The Bultmans are Afoa's legal guardians, having brought him to the states when he was 10. Bultman met his family during his Peace Corps time. He was "adopted" by them during his training. Fale's mother became like a sister. As is common practice in Samoa, Afoa and several of his sisters had been sent to Hawaii at a very young age to live with extended family. It's part of the culture for the extended family to raise the children, Bultman said. But, it became apparent to him that by the time Afoa was 8 his situation was not ideal. "He and his sisters had to fend for themselves. I knew he'd end up in a gang and be in trouble … I talked to Sarah and we brought him home," he said.
Ken Bultman is worried what might have become of friends after a tsunami hit the Samoan Islands and wiped out entire villages, but received good news from the family of his son
Berlin family relieved at news from American Samoa
By Patricia Wolff • of The Northwestern •
October 2, 2009
Caption: The scene of devastation in Pago Pago village, on American Samoa Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009. A powerful quake in the South Pacific hurled massive tsunami waves at the shores of Samoa and American Samoa, flattening villages and sweeping cars and people back out to sea while leaving many dead and dozens missing. AP Photo/Ausage Fausia)
BERLIN – Ken Bultman is worried what might have become of friends after a tsunami hit the Samoan Islands and wiped out entire villages, but received good news from the family of his son.
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Bultman, his wife Sarah and their foster son Fale Afoa, a sophomore in ROTC at Viterbo University in LaCrosse, visited Samoa for three weeks this summer to reconnect with friends Bultman made during a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in the late 1980s. It also gave Afoa, a native of American Samoa, a chance to visit with family.
The Bultmans are Afoa's legal guardians, having brought him to the states when he was 10. Bultman met his family during his Peace Corps time. He was "adopted" by them during his training. Fale's mother became like a sister.
As is common practice in Samoa, Afoa and several of his sisters had been sent to Hawaii at a very young age to live with extended family. It's part of the culture for the extended family to raise the children, Bultman said. But, it became apparent to him that by the time Afoa was 8 his situation was not ideal.
"He and his sisters had to fend for themselves. I knew he'd end up in a gang and be in trouble … I talked to Sarah and we brought him home," he said.
Because Bultman is familiar with the geography and terrain of the Samoan Islands, his first thought when he learned of the tsunami was not for the safety of Afoa's family because they are inland. His concern was for the people he had visited so recently, the ones who lived in the south coastal village of Poutasi. The principal of the school where Bultman taught in Samoa lives in a house very close to the sea.
"I hope nobody I know was hit," he said. "The scariest thing this is that people living along the coast would have had maybe 15 or 20 minutes notice… You don't outrun a tsunami wave."
Bultman reached Afoa's uncle Wednesday and learned that the young man's family is fine.
"His birth mother lives in Samoa but was visiting in New Zealand when the tsunami hit. The rest of his family is all inland," he said.
