Fortunately, there are many Samoans at Middlemore Hospital where I worked. A nurse and friend, Margaret, asked me when I was leaving as she would be home and able to pick me up from the airport. "See you at the airport on Saturday," she said. "Sunday," I corrected. "If you leave Auckland on Sunday, you arrive in Samoa on Saturday. No worries," she proclaimed when I told her of my mistake. "We will take care of you."
Disembarking from the plane in Samoa, the humid warm air greets you just outside the airplane door. The walk across the tarmac to the small terminal is short. A band plays for the arriving passengers as the passengers await their luggage. Margaret was there, as promised, waving happily with her daughter and sister in tow. After a tour of the family house, some mango fresh off the tree and a drink, we drove to Apia to Hotel Elisa and the start of my Samoan week.
What will be the image, the aroma, the feel of Samoa that will linger when I recall the past week? It will not be the single bed at the Hotel Elisa on the seedier side of town. The charcoal of a roadside BBQ. The beach fales, with the front porch overlooking my private sand castle. Waves hushing me to sleep. The bulbul in the thatch of the roof, the cockroach running under the mat. Perhaps the churchbells at 6:30 beconning that we have silence and consider our blessings. The dogs that all seem to come from one rangy mutt. Friendly ones, ones that cower and shy away from any human touch. Know that they have not seen kindness. Seeing at once ribs showing plainly and teats, swollen and swaying. I will remember the pigs and piglets at the side of the road, running squeeling from my footfalls. The horses, tethered in the pasture and my heartache to know they were grown for food as well. This beautiful land of languid beaches, tropical fruits. The sensuality of a banana tree bearing fruit with the red flower at the tip of the stalk that yields the layered hands of sweet fruit. This land, both lush and poor, loving and harsh. Signs reading: Say no to rape and indecent acts. The child swatted on the ferry. The boxing ring, ugly stalls where men pitted against each other. Money from foreign soils build ridiculously weathly establishments where fresh water fills pools while the village water supply down the road gets shut off after one hour. Tourism comes in all flavors: Some folks come and stay in resorts, sipping Margueritas. Others prefer the budget fales with food served family style. Others hotels, or home stays. The lives of the tourists in sharp contast to the way of life here. Tourists clammer on bus/vans for a real Samoan experience. One such tour landing unannounced by my fale. Six people crawled out, oogling my fale. I, their unlikely and completely UN SAMOAN host. Funny, that.. Cheerful, Engaging, yet unaware they came, swam. I sighted whales in the distance. My binoculars borrowed and trained on empty vistas of sea and sky.
Perhaps I will remember the turtles I saw snorkeling. How my breathing and heart rate slows when watching the life of the coral reef. Or floating in the sea, another piece of debris on the surface. The ferry, with people sleeping on the stairwell, plastic bags soaring into the sea.
The banyan tree with a sleeping platform and the canopy walkway made seemingly from ladders lashed end to end with wood planking in between. The chip sealed roads with no signs, just an arrow hinting at the possibility of a turn.
The jarring dichotomy of children watching a music video with grinding women, snorting men, lights flashing issueing from a grainy TV screen in a remote village of perhaps 50 people with the beauty of a starlit night and waves crashing on the shore.
Perhaps I will remember the people. Women with beautiful smiles. Folks walking along the side of the road for hours. Boys with baskets on either end of a pole, hefting more than their weight. Rugby games watched in Fale foles with cardboard hats, “Go Manu”
Breakfasts of paypaya, mango, banana
Dinners with fried veggies, onions.
Vailima beer, shanties
Discussing Fijian cultural politics with the French anthropologist.
Or with the German cultural attaché.
Samoan men, who seemed universally bent on discovering my age, marital status, invevitably followed by an invitation, to church, to date, to return to stay with their families… a ticket to somewhere else.
I will remember that the waste water just goes into the ground A Culture so reliant on land, yet still mostly unaware of the environmental movement. One protected rainforest. Several marine conservation areas adjacent to sewer dumped in the ground water.
Flowers. Frangiapane. Women with coffee colored skin, white teeth, long silky hair adorned with hibiscus, frangiapane, tropical treats.
Lilting music as people sing and work, Sa, the evening choruses from church.
Heady, humid air.
The relief of a cool rain, or a dip in the ocean.
Breeze, warm.
Barking dogs at night
The crow of the rooster at any hour of the day or night.
The scarlet colored bird with black wings and down turned bill escaping my camera every time.
The dinner bell
Efita trying to teach me Samoan.
Faa afeeta. (thank you) Samoa, for my week of repose
Faa (bye).
I leave you with tears, and yet I don’t know why.
Traveling alone, I met friends. Saw better ways of being. Witnessed my close mindedness.
Opened my heart to desire for
Further travel
And strangely, for home, for routine, for family and community.
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