Just another day in the bush...

So my ramblings for the week from the bush go a little something like this- certain government organisation had a little workshop at our place...it wasn’t really organised, apart from one of our village matais coming the day before to our kitchen back door- to inform us of some planting demonstration that was going to be done in our yard- OK...and that was it....that evening, secretaries etc of that ministry called to ask if everything had been “organised” yes...organised from a village point of view is- letting us know through the window of our kitchen (back of the kitchen) that someone was gonna be digging a few holes in our yard for some village demonstration...from the ministries point of view- ‘WHAT- the hall was meant to be hired and furniture hired and a podium set up etc etc etc’- moral of this story- don’t ever leave the ‘villagers’ to organise things other then their own faalavelaves...because by just telling us this basic simple piece of info , the buck was passed on to us so that its now all our fault if things didn’t happen- when the workshop started as well, another village taule’ale’a just showed up at my house with a bag of nius mumbling something like here are some nius for you...i thought he was selling them and tried to politely decline as we had already purchased a dozen just that morning to which he smiled nodded, left the nius on the ground and walked off...????? later on..someone came and said they were meant to be for the workshop and there was a mad rush to get them back to the hall to their designated drinkers...again..another pass the buck option for the villagers- someone was probably told to get some nius and take it to the function but they couldn’t be bothered going in to the hall where the function was so someone else would have said just go give it to their staff at the kitchen they’ll sort it out, meanwhile being delivered by a mute didn’t help as we had no idea having not been told anything, what to do with them!...arrrhhhhhhhh

In another instance..a certain big chief in our village some weeks back, just showed up at our workplace (me and husband) to ‘inform’ us..he was travelling to Apia..god knows what for as we weren’t privileged that info..but yea..he had come to get 50tala for his travelling expenses..and that was the limit of vocab in his proposition..im here for the money so show me the money like he was asking to use some air from our backyard ... and then just stood there waiting...like hurry up already..cos you know..we are the travelling expense budgetiers...ok....then later on, his SON came and did the same thing!! (his son is in his 30s so this is not some kid) lucky for him... before he could experience my wrath – he proposed to bring us 3 moa Samoa which we could use for our business meals....well, we don’t have moa Samoa on the menu everyday but at least he was offering something and not demanding...
The function i mentioned earlier was held at our big fale..which has toilets on the side of the building, as usual, whenever a congregation of our people use the hall, after 5 minutes, whole rolls of toilet paper went missing, not just parts of it, or even the little cardboard roll left like it had just been used up by some poor diarrhoea laden sod, the whole roll was dismantled from the wall and disappeared. Annoyed the living lights out of me..because with 6 toilets i don’t expect to have to replace 6 rolls every 10 minutes, especially when there are only 20 people in the named congregation...ahhhh...the joys of living in the bush aye..Whats new....