bully-beef, Pago Pago, Samoa

I was compelled to buy two cases of big Steinlager for my new friends after arriving in American Samoa. After all, I was a guest who had just arrived from Fanning Island. It was warm! Not the beer but the temperature. I joined into a marathon volleyball competition that lasted two days. It wasn't the beer that allowed me to become a part of a Samoan family but an attitude. In a very real sense the Hawaiian word " Ohana" sums up a feeling of mutual respect that relays a feeling of family or a relation of trust without bloodlines in all of Polynesia. But sometimes a deeper, spiritual, friendship that bypasses race, creed, or color, is often times realized. I stayed with my new friends for four days. Where billy-beef (bully ) comes into the picture is that when we sat down to a full dinner, I was placed in a position of honor. Just right of the matriarch (Chieftess) and was given a plate of pure fat with a little meat, taro leaves and sweet potato (yams). She kept saying, " Eat, you are to thin! You must put on some weight!" In Samoa you can buy 5 gallon buckets of beef similar to what early sailor's were reduced to eating after they had been away from land for two weeks. The diet of early sailor's consisted of what? Use your imagination! Before refrigeration! I was honored and ate everything on my plate and more. It would have been a major insult for me to try and explain to this wonderful Samoan family that had taken me in to the very heart of their being that I was a vegetarian! When I returned to " Sea Rover ", I found that my skipper and his wife were so worried about my absence that they had informed the American Consulate that I might have been abducted and were instigating an A.P.B for my whereabouts! All I really wanted was for them to have some privacy as the boat was only 32 feet and we had been together for awhile. Husband, wife, child and Scuppers (the cat) and me. All on our way to stralia! Ready for more?