Today I was riding my bike down the hill from Moto'otua and I could see a masseive tanker pulling into Apia Harbor. We get some tankers in, like the Iver Explorer from the Marshall Islands and the Bro Arthur from France, but they are tiny compared to this bememouth.

You have to remember that Apia Harbor is more like a marina than a bustling port. It can only really take one ship at a time. So when a tanker like this comes in it's a huge deal.

I quickly put my groceries down in the Peace Corps office and rode back along the seawall to watch the ship come in and the sun go down.

I pulled up to the corner of the seawall closest to the port, put my bike down and starting taking pictures. As the tanker was rotating to turn its back towards the land and the pipeline, I could see the name on the back of the ship. The "Mikom Accord" all the way from Singapore. I took a seat and watching the massive ship slow rotate around with the help of both of the Apia Harbor tugs.

As I was relaxing and watching, this little rolly polly kid comes up and starts asking me all these questions:

Are you from New Zealand or America?
Is that a tanker or a freighter?
Why is it turning around like that?
How much oil is it holding?
How much does Samoa pay for its gas?
Can I ride your bike?
So do you, like, live here?
What did you want to be when grew up?

I gave him the answers to the questions that I knew. I couldn't let him ride my bike. That's Peace Corps policy.

He's TJ, a seventh grader from Anchorage, whose Samoan parents have brought him here for the summer. I would have thought, stay in Alaska for the summer, get the hell out of there in winter, but that's not my business.

TJ told me there's a huge Samoan population in Alaska ("Almost everyone in Alaska is Samoan"). I had no idea. And he wanted to be truck driver too. But now he wants to be a football player. He certainly had the bulk, if not quite the physique.

As the sun went down, TJ went off to wherever it is that little kids go off to in Samoa and I went home.