American Samoa – Jeff/February 2010

American Samoa – Jeff/February 2010 ( * in process * from paradisegypsy.com


Feb 5th Jeff - My box from Am. Samoa arrived today. I LOVE, it came with a handwoven tray, a coconut cup and holder, hand carved. And a plastic bag, stating it is organically grown and hand ground. the package also came with a cloth bag used to seep and strain the Kava. I followed a recipe that I found on Youtube for making Traditional Kava, and added ground Cloves and a little cinnamon. I used Hot tap water, The video said to make itr about 140 degrees, but not hotter than 190. Mine started at 150 degrees. Per the video I squeezed and massaged the bag with the Kava and cloves for 15 minutes. The video said to use between 1 and 3 tablespoons per cup of water. I decided for my first attempt to go with 1 tablespoon per cup, I have read online that anti-depressants can exasperate the effects of the kava. So I played it safe. The video said to let it seep for up to 30 minutes I decided to go with 15 minutes.


Upon drinking it the first thing I noticed was that my mouth went numb, and the Kava had and interesting flavor, enhanced by the Cloves. Not all together unpleasant. I drank the kava on an empty stomach, which was recommend, but then after about 15 minutes i ate a light meal. About 10 minutes after drinking the Kava I felt a light tingling sensation on the top of my head, I did sort of have a nice, calm feeling come over me. About 30 minutes after drinking the Kava I found that I felt just REALLY GOOD. The stress of the day just dripped away, and I was visiting with a friend and found that I felt really present, engaged and calm, and the total opposite of anxiety, but a word my vocabulary lacks!


I found the entire experience to be quite enjoyable, and am really impressed with the quality of our gift basic, and will definitely recommend this site to others!


Latest Update (12/31): emailed the site AND THEY SAID THE BOXES SHOULD ARRIVE BY THE 5TH! Seems mail is a little slow from down under!


Please note. This site did not have a online ordering mechanism, and requested I send an email to them with the ordering and shipping information. As I was uncomfortable putting my Visa number in an Email, I went to walgreens and brought a Gift Card Visa, and used that to place the order. Even though I took that precaution, I also wrote out the number in the format -four-zero-zero-seven -space- ...this was done to ensure that the number was not easily parsables in plain text, since emails are sent unencrypted. This format, though difficult to parse by a computer is very understandable to a human reader.

Jeff - I will likely be ordering from http://www.paradisegypsy.com/ pending information from the chamber of commerce


[SIDE NOTES]


Here's a cool site with lots of Samoa links
http://www.samoa.co.uk/lucys-links.html


OK - here's a great video regarding what 60 minutes missed! Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LaPGIIAyk4

Did you know that 50% of the Tuna sold in America was canned in American Samoa.


Here's some good discussion ABOUT his comments.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/ar5qs/?sort=controversial


Here's tourist information I found advising tourists what to buy:
http://www.americansamoa.southpacific.org/islands/shopping.html

Sent an Email to the President of the Chamber of Commerce, here's a copy:

Dear Sir:


My name is Jeff Herwatt and I am a disabled American Veteran living in San Francisco CA. My best friend,, Anne Schnedl and I are taking a virtual tour/launching a virtual campaign to help get America back to work, we are titling this campaign MADE IN THE USA! Since goods made in American Samoa legal get to display this mark we have decided to include it in our tour/campaign.

We are traveling every month to a different state in the Union and buying goods that represent that state. We are hoping to spend at least 80% of our money on perishables/goodies that represent the state, or compelling handicrafts.

Herein lies the problem, I am having a real difficult time locating business from American Samoa that have Websites to purchase products from. We would like to help get American Samoa back to work by buying your products, but can't find them. Could you please point websites or businesses that sell crafts/products/goods that represent American Samoa.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you might be able to lend!

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Herwatt

Anne - check out this link http://amsamoachamber.com/classification/classification/gifts-curios

Anne (2.2.2010) - just got the box from Samoa ... tried my first Kava drink - this is a unique gift/product though I found the drink to taste like bland dirty water. Given what little I know about Kava, I think I'll not make this a habit, though it could be useful if I'm having trouble sleeping!