Tag Archives: salelologa

Samoa (the good, the bad, & the ugly)

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Finally, here is the promised report about our trip to Samoa.  Sorry this took so long in coming Jody. I’m going to try and be better about serving up some koko samoa on a regular basis from here on out:-). 

Samoa, what can I say?  Samoa is er…. still Samoa.   My last visit to Samoa was about ten years ago so I expected to find a lot of changes.  Well, there were some changes and not all of them for the better, in my humble opinion.  Case in point, too many cars on narrow roads.  I can’t even imagine how crazy the roads are going to be with the upcoming switch in Upolu and Savaii.  As if things aren’t bad enough already on the roads down there.   And the roads in Tutuila aren’t any better.  I wonder where or perhaps I should say, whose pocket all that federal money is going in?

So here’s a brief breakdown of our adventures in Samoa:

The Good – umu kalo and palusami from the makeki in Apia, kale mamoe from Pinati’s restaurant, keke pu’aa from a booth at the makeki in Salelologa, hot and delicious papa falaoa from Lyn’s in Moto’otua, hot water courtesy of Hotel Elisa in Apia, our very own private beach fale in Tutuila and a semi-private beach to go with it, and a hands-on lesson on how to valu kalos and popos that our boys will never forget.  Visiting and reuniting with family.  Great service at the various places we stayed or ate at including Jetover hotel in Salelologa, Vaisala hotel, Aggies in Apia, and a handful of other places in Tutuila, Upolu, and Savaii.  It was nice to be back after being away for so long and let’s face it, no matter how long you’re gone or wherever else you may live now, Samoa is still Home.   But that doesn’t mean I want to return and live there any day soon so don’t get any ideas hon.  I agree with our boys – a visit every ten years works for me too, he he. 

The Bad – Thieves at the swap-meet in Apia that charge double or triple when they see that you are visiting from somewhere else, and they can tell no matter how much you try to hide that fact.  The expectation that you have money to give to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that you meet down there.  It’s one thing to give money to close relatives and people you like and who’ve helped you and played an important role in your life, but quite another to give money to someone just because they’re from your village or know your parents etc.  The cost of food and everything else in Samoa.   Dang, talk about a total mismatch between the cost of living and the average income down there.  Being ripped off by an elderly man in Taga who said we owed him money cause the spot where we parked while we were taking pictures of the blowholes belongs to him.  I knew he was full of **** because we’d already paid at the “entrance” to the blowholes but I also felt sorry for him and figured he must be desperate to be stooping to such measures and gave him 10 tala anyway.  Ditto for the woman in Falealupo who said we had to pay her 2 tala for every picture of the kulaga vae a Moso we took because the kulaga vae was on her land.  This after we were told by a “council” for the village that we paid money for the skywalk to that this fee covers all the different sights there in their village.  Again, being the sucker for elderly folks that I am, I gave her 4 tala as well and told the boys to take as many pics as they wanted.  I may be a sucker but I’m not stupid, lol. 

The Ugly – the obnoxious fafas that harrassed our boys on our first night in Tutuila.  I’m sure the fafas thought they were just being cute but our boys didn’t find it cute or funny at all.   They were afraid the fafas were going to moekolo to them in the night so they refused to sleep in the beach fale that first night.  They opted to sleep behind a locked door instead.

To recap, we ended up spending way more than we wanted.  I’m sure that comes as no surprise to all of you my fellow Samoans, lol.  I also ate way too much but who can say no to all that delicious Samoan food?  Not me, that’s for sure.  Thanks to the aggressive use of mosquito repellents, our boys escaped fairly unscathed.  Overall, it was a wonderful trip and despite spending all the money that we’d set aside to remodel our kitchen on this trip, I’m still very glad that we went.   I’m sure that our boys will treasure the memories from this trip for the rest of their lives.  Now that our boys are older, they can really appreciate the things that we’ve been trying to tell them and teach them about the fa’a Samoa and about life in Samoa.  Perhaps now they will think twice about taking things for granted, and be grateful for the things that they are blessed with.  Maybe now too all our lectures about not wasting opportunites like access to a good education and a college degree will stick with them better, now that they’ve seen for themselves what we’ve told them time and time again. 

The stuff our boys seemed to enjoy the most were: swimming with turtles in Saleaula, swimming in Piula, canoe racing in Salelologa, shopping for souvenirs at the makeki in Apia, having their very own private beach fale, and of course getting on the plane to come home:-).  The one thing that they got the biggest kick out of was riding the aiga bus from hubby’s village to Pago.  They thought it was hilarious that we just sit on each other when the bus gets too crowded.  They thought it was even more hilarious when we told them that we had to ride the bus to the beach on our first date since neither one of us owned a car way back then, lol.

p.s.  Pics of our adventures in Samoa are posted on my bebo page so come see me there guys:-).  Manuia le Aso!

A Stroll Down Memory Lane

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We’ve been working hard these last few days trying to get everything packed, cleaned, and organized for our upcoming move. The boys were packing books and stuff when they came across old photo albums. So, of course, everything had to stop so that we could all take a look at all those old photos.

There were several pictures that made all of us laugh so hard. There were a couple of pics of their dad back in da day when he had a mustache. These were from the days when the two of us had just met so the boys weren’t even a blimp on the map yet. A couple of pictures were taken at Pago Elem where he used to teach. Do they still have those fale style school houses? The boys had a good laugh over those ones. To make matters worse, he was even sporting what the boys called an afro, even though it really wasn’t. They’ve seen other pictures of him with this hairstyle before but that didn’t stop them from cracking jokes at their dad’s expense again. Hubby is in the military so he wears the standard military cut and in my humble and unbiased opinion, he makes it look really good.

There were pictures of them when the two older boys were about 6 and 3 holding hands. They’re now 19 and 16. They got a good laugh out of that one too. They were in their Power Ranger costumes for Halloween. I’m gonna save that one for when they get married. It’s going to show up on the highlight video for sure:-).  The youngest one got a lot of grief over some pictures that we took of him in his birthday suit.  He was about a month old at the time.  I thought it was cute.  Still do.  Hey, it was backside only, no frontal nudity.  By today’s standards, it rates a G, not even close to a PG13:-).

We spent a lot of time on old pictures taken in Samoa. Again, these were from the days before the boys were even born so we spent a lot of time talking about them; where, when, who etc. There were some black and white pics of my siblings and I when we were all so young. These were taken at Fosgren’s photo studio in Samoa. It was probably the only photo studio in Samoa at the time. I believe this photo studio/pharmacy is still in business today in Samoa. All the pictures had a fala (the one you sit on, not the one you eat) as the background. I wore a dress that I probably wore to Church and flip flops. Yeah, can’t beat the styles back in da day:-). That also got a lot of laughs.

There was one picture of us and some other village kids hanging off my father’s red truck. It was the first car our family owned and at the time, it was the only vehicle in the village. That red truck has a colorful history. For one thing, it went for a dive off the uafu at Mulifanua. I’m serious, it really happened. My dad had gone to Apia for some business, and he was coming back to Savaii. He got there too late for the last ferry from Upolu to Savaii so he had to wait there overnight for the next ferry. Apparently, my father fell asleep sometime during the night and the truck just rolled into the ocean – with my father inside. He’d forgotten to set the brakes!

The boys had never heard that story so I tried to paint a picture of what life was like back then. How we took the ferry from Salelologa to Mulifanua and vice versa. I tried to tell them what that felt like, the smells, the people, the jostling to get on first, and the seasickness (mostly on my part). That part grossed them out, for sure. Oh, I also told them about sleeping at the uafu, (along with everyone else that was trying to get either to Apia or Savaii) just so we can be sure we’re on the ferry the next day. They had a hard time visualizing that one. Definitely a lot of adventures that I still have to tell my boys about. I’d love to take them back there again now that they’re older. They will appreciate it much more now so I’ve got to work on this. I hear Salelologa is quite the modern place now. Good, progress is a positive thing. I just hope things don’t change too much or I won’t recognize anything when I do take my family back there again.