Mango Rash: Coming of Age in the Land of Frangipani and Fanta
300
Mango Rash: Coming of Age in the Land of Frangipani and Fanta
300Paperback
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Overview
With a dash of teenage sass, MANGO RASH chronicles Nancy's search for adventure—and identity—in two alien realms: the tricky terrain of adolescence and the remote U.S. territory of American Samoa. Against a backdrop of lava-rimmed beaches, frangipani-laced air, and sensual music, Nancy immerses herself in 1960s island culture with a colorful cast of Samoan and American expat kids.
But life is not one big beach party, Nancy soon finds, when she clashes with her parents over forbidden boys and discovers double standards in the expat community. Samoa, too, is experiencing growing pains as ancient customs collide with 20th-century ways. In the midst of all this, a hurricane shatters the peaceful paradise, delivering lessons in attachment and loss, strength and survival.
Like Nancy, readers of this unforgettable memoir will fall in love with Samoa's biscuit-tin drum serenades, its mountains like mounds of cut velvet cushions, and its open-hearted people, who face adversity with grace. And just as Nancy does when her own health crisis thrusts her into a very different kind of unfamiliar territory, readers will draw strength from fa'a Samoa: the Samoan Way.
In language as lush as the island landscape, MANGO RASH enchants, entertains, and, ultimately, inspires with its message about embracing and learning from other cultures.
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781941887066 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Behler Publications, LLC |
| Publication date: | 10/22/2019 |
| Pages: | 300 |
| Sales rank: | 1,094,354 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
A national engineering society once awarded her first place in their writing contest for a piece on potholes. Her work has garnered other awards—from groups as diverse as the Magazine Association of the Southeast and the American Motorcyclist Association—and a Pulitzer nomination.
MANGO RASH won first place in the memoir/nonfiction category of the 2018 Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association literary awards. In addition, excerpts were finalists for the 2015 and 2017 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, the 2015 Northern Colorado Writers Top of the Mountain Book Award, and the 2017 New Millennium Writings Literary Awards, and have been published in Colere.
When she's not writing, Nan takes photographs, makes collages, and wanders the woods around the West Michigan home she shares with her husband Ray Pokerwinski.
She can be found at www.nanpokerwinski.com .
Read an Excerpt
So here we are, finally, in Pago Pago—palm trees, surf-washed beaches, perfumy air, the whole bit—and all I can think about is getting out of these clothes. Sweat is pouring from parts of my body I never thought would perspire, and the atmosphere is too saturated with its own moisture to soak up any of mine. A flutter of breeze, feeble as a butterfly, stirs the air. It's nothing but a tease, utterly incapable of cooling.
This get-up that seemed so stylish when we set out on our journey—the perfect travel ensemble for a girl of sixteen, my mother assured me—was fine in Oklahoma City and Los Angeles and other points along the way. But here in Samoa, my outfit, so absurdly wrong for both climate and culture, only reminds me how out of place I am.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
Map of Tutuila, American Samoa
Prologue
Chapter 1 The Samoan Way 1
Chapter 2 Island Girls 12
Chapter 3 Sadie Thompson and Orange Samoa 17
Chapter 4 Fiafia 26
Chapter 5 Mango Rash 37
Chapter 6 Double Ugly 45
Chapter 7 Shifting Sands 53
Chapter 8 Between Sea and Sky 61
Chapter 9 Taboo 69
Chapter 10 Anthropology 82
Chapter 11 Language Lessons 91
Interlude-Medical Marvels 99
Chapter 12 Heat 102
Chapter 13 Kinship 111
Chapter 14 Hard Rain 123
Chapter 15 Reconciled 136
Interlude - Ephemera 145
Chapter 16 Attached 148
Chapter 17 Wind 152
Chapter 18 More Wind 166
Chapter 19 Waves 174
Chapter 20 Samoan Follies 184
Chapter 21 Uma Lava Pisupo 194
Chapter 22 Mistaken Identities 204
Chapter 23 Snapshots 212
Chapter 24 Family Matters 218
Chapter 25 Home 229
Chapter 26 Return to Paradise 242
Chapter 27 Like a Woman 255
Chapter 28 Arrivals and Departures 266
Chapter 29 Samoan Sickness 275
Chapter 30 My Samoan Chief 282
Chapter 31 Last Dance 290
Chapter 32 Tofa 296
Epilogue 300
Acknowledgments 303
Glossary 306