44 snippets from Samoa

A bunch of snippets of Palagi life in Samoa for those interested.

1. It’s hot over here – averages 30 degrees summer and winter. You gotta walk in the shade, stand in the shade, carry an umbrella for shade in the daytime, seek out places with aircon (like your car!), and the breeze.
2. Don’t listen to the ‘goons’ on the other Internet websites who sound pompous about the dry season and the wet season! There’s no such thing as a "dry" season in Samoa. This is the tropics and it rains at least once just about every day here summer and winter. In summer it is a little hotter and very humid. It rains around the mountains most afternoons, sometimes tropical dumps that have you diving for cover for an hour or so. In winter it is cooler, but not by much. It is certainly less humid in winter but it rains many days and often each night.
3. It takes a while to get used to Taro. If you’re going to live here JUST DO IT and get used to it or you’ll starve or cause offence or embarrass yourself. Ask for lots of coconut cream and you can eat it – promise! Actually you can eat stones with coconut cream it’s so nice!
4. The staple diet here is Taro, Chicken, Pawpaw and Coconut. That’s because they all grow like weeds and don’t cost anything. Nobody has any money here of course!
5. If you’ve got some money then eggs, bread, noodles, rice, sugar, flour and corned beef are the main items on the shopping list.
6. There are no dairy products here. They grow the cows to eat them, not milk them! UHT milk, yoghurt and cheeses are imported – yuppies can get them but then they are the only ones who can afford them – so there!
7. Don’t bring anything to rural Samoa, especially if you value it. Cameras get wet and muddy. Paper doesn’t work – it gets wet and is soft in the humidity. A computer requires power and the Internet – leave it at home. Anything else will get stolen, scratched, dropped or borrowed or will come back broken or get "lost". More than likely you will probably give it away anyway.
8. Practice walking in, tying up, changing into, washing and drying yourself under, and generally living under a lavalava. You’ll want to if you live here!
9. Don’t expect construction styles like home. Imagine a hundred and eighty thousand homes built like holiday batches all home handyman style and you’ve got it. Sprinkle in a gazillion churches and a few mansions as well!
10. Houses with walls get hot. Houses without walls get a breeze. Get used to your neighbour watching in on you if you’ve got the latter. Expect big electricity bills with your airconditioning and/or fans in the former.
11. There’s no signage. You have to know where everything is here or you won’t find it. Ask a local and then ask another local, and then a third one for instructions. Pick what you think the best one is and give yourself plenty of time to find "it"
12. If you catch a criminal – get a good punch or two in before the cops arrive and only one or two when they do arrive. You’re allowed to do that here (well sort of).
13. Concrete is often made from coral chips. It is a cross between balsa and sand. It crumbles the day you start walking on it and is replaced a year or two later. They lay it as thin as they can and trowel it off by hand with wooden trowels.
14. Dogs roam all over the road. If they don’t like you don’t run. Step toward them bending down as if you are picking up a stone. If you say "Hallu!" loudly to them those two things sends even the most frightening of beasts into a tailspin and scarpering for their dear lives! True!
15. Your heart will be ripped up by children trying to sell you things on the footpaths in the city. Toothpicks, hair clips, matches and food on the streets – sometimes to finance Mum’s BINGO habit, other times so Dad can have his smokes.
16. Learn to do what the locals do – they do it for a reason. It’s usually a lot easier. Clothes, food, transport, housing, you name it, they’ve been here a while!
17. Don’t diss the locals, in any way shape or form. They’ll kill you. They take offence easily and in Lotopa and Satapuala they’ll get you.
18. The usual local answer to offence is to stone your house or car. Guns are rare so stones are it – turtles, signs, cars (especially cop cars) houses (they’re the favourite) and if it’s serious they’ll burn them down – yes it happens all the time in village disputes. (Understand though that a good house is just poles on a concrete base and a steel roof with trusses.)
19. If you want to steal pick up a pig, hold it’s mouth shut while you tickle it under the belly. It will then stop squeeling long enough for you to get away do the business.
20. Turtles are intelligent and have their own personality. They also nip and can even draw blood if you’re not careful. Keep your fingers away when feeding them, or be faster than them.
21. Tall cocount trees are old – even up to 100 years old. Locals cut them down so they don’t fall on their houses. Don’t sleep under them. If a coconut falls and gets you you’ll be sorry. Terminal velocity with a litre or more of juice, and all the other bits that make them up whacks a punch! Dead? Maybe not. Sore head? Knocked out? Easy!
22. The Samoan smile is magic. The Samoan hostpitality is out of this world. Enjoy it.
23. Don’t assume anything. The standard answer to any question or comment is "Yes!" It’s the truth, a lie, a
    guess, a coverup, an excuse and a standard response to anything and everything.
24. There’s really only one thing they want from a Palagi – your money. Most rural Samoans are honoured to have you as a guest but if there’s any money involved, or if they think you’ve got money, there will be somewhere, somehow!
25. Don’t give to the children or other families you meet. You’ll think that you’re doing something kind but WW3 will happen after you’ve left. The chief has to have it – from the family that you stay/stayed at. Those are the rules, mate!
26. Always ask for a discount. You’ll usually get 5-20% off, except when you are being charged Palagi Price when you can ask for and get a 50% discount(!!). Ask a local how much it should be first then you’ll get a fair price. Some people call this place the South Pacific version of Mexico you know!
27. Lock your toilet paper up if you’re an employer. It’ll go walk about otherwise – true!
28. Nobody trusts anybody around here. Church on Sunday, Lies on Monday. Situation normal. All government departments and larger busiensses have a cashier – not a till. Two people to do the business but only one touches the money. Even a chemist shop has a cashier in Apia’s main drag!
29. Hmmm – drags . . . Don’t get me started. Some people like these FaFaFine girls guys.
    They give me the creeps but aparently their show can be good value, if you like something from the odd side of life!
30. Even the cops throw their rubbish out of the car window. I know. I’ve seen it! It’s no problem though, it joins the rest that is lying on the side of the road and either gets caught up in the wind or cut up into bits when the weedeater goes over the grass next month!
31. There’s a grand total of 125 politicians, 4,035 corner dairies, 50,000 Governemnt employees, 86,177 weed eaters (Whipper Snippers to you Aussies!), 180,000 people (325 ex-pat Kiwis and 127 Aussies), 260,000 dogs, 323,000 pigs, 420,000 chickens, 1,254,331 flies and  7,322,678 mosquitoes in Samoa. I know – I’ve counted them all. Ouch!! Got ‘im! Make that one less mosquito.
32. The flies are pesky little things that remind me of Australia (the Aussie flies I meant not the Aussies!). The sort of hang around, you know like with no fear? Swat them off you and they do a 1.3 second circuit up and around and back to right where they were before on your leg. Clever!
33. Wake up early with the sunrise and sleep in the afternoon is the best way to hadle the heat of summer – get into the routine and it works well.
34. It’s colder up in the hills than down on the flat. One cold winters night at midnight I even recorded a freezing 21 degrees outside the car. I couldn’t believe the temperature gauge on the dash so I opened the window to check it. Sure enough – it was freezing so I closed the window in a hurry and now I really do believe the car’s thermometer!
35. My aircon in the office is set to 27 degrees. 24 will give anyone a chill coming and going between inside and outside and 28 or 29 doesn’t quite take the edge off the temperature inside enough.
36. There are two flights a day in and out of Samoa. Air New Zealand and Poly Blue. The planes land, unload, load and take off inside an hour. I reckon the SAA Samoan Airport Authority must charge them by the minute while they’re here, or their crew can’t wait to get off and goign or something. It’s almost like they’re keen to get away from here!
37. The speed limit is 40k. If you travel at the speed limit you will be forever braking and/or overtaking. Many drive at 25k. No kidding!
38. Whenever you see a truck or pickup with the number plates starting with EPC, dive for cover, do a runner or jam on your breaks. They’re all lunatics who drive for EPC – the local power company. They own the road – the lot of them. One day I’ll see an EPC truck driving at the speed limit – he’ll be following a cop probably. Hmmmmmm, actually that’s not likely to happen, the cops only have six vehicles to share for the whole island.
39. It’s legal to sit in the back of a ute or on a truck, but you’re not allowed your feet to hang off the edge. There’s nothing funnier than seeing a ute packed full of Samoans sitting on Taro, tyres or what-have-you and a cop pulling the driver over to make sure that he has his seatbelt on! A speed limit of 40k, passengers allowed on the back but you MUST have your seatbelt on eh?
40. Palagi make you crackup over here too. They walk in the middle of the footpath in the heat of the day and complain that they get hot. They drive like lunatics trying to overtake everything and everyone. They walk around with sexy (by comparison) Palagi clothing and wonder why they get the looks. They sleep in while it is cold, then go out and do things while it is hot. They take photos of everything and everyone and go so fast they can’t find a shop, even though they’ve passed 14 of them on the way! I know. I’ve done it too! (Not the low-cut clothing thing though)
41. Samoan law is based on NZ law. It’s pretty much the same except for rules relating to the land. That’s a whole book in itself and is all Samoan. Land rights is a real biggie over here (ultra hot subject).
42. Palagi can’t buy land here. The only way to get it is to marry a Samoan and breed. Then your kids can have it but you can’t! Too bad. That said some people have managed to buy land. They obviously knew the right people at the right time. It works like that here.
43. Most people who got taken out by the Tsunami have moved away from the coast – smart people. There are a few who chose to stay and rebuild but most couldn’t afford to rebuild and moved inland.
44. Samoa is a great place to visit but I reckon that anyone would be nuts coming to live on a beach here and wait for another big wave. I’ve blogged about this extensively before and diversification is the future fior Samoan Tourism now. There are heaps of great accommodation and experiences inland and you can always go to a beach for the day. Business is not booming but it is ticking over.

It’s a brutal country is Samoa when you choose to stay here, and a one that takes a long time to get to know – a loooooong time. They say here that the higher the crab climbs the coconut tree the more he sees. I’ll keep you posted. My crab-vision is about level with the Samoan’s daughter’s knees at the moment. I’ll let you know when I get to the top!

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