Lake festival in Austria with a Samoan touch!

While preparing our trip to Europe I told my sis in Austria to please stock the fridge with pork bacon, pork chops, pork sausages and whatever to do with pork. Living in a Muslim country, pork is not widely sold in supermarkets though there are a couple of shops that have them. They do cost quite a bit and plus I think they've been frozen for a while that by the time we buy and cook the stuff it didn't quite taste like pork (or maybe not like Samoan pork anyway). Back to my story my dear accommodating sis emailed back and asked if we wanted a small whole pig... Miss piggy(self) jumped to the suggestion and said yes and better yet let's make a umu in her garden. Our cousin had done it before there and sis said the rocks were still there for it. So after deliberating for a bit with hubby who (hadn't done a umu only hangis before) and self who never really did one. nb. In my country we are princesses so it is not our place to go to the umu area... There are boys who do that heh heh! Ok I have helped to ofu luau, valu the talos and eat the pork but never really can say that I myself made a umu. So ambitious and sure of one self I persuaded dear hubby that we/he could do it from my memory of watching the boys doing it back home. heh heh! Here begins the story of the pig/pua'a in Austria...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Samaga Pe'a

Image
The time came when the completion of the tattooing sessions were near. We went to Samoa for three and a half weeks and we were hoping that it would be done well before then but by the third week we were not so sure we'd be done well before or in time. You see in Samoa there are a lot of unforseeable circumstances that arise. One of those was the tattooist's family from ovearseas showed up for family meetings and all. So there had to be days off while the tufuga dealt with his family duties. On top of that Mother's day followed and then the final week was full on tattooing everyday until it was completed on Saturday. On this Saturday I dropped the two victims off to the tufuga's house, hung around to serve breakfast and then went back to our host family to help with the preparations for the samaga ceremony. Samaga is the ceremony that formalises the completion of the tufuga's work and where he lifts his taboos and bans and let's the new pe'as out into the wor
Read more

Fagu'u / Samoan oil

Image
Samoan oil in Fanta and tobasco sauce recycled bottles at Fugalei market. The bottle caps are made of coconut husks wrapped in plastic to keep the husk in place. You've got to love the recycling sense. Samoan oil is used as moisturiser, hair gel, ointment, antiseptic and mosquito repellant oh and used as 'glitter' when dancing. I remember going to school covered in it when we were little. I'm sure I had nightmares for years after whenever I smelled it. But then it was okay because everyone else at school was covered in it too. Oh and we made our own too. My grandma who was blind and paralysed sensed it was going to rain and would yell out to us to come bring the lolo (process or state of making Samoan oil) inside the house because water pollutes the pure oil. So I must attribute my smooth skin to the fagu'u that grandma used to remind us every morning to make sure we had covered our bodies with. Choo hooo fresh off the island ow:)
Read more

Jebel Sifa beauty

Early 2018 post We went to Sifawy Boutique Hotel last week with the family and we found it was quiet there. What a breathtaking set up they have there. Just beautiful with marina out front for the kids to ride their scooters and skate while we adults lounge around the pool and breeze bar. We ran into our friends there so the kids had friends to play with so it was lovely.
Read more