After. Thoughts. Francis Keil - Survivor, American Samoa

“It’s hard to explain how I felt when our home was destroyed. You want to get mad, but who are you going to get mad at? You work so hard, for so long to build something then it’s all taken away in five minutes. You feel like you’ve lost everything, lost hope, that’s how I felt. It was good that nobody in my family got hurt, that would have been worse. But it’s just like watching everything collapse in front of you.”

What i want my grandchildren to remember.

Toetu Tauiliili of Leone, American Samoa, is the man who tried to carry Faatamalii So'oto to safety. Ask the fifty-three year old what he hopes his grandchildren will remember about the tsunami of 29/09 and he answers, “I just want them to remember that their grandfather was trying to save someone’s life and he got hurt from it. And that if I ever see somebody in the same situation as that person, I would do it again.”

Toetu is a not a man that you forget easily. He is tall and well-built, dark-eyed and handsome like the proverbial novels always say of their heroes. He speaks with baritone confidence and assurance. Toetu and his wife had a business in Leone village before the tsunami came. It was a sewing shop and convenience store. They lived at the back of the store and their home dropped down onto the rocky beach. The main road ran directly in front of the store and across the street was a little gas station, two red steel posts skirting the sole gas pump. On one side of their property was Francis Keil’s house. He worked at the Post Office. On the other side was the guest house where the old women came to do their weaving every day, sitting cross-legged in a sea of green coconut leaves. The elderly women were well known to Toetu. They would call out companionably to his children as they left for school and most days, Toetu and his wife would take over lunch for them.

Toetu was home alone that morning. After the earthquake, Toetu tried to warn the women of a possible tsunami. “Me and my friends were outside, looking at the ocean and when we saw it go dry. We went over to the old ladies and were trying to tell them they should go and leave but some of them didn’t take us seriously because nothing like this had ever happened before. So it was hard to try and convince them, not until they saw the water forming up into a wave – that’s when they started running.”

Toetu went to run himself, but as he turned, the plight of the elderly women caught him. “I saw two old ladies, they were having a hard time trying to run, so I went back and tried to help them. At that time, the wave was almost to the shoreline. The other lady, Fa’atamali’i had some physical problems and couldn’t walk good so I picked her up. I kind of put her on my back and told her to hang on tightly to me. Then I was trying to run with her and that’s when the first wave struck me.”

The water smashed Toetu and Fa’atamali’i into the gas station, pinning them against the metal poles. The same wave took Toetu’s van and lodged it on the roof of the gas station. “I got stuck between the rail and debris and it was all cutting me. I got cut on my stomach from the roofing iron and my leg was broken. I was still hanging on to Fa’atamali’i at that time…” The force of the wave dislodged the gas pump, that began spurting black liquid. “The gas pump was leaking, I was covered with blood, the ocean and the gasoline. We were under the water and I was really numb, my body was feeling so weak. I tried to hold on to the old lady…I tried, but her hand slipped out of mine. It’s like she let go…she slipped from my hands.”

Toetu was trapped there until the first wave receded and several men of his village helped to free him, carrying him up the road where a car took him to the hospital. Fa’atamali’i was found after the last waves had returned to the ocean. She was still breathing and attempts were made to revive her but it was too late and she slipped away. Toetu’s wounds are healing, but there are still other scars you cannot see. You hear their rawness though when he speaks of the elderly woman he tried to save.

“She was like a mother to us. I’m from Leone village, I was born and raised here. I knew this old lady, her husband, her children – we all grew up together. She’s like a mother figure to us. Even though we leave and we come back and we’re all grown, she still treated us like we were her kids. That was the sad part about it…”

There is comfort though, for Toetu, knowing that he risked all to help another. “I had an option, I could have just run – but I would have run knowing that she needed help. If I had done that, I think it would have hounded me for the rest of my life, at least I know that I made an effort, I tried.”

After Thoughts. Robert Toelupe, Rescuer.

“We need to get our kids to be more able in water. We live on an island surrounded by water and yet most people can’t swim. When I first moved back here, there were at least six drownings in the first three years and that’s way too high for a place that’s surrounded by water. During the tsunami, I saw people that were too scared to go and help others – because they couldn’t swim. If more of our people had been confident in the water, then maybe there wouldn’t have been so many deaths.”
Robert Toelupe, US Navy Veteran, Leone, American Samoa.

Life is Beautiful

For Terisa, the tsunami of 29/09 was many things. It was a merciless thief. It took their businesses – “all of a sudden, everything’s gone, taken. Your sweat, what you worked all these years for. Nine years of hard work taken away.”

It robbed her of her peace. “I’ve always felt that the ocean was a calm, peaceful thing…it used to be a place where we could go sit and relax and to soothe your mind. Maybe in time, it will be a soothing place for me again, but now, if I go to the beach, all I can think about is that the tsunami’s coming back.”

It took her mother, robbing the So’otoa family of many more years with a woman who was their strength. Terisa's daughter Tiare and her cousins will not have a grandmother’s gentle wisdom to turn to as they become young adults and one day begin families of their own.

The tsunami was also a harsh teacher. “It made me stronger and more humble. It made me realize that God created us and God can take you anytime He wants. We’re only here temporarily, but life is beautiful and we just have to live it to the fullest every day. This tsunami has changed my life completely. Before, I would only go to church when I have time…I was like the black sheep of the family! But this disaster had made me stronger in my faith. I believe there must be a reason why I was supposed to live. When I think back to what happened to me – there’s no way that I should have survived. I should have died in that house. I am very fortunate. I don’t know how I survived but it was for a reason. And that’s what I’m trying to discover right now. What is my calling? To take better care of my family, my village and my people? In the past months now, I have gotten involved in different church and community groups…now I do things out of my true life, out of my heart. Not because I want anybody to like me, but because I truly believe that I could die and yet I haven’t done any good deeds for anybody else. This has strengthened my faith and also my relationship with my husband and daughter.”

Face your fears - it will make you Stronger.

Some people seem to have more than their fair share of challenges. They are survivors. They weather life’s storms and in the face of adversity, they bend and then come back stronger. Rose Talalotu is a survivor. Even before a tsunami threw a hardware store on top of her as she ran across a crowded street beside the Pago harbor. Yes, even before that, Rose was a survivor. “I’ve been through a lot of perfect storms. I’ve been through two bad marriages. My first marriage I was stabbed and then after the divorce I was in a head-on-collision, a mean car accident. My second husband pulled a gun on me…my kids say I’ve got nine lives and I guess I’ve used up a couple of them already. Hopefully I have a few more left!”

Rose was born and raised in Honolulu but she came to American Samoa fifteen years ago to help care for her parents. After they passed away, she stayed on. Rose works at the Bay Hardware Tool Shop and was at their Pago branch on the morning of 29/09. The store is on the ocean side of the main road. Stand at the counter and you can look out over the grimy harbor, the docks piled high with shipping containers. When the quake ended, Rose looked out to the harbor “because I know if there’s a big earthquake, then there could be a tsunami. I looked out the window and the tide was still high so I thought, oh the water’s still high so that’s alright.”

Rose made herself a coffee and sat to work on her computer. She had her back to the sea and so did not see the drastic changes taking place behind her. Until Ma’a, her co-worker called out to her, “Hey Rose, come take a look at the harbor!” Two steps and one glance was all she needed to get her moving.

“I walked to the window and looked out. The harbor was empty, all the yachts looked like little toys on the bottom of the ocean. You could see the bottom of the harbor, the dirt and rubbish all scattered there.”

Rose yelled at Ma’a to grab the cashbox and run. Instead of taking off straight out the door, she herself went back around the counter to get her purse. She still wonders if maybe those few seconds would have made the difference to what happened next. Rose ran out the door and tried to cross the busy street. It was school hour and buses battled with cars coming in to town to work. Drivers had no eyes to see the water that was fast approaching them. The surge hit the buildings on the harbor line first, many of them crumbling. Then the tsunami swept into the traffic, pushing buses and trucks into a mad jumble of automotive fury. Rose had just made it to the far sidewalk when she saw it…” out of the corner of my eye I could see the water coming and not long after that, all the buildings and the tool shop, they were right behind me. That’s when I got caught in the tsunami. I was just rolling and rolling, for a long time I was under water.”

As she tumbled in the water, Rose was being bashed by wood and metal debris. “I could feel everything hitting my head. The water was deep because I couldn’t feel the bottom and I couldn’t see anything because the water was so dirty and filthy, filthy, filthy…” Rose was taken to the far end of the street. A virtual dam of debris that used to be the hardware store, landed on top of her. She came up gasping for air only to find herself trapped underneath a sloping roof. There was a narrow pocket of space between her head and the black water. She hung on and hoped desperately the water level would not rise any further. In those next few minutes, Rose heard something she will remember for the rest of her life. Someone, trapped in the water beneath her, scrabbling and scraping wildly against the wreckage for escape.

“I could feel that there was somebody under there. I didn’t know what to do, the water was so dirty I couldn’t see anything…I could feel them creeping and making this scratching noise and then I heard a last breath being released, like a gurgle. I was so scared…I thought oh my God…”

Rose knew when the wave changed its mind and began its retreat to the ocean. It tugged and pulled at her as she struggled against its command to go with it. “When the water started going back to the harbor I could feel my hair going back, getting pulled and I was afraid because I didn’t know whether all the debris was going to shift and the whole thing would just come down and smash me..”

As quickly as it had come, the water left. Rose fought her way out of the wreckage, crawling towards the sunlight. “I kind of pulled away the lumber and wires and fixtures and electrical wire I was tangled in. I stuck my hand out of the mess and yelled for help. A kid came, Michael, he heard me and he called these other three guys to move all the stuff and pull me out. First they were carrying me up the hill but I wanted to try and walk so I could see if I had any broken bones.I stood up and looked back and there was no store left. I started crying because I just thanked God for my blessings because if I had been in the store I don’t think I would have made it. That’s when I started feeling the pain…”

Rose had full body bruises, numerous cuts that needed stitching, a severe head injury, broken fingers. Her face swelled up so badly that she was unrecognizable. “I didn’t want anyone to touch me because I was in so much pain. And I really wanted to wash because I was so filthy. For days afterwards, I could still smell that stink water on me.”

Two days after the tsunami, friends found Rose’s handbag that she had grabbed from underneath the counter. The eight dollars cash was gone, but her passport and money cards were still there. She was able to fly out to Hawaii that weekend to get medical care closer to her children and grandchildren. She laughs as she recalls the look on the Immigration officer’s face when she handed him her tsunami-trashed passport. “Oh that thing stank so bad! Everyone could smell my passport…I hated to even put it in my bag it was so awful…”

Rose couldn’t sleep beside the sea in those first days after the tsunami “I was staying at my cousin’s place and she lives right beside the ocean and I had to go stay at my house inland because I could hear the waves outside and I was so scared just hearing the water.” But now, she has taken steps to overcome that apprehension. She is back at work at the newly rebuilt Tool Shop, looking out over the placid harbor. And she is deliberately staying with a friend who lives beside the ocean. “I have to get over my fear. I remind myself that you need an earthquake before a tsunami comes so we have to just watch out for the signs. I like to go fishing and swimming. So I’m working on it. I look out every day at the ocean to make myself get used to it again.”

Rose Talalotu is a survivor. What keeps her going? “My kids and grandkids. Nobody wants to lose a parent…I want to see my children and grandchildren grow up. Its mostly for them that I survived, strong mind, strong will…the best way to overcome your fears and your struggles? Just face them. It will make you stronger.”

The Leone Tsunami Club

In the village of Leone in American Samoa, there is a black pool laced with twisted mangrove trees. The still waters drain lifelessly into the rocky sea. Clinging to its muddy banks is a helter skelter lean to. There is a table – scuffed and dented, salvaged from debris. An assortment of battered chairs. Here, at the back of a slowly rebuilding village, here is where the Tsunami Club meets.

A full moon hangs heavily in a placid night sky. The evening hums with mosquitoes. A cool wind blows in from the ocean. Light spills from half-finished homes where families prepare for sleep. Hopefully, a sleep unfilled with tsunami dreams.

But here in this swamp-side shack, eight men are gathered around the unsteady table. Playing cards. They tell me that for five dollars, anyone can join in. Cold beer costs a dollar. But they graciously offer me one for free.

“We started meeting here after the tsunami. Our houses were broken. Our days were busy with clean up and building new homes. We’re all victims here. All of us made it through the tsunami. So we started meeting here every night. Playing cards. Having a few beers….we’re the tsunami club!”

The mood is light. The laughter is low. The game is serious. The men are many things. They are shopkeepers. Insurance salesmen. Retired public servants. Customs officers who keep the airport safe with K9 dogs. All are fathers. For their village of Leone, all have history. All have love.

The men speak of many things. Like when will their paperwork be complete so work can start on their new house from FEMA? The beautiful cement parking for the new church hall that a few of them hand troweled smooth that day. The mythically perfect shot that one of them hit on the golf course that afternoon. The writer who has come from Apia looking for people to interview… “I told her to come back later and then I took off in my car and hid in town so she wouldn’t find me!” Loud laughter from all.

But there are things these men do not speak of. At least not during the companionship of a card game. Heavy and unspoken, is the memory of those they could not save.

I speak with the one they call ‘the General’. Retired from government service, he is a leader. A man of many talents. He paints, he builds, he repairs. People come to him when they need help. A large, broad man with a gleeful grin. Sweaty and shirtless. Paint spattered. He laughs and shakes his head resignedly at my arrival to the black pool. “Aue you found me!”He had tried skipping away in the shadows when we drove up but the others called him back. On tsunami day, the General was caught by the first wave. He found himself swept alongside two of the old women of his village. He grabbed the first and then the second as they cried feebly for his help. He is a strong man and had hoped he could save them both. But it was not to be. The women were not light. The wave was not merciful. Churned in the debris, he was unable to hold them. The wave broke three ribs and cut him maliciously before spitting him out. He was taken to the hospital but he discharged himself a few hours later. So he could return to Leone to help with the body search. “The village call me the General because Im the one they look to. Im the one that gets things done. I couldn’t stay in the hospital when I knew so many people needed help.” There is sadness as he remembers the two women he could not save.

There are others. The man who clung to a breadfruit tree not far from the card shack. He saw schoolchildren still on the road and after the first wave he yelled for them to run for where the road rises. But they were caught by the second wave and washed past him. He reached out with one hand and grabbed one young girl by her hair. That one at least, was saved. But it is the others he remembers. The ones he could not reach.

I speak with Iuliano. He of the warrior physique. Tall and athletic, he had woken early that day for his usual morning run. By seven he was driving two of his children to school with his wife when they looked back in time to see the first wave hit the village. Where his other two children were still at home. With his mother-in-law. Two nieces. An aunt. He ran back, strong and sure to fight his way to his house. Thankfully his aunt had already run with the children to the safety of the back hills. The others were huddled on the second floor of their solid brick home.

“I wasn’t scared for myself, all I worried about was my kids and my family.”

Iuliano took the others to the hill before the second wave rushed in. He could have stayed there. All his family were secure. But he went back. Through debris and hungry water. An old woman cried for help from the remains of the petrol station by the roadside. She was pinned against a pole by an upturned truck. Iuliano and his cousin Cameron tried to move it. Tried to free her. But the vehicle was too heavy and the force of the water too strong. The third wave was approaching.

“I looked in her eyes and I told her, I’ll come back for you. I’ll come back.”

Iuliano and Cameron were taken with the third wave, washed to the mangrove swamp. Again, he could have stayed there. But again, he went back. Through debris and hungry water. Back to the petrol station where an old woman was still pinned against a pole. Still. And silent.

“I cant get her out of my mind. I’ve known her all my life, I grew up here and she was like a grandmother to all us kids in the village…I keep seeing her face, you know? I looked in her eyes and I promised her that I was going to get her out, I told her I would save her…and I couldn’t.”

It is four months since the tsunami of September 29th. The waters have gone. The mud is long dried. New homes are built. But still there is other debris left behind. Unseen. Like guilt. And loss. And grief.

What do you say to Iuliano? To the General? You search for words but they all seem so inadequate.You tell them that there is nothing more that they could have done – what is the strength of one man against a wave that runs at five hundred miles an hour? And slams shipping containers into warehouses?

You tell them that there is honor in the trying. That I have interviewed many who did not go back. Who could not and did not try. You tell them that those women died knowing someone cared enough to try.

The interviews end. The game resumes. Another can is opened with a snap swish. They tell me I can come again to gather more stories. Or to play cards...Beside a black pool laced with twisted mangroves.

On the plane ride home, I think of many things. I think of dolphins at Fagasa. And the unbearably loud surf at Poloa. I think of 18 foot hammerhead sharks caught in Pago Harbour. But most of all, i think of Leone. And the Tsunami Club. I think of heroism - defined as exceptional courage in the face of danger. We usually think of heroes as being those who 'save someones life'. But there is still another kind of courage. Another kind of hero. Those who didn’t save the life – the elderly woman, the little girl. But in the face of insurmountable obstacles they still tried desperately to overcome. Returning again and again as the hungry sea fought against them.

Yes, there are heroes in Leone village. I pay tribute to them with my meager words and hope that with time – they will find peace.