Guest Post: When Earth and Ocean Shook, Aunty Did Too

Posted on October 3, 2009. Filed under: Mormon women | Tags: destruction, Family, home, Samoa, tragedy, tsunami |

When Earth and Ocean Shook, Aunty Did Too: Samoa Tsunami Didn’t Take Everything
by Kiri Close

For decades, the South Pacific archipelago of Samoa – the place of the “sacred bird” (‘sa’ meaning sacred, and ‘moa’ for a long extinct endemic bird) – has been politically split in two and aptly named by its colonial powers. Once upon a recent time, colonizers designated these islands for non-native autonomy in governance: WESTERN SAMOA (officially renamed INDEPENDENT SAMOA in 1997) and AMERICAN SAMOA (a U.S. protectorate territory much like the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico, etc.).  (more…)