Ia lafoia i le fogavaa tele. Let it be thrown on the deck of the large canoe. Lau Susuga Le Faatonu

Letter To The Editor,

I address once more Mr. Seuseu Faalogo, who had in fact responded to my critique of his commentary on the Honorable Mulipola Anarosa Ale-Molio'o, Minister of Women Community and Social Development's keynote address to commemorate and celebrate International Women's Day.

Mr Faalogo, please forgive me for having been brash with my accusations of you as a third rate journalist with a propensity for hegemonic masculinity rhetoric. Truly, it thrills me to no end that you had googled what the word meant! Looking up words and their etymology and meanings is an Aristotelian practice taught to me by my high school English teacher, the Samoan scholar Sr. Vitolia Moa at St. Mary’s College, Vaimoso, one I encouraged all my graduate and Phd students in the past as well as my current tutorial students from Vaimauga and Maluafou High Schools to be engaged in as students of writing.

Additionally, it gives me utter pleasure to know that you had also googled me as well, Mr. Faalogo. To learn more about me and my plethora of literary accomplishments which anyone who knows me, knows that I do not speak of, as my currency is my name alone. But let me illuminate your research and share details you won't necessarily find on wikipedia about me. We shall not leave one stone unturned in your education on my person. 

My name is Papalii Sia Figiel. That should already tell you that I am a matai from Pouesi, Sapapalii, Savaii, the seat of my ancestors. I am the daughter of Vaigalepa Moana Toomalatai and Galumalemana Stanislaus Stephen Figiel, a Petty Officer veteran of the United States Navy, from Baltimore, Maryland of the United States of America. 

Petty Officer Figiel retired a decorated soldier in Washington D.C in 1970, after a 27 year military career from combat services rendered in World War II, Korea and Vietnam in which he met and befriended distinguished Samoan warriors serving in that conflict who became our uncles whenever they would visit us at Vaivase when they were in town. To do what military folk are good at, besides firing AK-47s at the enemy. Which is to play the ukulele, sing made up songs that reminded them of military cadences and shoot the breeze. But I digress.

Petty Officer Figiel arrived in Western Samoa in 1959 and a year later found himself married to the taupou daughter of High Chief Toomalatai Lauolefiso from the village of Matautu Tai. Such a union meant not only did we have the first palagi in our village, but that we had the first refrigerator, filled to the rim, so we were told, with ice water bottles belonging to each house in the village and nothing else.

My mother’s ancestry includes her grandfather, Faalataitaua, son of Malietoa Talavou, son of Malietoa Vainnupo who as you well know, received the London Missionary Society’s missionary John Williams in 1830 at Pouesi, Sapapalii.  Thus fulfilling the war goddess Nafanua’s prophecy to my ancestor, ‘E tali i lagi lou malo,’ converting Samoa from the supposed heathens that they were to the enlightened conservative Christians which we have become.

All that aside, I grew up in Matautu Tai under the arms of my non English speaking Samoan grandmother Manumanuletitioalii Sapolu Toomalatai and my spiritual parents Susuga i le Faafeafaiga Gafatali and Faletua Ida Wendt Tuatagaloa. 

I was fed not only with the words used by my grandmother and our loving villagers, but with food she chewed in her mouth. I learned from her how to fish for octopus (fee) on the reef and kui sea ma fai kuikui, ma safu le anae, as well as kae fafie with my cousins at the wharf at Matautu. 

In fact, I had to go to school to learn how to speak English to my very American father who tried so hard to fit in, by learning Samoan hymns which he dreadfully mispronounced in what could have only hurt God’s ears while grilling up American cuisine in what was then famously called, The Fiafia Steak House, a restaurant I’m sure you visited in its 1970’s heyday.

You see, Mr. Faalogo, I am not interested in stone throwing and find the practice barbaric, if not, Philistinian, not to mention downright unChristian. Besides, it's just not my style these days. After having engaged in it ever so often in my youth to tear off dogs who used to attack me at dawn while my cousins and I picked mangoes before school. Or to wade off the occasional drunk pervert who would expose himself to 10 or 13 year old me. Gao le afu lava o le ala i le muaulu.

What I am interested in and I am elated that you had brought this up in your response, is more health education for girls and women who need to learn how their bodies function as we were never given such an education by our own mothers who had no interest in discussing anything slightly sexual because of the violations they themselves endured as young girls. Violations which you may not know about necessarily, since you are obviously a male.

Now you understand why such infantile and mediocre antics from men such as yourself, who hide behind 'our conservative Samoan women' when it is convenient, needs to be called out.  Particularly at a time when sexual violations against girls and women in our country have reached statistics so exponentially high that not a day goes by that the newspaper that employs you does not run a story of sexual violation of a girl or a woman who has either been physically assaulted or raped by her own father, husband, brother, or male kin. 

You see Mr. Faalogo, as a man, your life is void of the struggles that afflict and mar the lives of us girls and women on a daily basis which are the foundations of the literature I write and am engaged in. Literature that has been acknowledged not only by our own Samoan and Oceanic intelligentsia for its characteristically Samoan depictions of the woes of coming of age in Samoa, but by international panelists of literary excellence for its universal appeal and have thus rewarded such efforts with one of the world’s most prestigious literary honor, The Commonwealth Writers Prize Best First Book For The South East Asia-South Pacific Region, an honor ouke le saga fia siou vale ai because it belongs to the people of Samoa and the Pacific region.

Since I first heard my aunt Aiono Dr. Fanaafi Le Tagaloa’s advice to me on the day Maualaivao Emeritus Professor Albert Wendt, flew from Auckland where he resides, to launch my first novel during the 1996 Pacific Festival of Arts, nearly 30 some years ago, “Sia, aua nei galo ia te oe. O Samoa o le ia e iviivia.” This is right before we were to catch a flight to Savaii to read poetry for students at Tuasivi High School with my hero and your boss, the eminent poet of the people known then simply as Sano Malifa.

Mr. Faalogo, out of curiosity, did you know that according to The Commonwealth, almost nine in 10 Samoan women have experienced physical or emotional violence at the hands of family members with six out of 10 experiencing intimate partner violence?

Did you also know that as of 2021, the economic impact of family violence costs our country up to 38 million sterling pounds each year, equivalent to seven per cent of Samoa's gross domestic product or approximately SAT$1,000 for every Samoan aged 15 years or older?

And since you did mention it, yes, menstruation can be a traumatic experience for a young girl aged 13, 11 or sometimes as young as even 9 who awakens in the middle of the night with blood all over her legs, terrified because no one ever told her how her body works! 

And of course the trauma of being given the wrong information, like the character in my first novel which you so eloquently quoted, who was told that if she didn't get her ma'imasina (se'i tulou) at a certain age, that she would die! Which is the context of Alofa's elation when the moon finally acknowledged her.

But as you already know Mr. Faalogo, knowledge of big jargon is futile without practice. I therefore invite you to our Galumoana Theatre Vaivase Uta (former home of the Fiafia Steak House, engaged now in serving intellectually stimulating cuisine from all over the globe) where we put on a rather spicy show called The Vagina Monologues monthly.

TVM deconstructs hegemonic masculinity, alongside other appetizers for female empowerment which might pique your interest. As they are not only educational but you might find them surprisingly funny as I have adapted the original X rated script with an infusion of our Samoan faleaiku which can be quite aesthetically pleasing if not, liberating to even conservative ears such as yours.

You might also feel better about yourself afterwards as proceeds from the performance which are voluntary, based on how you feel AFTER the show, are donated to BROWN GIRL WOKE, a local organization founded by a daughter of Samoa, Maluseu Doris Tulifau who advocates for the rights of girls and women, here in our beautiful home, Samoa.

P.S: This is incidental and unrelated to our tête-à-tête, but the Manu Samoa’s greatest hooker of all time, who captivated the Wales’ in that magical game in 1991, is none other than my kei, Stan Toomalatai, named after my beloved father, Stanislaus, his uncle and his aunt's husband. See, another fact google doesn’t tell you. Ae kakou o ai ia faapea, oga ua vevela le fala ma ua ‘ka le lava foi gagu!

Ia maguia faasausauga o legei aso,

Ma lou ava kele,

Papalii Sia Figiel