A few challenging weeks have just past. My daughters Rebecca and Ashlea are now home in New Zealand after spending a week in paradise.
According to the smiles on their faces and feedback from a variety of lonely men here who are already The whisper is that Force is the senior half of G-Force, a local rap band that was a hit in Samoa when they launched a year or two ago. Force is furiously knocking up an album in their recording studio. Photo of the recording studio above. Note the PS3 alongside of a home-made Bass speaker (drum attached to a smaller speaker!), and a broken notebook held together with a bush-knife/machete. Aparently their only microphone is attached to the earphones (Yup!). Hard life over here for music stars!
Mati, my off-sider for the last three months has gone. He got caught with his hand in the till and helping himself to a few things that weren't his (burglaries, breaking and entering actually). We might see him again in 7 years when he gets out. His girl Iva might also be spending a few lonely nights with other crims too. Sad really. Biting the hand that feeds you happens a bit over here. Dumb is a word that springs to mind quite often when I think about them. It's set me back a bit but has caused more nuisance value delaying things here rather than any real long-lasting damage. Mati will be a little embarrased now that he's visited every second village with me in both Upolu and Savaii. They're already asking me where he is. He might have an interesting life when he gets out with his deeds and nature known far and wide throughout the country.
We're currently waiting on the Minister of Tourism to give us a date to open The Airport Lounge - possibly early August, late July. TAL is looking good with Internet now installed, the Ninth Heaven bowls on display and our office taking shape.
We've done a couple of trips to Savaii and are setting up a training seminar for a few of the local attractions on value-adding. We will be offering our services (The SWAP Foundation) to help lift their Internet profile. Some of them will want to participate in our programme and we may look to invest into some of the more promising ones.
Samoa is a brutal country - the weather is a challenge, the culture is very different and a challenge to come to terms with, but there can be a great things here - as many Palagi have told me, you've just got to be very very careful. The last month has taught me this big-time!
Winter has kicked in here. It's a cold 25 degrees some nights and often doesn't climb past 30 in the day. Humidity is right down so it's quite comfortable living here. We struck an all-time low when travelling the cross-Island road late one night - 21 degrees outside at the top of the hill. I put the window down to actually feel it - the lowest since I got here and it was (comparatively) freezing - had to put the window back up quickly!
My, my this is different from my snowboarding days with a minus 5 degrees and 30 knot breeze making a wind-chill factor of minus 30 or similar!
Cheers!
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