1st of November

Its that time of the year again. The first of November arrived and passed and suddenly, there is a whirlwind of anxiety?? in the air. Before you know it...Christmas is here. New years is here and  then another year is here OMG. On the 1st of November, the things that always run through my mind are

1) Cyclone season.
This year, cyclone season (or the 1st of November) actually started off (in Savaii anyways) with wind and gusts and torrential rain. To put it ironically, I was actually sh$%*ing my pants that a cyclone was actually going to hit. What the!!  So I dont like that. I dont like living a boat ride away from my parents and family..ie a boat that could stop sailing, the port could get damaged the reef could  get battered and even a sailing ship could not leave!!OMG..those are all the thoughts in my head. PLease let all the digicel posts stay up so we can keep in touch by phone with everyone!!

2) Insurance
Why the hell did we not just go on and get the darned insurance (bar the too expensive too complicated excuses ) ....now I really should just go and get it. And then get a loan too as well.

3) Flying. I might have to go to NZ for a short trip and as much as that is woop di doo- get some shopping- type thrill, I would hate to fly through bad weather. On the news today, Air NZ pilot suffers an aneurysm moments after landing in Auckland....OMG. That and the weather is enough to put me off. Eh se kao ia se. Pala'ai kele.

4) Christmas.
Every year we make the family oriented decision to close our business down for Christmas, both to give all our staff the priveledge of this family oriented holiday and to Celebrate Christmas itself, and because its our Daughters birthday on the 23rd. And then we never really get around to planning something great. We might have a BBQ here..a dinner there...but sometimes we are left thinking...well we could have actually done that and kept our business open. Last year we went to a beach resort on the other side of Upolu. And it was shit. To put it bluntly.  Big white elephant of  a resort with crap service and crap food...is just what people who run a hotel/bar and restaurant DONT want to be faced with on their one break a year. Thanks much Samoa Hide..........resort. Lets just leave it there shall we. Now , scratching my head over ideas of something fun/great/fantastic to do that I wont get an earful for the rest of the year from my hubby for!

5) New years resolutions?
nah..I dont actually think about that. What is the use of making up a resolution which is basically something you've wanted already all along and just not had the will power to do/achieve/go out and get- what difference does announcing it on the 1st of Jan actually do to motivate you?? I would rather watch Dr Phil or listen to TOny Robinson and try to get an inch more motivated then I am now..realistically might do better then me saying this silently in my head (lose weight this year bla bla)

6) Getting Old.
Well, This season doesnt make me feel like I am getting old but after talking about the above 5.. I do suddenly realise that these cycles happen every year and I am definitely not getting any younger.  Some days, I worry about what the heck I am doing with my life or we are doing with our lives. When did this become part of our future plan? But then I look at my father in law. The English man from England, who many centuries ago actually caught a ship to the southern hemisphere met his wife and moved to Samoa. And now has been here yonks. Had dedicated his whole life to this island living, and in Savaii too.  And I think well here is a person who gave up everything for them. His wife, their future, their land, their place in the village the aiga. And I wonder whether I am doing that or whether I am being selfish thinking about me all the time?

On a side note..this morning I watched while a over-testosteroned male was yelling at one of our aigas staff members, and my father in law stepped in to calm things down and explain the situation. Then this dickhead of a local man got louder and even almost got out of his car pe fia fusu ea  while my father in law was being his quiet pleasant old self speaking slowly and clearing about what had happened(as it was, it was just a small error with change which had been corrected) and I had to hold myself back from geting involved- just about walked over to bring out the mufasa in me. (called the men in my family instead to "come to the shop now" and be around..ie this old man is like 50kg and the demented guy is like 200kg !) I dont know what it is but sometimes, I think when locals have a palagi intervene on something, they get over inflatted egos and then go fluffing their feathers and flexing their muscles...calm the dick down mate. Ke vaai aku a o le palagi paee  e le kaikai lava ga fia fusu ma oe..ae fia faa-aliali  a lou temper/power ki'o. Koeaikiki ou aluaku kui oe se antipsychotic.

 Anyways...theres my rant for the day.

ciao

Touch wood

Thank goodness for this immune system. If this is what the man above has dealt me in my line of work I am seriously grateful. It always surprises me how much contagions  I have around me and yet I always miss out or rarely get affected. This week, I have my youngest down with a nasty cold...cough snot fevers and sweat is what it is. How she manages to still have smiles and her usual cheek in her I dont know, shes my little fairy princess. The next one up has caught chicken pox. I am almost entirely sure it is from school and maybe even from some kids we give a ride to everyday because one by one a family of 3 has become just one child coming as the others are 'sick'...hmmm..anyways. Chicken pox is nasty. Its everywhere, in her hair behind her ears,  down her back and in places she cant reach. Its itchy as anything and my eldest daughter is as miserable as anything. Im trying to put every anti-itch thing you can put on it as well as an anti-itch tab at night and she is still miserable. Bless her little soul always the obediant daughter- having been told not to scratch she will just sstand there and jump up and down wailing "Im so itchyyyyyy!"...its heartbreaking but Im nursing her through it...

And last but not the least, Dad has got the good old chikungunya. Thankyou american Samoa, thankyou south america.. or wherever this came from. He has it full blown, rash, fever, itch, sore joints, headache, not an ounce of energy and in bed all day. Thank goodness for the babysitter or I would have had to shut 2 businesses down to care for this lot. Luckily Im only a hop away from home so in and out all day to check on these 3. Its been a week now and I was waiting to see when I would get something....but alas..the week is almost up and surely this lot should be going downhill from now on a recovery road and not so much as a sniffle from me. I remember feeling like this at the hospital too. When in outpatient with almost zilch hygein and infection control..and still...never caught anything.

Well its touch wood, that I actually don't get infected who knows...maybe next week Ill come down with something but I am counting my lucky stars for being spared and being able to care for all these sickies in the house.

Please keep spraying your homes because as far as I am concerned, Chiku is still around and in full force  (esp in Savaii)

Some Days

Some days, are just mung days

 And I am dying..in Savaii.

I would rather be in a two piece, at a luau..

That Ive never been to or seen, in Hawaii.

( if I had a body to go with that

Would be great, lose half my fat

Love handles apparently I am told

Guys like a little more curves to hold)

Some days…and just crap days

That I feel like wasted space..wasting oxygen

And other days , are fun days

I'm a blast and can climb a mountain.

I can’t quite decide…if I want to hide, or thrive…

If I want to be here..or leave here…

If I am happy or sad…if life is good or bad…

The torture of confusion…is draining.

Some days..people say

How lucky we are to live here

So peaceful and quiet and just lovely

To be here…to work here to while here…

Other days, I am asked “how I do it’

Like an offer of sympathy

How I stand it, live without it..make it through it

A realization of something sacrificed

Something nice? It?

As I said,

Some days, are just mung days

 And I am dying..in Savaii.

Post US Sum up.

So we did a holiday to the US. 3 weeks Aeroplanes, spare ribs, supersized sodas, las vegas, Disney, knots berry, visiting family, freeway freaking out, freeway ACCIDENT, catching up with old friends, meeting NEW family, sleeping eating, walking in malls, running in malls, shop til you drop and fast food on the go all you can eat seafood chinese buffets. Uma laia.
It was a fun filled trip. We all put on weight (shock horror) .Most satisfying are the people we met/caught up with and taking the kids to theme parks, the looks on my kids faces meeting mickey mouse and Cinderella....my daughter yelling at the top of her lungs (she is 4) at a robot-olaf snowman (from Frozen cartoon) "OLAF! ITS ME MOANA,YOUR FRIEND" on top of a roof of a shop at disney because she was over the moon to see him in "real life"...was awesome.

We have done that trip, ticked that box. Would I go back again...I don't know, it would be hard to say yes to that. Thats my honest answer. Maybe for a wedding, or a family function, or even a shopping trip if I had lots of money (to pay the fare!) ....but as a holiday?? it was actually kind of hard to relax. Maybe because we had a jam packed itenirary, maybe because it was just too fast for me...life on the go, on the run it felt like.

The impression that the big USA left on me was....masses. Mass consumption, mass production, everything is Massive so as to make life more convenient. I was giving way to people at a park one day on scooters feeling sympathetic that they were disabled, only to watch one lady hop off and say to her partner "ok your turn I'm gonna get my legs moving for a little while" ie....the sit on scooter was actually just so that they didn't have to walk ...wow.

What I saw was that everything is done great- packaged and perfected, even 'having a good time' had been well thought out. We went on a 3 day cruise to mexico and were told it was all about the fun. And it sure had fun thought up and mastered. At 12 noon a big disco broke out on the main deck by the pool, a handful of waiters marched around with really inviting looking cocktails, cheap too, handing them out and charging peoples rooms in all of about 2 seconds (like fastest waiters ever) , then a really cool looking pirate gets up and MCs and manages to get everyone on the dancefloor and teaches them a pretty cool looking line dance . All pin pointed and pasted..12 oclock awesome boogie.  Fun is timed and on time. The whole trip was planned and thought out like this. And there were plenty options.

But where it started to suck for me, was when rote learned greetings replaced common sense. I stood in a line to get off the boat (which holds >1000 passengers) and my dad had to turn around for 5 mins and backtrack to grab something he had left around the corner, and me my kids my mum and husband got chased back to the end of a loooooong ass line because some (dickhead)staff member was(yelling) giving instructions- NO WAITING IN LINE....the line needs to MOVE (ie we were letting people overtake us waiting dad who only took 5 minutes) but they had no ears for our explanations and we just kept getting that above instruction yelled at (infront of everyone) common sense no more.... instances like this cropped up throughout our entire trip..in stores, in restaurants , in the park even by "park police" ( which by the way - who the freak are park police??) people did not have the time of day to listen, there was no common sense. Maybe this is why this country has gone bonkers and sues every tom dick and harry for the dumbest things......?

Then, I started to miss just fresh food....all this fast food, burger pizza taco shit....every corner every street you drove on had fast food places side by side...like 4 burger places on our block on one street across the road. How do they make money? How could they make an all inclusive breakfast $2?What is in those sausages/hashbrown/bread that makes it so cheap??and How long has that been in the freezer for?? Give me an oka, limu or a poke any day over a burger. Then the waste..so much waste...waste of food in restaurants etc....all I could think was, consume, produce and let someone else deal with the devastation. That someone is people in the pacific who will be the first to suffer from rising sea levels from the by products of mass production which is getting out of control The side effects of the waste of mass production are already known but only few are worrying about it. In Samoa, everyone is aware of all the climate change stuff that is in the media all the time. In the US, I honestly felt like no one gave 2 hoots. You never caught a drift of this issue anywhere. You had fast food and a glamourous life being shoved down your throat (the latest gadgets, clothes, celebrities in the media all the time) Climate change?? I don't know....SMOG. I don't get why someone cant build a big suction fan mop in the sky and just filter all that crap out of the air. Honestly I am sure it could be done??SURELY. It is so thick it obscures buildings sometimes so its like a blanket hanging in the air. I say put a wet cloth in the sky and suck air threw it...ok, patent that idea :)

So what else has that made me think of ?? Ancient civilizations - I can't get over the fact that there are civilizations that existed 1000s of years ago who were so brilliant. History tells that some like the Indus valley civilization housed about 5million people (! like waaaaa) they built great buildings, had smart architects (like...what happened to all that knowledge??) had sewage systems and bustling trading centers etc...artists and all sorts... one day ,that all  disappeared. All their awesomeness , their intelligence, all that they had built and gained and acquired over time...lost. Why and how they can not be sure of but there are theories of getting too big for ones boots and being unable to sustain so many people, disease, climate change droughts and famine. Then they just disappeared off the face of the earth, their 'peoples' maybe resettling into smaller nearby villages but without all the grandiosity that they once had. This is what I worry will happen to  us again, except it will be larger scale...we are getting too big (well , 'some of us' ) for our boots. too greedy to gluttonous with the way we live, we are going to out do ourselves and destroy the earth we live on ..and poof everyone will die and disappear. Then maybe 10,000 years from now,pockets of surviving humans revive a new era of humans  and " our time" will be discovered and remnants of our buildings etc will be dug up and our history pondered on, and it will be found that we were stupid enough to destroy ourselves. Amen.Uma laia i'i ga.