TO: YOU
SUBJECT: MY FANAU
DATE: 10 JANUARY 2003
Fanau (pronounced fah-now) is one of those interesting words that is uniquely Samoan. It means children, but it only refers to the children of someone in particular. The word for children in general is tamaiti (tah-mite-tee). If you're just talking about those kids over there, you use tamaiti. If you're talking about someone's kids or to someone about their children, you use fanau. It's interesting to note for what it's worth that for men when talking about their own children, fanau is an O noun, while for women it's an A noun .
I'm lucky enough to have acquired two beautiful kittens in the village. I guess you could they say they were part of my mealofa gift.
I didn't really want kittens. I wanted a dog to keep my house secure. However this one cute tabby, about 4 weeks old, showed up at our fale one day and to keep my nephew Timo from torturing it to death, I asked if I could adopt him. I named him Makelani, the Samoan name for Magellan.
Then one morning a few days later, another kitten shows up. This one is beautiful. She's a tabby, but with golden calico markings. She's incredibly sweet, hardly makes a sound and I name her Filemu Suamalie, which means Sweet Silence.
A third kitten was brought to our fale by another trainee, Mele, who thought it was Makelani. They looked so much alike, even I thought it was Makelani until I saw him bounding across the floor. I didn't want to name this cat because I didn't want more than two and I didn't want to get attached. Plus it was crying all the time with a screeching meow that could drive even the most patient person crazy.
During breakfast one morning I was having a conversation with my sister Vani and she told me that Makelani was dead. But she said it so casually, that I thought at first I misunderstood her. So I asked her, you mean the cat is dead? Yes, she said. He was pecked to death by chickens early this morning. That was December 9th.
Makelani was never quite right. I think he must have suffered some brain damage at the hands of Timo, who was always thrusting him at dogs and throwing him around the fale. He never bathed himself. He always slept awkwardly. There was something distinctly uncatlike about him, as if all the cat-ness had been shook out him by my malevolent nephew.
Still, it was sad news and I was morose for most of the day. Makelani was buried in the backyard. I adopted the third kitten and named him Makelani II.
Filemu and Makelani could easily be brother and sister, but I can't be sure. They have similar tabby markings with matching white paws and a white chin. They take care of each other like siblings. They bathe each other and when they get the kitty crazies, they run around the house and duke it out. They're adorable. Especially when they're sleeping, often in tandem.
KEEPING KITTENS IN SAMOA
It's been something of a chore to get my fanau out of the village and into my place. For the last few weeks in the village, I was constantly paranoid that they would get snatched, be killed or simply disappear. Just getting them into the departing van was a major relief, especially since I had to say goodbye to everyone in the village while holding onto a box ready to explode with anxious kittens.
Back in Apia, we had to stay in the hotel for a few more days before we moved to our sites. My roommate Kolisi, who had a puppy and a kitten of his own, and I drew the smallest room. There was no litter box and despite our best efforts, our place smelled like a barnyard.
When I finally moved to my place in Fagali'i I had to contend with the dogs and the ants. The dogs were a huge problem. My cats were terrified inside the house, and I couldn't let them out unsupervised for fear they would end up as dog food. I almost ended up as dog food.
The ants here are another thing entirely. I've never been in a country where the ants are faster at getting to food. You can put down an orange peel anywhere in the country and it will be crawling with ants within seconds.
In my house, the floor is tiled with this black and white warping faux linoleum, but the floor wasn't laid well and there's no grout between the tiles. The resulting little black groove is like a transcontinental superhighway for ants. You can't see them. Then all of sudden they appear in swarms like magic.
The first time I put food out for the cats, I put it on the floor and the ants were all over it in seconds. Then I wised up and made a cat bowl moat using two pieces of tupperware, but one cat or the other would eventually push the two pieces together and that was all the ants needed to get across. I switched to a frisbee as the moat dish, which was better because of the lower sidewall, but still the cats would push the dish to the edge.
Finally I ant-proofed a table that was given to me by putting cans of water under each leg. This seems to be the best solution. But even so, some ants still make it up onto the table. I don't know how. Maybe they swim for it. But at least it's manageable.
THE SHITHEADS
Because the kittens can't really go outside, they have to use the a litter box. You can't buy a litter box in Samoa, so I'm using a plastic oval serving dish that I picked up at one of the shops in town for a buck. Unfortunately the cats don't like to use it as often as recommended by their human, especially when I go away for the night.
They also have this habit of urinating on my bed and my bags. I'm told this is a sign of affection and they are just marking my stuff. I think I'd prefer if they hated me or they had a more socially acceptable way of showing affection. It wouldn't be as a big a problem if I had access to a laundromat, but since I have to wash everything by hand, I don't really appreciate the gesture. Unfortunately there's no good way to communicate that, other than to refer to my cats as "Shitheads". They don't understand, but it makes me feel better at any rate.
Then there's Makelani, who is a charmer, but only when's he sleeping. Awake, he is a complete terror. He's always screeching about something. Of course it's nonspecific. He's cries to go outside. So I put him outside. Then he cries to come in immediately, so I bring him in. His tastes change daily. One day he wants to eat fish. The next day not. One day, he's good with dry food. The next day it's a problem. He pushes Filemu out of the way at meal time. He pushes her out of the way to get closer to me. He sleeps on her. I like to think of him as a special needs cat. Hopefully Filemu's calming influence will rub off on him and if that doesn't work, perhaps he'll mellow when he's snipped in about 3 month's time. If that doesn't happen I'm going to change his name to Masani Tagi, Always Crying.
Despite all these problems I can't help but love my fanau. They are very affectiate. Filemu is fond of bathing me. They purr like machines (it's telling that there's no word in Samoan for "purr"). They kill roaches with enthusiasm, which is more than I can say for myself. I can watch them play for hours on end. I don't know if I could make it here without them. Today they got their first shots and they were both so good. Well, that's a lie. Filemu was a champ, but Makelani screamed like a banshee the whole time. I have learned to expect nothing less.
Both cats have developed a fondness for walking across my laptop when I'm working and when I send this email, this will be the first published work of Makelani:
Fcolcxlc]y
