Saturday, May 12, 2007

Dancing Palagi

Nate has been taking Samoan language classes at the local Community College. As part of their grade, the class had to do presentations to the rest of the class. Aaron and I heard that part of Nate's presentation would be a dance routine. We did not want to miss it. So, we went to the class to cheer him on. We had to sit through an hour of other presentations, and some of them were not that good. However, I did learn the Samoan legend of the coconut tree - A Fijian King tries to find the most beautiful women in Samoa, turns into an eel and basically becomes a stalker, and then she chops his head off (at his request). She plants it, and wam-o - coconut trees. I also learned that there are 170 different types of breadfruit and someone actually sponsors a symposium on breadfruit. wow. But I digress. It was well worth sitting through the other presentations once Nate took the stage to dance. Absolutely Brilliant. Sadly, I didn't realize that my camera was full of pictures, so I was only able to get the start and the end, but you can still absorb the full talent of Mr. Mease.



As is tradition during a Samoan dance, people throw money at the dancer. Nate made six dollars - one from Aaron and five from his teacher. That reminds me of an old Van Halen song...

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