Samoa and the dateline

[K9 Kai Niggemann]

in 2004 I had a chance to travel to Samoa.

(<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Apia,+Upolu,+Samoa&hl=en&ll=-13.815744,-171.780145&spn=0.020087,0.028303&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=65.645551,115.927734&vpsrc=6&hnear=Apia,+Tuamasaga,+Upolu,+Samoa&t=h&z=16&iwloc=lyrftr:h,13244298905842797961,-13.81539,-171.781111>)

My great-grand-uncle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Tetens, the German version is a lot longer: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Tetens) was there in 1904 as a meterologist, he founded the weather observatory for the German Empire on the Mulinu'u peninsula, near Apia, Samoa's capital. In the process he took hundreds, if not thousands of pictures of the people, life, the observatory, various significant objects and sights (such as he grave of Robert Louis Stephenson)  there. He learned the local language and gained the trust of the people (evident in pictures he took with local chiefs and in the villages.

He was a vegetarian, even in 1904..;) My parents organized a few exhibitions of the photographs he took, they were first shown in Germany (2004) and later in Samoa (twice in 2005) and will be shown again next year in Göttingen and Kassel, Germany. A lot of the items and photos he brought back from Samoa are now at the Übersee-Museum in Bremen, a great place to visit anyway, if you ever happen to come near Bremen.

This all came to my mind today, because Samoa is taking the historic step of switching time zones, across the dateline even, today (tonight). They will jump from December 29th 2011 to December 31st 2011, skip the 30th altogether and jump into New Zealand's time zone ("tomorrow"). I think that's pretty wild.

Although it was fun in 2004 I was able to celebrate my birthday for almost 48 hours -- we left Australia on the day of my birthday, when we arrived in Samoa it had only just begun again. I guess next time I want to do it, I get to stay in Samoa -- American Samoa, east of Samoa (which used to be called West Samoa, hence the TLD .ws) remains on the western date ("yesterday").

So now Samoa jumps from being the last to wave the day goodbye, to the first to greet the sunrise...

If you are interested in seeing Otto's pictures, you can find them on this website: http://www.samoa1904.de/ (in German only). A catalog of  about 70 of the pictures is available there (with explanatory texts in German or Samoan..;-)

If you are interested in reading a Samoan newspaper with its sometimes curious use of language, but some very good insights into the troubles and daily ordeals of a tiny country in the South Pacific where a small rise of the sea level, ocean pollution, water radiation or overfishing means tremendous changes, this is the place to start:

http://www.samoaobserver.ws/

Kai