In Samoa there are people who will just love you for who you are and those who cry "Money first!" and then allow you to enjoy their land. This guy is one of the latter group. It's an interesting story.
On the way to spend a day filming the Airport to Apia route we came across an overladen pickup with a blownout tyre. Not a flat. A blowout. The tyre was ripped in two places from the rim to the tread. The driver was taking a very large load of people and produce to the markets and immediately objected to our photography.Very understandable.
But the interesting things were the events following this photo. Here, our friend is waving to stop photographing his disaster. His traverse across the busiest road in Samoa could be called a cross between a suicide mission and desperation, but I already had three good photos. He was clearly unaware of this.
I indicated to my translator, guide and bodyguard to join us and then a 30 minute interchange occurred on the side of the road, in bright sunshine.
"Pay me money before you can take the photo." (This is not unknown here in Samoa)
"No!"
"Yes you must pay me money!"
"No I don't"
"Yes, you must pay me before you take a photo of me!"
"Why?"
[through a translator]
"Because you will bring shame on my village!"
"Because you will sell the photo and make money off me!"
and another reason that I cannot remember!
"I will not pay you for a photo BUT I will be happy to buy any of the goods on the back of your ute BUT ONLY AT THE SAME PRICE THAT YOU WILL SELL THEM FOR AT THE MARKET!"
"No!"
"OK, so how much do you want for the photo?"
"Five Tala ($5.00)"
"OK We will pay the money to your village chief!"
Half an hour of a hot heated interchange and a lot of fast talking between my translator and this man and we shake hands on the deal.
"We are friends. Yes? We are friends? I will pay your chief $5.00 and we are friends?"
"Yes"
I have my own opinion about what really happened there, and the motives and reasons and so on but we did a deal and so we are friends, but as we drove away I laughed at how five tala (The equivalent of $2.90 NZD) can solve an issue of "embarrassing his village" and how I'm sure that he would never have expected me to give the money to his chief. I'm also sure he's wondering how such a juicy prospect slipped out of his grasp - first the Palagi said "No!" and wouldn't budge on it, then he pulled out a local translator, then he offered to pay his own chief directly!
My bodyguard had a few things to say about it all too. Not to much of it complimentary but that's his story to tell.
We tracked down the chief. I'd actually met him in New Zealand at Inga Tuigamala's recent book launch - he's Inga's brother. Samoa is such a small place. Tui, as he's affectionately called didn't really want a fiver from a Palagi because one of his villagers wanted money from a Palagi for a photo, but we stuffed the money back into his pocket and told him that a deal is a deal and he should take it up with his own if he's not happy about it!
So here's the photo we bought. To some it's probably just an interesting photo of an overloaded ute on the side of the main Airport-Apia road.
To me, it represents a funny story, and a memory, and it's created a new friend [supposedly], reunited me with a guy that I hadn't met since last year, and opened the door to several business possibilities with the Mayor and High Chief of a Samoan village, who incidentally is running for MP next year.
Whew! Who could ever have planned something so comical, yet serious, something so common and yet as weird as this?
Samoa, at it's best! Don't you just love this place?
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