering an incautious speech in Rarotonga, when she had spoken at a school and invited “everybody interested” to visit the Phoenix—and everybody, by the hundreds, had come—she confined her invitation this time to “any representative of your village who might like to see the way we live on the boat and report back to his people.”
The very next day the pulenu’u (or mayor) of Lauli’i turned up. We entertained him as best we could with cigarettes and warm beer and gave him an exhaustive tour of the boat. His English, though far from fluent, was adequate for communication.
“Many boats come this island,” he explained. “But my people—we never see inside. When I go back Lauli’i, I tell my people many things your family. How you live. What you show. How you are kind.”
He asked many questions about the United States which, he pointed out, was his country also. (Samoans, as wards of the government, are a kind of third-class citizen with certain fringe benefits but a great deal of pride and loyalty.) Remembering the pleasure the people of the Societies had in looking at pictures of Japan, we brought out a three-dimensional viewer and a series of stereo pictures of National Parks. It was a great success.
“I never before see like this,” at last said the pulenu’u, laying the gadget aside reluctantly. “It is like I go there.”
“Take it back to your village,” Barbara urged. “Show it to your people and then bring it back next time you come to town.”
The pulenu’u didn’t have to be urged. Stammering his thanks and forgetting to finish his beer, he hurried off, clutching the viewer and all the stereoscopic reels.
“But, mummy!” Jessica protested. “Don’t you remember what that man in Honolulu said about the Samoans? You can’t trust them—they’ll steal you blind! And you gave him my viewer!”
“Let’s give him a chance, hon. Remember the French officials in Tahiti, who were supposed to ask for bribes before they’d give a boat clearance—and who didn’t? And the Bora Borans, remember—who were supposed to be greedy and spoiled. Were they?”