A picture of Meripa

After calling the village mayor to check in on my Samoan host family after the tsunami last fall, I learned that not only had my family suffered physical damage to their oceanside fale, but that my host mother and three sisters had died since the last time I had called. Like so many poor people without access to proper healthcare in the developing world they went to the hospital and never returned - despite having treatable diseases like diabetes. I had called Falelatai expecting bad news, but I never expected that its cause would be from poverty rather than from mother nature. I also never could have imagined how it has felt to grieve four family members at one time.