Safua

Safua - (8 days) These first days on the island of Savaii are where students first interact with the village life and the traditions of Samoa. Safua has been the "home base" of CCSP for years in our excursions to Samoa, and once again, they opened their home, their village, and their kitchens to us. Moelagi, her son Chris, and heaps of other members of their community roll out the "fine mats" for us and present students and staff alike with a week full of Samoan interaction.
Safua hotel is not at all a "hotel." It is more like a family that opens up some of their "fales" (small Samoan houses pronounced faa-lay) to us, with the intention of showing us their tradition through meals together, natural history excursions during the day, song and dance together at night, and good ol' conversation. These are the boys of the band that play nightly for us and whom we spend some good hours with joking with, playing rugby with, and sharing broken English conversations with. It's the best, really.