The Samoa Files

Sustainability By: Dennis A Smith, 29 March 2010-12:14:15

The word sustainability is usually used referencing ecological issues, but there's another raft of meanings to which it can apply - and most of them are absent here in Samoa, a lot to do with the day-to-day subsistence way of thinking and living.

I was on the way to the wharf today on my regular route when I again saw a perfectly good car propped up on two wheels. That's right TWO wheels. The back two were off - entirely missing in action. Bet your uncle's straw hat (I need another one) that somebody needed a spare tyre and someone higher up the authority chain got one. Once the car was demobilised it would have been easy pickings for another relative to "borrow" another tyre.

There's a good chance that the owner of the car can't afford another tyre, let alone two, and who knows how long this car will remain like that. It could be a terminal situation. Again, please, take it easy on me I'm only saying what a Samoan would say too, so I'm not Samoan bashing. I'm just shooting straight.

I see this once good car as a perfect example of why sustainability is the smart way to go and giving is not. It goes like this. On the balance of probabilities, someone has given the car to this family. That's giving. All well and good. It has improved their lifestyle for a year or two or maybe more. There are no more hot bus rides and if they've got the money for gas - many don't - it's a great help. But what happens is that many times they DON'T have money for the gas; they can't afford to service it; they can't afford to replace the tyres when loaned out, and the only solution is to receive another gift - to get it going again, if ever.

It's not just poor families either. Take the government too. A high proportion of government income is overseas aid. Please, overseas aid can be very good. A lot of schools here have been built with aid money, but quite often a project is started, given and the local people don't won't, or can't maintain it. They have lived a totally different way for centuries and just because somebody gave them something doesn't automatically mean they will change their ways because of a gift.

A friend of mine in the computer business here bemoans that they are always fixing up problems that the government has got itself into in the IT space. Somebody somewhere will do something or give them something fancy but there is no way in the wide world that the local people have the resources or knowhow to maintain it. So he gets the fixitup job a year or so down the track.

Talking eco now, a well advertised initiative by an overseas agency to encourage sustainability a while back in the Uafato area went like this . . . we'll give you lots of money if you promise not to chop down the trees. We understand that you need trees to do your wood carving but this is not a sustainable practice, so please do the right thing by the rest of the world and find something else to do. The money was paid, someone started some beekeeping and all will be well with the earth. Mother Earth will be very happy.

Not so. The villagers did their bit and stopped cutting down trees for a while but didn't see any of the money. The beekeeper is not there anymore. The villagers realised they'd been conned and started back up wood carving again and somebody is quite well off - aparently living in America or something like that. Welcome to Samoa, the one that's not on the glossy magazine adverts!

They say that you are wiser to teach a man to fish than to feed him for a day. Sure, but how do you do that wisely in the culture you find yourself in?

I was told a story about a Samoan guy who got a well paying job. A little while into the job he didn't show. The boss asked where he was and was told he was fishing for food for his family. "But I pay you money and teach you new skills and give you a career so that you can go and buy as much fish as you want from the market," the boss explained to him. The reply: "Why would I do that, when there's all the fish in the sea? All I have to do is go out and catch it!"

Who's right? Sustainability from two angles, and if you're a Palagi reading this and frowning about the dumb Samoan . . he has a good point. From his perspective the boss is a dumb Palagi who can't even go and catch the fish from the sea when its easy to catch AND FREE!

By giving to people, we encourage the poverty mentality, and so many people have given so much to Samoa that it's a national pastime taking from Palagi and overseas agencies, and governments, and NGOs and well-wishers and so on.

Don't get me wrong, it's not wrong to give, but the challenge for intelligent givers is to find a way that the giving is sustainable. I've blogged a bit about this before. How to help and Dealing with greed. Samoa is a proud country ultra highly resistant to change. People here are so experienced and adept at receiving, it is refined to an art form.

It is my style to ask questions and learn. I always go deeper and I've struggled to see any really sustainable giving occur here. I've watched Habitat for Humanity and anlysed their business model. It is giving. Very worthwhile giving too, but it is not sustainable giving. I do fear that when the houses break or need repair, the people won't fix them. They don't have the expertise or the will or the money to repair them. This doesn't mean that they shouldn't do what they are doing, but we have to be aware that what we expect when we give doesn't always match up with what we get.

I have friends in the mission fields. It is hard work at times and cannot be understood until you are there, and engaging with the people. Some of this can be cultural misunderstanding but a lot of it is because we are well-meaning, motivated to help, but don't have the wisdom to realise that just because we swing into town for a week or two or ten or twenty doesn't mean that everybody is going to sing OUR tune all of a sudden.

In a subsistence farming mindset, we don't store food for the week. We share and give what we have to others. They will do that to us tomorrow if we are short. It is a very different mindset from the Western world that wants to measure, and control everything, even our giving.

For the caring, there is a special magic that one experiences when as a person from a comparatively rich culture we are given everything someone has, even though they appear to have nothing.

A car (broken down or running) means nothing to a family just out to feed their family for today. Sustainability for them means being able to pop up to the plantation and get their taro, yams, bananas, pawpaws, coconuts or whatever. To a Palagi, sustainability is all about making sure that the car is serviced, has gasoline, is repaired and working because "it cost a lot of money you know!".

Different cultures.

Different worlds!

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