on a Wednesday evening

Its late evening, early night...and I'm sat at home by myself. Little baby mo is down for the night...hopefully she gives me a couple of hours before her usual midnight antics...I get the occasional wif of Samoan koko, roasting into the night and in the distance the faint roar of waves crashing on the reef.Its a pleasant warming smell, the koko, and a soothing but at times unnerving sound, the reef. It reminds me that these people, that we, are in touch with the earth and the sea and our surroundings and nature. She produces and we harvest, we reap , we sow....she pounces we suffer, we repair..we go on.

The news of a tornado in Auckland has just splashed across the TV news...how strange, the tsunami here, then the earthquakes in Christchurch, the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, and now a tornado in Auckland!! Its unheard of! I'm slightly disturbed. Is this something to worry about? I cant help but wonder if nature has decided to turn against us after all.. I remember the assignment my geography expert little sister did, dictating the trend in natural disasters in the pacific. Not necessarily increasing in frequency but in intensity. The thought of this haunts me ever so often, especially when thinking about our property and our business... I worry about the tsunami every once in a while too. We are by the sea. What if it came at night? Without a warning? What about my two young children?would we get out quick enough? Could i get to my life jackets I pathetically but preciously keep in the house?would my hubby run off to save the guests and get swallowed by a galu afi?? I wish my fears were recognised more and someone could say- “don't worry, tomorrow we will build you a house up in the hills” but alas, this is wishful thinking no doubt.

It is odd to think that 5 years ago we lived in a developed country. Child-less. In high paying jobs (come to think of it now) at the time, if you had told us we were fortunate we would have laughed. We certainly did not think so at the time.We certainly took our jobs for granted. And we spent our $ on movies and food and trips and family. Funny that, and when we got pay rises it just meant that we spent more...on what now I cant exactly fathom. Now, we run a business where we cant even afford to pay ourselves most of the time. What we gave up from those years, we did to be closer to family. To our roots. To enjoy and suffer the luxury of being our own bosses.To have kids that could run around barefoot on the grass and topless on a beach. And I look back on those years when we were young and child-less and see how naive i was. I wish someone could have told me to be more appreciative, or at least to save more and invest (in good projects) etc...I wish i built or bought myself a house, cause we probably could have.

Now, i (try to) plan out what i can do in every single hour of a day- not literally mathematically but roughly in my head(!) . This does not include any personal luxuries like napping,reading books, putting on a face mask, painting my toes and at times washing my hair even! This is all business, kids, egging the husband to do stuff...and more business and kids. I want to do so much more and have so much more included, like exercise and cooking more (though i am blessed the husband does this!!) the only reason i can blog now is this is usually ‘putting the baby to sleep’ time, and thank goodness tonite it was a smooth and effortless journey! So now i have moments to spare,AND the laptop is at home!I used to forbid myself from bringing it home incase i was inclined to do some work on it....home time is kiddy time..so no work to distract from what is meant to be quality family time!
I went to Apia for the weekend. It was so busy. The roads were busy and dusty. My usual lot of baby sitters were busy making it a bit tricky with the kids to do all i needed to do. The days were packed with what to do what to buy where to buy it from.alot of disturbing things in the news locally in Apia. Lots of break ins. A couple of violent deaths involving beatings and rocks slammed into peoples heads....was glad to getaway back to my (adopted!) home in Savaii...and recover in our relaxed not yet fraught with crime atmosphere. I also read something very disheartening in the newspaper. That the reason you don't see mozi coils in most other developed countries is because they are banned. The chemicals they contain (and I did pathetically try to google this one time...but got distracted) have been shown to be a horrific cancer inducing agent! Some 10X worse that cigarette smoke!! Ahhhhhh!! And i am the queen of mozi demise, light these coils up everywhere. Seems like it is better to just let em bite, then set yourself up for cancer later in life. Crap. So now, i have banned mozi coils from our house.

Anyways...for the moment, Im at peace with being where I am..in my home, now mozi coil free...away from the bright lights of the city,the hustle and bustle of town, away from work (for now) sat in my house beside the ever rising ever noisy but also serenading ocean..wondering what Thursday has in store for me...goodnight