Samoa: the beginning
Jim had first been introduced to Samoa through reading a book by Margaret Mead – an anthropological history. My first introduction to Samoa was through this trip – before that I don’t think I knew about it, and if I did, I certainly didn’t take much note of it. However, both Jim and myself were a bit anxious/apprehensive about going to Samoa once we had done a bit more reading.
Our travel guide made Samoans sound like theives, we may get stoned (ie. rocks thrown at us with deadly accuracy), and we would need to carry our own rocks with us to fend off the ferocious dogs! So understandably, we thought that our last 3 weeks may prove to be less than ideal. And although we did need to fend off some dogs at some points, we couldn’t have been more wrong about Samoans and Samoa in general.
Samoa lies in the heart of the South Pacific. It is 2/3 of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand, and is closer to the equator than Fiji or Tonga. Samoans are the last people in the world to see midnight on any particular day, because it lies on the east side of the international date line.
Samoa consists of 4 inhabited and 5 uninhabited islands totalling 2842sq km, all of which are in one main cluster. The capital is Apia on the isle of Upolu, but Savaii to the northwest is the largest isle of the group. Samoa is independent; unlike American Samoa to the east, which as it’s name suggests is an american “unincorporated” territory. (Unincorporated means the US constitution and certain other laws don’t apply.) We chose Samoa over American Samoa because Samoa is happy to keep western ways out of their country, and traditional, cultural ways are much more prevalent. (Apparently in 1977, Samoa was considered to be one of the least developed countries in the world!)
We arrived in Samoa at about 1:00am – too bad we didn’t have a day flight because I am sure the islands and water would have been stunning from the air. One thing we did notice on the flight was the sheer size of some Samoan people – many towered over us in both height and girth, and can look quite intimidating. However, for the most part, they are quite friendly people.
Upon arrival at the airport, we were greeted by a group of Samoan men singing and playing string instruments to welcome us. Jim collected his backpack nearly immediately, as I patiently waited for mine to make an appearance on the carousel. It never did. We waited at the ‘lost luggage desk’ for quite some time until someone came to fill out a report for us – we left feeling as though we’d never see the luggage again due to somewhat of a language barrier and no reassurance from the fellow that we’d get it back. They would fax the report to Fiji, and it was up to me to check in with the airport. They had the contact number for where we were staying the first night. Hmmmm. All of our dive equipment (masks, snorkels, wetsuits, fins, knife, light, etc), my toiletries (including my contact lenses), shoes, etc were missing. The most important things however, were priceless – a journal, photo CD’s, and an address book – all 3 I ALWAYS have in my carry on, except for this time of course. Oh well, we were safe and healthy, and really, that is all that matters.
The next morning (actually the same morning, just after some sleep), we decided to explore Apia, the capital. Our motel was within walking distance of the ‘city centre’ so we went by foot. One of the first things we noticed was that Samoans drive on the right side of the road – just like north americans. Being used to the antipodean way, this was bizzare to us. It would take some time to get used to again! The town itself is very clean, and so are it’s cars – very few have smoke trailing from the exhaust. Another nice thing is that no one harasses you to buy anything from the shops – unlike Fiji! Women here cover up – like in Fiji -they usually wear a T-shirt with a lava lava (sarong); usually their shoulders to their knees is covered up.
First things first. We bought a phone card and phoned the airport. No sign of my luggage. I called Fiji’s airport too…no sign there either. We wandered around the market, bought some fresh bananas and oranges, bought some necessities that were lost with the luggage ie. brush, sunscreen, then decided to go to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum and grave.
Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote the classics Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde had bought property here and spent the last 5 years of his life in Samoa. (He suffered from tuberculosis, but he actually died on December 3, 1894 of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 44.) We had a bus schedule which indicated the bus going that route left on the hour every hour – so we waited at the bus station. Their public buses are actually privately run, most having their own village that they are connected with. All the buses are slightly smaller than our school buses, and are totally individual – each one is brightly painted to match the colourful gardens and clothing of the islands. One thing is the same among all of them however – they are always jam packed with nearly every seat having at least someone on someone else’s lap. It can make for a pretty uncomfortable ride, so unlike Fiji, we mainly took taxis as our mode of transport. Oh yeah, it is not uncommon to see a whole, charred pig sticking out the back of the bus either – someone’s dinner for that night.
We waited for 1.5 hours before we decided to give up on Robert Louis Stevenson…we walked to the Samoan museum instead. Once we finally found it (it was on all our maps, but the building was not obviously labelled the museum) we thought we’d found paradise because it was airconditioned! It was like walking into a freezer, but we welcomed the cold as we were absolutely boiling and sweating out of every pore of our body. The museum consisted of 3 rooms, with small displays and books – according to the visitors book we were the first to people to visit in a few weeks. After spending a couple of peaceful hours learning about Samoa, we left in search of dinner. We found a nice spot for fish and chips, and had a couple of stray cats join us for the feast.
The dogs and cats in Samoa look much healthier than those in Fiji. Their skin and hair coats look good, and many of the male dogs are neutered. Yes, there are some nasty dogs, but they are simply guarding their owners property and possessions. You see, many houses in Samoa (and most of those in villages) have no walls. They are called ‘fales’ and they usually consist of an oval concrete pad, with a roof connected to the floor by wooden beams all around the outside. In these open fales is all their possessions, which is often not much, but they don’t need, nor do they want. Within the village is also a large fale which is a meeting place. Here the prominent men and chief would meet here to discuss issues, and the women would meet here to discuss social events and to weave their beautiful mats. The system of chiefs (matai) is strong here – it is a democratic country with an elected Prime Minister – but only a Matai can be elected to parliament. This situation helps preserve traditional Samoan culture.
After dinner we called the airport yet again – still no luggage. We decided to stay in town one more night and check for the luggage again in the morning. No luck. We couldn’t wait around any longer, so we decided to move on to an island called Manono.
We liked the sounds of Manono island because there are no roads on it, no cars, and no dogs (the ‘no dogs’ part sounded good because the dogs bark through the night in town and we were woken up frequently). We got a taxi from the hotel, and the driver was a relative of one of the girls that worked at the hotel -so she tagged along with us for her hour break. We stopped at a shop where Jim bought a snorkel and mask to replace his lost one, but no sense in buying one for myself as I didn’t have my contact lenses, thus wouldn’t be able to see anything snorkelling anyways.
When the taxi reached the wharf we were “greeted” by a bunch of Samoans lying on benches. We were told that at this wharf (which was really just a few boats at the edge of the water) that they would try to charge a tourist $20.00 to cross to the island, but only $2.00 for a local…we didn’t have to worry about this though, because the price of our accommodation included the boat ride over. The locals stared at us blankly, until we mentioned “Sunset View” (the name of the fales we were to stay in) and one fellow hopped up and motioned to follow him. The boat was much like others we had been on around the south pacific isles…doesn’t look seaworthy and no life jackets – but we jumped in all the same.
Manono Island was nice…but the best thing was how quiet it was. The people who ran the fales were really nice and we ate a lot of traditional samoan food. One dish we ate (I cannot remember the name) was taro leaves filled with coconut cream cooked in hot rocks. It was amazing to watch a samoan prepare this…first they heated up lava rocks (as the islands are volcanic) by burning coconut husks. As these were heating, the fellow would place taro leaves in his hand, make a ‘cup’ out of them, then pour the coconut cream into the ‘leaf cup’ then ‘tie’ it at the top and wrap the whole thing in one larger leaf. He made a bunch of the little coconut cream packets, and once the rocks were hot he piled the packets in amongst the rocks, along with some taro he had already cut up. They then grabbed part of a pre-cooked pig, dipped it in the ocean, then put that on the rocks too. The whole thing was then covered with banana leaves and left to cook. (The ‘tongs’ they used for moving the hot rocks were made from the spines of the coconut palm fronds…very ingenious!) The fellow then proceded to weave a basket out of a coconut palm frond, complete with handle in about 2 minutes. Amazing.
Forty-five minutes later we were called back to the rocks to see everything cooked, and we piled it into the homemade basket and had a feast. We ate fish everyday there as well…often the whole fish – head, scales, tail – was on our plate – looked like it should have been in the ocean except it was charred.
We happened to be on Manono Island for Easter Sunday, and we were invited to attend a ‘drama’ put on by the village kids. We didn’t really know what this meant, but at noon some people came and gathered us into yet another un-seaworthy boat and we ventured to the far side of the island. Here we learned that the ‘drama’ was actually different groups of kids from the villages of the island, singing and dancing and performing skits in the church. It was quite intimidating at first, as we were the only white people around (pulangi = foreigners), but the villagers pushed us through the crowd at the back of the church and made room for us on a pew to watch. All of the girls/ladies in the church were dressed in white dresses (shoulders and knees covered) and all the men had on white shirts with pants or skirts on. What was so amazing was how white and clean their clothes were – they all looked like they were brand new, starched and pressed. This wouldn’t be so amazing at home, but here you must understand that people handwash all their clothing – many do it in freshwater streams or just in buckets. So, you can understand why we were amazed. We always feel so dirty compared to Samoans (and Fijians), especially the women, because they always look so clean and beautiful.
Getting back to the church… all of the skits/songs were in Samoan, so we couldn’t understand them of course, but it was great to watch them nonetheless. The kids sitting around us had fun poking and prodding at us – as we were the only white folk and we had a camera…kids love posing for pictures. All the while we sat there we were sweating buckets – to the point where we had to leave after 1 hour. We thanked the people who brought us there by boat, and decided to walk back through the villages to our fale. We noticed on the way out of the church that the fale beside it had a TV on and quite a large crowd was gathered around it -the Australian 7’s rugby tournament was on, and the crowd was rivaling the one in the church! Samoans love their rugby! They are darn good at it too!
Next day we left the quiet little paradise of Manono, in hopes of making it to the other main island of Samoa: Savaii. First however, we’d have to overcome the transportation issue of getting from this little wharf, to the main wharf where the boat leaves for Savaii. We had a taxi called, but that doesn’t mean that a taxi will show up. A bus wasn’t due (not that there is a schedule) for quite some time, and time was running out as we wanted to get on the 2:00 ferry. We had met another couple that had the same plans as us, so the guy decided that he’d go ask a local that had just driven in for a lift. Well, it worked. We loaded our backpacks and ourselves in the back of the pickup, and we were off. It wasn’t until we were in the back that Jim and I noticed teh 2 rifles sitting in the back with us… Jim motioned to the guns and said, “hunting?” to the Samoan fellow sitting with us…he looked confused, but then nodded….
We got to the wharf in plenty of time, with no gun shot wounds, surprised that the fellows wouldn’t take more than 10 Tala (~$5 Canadian) for the bumpy ride. Nice people. We boarded the old car/passenger ferry and made our way upstairs to find that all the seats were taken, so we took a seat on our backpacks on the floor. We soon felt at home, because Samoans will lie down anywhere…and soon there were tons of them lying all over the floor, with legs, feet, heads all over teh place and getting to the toilet was a game of dodging bodies…not to mention all the doors were blocked from bodies. So much for safety issues! The boat ride was ~1hr, with no stabilizer, so needless to say I had started to feel somewhat ill. The good thing though was that we met a really nice couple on the way, who were headed in the same direction as us, so we shared a cab together to our next destination – Manase. Scott, a dentist, and Bridgette a teacher, live in New Zealand. Bridgette however, is a canadian from Nova Scotia. They were on holidays for a week…little did they know at the time that we’d pester them the entire time!
Tags: Travel
Kristin
Leave a Reply