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
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Saturday, April 02, 2011
daylight savings...samoa style
So, for all my sch scoffing at the constant reminders everywhere about 'when to switch your clocks back'...I now cant remember if it was meant to be last night or tonight or tomorrow night! eh...woke up and the TV station had it switched back, turned on the laptop and don't know HOW it knows this but a message popped up reminding me that SAMOA's daylight savings ends tomorrow meaning i switch clocks back tomorrow..and no one can tell me so far, not the hubby or the workers if it has actually changed! so we are all operating on, 'I-dont-know-the time' time, which is nothing new here in Samoa, ok, lets just say Savaii then he he!!
I was telling the hubby recently that half our issues with workers who are real casual about NOT being prompt to work, is that they dont have a watch or a phone...so they dont really have any idea of the time. They catch the bus to work, get to the front gate stop at da shop in the front, faikakala to the shopkeeper, stroll down the front drive, stop and chat to the neighbors and then arrive thinking its only been 5 minutes since they left their houses to a fuming me, who has been expecting this person over an hour ago and is ready to FIRE everyone..but whats the point? it would mean just that..fire EVERYONE coz everyone does it! oh the joys of living where i live... What I need to do is get someone to bring me over a box of $5dollar watches for all da workers!!
So this morning we were woken with a phone call indicating someone in da village needed da hubby to bring his behind over with our car to do da village shopping for da village meeting. so thats fine, hubby disappears, heres me thinking for an hour! then the power goes off..uma cashpower..so im texting everyone if anyone of 3 adults living in our house bought any cards in advance,No..so next is I dont have a car to go buy some and the shop that sells is quite a distance away...trying to text da hubby where hes at ..no relpy, later discover he is now AT da meeting and part of da meeting so there goes the whole morning for sure, thanks for letting me know!! Thanks also to cash power for imposing your cashpower regime on us, and then not making the cashpower cards available to every village, theres like 1 shop in a 10km or more radius here that sells em and when they are out and da EPC office downtown is closed, ia, well kafi your afi outside with some fafies coz no one is coming to your rescue mate. I heard that DIGICEL offered them an easy solution that would let us purchase power with digicel cards, ae airena se fia rub shoulders epc to the idea, so fanks for making life easier now, suppose less available cards means less power for all meaning less work for your generators, thats gotta be good when they are always encouraging everyone to save power!chuhoo..se malo EPC.
Anyways, so now i have to resort to walking to da shop some distance away -OMG lol! not really but the 3yo is hangin off my dress going mummy me come!! mummy me come! so we walk, and I get ambushed by the village women, who tell me dat Im down for supplying da kau i'as for da 'fafaga' of da fai-aogas next saturday here for suegas..I THINK, thats what she said..not entirely sure thats 100% accurate but sounded something like that. I suppose if I were a fisherman that would be a good deal ...anyhow, those particular saoga-meas annoy me a tad...when its feeding teachers for no real special occasion even...like, ok...bring your lunch with you? and if there are 4 teachers and 20 village women each bringing some form of food, dang thats a whole feast there!! i just dont get these people coming up with decisions like this and than not actually being able to afford to carry them out...I would know because i get the stream of "please can I aikalafu $50" (er, you mean HAVE- big difference, if you dont ever intend to repay me- than its HAVE and not aikalafu) eh...I have concluded that these are the cause of my small gnag of grey hairs now popping up mysteriously!! lol..so i am gonna try not to worry over these things as there are bigger things going on in the world!
I'm in limbo at da moment with what I am doing in the near future. The opportunity to do part time work again at the Hospital is there and Im seriously considering it to change the scenery and get the braincells working a bit:) Sometimes I look at myself and ask if this is where I saw myself at 30? (cos you know, Im not yet 30 but its just round the corner!!) and I can honestly say- no. Although I dont know where exactly I saw myself, just not exactly where I am at today. I thought I would have done more for myself, but I guess I only have myself to blame (quoting good old Dr Phills- " you are a product of the decisions YOU make for yourself!") thanks Dr Phil, although Blame sounds pessimistic and I hafta say Im certainly not pessimistic or dissappointed, I guess at times its more like Im just baffled haha! Ua ke'i a le keige Apia e ala ifo lesi kaeao ga ua nofo i Savaii ha ha!
ok, so thats enough philosophizing for the day...was very happy with the evictees of American Idol last night, I know who I want off next but will just hafta wait for next week. In the meantime Im gearing up for a bake-a-thon for easter in Savaii..and then a really busy MAy though I might be at the hospital by then so- haha, someone else can do the work im currently doing...or wait a minute..boo hoo it might be me after work at da hospital! oh well im SUPERMUM sometimes..when I feel like it...
Ok, gonna sign off for now- ciao and fa laia
I was telling the hubby recently that half our issues with workers who are real casual about NOT being prompt to work, is that they dont have a watch or a phone...so they dont really have any idea of the time. They catch the bus to work, get to the front gate stop at da shop in the front, faikakala to the shopkeeper, stroll down the front drive, stop and chat to the neighbors and then arrive thinking its only been 5 minutes since they left their houses to a fuming me, who has been expecting this person over an hour ago and is ready to FIRE everyone..but whats the point? it would mean just that..fire EVERYONE coz everyone does it! oh the joys of living where i live... What I need to do is get someone to bring me over a box of $5dollar watches for all da workers!!
So this morning we were woken with a phone call indicating someone in da village needed da hubby to bring his behind over with our car to do da village shopping for da village meeting. so thats fine, hubby disappears, heres me thinking for an hour! then the power goes off..uma cashpower..so im texting everyone if anyone of 3 adults living in our house bought any cards in advance,No..so next is I dont have a car to go buy some and the shop that sells is quite a distance away...trying to text da hubby where hes at ..no relpy, later discover he is now AT da meeting and part of da meeting so there goes the whole morning for sure, thanks for letting me know!! Thanks also to cash power for imposing your cashpower regime on us, and then not making the cashpower cards available to every village, theres like 1 shop in a 10km or more radius here that sells em and when they are out and da EPC office downtown is closed, ia, well kafi your afi outside with some fafies coz no one is coming to your rescue mate. I heard that DIGICEL offered them an easy solution that would let us purchase power with digicel cards, ae airena se fia rub shoulders epc to the idea, so fanks for making life easier now, suppose less available cards means less power for all meaning less work for your generators, thats gotta be good when they are always encouraging everyone to save power!chuhoo..se malo EPC.
Anyways, so now i have to resort to walking to da shop some distance away -OMG lol! not really but the 3yo is hangin off my dress going mummy me come!! mummy me come! so we walk, and I get ambushed by the village women, who tell me dat Im down for supplying da kau i'as for da 'fafaga' of da fai-aogas next saturday here for suegas..I THINK, thats what she said..not entirely sure thats 100% accurate but sounded something like that. I suppose if I were a fisherman that would be a good deal ...anyhow, those particular saoga-meas annoy me a tad...when its feeding teachers for no real special occasion even...like, ok...bring your lunch with you? and if there are 4 teachers and 20 village women each bringing some form of food, dang thats a whole feast there!! i just dont get these people coming up with decisions like this and than not actually being able to afford to carry them out...I would know because i get the stream of "please can I aikalafu $50" (er, you mean HAVE- big difference, if you dont ever intend to repay me- than its HAVE and not aikalafu) eh...I have concluded that these are the cause of my small gnag of grey hairs now popping up mysteriously!! lol..so i am gonna try not to worry over these things as there are bigger things going on in the world!
I'm in limbo at da moment with what I am doing in the near future. The opportunity to do part time work again at the Hospital is there and Im seriously considering it to change the scenery and get the braincells working a bit:) Sometimes I look at myself and ask if this is where I saw myself at 30? (cos you know, Im not yet 30 but its just round the corner!!) and I can honestly say- no. Although I dont know where exactly I saw myself, just not exactly where I am at today. I thought I would have done more for myself, but I guess I only have myself to blame (quoting good old Dr Phills- " you are a product of the decisions YOU make for yourself!") thanks Dr Phil, although Blame sounds pessimistic and I hafta say Im certainly not pessimistic or dissappointed, I guess at times its more like Im just baffled haha! Ua ke'i a le keige Apia e ala ifo lesi kaeao ga ua nofo i Savaii ha ha!
ok, so thats enough philosophizing for the day...was very happy with the evictees of American Idol last night, I know who I want off next but will just hafta wait for next week. In the meantime Im gearing up for a bake-a-thon for easter in Savaii..and then a really busy MAy though I might be at the hospital by then so- haha, someone else can do the work im currently doing...or wait a minute..boo hoo it might be me after work at da hospital! oh well im SUPERMUM sometimes..when I feel like it...
Ok, gonna sign off for now- ciao and fa laia
Thursday, March 10, 2011
please dont feed da birds...
ok, Ill start this one off with- I just had falai elegi and rice for lunch..mmmmmm. Some days I crave Elegi like its Gods gift to mankind(!) and other times I cant stand the smell..maybe its the different brands but yes, Im a cheap and easily pleased gal sometooiiimes! Soooo...what that made me think of was eating Elegi and the nice little not so nice stint on one of the TV stations last night alluding to poverty in Samoa. I'm not really sure whether the particular story was for it, or against it? If they were exposing the poor or exposing what a joke it was??
So what they 'caught on camera' was a tour bus full of tourists with lotsa kachings $ at a particular site in Upolu, surrounding by a little mob of kids, some with only dirty lavalavas on, some looking like they just finished school and decided to harass a tourist or two...asking the papalagis for "money please" "give me money" or "monday please...give me monday" as one of them said... with the tourists dishing out the dollar bills :( and the story was alluding to poverty in Samoa...hmmmm
What made me laugh is the camera guy ASKS one of the kids- WHO IS YOUR MOTHER and the kid answers "o __ma" and who is your father? "o la'u kama o ___te" totally gave away both the kids parents names!! when asked what the money was for they said "faakau ai mea'ai"...
ok, my thoughts on this?? are the same as a few of the help me stories you sometimes see in the paper, you know, the "i live in a faleoo, sleep on a mat, am so poor please help me" ones. which I think are bogus, the ones where people are disabled and sick are different, but those other ones....may as well be my whole village. Since when was sleeping in a faleo'o and on a mat definition of poor?Is this not the content way Samoans have lived for yonks?? anyways, straying off the subject.
The child beggars seriously is a problem in Samoa which is fast getting outa hand. You see it purulent in Apia, but now apparently its in the rural villages too. Is this not the situation of one kid finds out that if they just ask for money they get it from a sympathetic but naive tourist, and then this becomes a vicous cycle?? the parents see this as an easy money making thing and all morals and ethics and sound parenting flies out the front entrance of the fale in exchange for an easy 10bucks to buy some elegi- forget about fishing for a day??
What I have learned very quickly since living in Samoa in da bush is that, some people will let their morals swagger for a quick buck, wait a minute, a lot of people. Lets just ask (beg ) the neighbour to pay for the feast we want to put on, just ask that lady who owns the shop to pay for our power, please someone pity me and let me have a free ride this month and not pay my phonebill lets spend frivulously without thinking about what we can afford....lets just send this 5yr old kid to sit infront of big bear and BEG for free money...errhh...WHERES THE SHAME?? theres none...its like there is no harm in asking, and getting turned away and frowned upon means nothing.
Perhaps I go to far with this post and there are indeed some very hard up people out there struggling to put food on the table, but out at Fagaloa bay?? or whereever this film crew was?? come on, Im sure these people are not starving, this is just another way to make a quick buck off the palagis, and no parents faces need to appear...I hope the Pulenuus who may have seen this clip take this back to the village, and get to the bottom of things. Im sure the kid who divulged his parents names went home to a nice fat fukislam but really, its the parents fault, for allowing this behaviour to happen!!erhhh
I really hope someone somehow , some organisation can help to eradicate this problem or at least get to the bottom of things because last time I checked, I wasnt living in the slums of india. We almost need to construct a whole lot of signs like those "please dont feed the birds" signs you see in parks overseas, except they would be "please dont give money to the kids" signs.
I have on occasion been mistaken as a palagi (saiga/fliopino/cambodian lol) and been asked for money at a beach etc..and believe you me my masau answer of "ole a? o ai lou kama!?" has often been followed by kids laughing realising Im not a palagi..which says it all aye, its like the behaviour is a joke, and they're just giving it a go to see if they hit the jackpot...blaarrdy annoying if you ask me, and makaga etc etc...anways,fingers crossed something can be done about this before its gets past the point of no return!
So what they 'caught on camera' was a tour bus full of tourists with lotsa kachings $ at a particular site in Upolu, surrounding by a little mob of kids, some with only dirty lavalavas on, some looking like they just finished school and decided to harass a tourist or two...asking the papalagis for "money please" "give me money" or "monday please...give me monday" as one of them said... with the tourists dishing out the dollar bills :( and the story was alluding to poverty in Samoa...hmmmm
What made me laugh is the camera guy ASKS one of the kids- WHO IS YOUR MOTHER and the kid answers "o __ma" and who is your father? "o la'u kama o ___te" totally gave away both the kids parents names!! when asked what the money was for they said "faakau ai mea'ai"...
ok, my thoughts on this?? are the same as a few of the help me stories you sometimes see in the paper, you know, the "i live in a faleoo, sleep on a mat, am so poor please help me" ones. which I think are bogus, the ones where people are disabled and sick are different, but those other ones....may as well be my whole village. Since when was sleeping in a faleo'o and on a mat definition of poor?Is this not the content way Samoans have lived for yonks?? anyways, straying off the subject.
The child beggars seriously is a problem in Samoa which is fast getting outa hand. You see it purulent in Apia, but now apparently its in the rural villages too. Is this not the situation of one kid finds out that if they just ask for money they get it from a sympathetic but naive tourist, and then this becomes a vicous cycle?? the parents see this as an easy money making thing and all morals and ethics and sound parenting flies out the front entrance of the fale in exchange for an easy 10bucks to buy some elegi- forget about fishing for a day??
What I have learned very quickly since living in Samoa in da bush is that, some people will let their morals swagger for a quick buck, wait a minute, a lot of people. Lets just ask (beg ) the neighbour to pay for the feast we want to put on, just ask that lady who owns the shop to pay for our power, please someone pity me and let me have a free ride this month and not pay my phonebill lets spend frivulously without thinking about what we can afford....lets just send this 5yr old kid to sit infront of big bear and BEG for free money...errhh...WHERES THE SHAME?? theres none...its like there is no harm in asking, and getting turned away and frowned upon means nothing.
Perhaps I go to far with this post and there are indeed some very hard up people out there struggling to put food on the table, but out at Fagaloa bay?? or whereever this film crew was?? come on, Im sure these people are not starving, this is just another way to make a quick buck off the palagis, and no parents faces need to appear...I hope the Pulenuus who may have seen this clip take this back to the village, and get to the bottom of things. Im sure the kid who divulged his parents names went home to a nice fat fukislam but really, its the parents fault, for allowing this behaviour to happen!!erhhh
I really hope someone somehow , some organisation can help to eradicate this problem or at least get to the bottom of things because last time I checked, I wasnt living in the slums of india. We almost need to construct a whole lot of signs like those "please dont feed the birds" signs you see in parks overseas, except they would be "please dont give money to the kids" signs.
I have on occasion been mistaken as a palagi (saiga/fliopino/cambodian lol) and been asked for money at a beach etc..and believe you me my masau answer of "ole a? o ai lou kama!?" has often been followed by kids laughing realising Im not a palagi..which says it all aye, its like the behaviour is a joke, and they're just giving it a go to see if they hit the jackpot...blaarrdy annoying if you ask me, and makaga etc etc...anways,fingers crossed something can be done about this before its gets past the point of no return!
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