Bengals rookie linebacker Rey Maualuga hasn’t been back to American Samoa since he was three years old and he admits that it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas as he begins to think about Sunday’s 15-hour plane flight to his ancestral home for a week-long visit.

Among the plans for the trip with fellow Samoan teammates Domata Peko and Jonathan Fanene are visiting areas devastated by last year’s tsunami and talking to the children in the high schools in the capital of Pago Pago. But for Maualuga it is also a trip to immerse himself in his family. His father died early in 2006 after a battle with cancer and he hasn’t seen his brother Rodney since the funeral.

  “I’m looking forward to re-connecting with my father’s side of the family,” Maualuga said Saturday night. “A lot has changed in four years, but family is something that doesn’t change and I know I have a lot of cousins there.”

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