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I first became aware of cockroaches when I was in elementary school in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we learned to do the Mexican hat dance to the music of La Cucaracha for a May Day program. Since then,  and even though I now know they are found in many places throughout the world, I don’t remember actually seeing one until I moved to warm, tropical Samoa as a Mormon missionary in 1965.

SIDEBAR: The Samoan word for cockroach is mogamoga, while the word for Mormon is Mamona; and since colloquial Samoan often switches the sounds associated with the letters ‘n’ and ‘g’ — or mona vs. moga can be pronounced the same way – cheeky people would sometimes derisively call us mamoga.

I saw way too many mogamoga back in the day, but since moving from Samoa to perennially semi-tropical Hawaii, I’ve also spent too much effort trying to keep away from the creepy crawlers. For some enigmatic reason, I thought some of you might be interested in a few of my more insightful cockroach tales, and perhaps even add a few of your own in the comments window below:

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Just a few days ago I experienced a brief moment of cultural serendipity when a number of Fijian and Tongan women performed a Fijian coming-of-age ceremony for several young women before they performed in nearby Kahuku High’s “May Night” program. The young women came on stage wrapped in traditional masi or bark cloth, which their older relatives unwrapped, before the girls danced a Fijian meke with their classmates.

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