Hallllooooo everybody! Yes I know, I haven’t blogged in yonks...funny, because I used to work a very busy hectic 9-5 job which I thought wasn’t a 9-5 job because I took all my work home and stressed about it and tossed and turned in bed about it...but I had time to blog so that must say something about “those “days...now, if I’m on the computer its pretty much work related, apart from maybe a 10 minute sneak peak at the oh so faikakala world of facebook! (That keeps me sane when you live in the bush!!)
But oh so many blog worthy things to write about, on Sunday I was driving somewhere in the morning, and it was sooo peaceful in the village with umu-mist settling lightly over the whole place...and I felt good vibes and had this very optimistic blog idea...today, my husband and I are looking for 2 pieces of plywood, that he recently shaped into a triangle shelf, and left in a partly open building in the middle of our fenced compound which has a security guard at night...and its gone. Zilch disappeared nada...so I’m therefore, in a very not so optimistic mood, in fact I am fuming and in a very pessimistic mood...I mean seriously, we leave a dinky old scrubbing brush on our deck, in a bucket...and both disappeared overnight, now a piece of wood, I guess its a new piece of wood so someone now has a nice shelf or chair or tabletop in their house, gone. What eggs me the most, is, do I think its people from 2 villages down that are sneaking into our compound at night taking things?? No, I think it’s our own neighbours and villages, because if one really thought that an outsider could get past all the people and homes in our village to get to us, you’re crazy. In fact there are 3 annoying spots in our surrounding fence where there are man made, bent over, climbing pathways, in the fence....that we see people, our neighbours, stepping over to come ask us to borrow our weed eater etc. I feel like saying (yelling) are you crazy?? Why can’t you use the gate?? That’s what the entrance is for?? Can you even afford to fix my fence that you have so nicely bent into a u shape to suit your activities? No of course not! You came and asked me to aikalafu bingo money last night !arrrrghhh....This village....that is meant to be our family, our roots, apparently they look after us, they say (uhmmmm ) sometimes i feel more like they threaten us, be good or else...eh.
Recently I read a blog owned by a Peace corp teacher who was living at Lalomanu when the Tsunami struck. Luckily she was ok but her house collapsed in on itself, on the first day she could see all her belongings stuck under pieces of iron roofing and had wanted to go to try to recover her things, but she was still in shock and her village convinced her to return the next day, to go rest for that day. Upon her return her house had been torn apart, ransacked and every last item stolen...she felt so betrayed, betrayed by the very people she had lived with for 2 yrs trying to help and make a difference, who she had grown to call her family, as the very villages she had served had looted her house. Do i think this is an isolated incident or behaviour, no , because i know it happens to us, on a daily basis, and it makes me so bitter. Especially when people come asking us to help them financially... i just feel like laughing hysterically and pulling out my hair and dribbling saliva out one side of my mouth, to show them how insane they make me. You steal from us, yet you also want me to hand you my money on my own accord?? Admittedly it is surely not everyone, but its a lot of them. I was looking at a relatives digital camera recently flicking through photos of an outing, and this relative had gone to someone in the villages’ house to pick one of the village youth up to go out with, and low and behold, in the pics on the camera, of someone in our villages’ house, someone who is living very very nearby one of those bent portions of the fence, is a picture of one of our outside chairs from the hotel, which have mysteriously decreased in number over the years, in someones house. Now this is not a chair you can buy in Savaii OR Apia, infact these chairs are quite unique I doubt they are even manufactured any more. Yes, there laughing at me from this digital pic, saying “look at me! You thought my lifespan would be limited to your little 2 acre property!! But i am going to travel the world!!”
Yes, so i have serious issues of trust with this place. And i am trying hard not to let it make me terribly upset or miserable, what i want is to figure out ways to overcome these..behaviours shall we say. Problem is, i don’t even trust the security, cos they are the village as well..sheeezle...i think i stand a better chance at actually morphing into the lady laughing hysterically with drool dribbling out one side of her mouth trying to pull her hair out!! Mm, fa laia!!
2 comments:
Rolling here..kalofa e..onosai lou loto tina..it's a very commong thing and NOT in your village alone, it's everywhere (like you said) Pau a le mea e fai, a koe oaku e aikalafu kupe, just tell them straight, "SORRY, I need the $$ to feed my kids" thats all, or if you're anything like me, just say "F&*$ Do i look like a blimmin' bank?" uma..
take care and hope the pregnancy is going good.
cuzzin brada, put your foot down and draw the line with ur sapelu, choohooo!
you need to know that 'That' village you are living in, are accustomed to siphoning and relying on others all their lives, thats why MOST of them don't need to work. You need to find a very reliable person to be ur wingman, the rest can't be trusted. sorry to be mean about My village(but not my pikoguu thanx!) but i know how they roll, ova le kuluku....haha,
if it aint bolted to steel, any items will go walkabout!
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