Recount of The Samoan Language Week Umu

Umu Recount                       By Zean

Samoan Language Week’s Umu Brainstorm: Parents & Family (Samoan Community) Food: Taro, Fish, Banana, Pork, Ham, Rice, Chop Suey, Coconut Exhilaration, Amusement, Laughter, Excitement The Samoan National Anthem

Rewind to Friday on June 4th 2021. It was Room 6’s Assembly as well as Miss Haslem’s last day with us. BUT… I witnessed a special event called Samoan Language Week. Samoan people have been celebrating this to prioritize Samoan culture and Samoan language. The Samoan Event was commemorated by doing an Umu located at Christ the King School’s Field.

What’s an Umu you ask?

An Umu is a traditional pacific way of cooking food in the ground using hot volcanic rocks to produce steam. From my experience, the food was on top of the hot rocks wrapped in aluminum foil. There were different layers to prevent fire spreading. That’s just my theory. The smell of the food was aromatic. Just thinking of it makes me feel hungry. It looked really delicious. Before we ate the food we had a sample of fresh coconut. The class bell rang. So we all had to proceed to our rooms. While working I could not take my mind off what we were about to taste. A little bit later the lunch bell finally rang.

Our Deputy Principal Mr. Tyrell asked us to come down so we could sit down and think about Samoa. Mr T. asked questions like what do the stars on the flag mean? The stars represented the symbolic meaning of purity. Mr T. raised the Samoan Flag sooner than expected. We gazed at the flag. We sang the National Anthem called O Le Fu'a o Le Sa'olotoga o Samoa. As soon as it was finished we all crowded around the Umu. The Samoan Community took off the layers one by one with precaution. They wore gloves to grab the food carefully and put it in the container. We headed to class so they could prepare the food. Few minutes later we walked to the Parish Hall and sat down to pray. We all lined up in order from Room 6 all the way to Room 2. It felt like a decade had passed already but for real it was only a couple minutes. I waited patiently to get in front of the line. There were foods such as Taro, Fish, Banana, Pork, Ham, Rice, Chop Suey and Coconut. When I was there I grabbed some pork. It was delicious! I wanted to get a second plate but I was too full already. So I headed off to play Basketball with my friends. It was such a special day since there was a Samoan Event, there was Samoan Food and an extended lunch time after the Umu.

That’s how my day went on Friday! It was amazing!