The Samoa Files

The Samoa Files http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa Samoa en-us Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:58:50 GMT Mistrust Breeds Poverty http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-09-05/post/mistrust-breeds-poverty/id/235/ conflict). The opposite however is also true, especially considering that poverty is primarily a mindset. Mistrust is rampant in Samoa. In this "Sermon from Samoa" I share examples from around me in Samoa of how mistrust breeds poverty.

Catholic Church - Upolo

Mankind enjoys wealth. It helps us to be happy and healthy and remain motivated. A large part of our sense of purpose (especially for men) comes from acquiring wealth of various sorts. Abundant food, clothing, assets, income streams and so on give us pleasure. It may sound strange coming from a guy living in a third world environment, but those around me are no different. Everyone here aspires to get a job, own a shop, a taxi or a bus, or to get a better house or to sell their produce for a good price.

[Pic: Catholic church in Upolo - once visited by the Pope]

An essential part of wealth generation is working with others, and trust is essential for the relationship to work. A Palagi will only hire a taxi from a driver he trusts not to rip him off. A builder will construct a house only if he believes that the client will pay for the work. His workers will only show for work if they trust that they will be paid the agreed rate.

Business is all about people and trust is essential to keep people on the same page.

When we travel around Samoa under the banner of the SWAP Foundation, we are constantly meeting new people and talking to them about ideas to improve their business. Everyone is excited and interested in what we have to say, and then, "WHAM!" we always hit a brick wall - trust. "Who are you? How can we trust you?" is the usual response. Sometimes it is verbal. Other times it is subconscious but basically nobody trusts anybody over here - even members of their own family if you really dig deep enough. There is a pervading "Spirit of Fear" within Paradise here.

I've blogged about all of this previously but there is a history of Palagi - Germans, Americans, Kiwis who have all helped themselves at the expense of Samoans. Their mistrust is perfectly natural, so I'm not knocking them unduly here. It's just a fact. Trust is not the default setting in this culture - particularly trust of a Palagi.

So here's how mistrust breeds poverty. Our people will speak about value-adding, rebranding, Internet marketing, working collaboratively and lots of other good things to more than one person. Many are scared to partner with us, so we just move on and leave them. I teach our team that Jesus taught the same thing. Stay and preach the Good News to those villages who want to listen, but dust off your sandals and move on if the villages do not want to here.

It's the people who trust that receive the blessing. Those that mistrust miss it and many times remain in the poverty trap. It's not that we are the only people that can help, and anybody has their own reasons for partnering with us or not but there is definitely a strongly ingrained "poverty mentality" here that dreams of riches but will never change until they get out of the mindset of mistrust.

I was talking to a guy here a week or so ago with a self-confessed anger problem. He was answering my question about why he didn't have the family bus any longer. He is looking after family property where his brother had a successful bus run and a good shop in a prime location on the main drag. His brother had offered him the bus as well as a good bus run but the brother had sold it when he went to Australia. I thought this strange because a bus run is a good business over here, so I asked what happened. His reply in Pigeon English "Because I don't want to go to jail!"

And then the truth came out. He hated getting tickets for overloading. Buses are limited to 33 seats and 33 passengers. They all routinely overload them - multiple people per seat - Samoans have no issue sitting on someone else's lap and standing room full too. I have been told by many sources that the entrenched Police policy here is one of selective enforcement. If the driver is a relative of the Police Officer, or from the same village, nothing is done. If you're a marked driver; or you got or get offside with the Police, or your village is not friends with the Police then you will get stopped, ticketed and have to cough up with a "big" fine of a few hundred Tala.

Apparently my contact was in the less fortunate camp and got pinged too often for his liking. He confessed that he got "ansey" with the Police some time back. With a short fuse and a nasty anger problem that I've personally witnessed I'm sure that would have lead to some pretty unsavoury things. Long story short, he said that his father came down to the Police station and sorted things out. The driver's assistant went to jail "for" him and his Matai title and his clean reputation in the church was "saved".

"OMG what a warped sense of justice this place has!" I thought when an innocent man takes the rap for a man out of control who is saved by a father protecting his families and church "honour".

So let us understand this story in the context of mistrust vs poverty. A hard-working man, with the world at his feet passes up a generally highly coveted business opportunity with a bus run because of the fact that he cannot trust himself not to "deck a cop" (perhaps again). In some ways this might be wise, but it is another example of how mistrust (in this case mistrust of himself) breeds poverty (more correctly in this case prevents him from progressing).

But is gets worse . . .

We had plans to develop his land into a Village Stay. He got all the materials ready to build some nice Samoan Faleo'os ready for Palagi to stay. Now we wonder how we can trust him with the care of Palagi guests and are unlikely to recommend the place for foreigners to stay.

The mistrust thing is not just a once-off sadness; it is an ongoing permanent way of living that unless the underlying mindset is changed, the results will always be the same - poverty. Samoa is replete with investments from offshore by people who have great vision and passion but invest foolishly with people who have no vision, who do not trust and who are just out for the fast buck. They'll be offered a Matai title, supposedly given great honour and then pushed around and fleeced due to "cultural requirements" thereby cementing mistrust as a two-way thing.

It's a lot harder to build a relationship, develop trust and then work together in a partnership with people, encouraging them to have faith, work hard and as a team. The results though are hopefully a little more lasting.

The Good Book (It's Sunday here in Paradise so we've got to get biblical now!) talks about the way that people united in purpose trusted each other, worked together and got behind a common vision. The construction of the Tower of Babel (a good collection of comments about it here) actually triggered a fairly major response from God who gave them a back-handed compliment for their unity and sense of purpose in the process of disrupting their plans of grandiosity. They were misguided by His standards of course but nonetheless the principles of trust, unity, sense of purpose and achievements remain.

Genesis 11:1-9 (American Standard Version)
And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And Jehovah said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So Jehovah scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city. Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because Jehovah did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did Jehovah scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

The standard inference from this story is one of confusion, but mistrust is the default setting within new cross-cultural engagement. Increased mistrust correlates to a reduction in understanding. Once the people couldn't communicate properly, mistrust caused financial loss and they were forced to spread out over the earth, thus ensuring their worst fears were realised.

It takes a "big" man to break through this and trust. A major part of the SWAP Foundation's work up here is to build trust. We're achieving it in pockets, and those places and people who do trust us are starting to see the blessings as a result. It's a hard message to hear and to apply but in time it will surely happen!

Here endeth the ~~lesson~~ Sermon from Samoa. ]]> Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:23:52 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-09-05/post/mistrust-breeds-poverty/id/235/ Victoria's House http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-30/post/victorias-house/id/233/

Victoria is a humble, quietly spoken lady introduced to me in March of 2010 by George Meredith, MP for Alaipata. He's a close relative of Victoria.

She relocated away from the coast after the 2009 Tsunami and is rebuilding her life after losing everything she owned, as well as three of her grandchildren and other close relatives.

This is Victoria walking infront of her temporary house built for her by her family and the Church after the Tsunami.

Vistoria's temporary house

Cost: A few weekends of labour, a few old sheets of iron, leftover timber from everywhere and anywhere (everything is recycled here), and she had a home, built just metres away from where the Tsunami stopped but high enough to escape any future waves. I've popped in many times to say Hi and have watched the progress of her new home (to the left of this picture).

This is her new house with a nice new concrete floor.

Victoria's House

Samoan construction works on the basis that building materials and unskilled labour are provided by the owner; skilled labour is purchased on a contract or hourly rate. After the Tsunami, the government announced a payout of $18,000.00 per family that had lost a house. This money was available for building materials from several authorised suppliers. Building materials were delivered on site and construction took anything from one to six months or more depending on how and when the owners wished to do things.

It was common to see building materials delivered on site and not used for many months in some locations. This money was plenty enough to purchase the basic components of a new house - roofing iron at $5.50 per foot, concrete blocks at $3.00 each, timber, water tanks, toilets, plumbing, electrics and so on.

Standard features are the size 12m x 7m (this one shown), corrugated roofing, the no wall design and the external toilet/shower block. Construction standards differ. Habitat for Humanity and the LDS (Mormon) church were known for higher quality construction. Local construction firms however often skimped on quality - thinner concrete and/or lesser standard of finish.

The fence around keeps the animals out while in construction. The green water tank was delivered by the Red Cross and the toilet block has a flushing toilet, cold shower and inground septic tank.

Construction style is to build the foundations up from the surface (not down like in Western countries - Samoa is rocky so it is hard to go down and a slab construction on the surface is very solid). Poles are set in from a concrete perimeter base. The roof is built in situ, then the final layer of concrete is poured inside the floor.

It is a different process from the Western building methods that dig down to a solid base then use the slab as a core component of the building. Samoan cement is made from sruched coral so the concrete is quite weak.

Victoria will soon be having Village Stays in her new home. It will be a happy day for her when it all happens.]]> Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:32:41 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-30/post/victorias-house/id/233/ Diary of a visionary http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-29/post/diary-of-a-visionary/id/231/

It's Thursday, the day before the opening.

I must deliver the list of invitees to the girl entrusted with the final ring-around - Samoans get grossly offended if you don't invite them to an event, even though they rarely RSVP and many times don't show up, or show up late. With a smidgeon under 100 invitees we still have no idea how many people are coming and my guess is anything from 20 to 60 people. That makes it hard for renting chairs and catering.

Shalom has no credit and needs a phone. Except for mine, which I won't let out of my sight, we have no phone either (Force has gone swimming with it in his pocket and ruined his). I arrange for a $10 pre-pay card and a SIM card so she can phone people and find out how many are coming (or not). I listen to her concerns regarding Force being the MC. "Force is an untitled man and it will be an insult to the Prime Minister if he is the MC and speaks" she says. In frustration at my supposed inability to understand what she is saying, she clarifies, "He doesn't even know how to speak Samoan properly. It's almost like he wasn't born or raised in Samoa". Is this the typical Samoan pull-down of others to puff themselves up or are her complaints for real? What to do with a man who acts more like my brother, who I have primed to speak to the PM for me when I need it and is ready for the most important day of his life thus far?

But Lepupa's ultimatum, "If Force speaks, we won't be there!" supported by his wife's nodding in agreement is clearly an attempt at blackmail and strong-arming based on their fear of their family/village reputation if we do not do the Fa'a Samoa things. In this regard read: High Priest saying the Prayers (who of course must be paid) and thousands of dollars in expensive gifts, long speeches and important people doing important things - cultural 'niceties' that we decided eons ago to never get involved with. This is a Palagi business. We are sensitive to Samoan culture and want to work with it and share it with the world but we are not Samoans and can never do the Samoan thing, I'm sorry.

Upon receiving that ultimatum I finally work out the real people I'm dealing with and graciously exit their home. "OK No problem" and I depart, unlikely to return any time soon. Departing from a negative, confrontational situation I ponder how these people were singing from a different song-sheet and didn't understand, or respect or have faith in our vision. The Good Book teaches that "fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom." Logically then, fear of Fa'a Samoa or fear of what other people may think about us, must be foolishness.

But it is a problem. It is a BIG problem the day before the opening. This is a double downer because not only was Shalom scheduled to speak at the opening, we had scheduled her to start work at The Airport Lounge on the following Monday. She loses her job and now I've got to run the new business myself until we can find and train another person. Bugger!

As a courtesy, I consult with Eniko and ask him how much he wants to speak at the opening, just in case Lepupa's concerns were valid and I had missed an important cultural point. Eniko says "You just do your own thing!" and says that he will become very busy up at the plantation for the next couple of days. Sh**! Now we've also lost the landlord too (an LDS Bishop no less) who was going to do the prayers. Seems like we now know two LDS (Mormon) people who have different value systems from us. Darn, and I though that they were the better people over here - no smoking, no drinking and suchlike. Seems like greed and pride and all other sins (except smoking and drinking of course) penetrate even the only "real" church, as Lepupa so eloquently put it to me once!

OK. So Debbie will do the opening prayers and Force and I are it. I think back to the in-fighting and cultural ***** that my Maori ex-in laws participated in around important events and I connect the two cultures mentally. My thoughts about the two races weren't very positive or gracious at the time and should remain private!

Our team muscles on with buying food and drinks starting with two dozen loaves of bread, ice for the drinks and a million other things. Ina from next-door reports to me that her husband has told her to "help the Palagi" as much as she can without asking for money. He thinks that Palagi coming to Samoa is good for Samoa and he wants her to help us. What a different spirit from the ones that ask for heaps of money and then give us an ultimatum. True friends I think!

A new crisis erupts with physical violence on one of the boys, Tasi. Again he's an LDS chappie who I thought was actually pretty straight-up. He comes in favouring a painful hand. His right hand looks like it may be broken. "OK!" I think "He's decked someone!" This is what they do over here to sort things out of course. A sore right hand is usually the result of winning a confrontation. Missing teeth are the sign of losing a confrontation.

Apparently he said something in private to Force about the trouble around this village or the property we rent and someone from the village had heard it (or thought that she had heard it) and reported it to the landlord's wife. The boys came to me saying "Oops, there might be a bit of trouble here". The story goes that the girl misunderstood the context of what was said but methinks there may have been a bit more than a simple misunderstanding and there was substance to the gossip.

Tasi had apparently gone across to say sorry to Sa and she gave him a hiding - with a stick - and told him in no uncertain terms to get off her land and never come back. He's nursing a bruised back and wrist (from deflecting the blows) and begging me to take him off the land and back into town. He swears black and blue that he only defended himself and didn't deck her (which stacks up with other stories), so he's off the hook and can still work with us.

I find out that my wife is mortified and praying fervently in The Airport Lounge. OMG I think, what sort of landlords do we have? How could I possibly get her into this sort of situation? "F***ing Samoa!" I think it but wouldn't dare say it aloud.

When Eniko comes back from the plantation Force goes to him and eats humble pie - "I'm sorry we are just young boys and you are our 'parents' please forgive us" is the guts of a conversation that we can all hear from a mile away. Eniko obviously lets it rip and Force kindly preaches my own words back to me "Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war" he says. Very cute, but wise. My "bro" is learning a lot!

Friday dawns and all goes according to plan.

The PM arrives 15 minutes early and Force meets and greets him. He knows Force from two visits to his Prime Ministerial office where I took him with me and he chats to Force and everyone else. Clearly relaxed and appreciating our invite to open The Airport Lounge, the PM chats to all and sundry about the importance of starting on time, giving anecdotes about his Ministers "missing the boat" literally after he instructed that Samoan events will run on time under his watch. He explains that he had a pretty busy day but just sneaked in our meeting. He hastens to add that he would have had another Minister open for him though if he couldn't have made it.

Our programme commences with Force and Debbie taking turns at a short welcome and a prayer. There - a giant is slain! An untitled man spoke to the PM in a formal event and the sky didn't fall in! And a woman, of another country, who has no fancy title within the church, has officiated at an official opening event in Samoa. I can hear another giant crashing down even as she finishes her simple heart-felt prayer of thanks and blessing!

My speech follows and the team all share the various ideas and brands and ventures that we are working on here. The PM learns for the first time what the SWAP Foundation he agreed to be Patron of is all about.

And it just gets better. . .

When asked to cut the ribbon (15 minutes before schedule) he stops to speak. "You know, they've given me a speech but I'm not going to read it", he says. He then goes on to address those gathered there about how much he has enjoyed the informality of the opening. He speaks from his heart and shares about how when I was talking about getting mesmerized by Samoa he thought about Robert Louis Stevenson too 'getting the Samoa disease' and staying.

He thanks me for bringing vision to the country and offers his support in any matter that we desire.

Tuila'epa and the Smith family

Tuila'epa receiving Ninth Heaven gift from Force

Suitably impressed with our little Lounge, a Ninth Heaven gift shared with the PM [pic], photographs taken, we retire with him to nibbles and more chats and discussions. He talks to Debbie across the table - at length. "How neat that the PM wants to talk to me!" Debbie says to me later.

I hesitate to speak openly and honestly in case of causing offence but we talk briefly. "Where's Misa?" I ask thinking that there must be something important on. "I don't know!" Tui replies. Oops. Yes we did invite him and Nora confirmed his attendance yesterday and yes we did invite Sonya and Nynette too. This is getting serious, the PM now knows that all the important representatives of the tourism industry, his Minister of Tourism, The Samoa Tourism Authority and Samoa Hotel Association have all been invited and haven't showed. Methinks - not good. I hope they don't all take it out on me later if the PM pings them for not showing or sending someone! I don't tell him that they didn't attend the opening of SWAP either nor did they send apologies - even more "not good!"

"Are you the guy on the TV?" Tui asks of Force, "Yes I am sir!" Force replies. "Yes I thought you were!" the PM says. "I told my driver that I was sure you were the guy. I always watch that advert and want to see the rest of your [rap dance or something like that!]" Apparently Force's dance was cut short in the advert. "I wonder if one day we can find the original tape and let him see the rest?" I think to myself.

"Just call me Tui" rings in my ears as the PM of a country I knew nothing about only 12 months ago has accepted a Patronage of the SWAP Foundation; has opened our first business in Paradise; congratulated and thanked us; and then offered his support for anything we need in his country.

I pinch myself and realize that in just 10 months the wheel has turned a full circle from the day that the Lord spoke to me and said "Share the vision" and the same day that I just walked into the Prime Minister's office and started to share the vision with him. Here was the PM now thanking me for having vision for his country less than a year later. Sweet!

I think back over the pain of emigrating and getting pushed around by authorities and trying to work with people who just don't care and who treat you like an animal until they have to do the right thing because they are told to, and compare all that with the PM who has just 'done it'. Professional, efficient and at the end of the day, just helpful. I muse "I guess that's why he's the PM!"

And it just gets better. . .

I round up the team for a debriefing. Force looks at me and says, "You know, this is the best day of my life!" and I know that it is.

"You have shown me and taught me soooo much!" he says. "You know all of that Fa'a Samoa stuff, and how we were all so scared and you just said 'Have faith, work hard and do the right thing'? You told us to stand tall and not be frightened and to trust you. Well we did that and you were right - it was all fear of nothing! And the ones that didn't have faith and didn't trust you and didn't show up missed the blessing didn't they?" Yes they did Force. They truly missed out!

Debbie says to Force, "Remember that the opportunity of a lifetime only exists for the lifetime of that opportunity!" He'll need a few weeks to think through what that English means but he knows the principle now, from first-hand experience.

And Debbie speaks of the Word she picked out from the Bible for the young guy:

Jeremiah 1:6-8 (New American Standard Bible) Then I said, "Alas, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth." But the LORD said to me, do not say, 'I am a youth,' because everywhere I send you, you shall go, and all that I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you," declares the LORD.

Appropriate? No, more than appropriate!

And it just gets better. . .

Upon hearing of the way that the PM came and enjoyed himself and threw his support behind our work and interacted with us, someone close to us offered suggestions he had previously held back on how to obtain land - good land - prime land - land that many would die for. And land that doesn't have landlords that let you down or beat up on your staff over some mere words, that were probably true anyway.

Saturday, the day after.

My team takes my mother, wife and daughter on what we call the Tsunami tour - a full day experience of beaches, resorts and rural Village Stay families (who are just itching to host Palagi guests) along the South Coast, devastated by the Tsunami.

Smith girls at Vavau Beach

We picnic at Vavau and Tasi shinnies up a coconut tree and husks some coconuts for the girls. I growl for the what seems like the thirtieth time that he MUST demonstrate the husking and climbing in front of the guests and explain what he is doing when he does. Don't just present the drink to the guests - INVOLVE them in the experience I insist. So he has to do it all again for them on the beach. Our guests love it!

Force fends off the local boys seeking money for our car visiting the beach. We visit Se'a [I think that's his name!] the High Chief of that village and promise to return with the paperwork in a couple of weeks for the Village Stay programme that kicks off in a few weeks.

We call in to Richard from Lepa, the Prime Minister's own village that got hit by the Tsunami. Richard and his family want to host Village Stays in his newly built house up in the plantation. I'm sure that one day he will be an honoured man when wealth, prestige and honour will come to him, his family and his village when the PM talks about the Village Stay programme that started in his own village of Lepa.

We call in to Victoria from Malaela, who lost grandchildren and other family members in the Tsunami and who has had to totally rebuild her life. She is washing clothes at the pool so we don't stay long. It's hard to visualize the trauma that she has experienced and the impact that just $50.00 WST per person per night will have on her meager subsistence lifestyle. It will seem like Christmas time to her when her first guests arrive. I deliberately suppress my own emotion at being able to help her so that I can move my guests on to their next destination.

We visit Vailupe also from Malaela who also lost everything and has rebuilt inland. This is the aging man who held my hand tight and looked at me with tears in his eyes saying "Thank You Thank You Thank You!" just at the mere thought that there was a Palagi who cared, that perhaps, one day, there may be hope for him and his whole village that has relocated inland away from the main road and the loss of all tourism income. There is a new road in the village, tangible evidence of the post-Tsunami rebuilding programme. It is like a highway compared to what it was before, but there is not a Palagi in sight, a vast difference from the constant throng of tourists driving through his village before the Tsunami. If there is any one memory of Samoa that sums up the importance of our work it is the tears of gratitude in Vailupe's eyes on that day, not so long ago when he tried to tell me how much a Village Stay would mean to him and his family. It's likely that the entire pain of his whole Village from the Tsunami loss will well over when the first guest arrives to stay. There won't be a dry eye in the place when his village stay is opened.

Shirley and Tasi viewing the Fale Samoa at Amaile

Shirley and Tasi viewing the Fale Samoa at Amaile

We call in to Amaile and swim in the most amazing village pool in the whole of Samoa. A spring of cool fresh water gushing at least 1 cumec from inside a cave runs through the pool and out to the sea lagoon. One can float, be carried along a gentle current right out to the lagoon. From cold fresh water to warm salt water. I want to market the Village Stay there as "Paradise Point", and my wife who has struggled with having to move to the heat of Samoa feels the gentle cooling sea breeze; looks at the view, the location and then my eyes and says, I could live here with you! It's hard to hold back the tears. We check out the Fale Samoa [pic]

We stop at Tasi's house and plantation, and wander in to check it out. "See those mountains?" he says to us pointing into the middle distance. "My lands go all the way back to there!" Excuse me? Say that again . . . "Yes, it is V-E-R-Y big lands." Acres in fact, many, many acres. "I miss my lands!" he says in Pidgeon English, having spent the last few years in the big city. "I'm a farmer!" he says matter of factly. He's a farmer. He's a farmer. He's a farmer. That is who he is and he knows it! My brain works at 100 million miles an hour. I know that there are tens thousands of people who would love to come to this place and help a young man build his dreams. I know that there are women a plenty who would love to spend their lives with this young guy who is a good caring guy, happy, always laughing and works hard. I gently suggest that a Village Stay and WWOOFers would see his farm developed and his dreams come true. Another business has developed in front of my eyes and another man's life will be changed for the good if I can find time to help him, which I resolve to find.

Smith family at Fagaloa

We add on a visit to our friends in Uafato this time, turning a normally 6 hour day into a 15 hour day of driving and business. "Malo!" "Malo Soifua!" "Malo!" toot, toot, toot-toot, as we pass friends coming into the village. It is "Security Time" with another two minutes to go before anyone is allowed out onto the streets from their prayers. We are stopped by Onasai and we talk for a minute. The Conch Shell is blown a little earlier than usual so that we are not held up unduly. That's Samoa. Laws are there to be stretched. We arrive at our guest's place and slip him three bottles of Vailima. There's an alcohol prohibition in this Village but again, the laws there appear to be "worked around". Just so long as nobody makes a noise and you'll be OK! That's Samoa.

We are treated to a smorgasbord of local delicacies, fish speared the night before by torchlight, Taro baked and boiled, Polusami, fried chicken, roast pig, coconut drinks and all on the top of a lovely beachside setting in the starlight.

Debbie's flight back to New Zealand leaves at 1.30am and we part company after midnight. It's 1.00am and a chilly 25 degrees outside when I crash onto a rubber mattress on a concrete floor in the outside Fale. Moonlight shines through the banana fronds. Coconut trees are silhouetted on the starlit sky. Dogs are barking in the distance. The neighbours cat is spotted by the landlord's dogs and all hell breaks loose until the said cat is back in neighbour's property. Roosters crow - getting ready for the morning.

The jets from the Poly Blue plane roar on its takeoff and then dissolve into the distance. In my half conscious state I slip a millisecond prayer of protection for my wife in transit. Tomorrow is Sunday I muse. No doubt I'll be blogging and preaching online. That's what I do on Sundays. There will be no reason to knock Samoa or the Church tomorrow. Samoa has really turned it on over the last week for me. Next week will be more fun in the sun no doubt.

Three days of hard work and then a Sunday with lots of sleep! ]]> Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:42:16 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-29/post/diary-of-a-visionary/id/231/ Why does it happen? http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-22/post/why-does-it-happen/id/229/ some theology something deep and meaningful!

Ten Tala please

It's Sunday in Samoa. The shops are closed. In fact everything is closed. A lovely little Catholic village in Aleipata called Amaile even closes the road on Sunday! The smoke from the Sunday To'onai rises from ~~sparrow's-fart~~ dawn and there is a hive of activity as all the locals here get ready for church. After their weekly dose of Sunday morning [whatever] they will all eat up big-time and then sleep for the afternoon. I blog. Sunday Sermons from Paradise!

[Pic: Samoan "boys" on Vavau beach weaving a basket. "Ten Tala please!" "No thanks" "You have to!" "No we don't!" "Yes you do!" No! What for anyway?" "Coming to our beach" "Go to your High Chief and speak to him" "You know him?" "Yes I do!" "Oh OK!" then the pictures for the Palagi tourist are OK!]

I seem to be becoming an authority on things Samoan; maybe it's that people are interested; maybe it's because I write; maybe it's because I'm simply here and many aren't. Tourists will chat with me and it's only natural that they will ask a Palagi "What's it really like here?"

On the ferry to Savaii last week, a Palagi woman asked me a deep and meaningful question. "Why did the Tsunami happen?"

OMG! What do I say if she's looking to me as "an authority" of sorts?

It's a question that many ask, both indigenous people and visitors. Until I inquired of her at what level she was approaching the subject I didn't know if she was expecting a physical or spiritual answer. After all there are many believe that earthquakes can be deliberately caused by mankind. Knowing some of the advanced technologies that are being used by those in power without general public knowledge I certainly don't discount the theory at all. In fact she was angling at a human or at least a physical explanation and I found a fellow ~~"believer"~~ "conspiracy theorist"*.

But generally most people attribute things such as earthquakes and Tsunamis to "an act of God". God seems to cop a lot of blame for natural disasters and the Western world is replete with accusations that he "does" bad things to good people. More generously put, He "allows" bad things to happen to good people.

I would say the bulk of the people here in Samoa too have attributed the Tsunami directly to God. Samoans are extraordinarily complex in matters of culture, local governance and such like but are decidedly simplistic in matters of faith (again, a generalisation but basically a true analysis). I've mentioned before that many ascribe the Tsunami to be God's retribution. What for, varies on the village and whether or not they were hit, and what the "beef" is that they think God has on the people who got hit. Sometimes a bigger thinker may discuss the impact on the whole country.

In regards to blaming God for bad things happening to good people, Henry Makow last week caught my attention with a simple observation. I liked it and think it is a lovely point for Christian Apologetics (like me) to make when those antagonistic to the Christian faith point the finger.

In fairness to God, more bad things happen to bad people.

True and very nicely put.

So to answer the question for myself, while I do have suspicions about the 2004 Tsunami and earthquake I doubt that the September 2010 Tsunami was planned and triggered by evil scientists messing with nature. It's just not realistic. An earthquake off Los Angeles or San Francisco, or a hurricane generated in Florida or the Gulf of Mexico and then manipulated into or away from certain areas - then I see that as a very likely scenario. But the Samoa Tsunami - nah. That's more than likely just a freak of nature to me.

So now onto the Sunday sermon and of course on the basis of a Christian world view.

Biblical Scripture explains that the world was once created perfect, but that following an event in the Garden of Eden called "the fall" God followed up on His word and death and decay entered the world. He enacted His judgement on a mankind because we rebelled against His rules. The Creator warned His creation clearly, paraphrased: "Just do the right thing and you will live a happy life foreever but do the wrong thing and you will die". Mankind chose to do the wrong thing and thus trouble began.

Without getting too in depth with theological matters, basically Christians believe that God is good and that mankind stuffed things up. Essentially we're to blame.

It's not a popular message and requires a little humility on our part to take up God's offer. A Catch 22 if ever there was one - we're a proud people and cannot accept reality, preferring to go around blaming things and people and God for our own screw-ups because we've messed things up. Our pride keeps us from seeing things properly and from exercising wisdom and doing what the Good Lord asks us to do.

But here endeth the preaching!

So how am I responsible for the Tsunami that hit Samoa? Of course I'm not, not directly anyway. My ancestors screwed up and things that are all out of kilter are just the way I inherited this world when I arrived. Tsunamis and earthquakes are par for the course.

But that said, God does have a purpose for all things, and uses adversity to achieve His purposes. From a Christian perspective (world view) God is calling all people into relationship with Him. That's His purpose. I blogged about that recently. He lost that relationship with us when our ancestors screwed up and the whole message of real Christianity is a restored relationship with the Creator. Eternal life and good things are only a byproduct of faith - not the endgame.

With this Christian world view the real question "Why does it happen?" in regards to the Tsunami must have a biblical answer. In my short time in Fusi, Safata last year I experienced a period of revelation. It was an unusual experience and a period in which I thought I was either going mad or the Lord was doing something special by way of revelation and motivation. In this period I began to see how I see the Lord was using Samoa post-Tsunami.

Here is my answer to the tricky question - the deep and meaningful answer to the essentially, philosophical question.

Samoa has always been a giving country. It has given of its people - early emmigration to other Pacific Islands, it's hospitality to foreigners, it's population exodus over the last 40 or so years is effectively giving of it's people and culture. yes I know that there could be a downside to a population of Samoans in pockets of foreign lands, but in the big picture there are more Samoans outside of Samoa than inside, and many of the best have departed and are giving outside of the little islands Paradise. Think sports, business and academia and you'll find Samoans up at the top.

So with the best of Samoan population gone and now breeding and living happily offshore; with the Samoan tourism industry knocked for six by the Tsunami; and then exports of anything and everything down to miniscule levels what on earth could the Lord engineer Samoa to give?

This next part is going to be a hard part to believe for many, but bear with me please, and keep the laughter down until you've heard me out . . .

I believe that the Lord will be using the Samoan Tsunami to export love. God's love. Nothing else.

[I command all your guffaws to be silent - now!]

I'm a visionary. I find myself constantly around 5 years ahead of the "market". I am certain that within 5 years of the Tsunami, Samoa will be actively exporting love, and I would not be at all surprised if it is recognised as a nation that is spoken of internationally as a backslidden corrupt and supposedly Christian nation experiencing genuine revival (spoken outside of the mainstream media of course). Think China and the growth of house churches.

How can a man say that, in the natural?

Samoa is as corrupt as it's possible to be with a veneer of Churchianity. I've blogged about my painful journey of discovery extensively. Just last week my own staff argued with me that we MUST bribe the supervisor of the ferry to get on the last sailing of the day (we'd waited on standby for 12 hours!). "You have to understand Dennis, this is how Samoa works!" We didn't bribe the guy and we did get on the last ferry but it was a major internal fight between corruption and integrity!

I was told last week that the first experience that one Palagi tourist had on arrival to Samoa was a taxi fare of $150.00 per person (totalling $300.00) for a journey that should have been $50.00 for two (or at the most $65.00)! And that experience is common here as most Samoans look at a Palagi as rich dudes to be fleeced.

This is the thing I've noticed about God - He loves doing miracles! It seems like He's right into showing off His talents at doing the impossible in the centre of trouble. If He can take the most arrogant people group in the world and use them to teach the world humility some 2,000 years ago, I KNOW that He can take one of the most churched societies in the world and bring in a purity and simplicity in the name of love.

In a practical sense, here is how I think it might happen.

First, the local context. In Samoan culture it is an honour to have a guest. Foreign owned resorts, and tourism related businesses (such as taxis and tourist vendors) have altered and undermined this culture with one of greed, but in rural Samoa untouched by the temptations of big-money from tourism, villagers will scurry around and move heaven and earth to prepare for the arrival of a Palagi guest. It matters not if they have lost all in the Tsunami, they will give the shirt off their backs to a guest.

Next the foreign context. As I have blogged about starting in October 2009, the international goodwill towards Samoa is in the stratosphere. The Tsunami was the biggest event to occur in the South Pacific since Pearl Harbour. Samoa was front page news from New Zealand to Zimbabwe. Like every other news organisation in the world, Uzbekistan and Georgia probably carried stories about the Tsunami for three days straight as news filtered out. I estimate that a billion dollars worth of negative press occurred over a three week period as a result.

While the Samoa Tsunami killed only 143 people, the 2004 Tsunami killed over 200,000 people. The difference for Samoa was however that goodwill was distributed over three continents and 20 countries. Samoa copped the lot (even though Tonga and others too got the waves). Speak the word Samoa in ten years time, and people the world over will immediately say "Tsunami!"

The point here is that international goodwill towards Samoa is high. Very high. Very VERY high.

People are curious. They want to know about Samoa. They are genuinely interested in many aspects of this country and its culture.

But they won't want to come and sit on a beach waiting for another big wave.

This then is the situation that I see . . .

We have an island nation where greed, theft, lies, and other unbiblical things occur on a daily basis (it's almost institutionalised) and where "God's name is proclaimed every Sunday" but it isn't in deed. The true culture is to honour a Palagi guest. People outside of the mainstream business circuit are clamouring for some form of income. A Tsunami occurs and the world is interested. God will find a way to engage these two people groups using the Tsunami as a focal point. In time key Palagi will meet with key Samoans. A cross-cultural exchange will occur and bingo - Samoa is in the business of exporting love.

It's not a pipe dream. It is a vision that is being outworked daily. I can see it evolving around me. Sure people don't change over night but I see some people starting to "get the picture" and it is exciting.

There's a couple of points I would like to add here. I do not see the revival occuring as a mass exodus of pubs and brothels into church. Samoans all go to church and leaders who practice the integrity they preach are few and far between in this culture. No, the revival I am talking about will be one in the hearts and minds of people who genuinely want to do the right thing by God. That's most likely going to be outside of the church ~~business~~ system over here.

I also believe that any enterprise established to facilitate cross-cultural exchange where the Lord wants to export genuine Samoan/Christian love and generosity will be blessed and do very well. A lot of the SWAP Foundation's resources are currently going into developing our Village Stay programme. This will launch in September 2010.

To be honest it is very hard work and can be totally demoralising surrounded by people out to fleece you and tempt you, even people in your own team, but even though our first ancestors screwed up somewhat, there was once a Good Man who showed us the right way. It's always best to follow His example, which to put it simply, is to listen to the Father and do what He says.

Why does it happen? Lies . . . thievery . . . greed . . . Tsunamis? I'm not God so I can't tell you it all, but the basics from a Christian perspective is that mankind screwed up. But like everything else, God has a plan and a purpose, and today is always much more important than yesterday.

Let's do the right thing by Him now, today eh?

* Tom Rearden has written about the technology involved in high energy (electromagnetics) and has documented events attributed to the use of technology that remains out of the general public's knowledge. The jury is still out for me on his concepts of free energy, but his knowledge of and description of the politics of science and the difference between Eastern and Western science rings very true for me. I consider it a fact that powerful people who are angling for World Government, buy and hide technologies for reasons of power and money. I also know that to put it politely, their attitude and approach to the use of their power leans more towards what is generally regarded as evil, rather than godliness.]]> Sat, 21 Aug 2010 22:30:25 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-22/post/why-does-it-happen/id/229/ Politics & Power in Paradise http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-06/post/politics-power-in-paradise/id/227/

Samoan spider

Trying not to "bag" Samoa too much when it is now my home, I was thinking of saying that all countries, all cultures, all people play politics to some extent, and Samoa is just the same, but different.

But I simply can't. Samoa is in a league of its own when it comes to its own version of Political Correctness, Politics.

I talk here of more than party politics. It reaches into local body government (the villages and the Matai system), into family feuds as well as of course business and national politics. The whole Samoan culture is built on politics with certain people having power and others, not; with a heirachical power structure.

[Pic: Samoan spider. As the song goes: "All things bright and beautiful, the Lord God made 'em all." He surely messed up with this creature didn't he? I steered a very wide berth from this guy! (Nothing to do with politics but a great photo eh?)]

Here are some examples of the politics I've experienced in just the last few weeks. Offence ~~intended~~ not intended.

Central Government

Starting at the top, Prime Minister, Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi or Tuila'epa as the locals call him. I guess I've heard what I would say is a general dissatisfaction from Samoa with their PM. Comments range from "He's been in power too long [and it's time for him to go, or it's gone to his head]" through "He's doing good things for the country [but . . . !] to "He's a bad man [and worse]". I don't hear a lot of positive things about him but the Samoan way is to pull people down, rather than build them up, so this is par for the course.

In a business meeting this last week we were talking about vision setting, and leadership and the characteristics that a strong leader has. I shared that there was only one person that I had met in the country that had shown me that they had these qualities, and that was Tuila'epa. (There are others, mainly of Chinese or German extraction but Tuila'epa's leadership qualities stands ahead of the pack here). I think the time that I really recognised this was when I had made seven phone calls and two emails over three months to get an appointmnet with another Minister without any meaningful contact and we had to give up and go directly to the PM when we couldn't wait any longer. He undertook to be the Partron of the SWAP Foundation and to open The Airport Lounge for us "on the spot".

Of course his willingness to step up to the plate and support our work in his country was a political move - it will be good for him to support a business that is most likely going to be successful, but I think the willingness was genuine. He understands the challenges facing Palagi locating to his country and that the more that come here, the better for everyone.

But please please please Lord, let his willingness to help filter down to others below him!!!

So here is a leader able and willing to make decisions, even unpopular (such as the recent road switch), albeit in a manner that ruffles feathers, with negative press surrounding him, but leading (many say controlling) Cabinet and with a vision.

The politics in all of this? It works two ways: 1. If you need something, go to the bossman, and he'll make it happen, and 2. Don't mess with the boss because you will ~~be run out of town~~ struggle to do what you want to do. I won't share publicly about how this happens but believe me - it does.

The politics of the Villages

Politics in Samoa really kicks into high gear however when it touches the local village government and the Matai system. This local government system is unique to Samoa and sits parallel and underneath the Western-style central governmental rule.

The heirachical system of power here in Samoa is akin to the middle ages, or the Roman rule. Everyone has their place, and the Women's committees to the village councils, the Mayor, the High Chief(s) the talking chief(s) the "titled men" and the untitled men. Titles are very important historically and people will travel the world to get or protect a title for the sake of their village or family honour. Some villages' titles are more powerful or more important than others and there is an amazing depth of culture that goes back centuries.

So in Samoan culture a Matai will share with another Matai when they meet what their village is, and what their title is, that indicates what ranking they have to each other and respect is forwarded up the chain of command to the Paramount chiefs. There's a lot more to this than a straight lineal command as each village has autonomous rule and each (extended) family has their own land and their own rule. The saying here is that "Everyone is a Chief in Samoa!" has validity as everyone has their own "patch" that they can rule over, even if it is just a small plot of land and their own children.

The politics around the Matai system gets hairy when it is tested - especially with the arrival of a Palagi, a new business, a central government initiative or any cross-cultural exchange. Violence and defensiveness, mixed with pride for their culture, and a religious adherence to the social expectations is a common occurrence for the SWAP team as they engage with the Samoan culture at a village level.

We have achieved the progress we have in this highly politically charged environment in the following manner:

Dealing only with the High Chief. We will not talk to anyone without the High Chief knowing and understanding EVERYTHING about the project. In fact many times it is the High Chief that has the best land, or the only real tourism business in the village anyway.
Insisting on our own standard-setting and setting our own rules. We expect cultural compromise as a condition of doing business with us or our investors. We are Palagi and we recognise your sensitivities but (for example) we require safety of the guests, no man-made rubbish lying around etc etc. Samoans respect and appreciate firm boundaries and rules.
Clear communication and outright refusal to get involved in disputes or politics, instead leaving that to the High Chief to share and communicate with his people. We build a strong relationship with the top man and leave it at that.

It has been extraordinary from a Palagi perspective to see the fighting, bickering, lies, gossip and BS that can go down in Samoan vilalge politics, but it seems that, like riding a wave, our boat still remains afloat and moving ahead. The matai of villages like Fusi Safata that allow greed to rule and fight amongst themselves over who gets the fish before it is even caught, miss out as we work with those who can put politics aside and do something for their own benefit.

It's times like this that I want to take a BIG BREATH, count to ten, and then breathe out and then carry on living!

The politics of business

So to the politics of business. In a recent meeting with some friends we were talking about working with Aggie Grey's, a major player in the Toursim market here, with a Hotel in Apia and a Resort out at the Airport. It is "run" by grandson of Aggie, Fred Grey, although many tell me that it is still the old man (Alan Grey) who still calls the shots.

SWAP is in a unique position in that we are privy to the workings of many tourism operators business goings on. We know their strengths, weaknesses, personalities and challenges. Apart from me just being ~~nosey~~ interested, the more that we know about a business the better we can help them - with value adding, rebranding, marketing efforts and so on or even by making further investment into their operations. We cannot recommend a business for investment unless we actually know and understand the business.

So we process information about the leadership of various businesses and have a good understanding of the Aggie Grey's businesses aside from our own direct dealings, which I have to say leave a lot to be desired!*.

So here's the rub. Aggies are the big boys. They have a lot of clout. People want to deal with them because they can make you or break you". And there enters the politics of doing bsuiness with the "big boys". One has to be careful when sleeping with an elephant in case he rolls over. I understand that when Survivor came to town and Fred let out the entire Resort to the crew, that there were a few ruffled feathers around some of the wholesalers who let their clients down.

Then there's the politics of big business interfacing with the goverment. "Oh we've got [enter many many millions here] set aside for green projects" says one government employee. OK so who is goign to get THAT money and where did it come from and who is paying for what? OMG, let's not go there if I want to stay in the country for more than a few weeks!

The real biggie in bsuiness politics here for me in the last week has been the invites to The Airport Lounge opening on the 27th August.

People are grossly offended if they don't get invited. Then some of them don't bother to show up even if you do invite them. And the ones that do show want to invite a whole bunch of mates for a free beer and food . . .

I've kept this to just one sentence. Deliberately. Because if I didn't stop here I'd never finish before Christmas. I have always love watching politics. Have done so since I was a teenager with the arrival of Muldoon. The bottom line though is this - while it is fun to watch the intrigues of it all, when if affects you, politics (the art of gaining and using power) sux in Samoa or anywhere.

Congrats to self as well are due: this is a full post without bashing the Church for its politics here.

Refreshing!

* My web development company tendered for the redevelopment of their two websites in October 2009, and almost a year later Fred says "Go to Bev" and Bev says "Go to Fred" and I say "~~Go to **** until you can ***!~~ When you need help with something, call me, but in the meantime I'll just work with the people who DO want my help!"]]> Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:08:26 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-08-06/post/politics-power-in-paradise/id/227/ The Product - Sunday in Samoa http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-25/post/the-product-sunday-in-samoa/id/221/

Church with House

It's Sunday in Samoa today - and a full moon at that! This being a Christian country (founded upon God we are all told ad infinitum) Sunday is a required day of rest. Church is compulsory (or you can stay at home and read the bible and pray but not walk the streets if you want) according to most village rules. I choose to blog, and write because I can't speak or understand Samoan and three hours of foreign language doesn't make for very nice church for me. And anyway I got called out of the mainstream church years ago! I call myself denominationally free Christian. Some call that backslidden "Too bad for them!" my Samoan colleagues would say.

[Pic: Nice church alongside less-than-nice house. This is normal here in Samoa for three reasons: 1. The church is everything here, (God rulz OK?); 2. Nobody has much money to do renovations or repairs with; and 3. There is a cultural lackadaisicality along the lines of "Fai Fai Lemu" Take it easy mate!]

I'm not Samoa bashing today. I've had enough of that for this week! I'm not even Christian bashing today because I'm in a good mood. I'm taking a positive tack on this God thing and I'll bring it all around to relate to Samoa at the end - trust me.

The Christian faith is presented a million differnt ways for a million different preachers, evangelists or exponents:

God loves you
You gotta go to church to save your soul
Repent, for the end of the world is nigh!
I'm the one that knows the real truth - join with me
and on and on . . .

There's always a grain of truth in any presentation of the Gospel but going to church, saving our soul and doing good things, even good Christian things is not the "product" of Christianity. The heart of our message is relationship. Restored relationship. God to man and man to God.

It's the relationship that really mattered to God. The Lord was the one who spoke first after Adam and Eve had ~~screwed up~~ sinned in the Garden of Eden. He sought out relationship, for that is what He lost when they messed up. Forget about the criminals for a moment and what they lost. God missed out on the very reason He created in the first part - to 'commune' with His creation - to have relationship with - to walk in the evening with them and talk and share and just enjoy each others' company.

So while there's a whole bunch of lovely stuff like feelings and salvation and the intellectual joys of theology and so on, the real product we have to offer is relationship. By accepting Christ, we have a restored relationship with the Father - sweet!

So how do you "sell" this product? "How do you best market it?" my friend asked.

Obviously as a Christian we should model our conduct on Christ. Before I share my understanding of His marketing techniques, I want to share with you a story about a guy who works with us. I won't name him but seeing as the other guy is in jail right now you can probably work out who this one is!

He said to me many times when I was dealing with losers. "Dennis I want to tell you about Samoa . . ." they all say that. They all love telling me about Samoa! "With us Samoan's you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink". He meant that there is simply no way that a Samoan will change his ways. If he's a crook then he'll always be a crook. "You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" would be the best English equivalent to what he was trying to say.

Over some weeks, we discussed this topic at length. He was proved right when our two criminals [middle of the page] were proved to be recidivist offenders. They couldn't help themselves but steal and lie - even to save themselves from years in jail. In a Christian sense they were simply not interested in the product. Relationship meant nothing - pride pushed them to seek the "NOW" regardless of the costs in the longterm. A very common Samoan trait. Oops there we go Samoan bashing again. Rephrase . . it is common for Samoans (who are msotly all subsistence farmers) to worry and to think more about the now - today - rather than to plan for things in the future.

So when this guy who was teaching me was in turn himself challenged about change (in his case about smoking) he found himself facing a real challenge. No smoking in the car is the rule. We've got a long trip ahead of us. You can stay and smoke all you like or come with us and wait for your smoke. He really really wanted to come so it was an agonising decision. "You can't make a horse drink, but you sure as ~~hell~~ eggs can make him thirsty!" I suggested to him as he pondered his dilemma.

And there in is the answer to the question of how to "sell" the Gospel. I did't put billboards up telling my mate that he should not smoke - he knows it's unhealthy and will kill him. I didn't tell him the logic of why he shouldn't smoke - he knows it all already. But what I did do was create a situation where he really wanted something more than a smoke. He wanted to be with me as we travelled and met people and did business and gave people hope. And he wanted this much more than a Pall Mall. As an aside he once spent a whole day without smoking and was amazed at himself. "You know" he said once "I haven't had one smoke since we've been out and about and I've never even felt the need for it because we've been so busy!"

That's the way Christ worked too. He did not hire a hall or build a temple/church building and market Himself. He didn't even hire the best muso's to perform for Him either. He simply walked the walk; talked the talk, and kept on doing it from town to town to city to city, day after day after week after week after month after month for three years until His enemies (the religious ones) finally cracked and they showed who they really were. He chose the hardest places and the weirdest bunch of people and He did miracles. The people wanted what He had to offer, and many sold what they had to follow Him.

Not all, for sure, but many did and the world has never been the same since.

So let's recap. The product we as Christians are marketing is "a restored relationship" (with the Lord).

The marketing technique (if you didn't get the gist of this before) is "to generate thirst". To create a desire to have "a drink".

In Samoa, I find myself doing a lot more of what the above teaching recommends than I did in a relatively wealthy country. The idea that a Church is not really the answer doesn't wash well when you go to church and are committed to going to a church. The idea of selling your possessions and following Christ isn't really that appealing when you are established and have possessions. The idea that there should not be any marketing doesn't go down at all when it is necessary to pay the Pastor's wages or fill the seats in the pews. Listening to the Lord and following a "whim" is a lot harder to do when you have "responsibilities" such as a church Board to be accountable to or if one has a congregation to Pastor, Teach or Love. Responsibilities restrict. You can't get away from it.

But take this all away and one has an amazing freedom to do "go with the flow", as I have been finding out in Samoa.

In the early history of the Christian church, one political leader took the Christian faith from a position of heresy to one of the State endorsed religion. While it helped spead Catholicism (the primary form of Christianity at the time) internationally, Constantinople's endorsement of Christianity is seen in many quarters as the beginning of the end of the true Christian Church. (In fact I believe that the church lost it's way centuries before when structure replaced relationship but that is a subject for another Sunday in Samoa!)

My business in Samoa takes me to as many villages' high chiefs as I can find. I seek relationships with everyone and anyone without prejudice, fear, and many times without even forethought. I will hop in a car and drive on a journey, stopping and meeting people and seeing things I never knew even existed. I have made an art form of showing locals things and places in their country that they too never knew even existed. I have introduced relatives to each other from the far side of the island and surprised many about who I know and have met. From Filipo, in Savaii who has nine children and two of them twins - a man who works his butt off and has only a thatched roof hut for a home to the Prime Minister. I go where many do not.

My life is a life filled with "the excitement of exploration" and I virtually live in a car between a business, a home and dozens of various villages throughout both islands of Samoa, and yet there is a very strong sense of purpose in it all. First, befriending and helping villages in all corners of Samoa has the benefit of helping establish a support base for our longterm security here. A gazillion friends could be great support if I ever needed it for me and my family. But secondly, my example, hopefully a godly example, is being spread by word of mouth. I have people who share in the Samoan language about me and what we are doing. They spread the word that we are business people but able to help - in marketing, branding and in management.

If it is genuine Christian love, and it is unfettered by Samoa's ultra strong cultural defensiveness, then I have the amazing privilege of sharing deeply with so many more than if I was in a Palagi country, at a Palagi church listening to a Palagi preacher raising funds for some unknown missionary in Zimbabwe, or with the Zulus.

Lord willing, I believe that in time, more will be able to see an example of genuine Christianity at work in what we do. Not the sham of religion. The real thing. We'll all be giving it a good go anyway, day bay day!

To my friend who asked me the question on how to market Christianity, I ask this question . . .

How do the flowers market their pollen and honey?

The bees! The bees tell the bees!

And how did the Master market Christianity? Word of mouth, mostly one on one, and that I believe is the best and only way that Christianity should be marketed. The way that the Master showed us and taught us.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday whereever you are!

Faa Sofua! [Goodbye muchly!]]]> Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:15:54 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-25/post/the-product-sunday-in-samoa/id/221/ 44 snippets from Samoa http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-23/post/44-snippets-from-samoa/id/219/ Faleo'o

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.
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.
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!
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!
If you've got some money then eggs, bread, noodles, rice, sugar, flour and corned beef are the main items on the shopping list.
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!
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.
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!
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!
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.
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"
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).
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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!
The Samoan smile is magic. The Samoan hostpitality is out of this world. Enjoy it.
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.
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!
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!
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!
Lock your toilet paper up if you're an employer. It'll go walk about otherwise - true!
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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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!
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.
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?
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)
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).
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.
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.
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! ]]> Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:59:21 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-23/post/44-snippets-from-samoa/id/219/ Shower 'em with Love http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-22/post/shower-em-with-love/id/217/

The Airport Lounge - inside

I've got to speak simply with the locals here. English is a second language, and to be frank, intellectual concepts just don't wash around these joints. I mix with people who sleep on the concrete floor amongst mosquitoes, dogs, pigs chickens and suchlike. Some will shoo the chickens off the food preparation areas and this is just the norm in rural Samoa Pic: The Airport Lounge (inside shot showing some of the 9th Heaven Wood Crafts on display) opening August 27 2010.

Talking about biblical concepts of grace and love is like trying to explain to someone in New Zealand that there's actually nothing wrong with throwing rubbish out a car window on the central streets of Auckland or that it's normal to shoot the neighbours dog because it came on your property or that it's fine to deck someone in a pub because they annoyed you. It doesn't wash. It's a big cultural "Ummm, what are you ON about?"

So discussing concepts of the law vs grace is just a mite tricky here. I've found other ways to communicate.

A young guy who worked for me for a few months started off pretty well, but eventually lies and theft got a little too much. He was actually a 'crim' we found out later. We nailed him, brought in the cops and he ended up facing the judiciary over what he did. It's a long story but he was guilty guilty guilty and he knew it. I raced down to the courthouse where the judge was almost certain to send him and his girlfriend away for quite a long time and four minutes before he was called before the judge I slipped a note before the prosecuting officers and asked for an adjournment. Granted.

Outside, my translator and new security guard (Force) and I had a little chat something along the lines of "Well we've spared you from prison this time. All we need is a little honesty and a confession and apology and things can be very different for you". We organized a couple of confession sessions for the both of them for later that same day and they went like this:

"This is your chance to clear the air once and for all. Fess up and play straight and we'll all stay out of jail but even just one lie and we'll leave you to the cops and you'll be in jail within a week."

The girl came in all apologetic and sorry. First question an apparent straight answer. Second question again an apparent honest innocent answer. "Oh yes she was there but it was the others who did it". After half a dozen questions I looked at the boys and said "We've got a lot of evidence to the contrary, she's lying through her teeth! Everything is just BS and we warned them. Let the cops and the court deal with her". We all were shocked that someone could be so dumb as to choose to lie in a situation like that and then end up years in jail as a result, but sure enough, it happened!

So the guy arrived and watched the tail-end of the interview where his girl was sent off back to be dealt with in the courts and go to jail.

The same thing happened with the guy. Exactly the same thing! He started off all meek and humble and apologetic and then spat out lie after lie after lie! We were speechless. After we sent him off to be dealt with by the authorities we just sat back and said to ourselves, these guys are just dumb - they don't get it - both of them! And sad to say it's common over here.

Your first thought here might be, "Well what do you expect dealing with the rif-raff of society. There are losers in every culture!" I used to try to balance that one out too, but how do you explain nine requests for meetings by phone and email over three months with other officials and they are too busy to talk or meet or even ask what it's all about. Then they ignore your invites, and requests and then are sometimes just downright rude to you? The list could go on and on with people who have played games with me, make it hard for me, all many times just because you are a Palagi!

Force had a few problems working it all out. He would see things that he hadn't seen before - crookedness, bad attitudes and so on towards me, a Palagi who was actually one of those good guys and didn't deserve what he was getting dished up (so he told me he was thinking). But I knew. I'd spent half a year working it all out . . . It's racism. Reverse racism from the Palagi perspective.

I've mentioned it before in more detail in other posts, but there is a deep seated contempt, perhaps even going as far as to say a hatred of the Palagi here. Oh sure, they smile and love you to bits when you've got some money on the table, but turn your back and it'll be gone in a jiffy without a thought. They'll intermarry and play the game and emigrate and banter with the Palagi in New Zealand, Australia and the States but something inside doesn't trust us (I'm mean trusting the Palagi!).

There are of course lovely people here who would die for you - you know the traditional Samoan hospitality that we all love, "It's an honour to serve you sir!" type of thing but when you dig deeper it can get a little bit more hairy!

So we had a situation just recently where Force had an epiphany. We came out of a meeting. Four of us. Force, Tasi, myself and another relatively high ranking official. We did our business in only a few minutes; the guy was gracious enough to see us and dealt with the issue professionally and politely and then we chatted for quite a while. We talked about what we were up to, how we were helping here and there and had ideas, doing a bit of training and so on. On the surface everything was cool.

On the way out, according to my mate, this educated young man who apparently had traveled through rugby events chatted to Force in Samoan along the lines of [nudge nudge wink wink] "Once you've got the inside knowledge of this guy's (my) business then you can kick him out eh?"

The epiphany Force had at that moment? Samoans really don't like his boss. (Well his mate and his boss I guess you could more accurately say.) Here was a young guy Force, who has yet to really live, who has never been out of his country, tagging along behind a Palagi who has taken him for a meeting with the top man in Samoa (the Prime Minister himself no less!) who within half an hour is challenged by another educated well traveled Samoan in a high position of power who has an attitude along the lines of "Rip off the Palagi and get as much as you can before you dump him eh?"

Whew!

Force of course (being the good guy that he is) informed the ~~sleaseball~~ high official that he "wasn't the same has him" and no doubt there is a young man thinking some thoughts that night about what he had actually said behind my back.

I must hasten to add here that while I've had problems around the PM, he himself was very helpful this time - gracious to see us and to hear us and support us. People tell me that he comes across pretty cold with perhaps an overly efficient approach to business He was certainly happy to open our business next month - as well as to support the SWAP Foundation as our Patron. In some ways you couldn't ask more from the man. So no brickbats to his quarter this time!

The question then is how does a Palagi deal with this racism/contempt/hatred thing, especially when a large part of your motivation is to help?

The first and most logical thing is to just get out. "Why bother?" one would probably think. "If they want to be stupid and bite the hand that feeds them, let them be and just go away!" And I can tell you the thought has more than crossed my mind . . . it's knocked the blinkin' doors down trying to take over my mind, every time I get frustrated, get stolen from or treated like an animal.

And there is good business logic to that line of thought as well. The dollar difference means that a buck in the hand elsewhere is worth two or three here, and it's a lot harder to earn a buck over here - lacking skilled staff, a culture that makes it difficult for the Palagi to get established is always going to be a hard one to make a buck in. Internet costs are coming down but in one day I can still kill the equivalent of a weeks wages on bandwidth, and that's even avoiding YouTube videos and big graphics.

But there's a real big stumbling block to jumping ship and it's that I'm actually meant to be here. I know it and others around me know it too. Apart from the faith aspect to coming here I can clearly make 100 times more of a difference to the world here in Samoa than I can outside of it. Time will tell how much and who knows exactly what is around the corner but it's starting to make sense being here, almost like all your experiences in life lead up to a major life change and I'm having a lot of fun all of a sudden!

The concept I have been teaching here is essentially the biblical one of grace. Extending grace to those who on the surface don't really deserve it. It's a biblical message, one that Christ came and gave of Himself for us even though we deserved it not, but it doesn't have to be a faith issue it can be simple logic. I give two examples here . . .

First looking at the young man who has probably made a very big mistake yesterday. All I have to do is name him, shame him and his career could be seriously damaged. Deliberately undermining and attempting to corrupt a relationship between a Palagi boss and his staff, in a government building, with a witness present is not the sort of thing that a Samoan politician or government employee would want bandied around the Internet. Mud sticks and Palagi talk about who is who, who can be trusted, how to do business here and so on. Knowing who he was and his true attitude toward Palagi could easily undo his reputation, certainly amongst the Palagi businessmen here. I'd love to return evil with evil. I could have a lovely war with someone like that and make a point sticking it to him.

But this idea of showering someone with love goes much further than just sticking it to him with evil. I can get revenge . What say if I know that we can help a close family relative of his in the marketing of their new resort and that I do so graciously knowing that their family has tried to "do" me but that I've tried to help his family no matter, then I can get into his conscience much more. Say if he walks in on a meeting and his family introduces me to him as a lovely guy who is helping them get their business on the Internet, then his face could go white with guilt.br />
Given some very possible scenarios, it's perfectly possible to achieve evil with good! Showering a situation with love does have the potential to sort things out, much quicker and better than fighting hate with hate. And there need be nothing religious about that tactic - it's just logic.

The second approach however is the religious one - God told us to forgive, so OK then I will. And He told me to love my enemies so I will love them. I hate religion with a passion because amongst other things it can make things sound so dull and boring. But the fact is that by loving our enemies we open them up to both the blessing and the curse of God, according to how I read the Good Book anyway. So this is how the "God thing" worked with the young guy and his girl caught stealing from us . . .

The police had mucked up the investigation. (Believe me, this happens a bit over here!) We found this out through our own investigation. We found out later that the prosecutors themselves had questioned the case in that there was quite a lot listed as stolen but only a few little charges were laid. Somebody hadn't done their job properly. (Surprise!) So inadvertently by walking in and interrupting the court case like we did where they may have got a year or two behind bars, we opened them up to the possibility of a revised court case in which they would possibly get the maximum seven year sentence.

I wasn't to know the details of this at the time, but a big part of the sessions of forgiveness with them was the fact that they had lied to the Lord. Everyone is a Christian of sorts over here so these sorts of conversations are fine in this culture. They had stolen from us, but in effect they had stolen from the Lord. By giving them an opportunity to say sorry to Him (verified by full confession and true repentance) then the Lord would bless them and things would go well. I was just the messenger setting down my rules - fess up and go free or lie and go to jail sot of thing.

This is the biblical message then - respect or fear the Lord and receive blessing. Fight against Him and do it wrong and you'll end up being cursed. The Bible paraphrased!

So if they just happened to get a bigger sentence after having been spared, given another chance and then both screwing it up, this was probably the hand of the Lord on the situation - not my idea.

This then are the two secrets from which it is possible to justify "showering 'em with love". A simple pragmatic secular justification of the principle and a more biblically based "do it for God" approach.

I like the fact that doing good can be justified by logic as well as through faith. It kind of makes sense really. Showering 'em with love also sounds quite New Agey too. This idea might become quite popular one day. ]]> Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:58:13 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-22/post/shower-em-with-love/id/217/ Just a liitle bit of evil http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-18/post/just-a-liitle-bit-of-evil/id/213/ "You have to do a little bit of evil to do good!" I bit my tongue for all of 24 hours hours and then we had a 'little discussion'. That discussion has now been going on for three weeks! It's Sunday again today and that's my trigger to speak religious about this pickly little subject.

A nation founded upon God

It's the Samoan way to do churchy things on Sunday, and we are constantly told that Samoa was "founded upon God". So here's how it goes. . .

"In Samoa things are crooked, and corrupt and you don't get anywhere without cheating, bribing or manipulating things. It's not fair that only the honest ones should pay for [for example] their power because all the cheaters and briberers get cheap power or stolen power".

Another version is that "Nothing ever gets done here [1], people don't care [2] and are lazy [3], and worse so the only way to get things done is to slip a note under the table to the person you know [4] and it'll get done!"

That's not true actually, without a bribe it generally just takes forever. The only exception to this that I've found was the Companies Office - exemplary service the same standard as the New Zealand Companies Office without the online service - and my mate Freedom at Ace Hardware who understands business - he trusts you, helps you and looks after you like you're a ~~rich Palagi~~ real person.
I've met a few who do, but most of them don't do anything about it.
Oh boy . . . I'll invoke the 5th Ammendment here because this is a real biggie of a subject and a talking-point over here!
Most of the time it is OVER the table!

When I worked at a large Office Equipment company a couple of decades ago, I entered the world of dog-eat-dog commission sales. The company that I can't name for reasons of slander (. . . U-Bet I can't mention them) made a practice of ripping the customer off, ripping the salesmen off. The salespeople of course returned the favour - to the customer, the company and to each other. I ended up at the top of the pile and, sad to say failed to introduce strong ethics into the environment. I learned practices and techniques that I don't use anymore. They are all mentioned in the Good Book, usually prefixed with those annoying little phrases such as "Don't" and "Beware".

Of course it didn't take long for the fireworks to happen - I quit! No, you're fired! (or was it the other way around, I can't remember now).

In retrospect I've always considered that it was a good lesson on how "group think" and the environment that we find ourselves in can influence our thinking and behaviour sometimes against our better judgement. It takes a strong man to stand against the tide of "public" opinion. I'm now a much stronger person and find myself in Samoa challenged by a culture and people who claim Christianity, practice the religion of Churchianity but underneath are actually no different to any other people group in the world.

Apologies here to the Samoan orators who speak kindly of the Samoan Culture and how we are founded upon God.

So the idea that in Samoa just a little bit of evil is required to achieve good is pervasive. "Good" Christian, churchgoing people believe this little lie. I know, because they practice it all the time around me. It is so insidious it gets into your veins and attempts to pollute your soul, day in day out. Someone steals from you (again). The Samoan way is to deck the guy. Should I? I want to but when do I stop after I've decked him? I actually want to kill him but where do I start and stop the violence. If a crim gets caught before he's got a blood nose, broken jaw or lost a front tooth, he is very grateful. One guy I knew and helped catch even got decked my another of my "mates" in front of the police. They intervened and arrested the first guy from worse than a saw jaw to save him, but only after he'd had "enough" of a hiding!

So then it comes to bribery. A common practice here. Do you sit back and wait and wait and wait while they deliberately hang you out to dry or do you succumb to the ways of the people - a little bit of evil, and "Nobody minds. It's just the way things are done here!"

I used to stew over such ethical dilemmas before, but I haven't for many years. I'm still constantly tempted but I choose to do it the ahrd way, and the right way. It means that life can be tough at times, but I sleep at night. Some people, especially in positions of power are embarrassed and secretly despise me, but, as one of my staff had a habit of saying "Too bad!" When supposedly doing God's business here (I think I would have scarpered a long time ago if I didn't believe that I was called over here) the bottom line is that if I do business with a liar or a cheat, they are lying to God and cheating Him. Some call it Karma but I think that this is exercising real faith and it is true Christianity at work. I'd like to hope so anyway.

I popped in to the markets last night (Saturday) and did a deal with a lady for 20 keke pua (That's pork buns for you Palagi, except they're not Pork. They're lamb but that's another BS story and I haven't got time to go into it as well!)

The conversation went like this:

Me: Can I have a discount please? [Always ask for a discount over here. You'll get 5-20% depending on the product and the vendor and the margins]
She: No, sorry no discount
Me: What about for quantity [I love them and would freeze them]
She: How many?
Me: Twenty Tala ($20.00 WST) for 20 buns [money on the counter - the sight of money always does little miracles here]
She: OK [hands me two bags that look very suspiciously like a lot less than 20 buns]
Me: Ummm, excuse me for asking but how many are in here?
She: Twenty

Whereupon I took the bags and walked 12 feet, sat down in full view of her and started to eat one. I checked briefly that my intuition was right. Sure enough one bag only had about seven buns. So that means that there would have been maybe 14 or 15 buns. Not good. So now I knew that I had a thief, and a liar. Well of course all thieves are liars unless they 'fess up at first confrontation of course.

So then followed one of those magical moments in life when a confrontation occurred and a reconciliation and a lifetime friendship developed. OK so maybe that's an exaggeration or an unlikely extrapolation, but it could easily be the case.

So I explained how I knew that she had cheated me and how I knew that she had lied, and how bad this was especially as I bring lots of Palagi to the markets, and how I had confronted all the other people who had lied to me (and I pointed them out, literally) had all been caught and how they had all apologised and would never do it again (at least to me!) and that every time I come here I expect her to be kind and friendly and generous to me and my guests and so on and so on.

It's anybody's guess how sincere the apology was and she could easily do the same to many others but to me and my guests, she will greet all my guests with a big smile and greet me by name. That's just a little bit of love shared out by saying "No!" A little bit of evil is STILL a little bit of evil. Anywhere. Any culture.

Some say that I should have just gone away and let bygones be bygones. I could have just said to myself - "Bloody Samoans, they're always ripping the Palagi off!" and left it at that. But if I let it go, then another Palagi could get done again in the future, and the crook wouldn't have got caught and found out for who she really was - a thief and a liar.

As I said, it may work out as a great story in the future because I'll be taking all my guests now to her stall. "[Real name] is my friend and she'll look after you!" will be my introduction. And I'll monitor the deals VERY closely to make sure she never does it again to any of our guests. Who knows. Actually God knows. I can say this because it's a Sunday and this is Samoa - a country founded upon God, they say.

Here's another iteration of the ethical challenge. I'm involved in business in a country that makes an art-form over fleecing the Palagi. A country that's middle name is greed and trust doesn't exist, except in rare pockets of purity, seemingly locked away from the mainstream here.

I've received constant advice that all my business ideas - some of them quite revolutionary for this country - are locked down legally "because the locals will copy you and rip you off!" And it happens all the time here. When caught - either stealing or cheating or lying - they say Oh I'm so soooooorrrrrrry. Will you forgive me? And are all supposedly repentant. But they carry on doing it all the same when your back is turned.

Debbie and I have chosen to do the opposite. We set up the SWAP Foundation here to help build business post-Tsunami. We're opening up new business ideas and giving them away. We're running a Seminar shortly at Savaii to train local businesses on value-adding. How to do better business rather than trying to get more business and making a bigger bad business, sort of thing. I know that we can double, triple or sometimes quadruple bottom lines with only a small amount of work and minimal investment. Of course there are business opportunities resulting from this for us, but if we try to keep all our secrets, they'll copy them, do them badly and hurt us all as a country. Instead we want to train, teach and engage with local business. The idea is that people are better off working with us in the long-term than stealing our ideas and trying to be selfish about it - the default setting in Samoa unfortunately. We demonstrate this principle by doing what we preach - giving and trusting, being open and generous. Then we're honest, smart, work hard and have faith. We expect to see gradual change and then when the word gets out, we expect to be seeing major influence. We don't skite about it or talk it up, but it will surely happen some day.

How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time. We've got a massive mission ahead of us. We can't change the world by tomorrow, nor Samoa and its ingrained culture and ways of doing things, but how do we end up changing a culture for the good (even one that has strong social and customary systems in place to protect the inherent "little" evil)? Blessing just one person at a time. One business at a time. Day after day after week after week. And there came a time when the Lord Himself laid back and said ". . . it is done!'

We can't force change. We can't negotiate change. It has to come from the heart, but a very VERY big motivator in this country is money. They don't have any. That's why they beg and steal and covet so much. When the businesses we work with increase their profitability and others around see what blessing results from doing things right, we know what will happen. Word spreads like wildfire here especially if a Palagi is involved, and especially if there is money at stake.

They say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Granted, but you can sure as ~~hell~~ eggs make ~~the little sucker~~ it 'as thirsty as!' That's our Modus Operandii here. Offer it. Teach them. Show them. Do it, and hopefully the word will get out and we'll be working nationwide pretty soon.

But our conditions are clear. Get your house in order first. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that if you're not living a righteous life, God can't bless you. It's not up to us to be judge and jury in these matters but common sense must prevail. A very high profile tourist attraction here has two families fighting over their popular tourist business. They think they are winning and have their patches all marked out. The reality for thousands and thousands of Palagi visitors however is that these two families are secretly laughed about and mocked and viewed as fools! When they attend our seminar we will make it quite clear - settle your differences before we will help you with marketing because we don't want to be a party to petty squabbling that has gone back to your grandparent's days. "Get your house in order and we'll work with you and help you", will be our message. That's how change for the better can occur without big budgets; without government support and by just one man who shares a vision to his wife, who supports him, who then shares to friends, staff, businesses, eventually to a country and to the world.

It sort of sounds quite biblical in a way - one Man gets the message and goes out to the world one at a time eh?

Look I'm not the Messiah, but He does encourage us to follow His teaching and example. I'm not too thrilled about the Cross bit, but hopefully that will be a few years down the track!

So I choose to do it right day by day regardless of my feelings. The day that I succumb to "just a little bit of evil", is the day that I lose the clear conscience I have (no matter how deluded some of my detractors think I am!).

It will also be the day that my testimony as to the power of the Lord to work miracles in peoples' lives, if we only but listen to Him and do the right thing, will vanish and lose its integrity. It will also be the day that I step on the slippery slide, just as Adam and Eve did all those years ago and listened to a little lie and lost it all.

Whoever said that God and business don't mix ~~is a loser~~ has got it wrong! Of course they do!

I'm aware that there are now people reading my blogs who do not share the Christian faith. I trust that you're finding some gems hidden in amongst the God-talk. As I share in my book Lipstick on a Pig, biblical principles are healthy and still apply without the Christian faith. It's just that the relationship with the Father is missing without the faith.

Thanks for tuning in here. More excitement from Paradise will surely follow!]]> Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:13:55 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-18/post/just-a-liitle-bit-of-evil/id/213/ Force be with you http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-09/post/force-be-with-you/id/209/ "May the Force be with you . . . " and so my daughters had a bodyguard while they were in Samoa recently!

Force on his mountain

This is the Force I'm talking about. Don't mess with him. Here he is on the top of his mountain:

At age 15, my daughter was acosted by a 16 year-old in Fusi Safata last year in October. He then spent a few days following her around constantly learing at her and trying to speak English to woo her. "Welcome to the world of Samoan men" I thought as I watched her squirm uncomfortably.

Capping off her trip last year and cementing her desire to never return to Paradise again inside a lifetime, was an afternoon at Aggie Grey's Hotel in Apia where she again experienced the wandering eyes of the male staff there. "Dad, Samoan men are creepy. I never want to come back!" she informed me later.

Explaining to a 15 year old that men are men the world over (it's just that subtlety and tact don't sit well with Samoan guys who consider a fist in the face and a blood nose the solution to many interpersonal issues) didn't really cut the mustard but we left it at that.

Fast forward to 2010 with her father having relocated to Samoa, and she's in a real quandry thinking "I want to spend time with Dad but it's not the nicest of places for a young lady". She solved the problem by bringing her sister for company. We however solved the problem by supplying a fulltime bodyguard, Force. Both solutions worked a trick but the Force thing was the winner on the ~~day~~ week.

Force as a bodyguard

With a German/Samoan pedigree and hailing from Safotu in Savaii, this is an educated man (St Joseph's College) going by the name of Edwin Joseph von Kurt Schmidt. The sixth generation from an 1872 union of the German Mr Schmidt to a daughter of an American immigrant by the name of Smith, this man has a unique pedigree - the only son of the only son who is left in Safotu, who's father was the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son going back to the 1870s.

I bumped into this guy when looking for his brother (Barney) who had a recording studio. Force sort of stuck to me and has been along for the ride for a few weeks. He's got a job with me. There's no pay, but he doesn't do anything (apart from eat, sleep and talk that is - all during the day too I might add). So that's all fair. He's helped me out to set up a criminal who was stealing from us and caught him. He also helped bring the same guy in when he skipped bail and (allegedly) committed another burglary on us. He also helps me translating with the Samoan High Chiefs who he seems to get along with quite well.

So when the girls arrived, he gladly undertook the bodyguard role. Go ~~E.J.~~ Force.

It's an exaggeration to say that this guy is as wide as he is high, but not by much. His dark deep-set eyes make him look like a monster out of a Hitchcock thriller, and with a machete in his hand, believe me you would be praying never to meet him in a dark alley at night.

A smiling Force

But looks can sometimes be deceiving. He's an accomplished muso with an album, TV adverts and other credits to his name. Apparently he's angel in disguise with a heart of gold and RAP beats coming out of his head like a Samoan spring of water. The picture at the top is of him with the girls being silly on the top of his mountain in Safotu. Fantastic view. Could be the location of a future business if discussions and ideas turn to reality some day.

That's the Force. If he turns out to be one of the better Samoans, I'm sure you'll all be seeing much more of him on these pages.]]> Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:22:35 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-09/post/force-be-with-you/id/209/ Value Adding http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-08/post/value-adding/id/207/

Cooking Panikeke

Apart from the negative press following the 2009 Tsunami, Samoa has two problems in the Tourism industry - not every business, but many of the smaller businesses here. People here on the ground have very little understanding of the Palagi's needs, and fail miserably in marketing. Samoa is a land of missed opportunity, particularly when it comes to value-adding.

With the exception of the larger resorts and the more entrepreneurial here who already "get-it", I believe that Samoan businesses could increase their income and customer experience enormously with a few simple value adds.

Here is advice that the SWAP Foundation has been giving and will continue to give to tourism operators in Samoa. There's more but these are the key pointers.

Get rid of the rubbish. If I was Prime Minister I would immediately dictate that any rubbish on the roads, any tourism destination and any public place be an instant fine to the landowner and the person littering. As a rule Samoans don't seem to care about rubbish on the streets or dirt. Living in open huts with pigs, dogs, chickens and the like wandering around and through your house does not breed a desire for cleanliness such as the Palagi seeks in a pristine clean home in a Western-style home. Dirt and dirty are normal for many. The thinking that rubbish should go in a rubbish bin is foreign to many. One of the boys cleaned out my car in the weekend. The rubbish remained on the grass in a circle around where the car was parked for days. Out of the car door and dropped where they stood. I even handed one of the boys some plastic and paper rubbish from the car through the window. I found it later where his feet would have been when I gave it to him. This is not the first time I've experienced this in rural Samoa. A while back I walked around a corner and watched in horror as a young lady casually threw a cardboard box into the tide in Matafaa - a beautiful lagoon with coral reef in the distance. For her it was a lovely solution - the gentle breeze and current took her rubbish away from sight and her care. No care in the world about rubbish!

Excepting the Palagi resorts and offerings and of course the natural locations, Samoa is actually quite a dirty country, Samoa. Dust, grime and filth abound simply by the nature of the country, culture and lifestyle. Except for lawnmowing and leaf collecting/burning, cleaning is simply not a priority. I held a conversation with another young man while I was cleaning the dust off my kitchen bench (dust accumulates daily when the kitchen has open walls). He scoffed at my attempts to have a clean surface and told me a story of a lady who hated dirt. She spent all her life cleaning and when she died, she found herself surrounded by dirt. Well, he has a point, but with a mentality like that, they'll never connect with the Palagi. I kept quiet and have a clean kitchen bench - for the rest of the day anyway!

So, one of the biggest things to make a difference is to simply get rid of the rubbish.
Break the poverty mentality. While there is a lack of working capital and cash disappears quickly with low budgeting skills, the country is quite rich - rich in culture and tourism resources. The people with their rich culture and welcoming ways, the Beach Fales, bush, waterfalls, sea activities and natural attractions abound and yet there is a deep-set poverty mentality that thinks discount, cheap, budget, negative, small and poor. I've blogged extensively about this but breaking this mindset will do way more for the local operators than injection of millions of Tala in bringing more guests to the Samoan shores.

I'm not talking here about people with nothing doing their best with what they've got, I'm talking about people being lazy up top or letting selfishness and small thinking get in the way of big picture leadership and good business management skills. I can be totally without money (and have been for most of my life), yet I constantly maintain a positive "can-do" attitude to use what I have got with enthusiasm. Many people here have a small business yet little vision, and certainly not the experience to push through in business to greater heights. The SWAP Foundation set out to help generate hope through education and training in these things.
"Please sell me!" This is the cry of the white man with cash in his pocket over here, and yet it seems as if nobody cares! In fact they do - many of them are struggling and would love a little help in marketing - but they don't know what or how to do things better. Simple things like putting a sign up that can be read. Like telling me what is available and expecting me to want to spend on something that you have.

Signage is poor in Samoa. Signs are small and many times don't exist. Samoa is essentially a verbal culture. Palagi are primarily a visual people. So Samoa misses so much because tourists don't see or understand what Samoans already know. In a Samoan's mind there is no need for them to tell a Palagi that Vailima is the local beer, and that the Vailima factory is in Vaitele, which is on the main road in to Apia. Why would they do that when everyone here just knows that anyway?

The relaxed, laid-back attitude to life creates business attitudes that deny Samoans much business. Palagi will buy, IF you tell them what you have and give them a reason spend a buck or two!
Value Adding - the biggie! Oh if only Samoa could understand the value this will bring them. Doubling or tripling income from tourist attractions could be so simple if the principle of value adding was understood. Basic value adding can be as simple as putting a Coke or Pepsi on sale beside a bush walk. Charging $5.00 for the walk is fine, but one could easily double one's income if a coke and sandwich is available at the same time.

In the markets at Apia they cook and sell Panikeke (pancakes), a banana, flour mixture fried in oil. A favourite of mine. That's the picture up the top. I buy two Tala worth at a time from these people because they always pop in a couple of extras for me. But they miss an opportunity - there's no sign, no price, no value adds. How is the Palagi to know that they taste yummy, only cost 10cene each? Then what about a spoonful of sugar in the bag, with cinnamon or ground ginger, or something else extra like a can of fizzy and panikeke meal deal? Missed opportunity galore!

We've got some great ideas underway for Uafato and the Ninth Heaven™ wood crafts and we'll be working a lot more with tourism operators who want to partner with us, but value adding, marketing a strong brand can do good business for many operators.

We've found quite strong support for our value adding ideas as we've travelled Savaii in the last month. It doesn't take much effort to help people see something bigger than what they already have. Hopefully we'll see some good ideas take place over the months ahead.]]> Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:15:47 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-07-08/post/value-adding/id/207/ Fourth Sector http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-09/post/fourth-sector/id/125/ Fourth Sector is a phrase used to label the rising sector of social endeavour that variously involves a combination of philanthropy, faith, goodwill, good works, mission, government, NGOs, and . . . wait for it . . . business.

It can involve social, green, for-benefit or do-good business, but basically we are talking about business ventures that have some form of benefit to the community as well as to the original investor(s).

One of our SWAP Ambassadors was deeply challenged earlier this year when we visited Uafato as a team. Taking the worst road in Samoa (yes literally the worst - a goat-track that challenges even a 4WD) we travelled to the end of the road (yes, literally to the end of the road) to a lovely little village known for its bowl carving prowess.

One of the biggest challenges she faced while visiting was wrestling with the idea of introducing new business ideas to what seemed like a lovely little idyllic village. Everything inside of her, and also one of our other SWAP Ambassadors still earlier in the year, screamed out "Leave them alone! For God's sake don't spoil the village! It just has to be kept this way!"

So the challenge for an entrepreneur like myself in such a situation is enormous. How to do business, but also help in a way that "doesn't spoil it".

Enter Fourth Sector thinking.

In my previous post I talked about a Christian motivation and how it can outwork in practical ways for the good of mankind. Essentially attempting to make the world a better place, certainly in your own sphere of influence. So in terms of the faith aspect of the Fourth Sector, I'm already there.

This village is already Christian as a village - two churches and social expectation to attend/do the churchy thing - so my role is not to convert. I am in the process of bringing in Fourth Sector thinking through business.

In the early days of meeting new people and getting to know them, it is often the first things that people say that are the most important - sure there are deeper things that remain hidden and have to be dug out - but generally the things at the top of a relationship building exercise are the most vital. Here are the biggies (paraphrased) for this village:

We value our Sunday observance. Nobody is allowed to work or even swim in the river or beach on Sunday.
We don't want anybody to interfere with us. We have our own rules. They are tough; they work and we like it that way. We even told the government [water authority] to butt out of our village.
We just want to sell our bowls [It is getting harder to sell bowls with reduced tourism numbers]

So, wanting to profit, wanting to help them, but also wanting to protect this little oasis, I've been working to develop a strong brand - the Ninth Heaven (Pic). I've been encouraging them to work together (as opposed to the traditional Samoan family-based approach) and helping them to see the increased value in carving high quality products. I'm in the process of actively taking the products to the world, and wanting to lift the value of each item by creating investment value for the buyers of the items as well as generating a greater long-term return for the carvers.

In the process I am sharing my business experience with them, teaching key leaders about the Internet, branding, investment markets and ethics. This business is an evolving one, but the seeds are there for a healthy Fourth Sector operation that should generate enormous goodwill for many.

For years, I've seen philanthropy in business hover mainly around the giving - Bill Gates "gives" $xxxxxx with a few commas and many noughts (only to causes and trusts that he believes in or owns of course). A corporate "donated" something to a worthy cause (and often to a pet cause of the GM or board). An NGO "gave" something of value to somebody or some organisation.

Samoa is replete with gifts. Virtually any school, church or building bigger than a stick hut has almost certainly been gifted by somebody, somewhere - family in Australia, USA or New Zealand, the EU, Aus-Aid, Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross, or a gazillion other good causes, but I believe that Fourth Sector thinking is a better answer to the challenges of poverty.

I've always liked the World Vision process of getting in there and working in a place with practical things that make a difference, but working from within a certain culture.

It's a lot harder to get your hands dirty. It's not easy but it has an enormous payday in developing all that is good and godly - relationship building, sense of achievement, mentoring for self-determination, utilising various strengths and developing opportunities.

Charity is well and good, but it creates a poverty mentality that is a vicious cycle. I've mentioned this before in one of my first posts on helping Samoa post-Tsunami. Sure, following the Tsunami giving was essential and in special circumstances is a big help, but overall I see Fourth Sector business as the best way, and most biblical way to help someone.

There are other ways to help too - Micro-Finance helps enormously. I notice that Sam Morgan has gifted a large sum to SPBD, the micro-finance organisation set up in Samoa by Greg Cassagrande some ten years ago. I consider Greg a friend and greatly respect his work. I've helped him with his website since day one and I still help his staff whenever they need it. I've been out and watched his agents in the field and it is eye opening. It's all good. It's a needed service - business of course but doing it for good.

We are going a little deeper with some of the things we are doing - Village Stays and the Ninth Heaven branding for Uafato, but Fourth Sector work is not about being right, or better. I believe it's all about doing what you can when you can where you can.

In New Zealand I would setup a Charitable Trust and get to work fundraising. I've set up a Charitable Trust with Debbie here but the real benefit comes from doing the Fourth Sector business, whatever shape it may come in.

It is not easy to push through with anything new. It requires strength of character, guts and bravery, but at the end of the day, they'll be able to write on my gravestone "He gave it all!"

* A New York Times article on business for good.
A PDF on philanthropic business
A non-profit take on Fourth Sector
A good overview

There's a gazillion more ]]> Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:33:06 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-09/post/fourth-sector/id/125/ Christian Motivation http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-06/post/christian-motivation/id/185/

Church

But as a Christian everything we do has a religious motivation . . . or should be. [Pic: A lovely South Coast church with panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean]

Many have the idea that Christians are out to change the world, and want to convert them. Well, it's true. ~~Our boss~~ The good Lord told us to teach and preach and love the others.

Personally I don't see this desire to replicate as a problem as any decent religion does the same or it won't survive, but somehow while Jihad and forced conversions, or Moonies on the street just get passed off with a shrug as nutters when Christians get into the conversion thing or changing the world thing, it seems to wind up many people quite badly.

And when people make a big point about dissing me or Christianity and they insist on pointing out the errors of my ways I chuckle inwardly at how they want to change me and my thinking to their value system! The very same thing that they despise in me!

The real question of course not so much the message of Christians, it is more HOW this change and conversion is attempted. I think the "We're holier than thou" attitude that many Christians have is actually the real problem - not so much the message or motivation in Christianity itself. After all when a Christian is really nice, or generous or loving, towards us it is much easier to accept their faith. Hence the Sally Armies widespread respect and acceptance for generations.

So let's face it. I'm a Christian and of course like any caring person (Christian or not) I would love to be able to change the world for good. It would be great in my book if everyone around me shared the same faith and we all got on like a house on fire. No crime. No fights. No anger. No wars. No pain.

So enter reality. The real world is not like that.

I think that it is actually God's business if He wants to zap someone around me and get close and personal with them - not mine. My job as I read it, is just to be and do who I am and respond appropriately in a case by case situation if there are special needs or a special situation. Sometimes that means loving people I don't want to love but it doesn't mean that I can't let loose with a sermon or two!

So here I am in a foreign country with a people that absolutely DO NOT want to change anything about their culture, lifestyle or faith; who are the most church going country in the world but in many ways are the least genuine about it and me, a Christian that doesn't even go to church!

On one hand it's a hilarious situation but it could also be a deadly serious quandry.

So I decided a while back to forget all about the traditional stereotypical Christian missionary zeal trying to change the world and convert the heathen sort of stuff.

The idea that some things are religious (such as praying, tithing or going to church) and others (such as housework or business) aren't, is clearly unbiblical. It's hedonism; Greek thinking and contrary to biblical understanding of the way things are. I have a lot of respect for cultures that integrate their faith into all aspects of their life. The Christian church would do well to learn from Islamic people in this regard.

Since the moment of my conversion I have always considered my life the Lord's to do as He will. From day one I sought His will for me. It's just a natural thing to do when you are effectively 'zapped' like I was. Sure the implementation has been a lifetime challenge but the idea that what I do has something to do with pleasing God is central to this post.

The thoughts frequently expressed around me along the lines that "There is no God" are quite funny when you've had an encounter with Him. It's like me telling my wife that I'm actually a girl, and she's a boy!

But being outside the mainstream church, while it clearly raises some issues within the churchy community is actually a real freedom. If I upset some pastor somewhere, I'm not ruining his church. If I preach to those also outside the church, I'm not stealing some Pastor's flock. When I left the mainstream church in Auckland, the only request the new pastor had was that I wouldn't take people with me. I agreed to the request but inwardly wondered whether there was maybe some fear of losing control of his church and parishioners.

Building a church, or building upon the efforts of previous church builders is usually all about control - power and money through people. Sure many times this may be well meaning but it is not always the best of Christian motivations.

So outside the church where there is no building, no Pastor, no "religious" income streams it's not possible to get caught up in the usual churchy corruption things. And in Samoa this is a hot topic. Others have written extensively about the Samoan situation - the church, corruption, power and money games and so on. I've pinged my new country of choice enough to avoid getting into that one, suffice to say that even though I was given all the right names of the people in the know, who have influence; and even though my background is years within the traditional mainstream church, in Samoa I am right outside of it all.

It's almost like in being called out of the church a few years ago I was being prepared for a life without church. For that I am grateful.

A gentleman by the name of Sam Metcalf mentioned thoughts along the lines of what the Lord may be up to with people like me who are on the edges:

What God is undoubtedly doing is raising up, on the cultural fringes, a new generation of people who are faithfully and wholeheartedly followers of Jesus and true to the bible, but they are committed to living that faith out in an increasingly secular, postmodern world. From my experience, what I believe is most unsettling to the traditional Christian establishment is not primarily the theological nuances and questions that emanate from emerging churches, but forms and ecclesiological expressions that are outside the acceptable box . . . Sam Metcalf

Thanks too that indefatigable Tall Skinny Kiwi (not me, the other indefatigable world-travelling Kiwi) for his words too that may apply to my situation:

In my experience, the most successful church plants could all point to a moment in time when something beyond the church planter's control happened - a miracle of sorts - and that gave them the confidence that God was at work, that what they were building was part of a Holy Spirit movement, and more than just a great idea. TSK

He was talking about church planting but the principle certainly remains applicable to me. It's a big call to say that one is part of a Holy Spirit movement but really it's just another way of talking about one's Christian motivation. I certainly encountered a miracle over here in October 2009, so I'm sure the Lord is up to something with me here. Best to ask Him rather than me as I'm partly in the dark myself at the moment!

Whatever your take on Christian things, it's simple logic that if there is a God, if one wants to do His business and/or be in His good books then your life will have some form of faith and Christian thinking in it.

That's me!

I don't preach like Paul did - he's way way smarter than me. I'm not on a soapbox in the middle of the Apia markets - it's too hot. I don't attend church - I can't understand Samoan and a service lasting many hours with people wandering in and out as they please is not an enjoyable thing for me.

So I teach my staff integrity. I fire thieves and have them arrested when they burgle us. I then send them to do voluntary work to people I know who need it and will appreciate it. Social Justice and personal accountability are Christian principles.

I mentor my senior staff on how to get them to build up others, rather than take the glory for themselves. This biblical value to earn one's keep through hard work is contrary to the Samoan culture that consciously develops men to a position of power so that they can sit back, do nothing and instruct others on the work that they want done.

I counter comments along the lines of "It's up to you!" when intelligent capable staff are conditioned to do nothing until the boss says, and then not question the instruction when told what to do. Christian values counter slavery and a poverty mentality with motivation, encouraging independence of thought and engendering a hope for the future.

I say no to the aging High Chief who just wants some money for using his meeting house but explain that if he simply exercises faith, and helps us that good things will happen to and for the village as business will increase and our new ideas will help all his people. It happens and in due course the Chief will no doubt grow his own business too. Reward for faith and hard work are Christian values.

I teach that a fair price is a doorway to long-term business and that this works both ways - buying and selling. When a vendor sells a product too high I ask the chief to instruct them to reconsider in their own long-term interests. If they are greedy today then I will never buy from them again. On the reverse side, when a vendor offers an item too low, then I must offer more because it cuts both ways, this fairness in business thing. Increasing the price of an item in front of the whole village meeting is a mark of integrity that opened the eyes of a whole village recently. Integrity is a Christian value.

Working together, such as a cooperative or co-branding is a core tenet of mine. Getting smarter and building value with a brand is a skill badly missing in Samoa. Is there any reason why a whole village could not work together, even if it has never happened before? Uafato, a tiny little village known for its bowl carvers for generations is just starting out on this very course. Using ideas I developed in Fusi Safata last year, I've been meeting with the village to promote their products internationally.

After the second village meeting and more than half of the village bringing the carved bowls, platters and wooden weapons to the meeting the comment was made that this was the first time that all the carvers were together and seen each others' work! For generations these families had lived in their own little piece of paradise looking after their own families, carving only what they knew from being passed down from their parents and they had never thought to meet and share ideas and see the various quality standards, creativity and designs with each other!

Marketing the village products under the 9th Heaven brand will increase the value of the products; has already increased the return to the villagers and increased sales, and while I can't quote you scripture and verse on this, it sounds very like a good and godly thing to do. Work hard. Be creative. Be smart. Work together for the common good. Ooooooh there's goose bumps all over me when I think of how happy the villagers are to have new hope; to want to better themselves; to be proud of their whole village, and to want to work together and not just worry about their own family.

Christian motivation is a simple outworking of a real faith. It's not a nasty, "I'm going to use you and I'm better than you and going to rub it in your face living" way of life. It is just the same sort of thing that all decent people the world over do - except it's done with faith - that there is a God, that the Bible is more than just a good book, and that the Christ* in Christian is alive and the source of our daily motivation.

So yes. I believe that the Lord brought me here to Paradise. It would have been very easy to back out in the early days after I got my fingers burnt but the thought that I live here out of Christian motivation keeps me here.

Hopefully I will be able to continue the "work" for while and maybe bring a little glory to the Motivator!

* Christ? Jesus?

Those are words that I hardly hear any more. They're all over you with "What Religion are you? and "What church do you go to?" and Christian-based jingles plastered all over buses, taxis and cars and lots of things relating to Sunday and the Pastor but I never hear the name of Jesus spoken here. Certainly not in the context of a deep personal love relationship.

It's sad, really.]]> Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:05:12 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-06/post/christian-motivation/id/185/ Cultural challenges http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-04/post/cultural-challenges/id/199/

Boys sleeping Samoa style

In New Zealand I slept under a sheet and then under a duvet or blankets. In Samoa I sleep on the sheet. There are no blankets. When she drops to 27 or on a freezing 26 degree night, I might drag a thin sheet over me early morning. Time to adjust - about 4 weeks. [Pic: The boys sleeping inside/outside Samoa-style]

In New Zealand I would buy in bulk from Polar Foods, Gilmores or any loss-leader at the local supermarket and then store around about $2,000.00 of food in the pantry, a storage cupboard and a freezer. In Samoa foods last between 1-12 hours depending on whether I am in a village, or whether I have staff that ~~raid it~~ borrow it for lunch. If it is perishable it might melt, defrost, decay, go rotten or mouldy in anything up to 12 hours. I buy bananas greenish and expect a day or two before a bunch has gone. Fresh fruit is eaten on the spot. Freezing and fridge just delays things by a day or so. Time to adjust - 3 months.

In New Zealand I carry an umbrella or raincoat or dress for the weather. Basically my environment whereever I am is suitable for living - turn on a heater, aircon or open a window and life is comfortable. I paid little thought to "heat management". In Samoa heat management is everywhere and vital - I walk or stand only in the shade. I protect my head from the sun when I cross the road - with a fan or my arm if I don't have a fan. I am constantly using electric and hand fans to keep myself cool. I open windows deliberately find the coolest parts of the house to sit and work or talk. Time to adjust - 6 weeks.

I rise early morning - first light when it is cool so that by the time it gets to the 1.00pm heatwave, the bulk of the day's work is done. I schedule appointments for 1.00pm and onwards because that's when I can drive with aircon and enjoy other people's aircon. Time to adjust - 1 month.

In New Zealand I locked the car at night and when left in a public place. I locked the house at night time and sometimes not at all, especially in summer. I lock everything all the time here. Even the containers in a locked security yard are locked themselves and valuables are in a safe inside the locked containers inside the locked yard with six foot high fence topped with barbed wire. Jandals are left INSIDE the house now. My employees are now vetted by two others before they are allowed onto any of the properties.

In New Zealand my default setting was to trust people unless I saw a warning sign. In Samoa I have had to learn to consider every Samoan out to rob me and cheat me unless otherwise proven to the contrary and even then my advice has been to be careful. Actually my advice has been to get out but I'm not doing that for the moment! Someone at the door is a thief casing the joint and then might turn into a friend. The lawyer or real estate agent or businessman (Palagi or otherwise) is crooked until proven straight. Time to adjust - 1 month intellectually; still adjusting emotionally. Darn!

Employment in New Zealand involved placing an advert on Seek or TradeMe. Samoan style is to tell someone what you want. They'll organise it with their mates, cousins, friends, family, village or so on. You'll get what you asked for - sort of. Time to adjust - 1 month.

Taro was never on the menu in New Zealand nor coconuts to drink. Kumara, potato and pumpkin, yes. Taro and coconut drinks, No. Ten minutes in Samoa and you're into coconut milk and Taro whether you like it or not. Time to adjust - 10 minutes (or else!). Taro took me a month or more to get used to. Coconut drinks - well the jury is still debating that one at the moment. It's OK!

Give me a juice in New Zealand and I was happy. Any apple based Just Juice, or similar would do me fine. To me water was only for the greenies and health nuts that got conned by the big business of water vendors telling them all to suck up or they will die. Funny how they still live to a ripe old age in the Sahara eh? Well in Samoa it's all water baby. Water, Water, Water or you will die! Juice would cost you a mint and it's too sweet and not thirst quenching. It's got to be water over here. Time to adjust - somewhere from the time you first get off the plane and 1/2 way through customs!

Building a house in New Zealand is a serious venture requiring capital, bank loans and many weeks of hard work. Walls MUST be watertight. No walls here. They make the house too hot. Houses closed in here need aircon and that's costly. Sleeping outside under a carport thing is much nicer with a gentle breeze keeping me coolish. Think permanent camping at summer time in Coromandel and you've got it. Time to adjust - about a couple of months.

"Woe betide ye, Molly Whuppie" if anyone ventured near my food or my things in New Zealand. You've got your own camera, food, computer or whatever. I'm fighting a communal ownbership culture here that expects me to variously transport, give and share my assets and resources with others. The problem is that sharing coconuts, Taro and machetes is fine, but it doesn't work with a notebook computer, camera or video camera. If I share it and it breaks - they can't fix it with Taro, but to them it's just another "thing". "Sorry bro, I broke it, here's some coconut cream", doesn't cut the mustard when four other people can't do their work anymore! Time to adjust - For the sake of the business I won't!

It's not just me who has to adjust. Samoans too must learn to adjust to the Palagi ways of doing things.

Fa'a Samoa, the way life in Samoa is all very wonderful for those on the inside who have nothing and never really want anything. They choose that lifestyle. For many I know that it is all they have ever known but they still choose it. As with many things, it is the Palagi culture that has the work, creates the jobs, and resources new ventures. That's why so many here have up and offed to Palagi lands to better themselves.

Challenges all round.]]> Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:21:08 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-04/post/cultural-challenges/id/199/ The Tala Talks http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-03/post/the-tala-talks/id/197/

As I've said in previous posts, the difficulty with using broad labels is that you can ping good people along with the bad. I've lost count however with the number of people who have advised me to slip a few "pingers" into the palm of officials and they will "make things happen" for me.

I'll start with a non-financial example of the way things are done over here. Electricity.

Power cuts in Samoa are constant. Every week there would be two or more cuts of varying duration. People complain but there's nothing they can do about it. "Bad though it is, it's just the way things are" seems to be the general sentiment.

One of the boys on the job this week spoke about it like this when we had yet ANOTHER power cut and no water for the whole day. In Pidgeon English he said something like this:

"Let me tell you about Samoa. I was born here. You are new here and I will teach you how things work. The reason that we are getting power cuts is that nobody from EPC lives in this area. [EPC is the power company].

I worked for EPC when I left school and I know what happens. If someone we knew at EPC lived in the area we would be careful not to switch off the transformer, otherwise we would just flick the switch and not care. Streets where an EPC official live never have power cuts. We made sure of that.

So if you want something done in Samoa you go to someone who you know and slip them some money. They will get things done - trust me in that. It is the way that Samoa works. If you don't then it's like your job becomes [hand signals paper screwed up and thrown in the bin] - it will be like you never had a job in the first place. Trust me in that!

The Tala talks and this is always the way over here - get to know someone in the place you want action, slip them some notes and things get done.

I was standing in the Immigration department a while back under a sign that said something along the lines of "Staff are not permitted to receive gifts". It seems like the authorities may be recognising that a problem exists? The sign is ignored. As I watched, a person walked up to the counter, reached past me with a quick simple and obvious handover passed money to a counter worker and walked away. They would have received superior service and very likely a positive outcome.

The Tala talks!

I have a friend who told me about importing and how things work at customs. "I have a mate who has a mate . . ." the conversation started. Valuing things at say 20% of market value to save duty is good business for all - except the government coffers - and noone seems to bother much about government coffers. Many say it all goes to the crooked ones at the top anyway! A few hundred Tala in bribes can potentially save gazillions in duty. Who wouldn't arrange things for themselves like this? BTW, this causes a real ethical issue for a Christian businessman who has the opportunity to go with the flow but participate in defrauding the government! One questions the justice in the honest ones paying 5x the duty of others.

Hmmm. An ethical challenge all right but still, the Tala talks!

A lawyer I was talking to didn't like his chances in a court case where he was defending. I'd asked him how the case went after a good week or more in court every day. The matter of the legal strength of his case didn't enter the picture - his reply indicated that things outside of the case would affect the way it went rather than the actual facts. Not good.

I'm sure that the Tala talks in this case too!

A recent trouble with getting the authorities to act properly for me engineered a response from a wise old Samoan man. Your trouble is that you didn't [indicates greasing the palm with some money]. "When on earth is this money thing going to die?" I think to myself. And then I think about the relaxed Samoan lifestyle compared to the enormously busy Palagi one where people race around killing themselves to make more money and get more things and realise that it's all the same, this money thing - just manifesting itself in different cultures.

Nepotism, the act of looking after ones' own is the default setting in Samoa. It is variously explained to me as Fa'a Samoa, our culture, something to be proud about, just the way things are here.

Turning this into Western thinking though it's just bribery and corruption. I know that any country in the world has people who use their wealth to gain benefit for themselves. In Samoa it is a little less subtle than many of the Palagi cultures. It's rather in-your-face when you get down to doing business here actually.

As my mate said to me about it all . . . "It's simple really. In Samoa the Tala talks!"]]> Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:01:08 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-06-03/post/the-tala-talks/id/197/ Fundraising Samoa-style http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-31/post/fundraising-samoa-style/id/195/

Church fundraising

These guys make a real song and dance about their fundraising - literally. The girls danced to the brass band and the parishioners put their donations in the bowl. It's counted after each dancer. I'm sure they compare them all.

Catholic Service Outdoors

The church I got caught up in is in Saleimoa village half way between the airport and Apia. The Catholic church is right on the main road with their Mary statue lit up all the time. It's quite a sight actually so it was nice to see the inside of the church. Hmmm. Actually the service is held outside so inside this church is actually inside/outside.

It was quite special sitting there in the balmy outdoors watching the whole thing. Even the passing rain didn't cause any of us a problem.

Their parade also began on the main road - yup the main road - and ended up with a rosary outside in the rain. Not being a Catholic and not speaking Samoan, this was a 45 minute challenge!

Church Parade

The procession was the band followed by an old car covered in Tapa cloth and the entire congregation.

One of the parishioners collared me (Samoan women have no worries about being forward) and her sister, cousin, friends and Pastor all got hold of the Palagi for photos or something.

Dennis with Pastor Lui from Saleimoa

Lui the pastor made it clear that the "rich" Palagi was going to help them all with their fares. It is the only day I didn't have any money - just a dozen coins. He got them all.]]> Sun, 30 May 2010 21:40:45 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-31/post/fundraising-samoa-style/id/195/ They're born to steal http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-30/post/theyre-born-to-steal/id/193/

My mate has a six foot high security fence barbed wire topped around his entire, quite large property and he still got done. They cut a hole in the fence and stole the Taro. His take on it was quite crude - along the lines of "It doesn't matter how many apologies and reconciliation gifts they make, they're still all theives and deserve to go to jail".

As I said, I thought this was a little rough at the time but there comes a time when you gotta speak about something and you can't put your head under the sand any longer. Now is that time for me.

We got hit twice in one day yesterday. First, the kids who came selling produce to the door helped themselves to one of our Ambassador's jandals at the door. "~~Those little shits~~ Darn!" she said after working out what they had done, "I liked those jandals". What do you do when children are hawking Samoan Koko to you at your doorstep and they slip on your shoes and walk away with them? Take their products next time and not pay for them? Get hold of their parents and watch them get a hiding? And what if their parents are in on it too?

Sometimes it's not easy to live in Paradise.

Our landlord in Satapuala is called a "big man" over here, meaning a man of stature. "Nobody bothers him and his family because he is well liked and respected", we are told. The first week that we knew him he was gone from the property for a while. "Somebody took a load of his best Taro from the plantation and he is up there trying to track him down" we were told.

When I was living in Fusi Safata, the people would not leave their house without a guard - day or night. At the time I thought it was a bit over the top. And they got burgled the one day that they didn't. They had a guard sleep up in the plantation when I bought them some roofing iron. When they abandoned the Eco Tour Samoa project the floors to the Faleo'os went missing. Now they're stealing parts of your house???

The whole country seems to have dogs. I now know why.

Burglar entry point

Last night I would have prefered a shotgun to a dog be honest - we got done again - the fourth time by the same guy - a lowlife who goes by the name of Louis [The picture shows his entry point over the barbed wire fence]. He's all innocent despite the evidence of course. They caught the guy at 3.00am after he got into one of our containers. A couple of our team saw the guy and tracked him to the corner section. A passing good samaritan also tracked him and the taxi drivers also dobbed him in as he high-tailed it down "past the river" according to the cops.

He'll get a night in the prison and a tresspass order. Sometime later he will end up before a judge and who knows what? Some time in jail methinks. They can't fine him anything because he doesn't have anything. Funny thing is that he had a bit of blood coming from his mouth after a ride in the police van. Don't ask any questions about that please.

UPDATE: Louis appears to have had an "encounter with a 'good' Samaritan Samoan style" before he got rounded up. Methinks now that the cops may have saved the guy and were spared any need to "solicit the truth" from the crim!
At night there are private security guards all throughout the Apia district. Yes, the guards sit out the front of businesses on chairs or on the footpath. Aggie Grey's Resort has a team of security day and night around the whole resort.

Palagi are rich pickings and prime targets. It matters not if they work for you either. Our infamous Louis even used to work for us and lost the job because of stealing from a friend of ours! It's almost like they don't think and are just born to steal. OMG, I'm sounding like my overly pessimistic mate!

I've quizzed myself about this thieving thing for ages, not wanting to ping an entire country for the dastardly work of just a few. Sterotyping Samoans in Otara is the same as sterotyping Samoans in Samoa - not helpful - but there is no question in my mind that the stealing and theft in these little islands is alive and well.

Mankind is the same the world over with greed and crime, but the security business abounds in Samoa. One really has to question the "Samoa is founded on God" mantra when challenged to protect your possessions so much.]]> Sat, 29 May 2010 20:27:48 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-30/post/theyre-born-to-steal/id/193/ Pressure to pick winners http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-07/post/pressure-to-pick-winners/id/187/

Samoan Bus Stop

Warren Buffett speaks the same advice - select your business partners well - so I'm in good company with this advice.

In this last week I have been building relationships with two sorts of people - those who we will do business with (the GOOD GUYS) and those we won't (the other sort). They are poles apart.

One sad case involved a guy that works for us. He wanted to setup a Village Stay for himself. His big dream in life is to have his own house and provide for his young family. He has nothing. But in Samoa everyone has a village or family land. This is their national saving grace - anybody by law can have a plantation or a house of their own somewhere - a national right.

But the catch is that the head Matai has the final say on who does what, where and he can veto a project, evict a business, and generally play God. Unfortuantely two of this guy's "upline" did exactly that . . .

In the first situation in Fasitoo-tai it was made clear beforehand that the Matai was almost certainly going to make it hard for the young man. We were told in no uncertain terms that this Matai would wait until the business grew and then he would make it impossible for our man somehow.

I didn't argue. I knew exactly what that meant - instructing others to burn the house down, playing politics to make life difficult for our man, or more than likely asking, no demanding, money, and then more money and forcing him to close the business down. It happens all the time here. It's just GREED.

So this village is not a "winner" for us. Sadly, we passed it by.

But we thought, all is not lost. Upon his mother's advice we tried another village and another high chief who was delighted at the thought that his family would possibly come back to live on his land. Two acres we were told, no problem. Our young man was thrilled to meet his grandfather for the first time in years and to be able to settle on true family land and make himself a home and a living.

Then the bombshell. "He wants $500.00 per month for the lease", I am told through a translator. Our young man visibly sinks into his chair and cries "No! I don't even have $5.00 for cigarettes, let alone $500.00 every month to give to my own grandfather".

In Samoan culture leasing land to your grandchildren is not good. GREED, again, because a Palagi is involved no doubt. I tell the old man that I think that he has to make a choice between having his family back or having some money. He doesn't give to the young man and plays for time. He now has neither and the people of his family say that they now see that he is the same as many here - just a greedy Matai. I doubt that his grandson will visit him again.

So yet another village is not a "winner" for us.

Towards the end of the day, and I'm feeling for my young friend. It would have seemed to him that his whole family are greedy and out to strip him of anything he has (although he has nothing) and then to strip him of anything he might get in the future too!

Strike three and we're lucky. On a whim, I turn left not right, and call into a family we popped in to see weeks previously. The high chief is totally delighted to help. Honoured to be asked in fact. Of course he would love to do business with him. No there are no strings attached. Yes you can lease the land and yes I am the high chief and yes you can have anything you want for your business here. Would you like us to start work on it for tomorrow? What would you like us to do to help your business? Is $XXX OK for a lease figure (only 1/3 of market value)?

There are some times in life that you meet the most helpful, most lovely people in the whole world. When you are down, these people shine like a light from heaven. They are the winners in life. They make things happen around them and they become friends of the needy indeed.

This high chief and his family will secure us our business. Our young man doesn't have a home and his own business on family land, but he now has a friend out there to help him. He has secured himself his first business deal. He has secured himself his first real job. And our newfound business partner will be able to develop his own businesses off our one that will help feed his family and will hopefully in time make him a rich man.

Our business must succeed because it has to. There are no backstops. There is no plan B. But we have three people now very motivated to make it happen. We are all givers - winners - and good things will surely happen as a result, but the pressure is really on us to make it work!

For the others - I'm sorry guys - we didn't pick you today to be our business partners. We need to pick winners to survive. Putting it politely, we just didn't like your style.]]> Thu, 06 May 2010 13:08:07 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-07/post/pressure-to-pick-winners/id/187/ Some of the best http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-01/post/some-of-the-best/id/179/

Almost every village in Samoa has it's public bathing pool. Rivers and streams flow down from the hills to a pool by the sea. Some of the water is pristine, crystal clear. Some of the pools are brackish water at high tide. Here is a shot of a lovely pool in Savaii
Clear water bathing pool

Some of us have a hard life. Debbie at Aggie Grey's Resort, aclimatising!

I stumbled upon this little fellow as I wandered through a rural village. I understand from those around that he is 7 years old nand has been like this since birth. They say that his mother has abandonned him and when I was there two naked children one probably about four years old and the other maybe two, snotty noses with flies were standing guard. At other times they were not to be found. "One day - one day, I promised this little man, somebody will come and look after you!" He would not have known what I was saying but the smile in this shot says it all. With the Tsunami and poverty of the third world kind only hours away from incomparable wealth, one wonders where there is justice. I've found Samoa a VERY challenging environment in many respects. This picture is simply pixels on a screen somewhere in cyber-space. When I walked into this village, where very probably not one Palgai would have visited ever (certainly as a tourist), and saw this sight in living breathing my eyes became liquid, by heart broke and I questioned my own very reason for existence. Samoa can do that to you!
Deformed Boy

The water is warm here - close to blood temperature. Why wouldn't you enjoy it like this? Rebecca at Manase on Savaii.
Rebecca floating in water

The Piula Cave Pools are a must - cool, drinkable water with two caves going back so far that you can't see the sky. Lovely. Unique

The Samoan Police are a force to be reckonned with. Stop please! Drivers license please! Make sure you are wearing your seatbelt please! Police have checkpoints around the island. Right beside the airport is the busiest for business. They are manned from morning to noon and sometimes in the afternoon. Lunchtime they are off duty. Afternoons they appear sometimes. All very official you know! I love it. If you are a Palagi tourist in a rental car, you can simply wave back to the policeman stopping you. I know. I've done it many times and have yet to be chased. With the SWAP-mobile on its way though, I won't be able to do that much longer!
Policeman stopping traffic

Every morning these guys walk the walk from Government buildings to the Police station. A wonderful relic of days gone by. Again, I love it!
Samoan Police Band

Visitors to Samoa staying more than three or four days should make sure they get one day on Savaii for the blowholes and the turtles. Here I am feeding about half a dozen of them. The mid-sized orange one in the top left is a "go-er". It took five good nips at me over a period of half an hour. Drew blood and gave me some good bruises from its bite. They nip like a duck or swan but slower and a little harder of course. Pushing them away was fun. They can't argue when you turn them around by their shell and push them off! A very unforgetable experience.
Turtle Feeding

This is the last village on the end of the road over the Falagoa Bay Road - Uafato. Sorry Fusi-Safata, this is now my most favouritist place in the whole world - certainly at the moment. These guys are the bowl and weapon carvers of Samoa, going back generations. Their village is rarely frequented by Palagi and is the most conservative village I have found in Samoa. Two churches - a Mormon and a Congregational. Two hundred people. Thirty families. Sixteen extended families. No swimming in the river or sea on a Sunday and all they want is to sell their bowls. Delightful. I'll personally 'kill' anyone who even thinks to build a resort there!
Uafato Bay

Rugby or volleyball. Take your pick! Villages stop for sport and socialising from 3.00pm onwards. Yes, even now in 2010 there is a culture and a society that doesn't live on the Internet! Notice the various housing in the background. Centre of the picture is middle-class (new iron roof and timber trusses). Up the hill to the right is older, lower class housing (still iron roofing but old and rusty). Upper class at the top. Most likely the Pastor but could be a businessman or someone high in government. Taken on the South cost of Savaii.
Volleyball at Savaii

]]> Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:08:52 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-01/post/some-of-the-best/id/179/ To Church or not http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-01/post/to-church-or-not/id/183/

As some of you will know from reading previous blogs about Churchianity and my personal journey, I'm a non church-going conservative radical Christian - a reluctant Christian of sorts, having spent the best part of my adult life frequenting Christian churches of various flavours.

While predominanlty Protestant and most recently of the happy-clappy variety, some of my sojourns have been into that most 'evil' of beasts, the Catholic church . . . but only when nobody was looking, and through the back door if there was one, I hasten to add!

In Samoa attending church is a serious topic. Even my heathen friends WANT to go to church while they are here. One of our Web Ambassadors just itched to go to the Mormon church down the road. Only the best of the best are allowed into the actual temple here, but I'm sure the other LDS churches will let them in.

Even a lapsed Catholic spent three hours in a Samoan LDS church here in one of the villages listening to Samoan and singing in Samoan, I believe too! The poor guy had to dress up in a lavalava too - something he swore black and blue he would never do in public by the way.

What a crazy world it is when a lapsed Catholic wants to spend three hours in a Mormon church singing a language he doesn't understand!

So what is this thing about going to church then? It seems like 98% of Samoa does it religiously.

My guests don't have a lot of respect for the religion of Christianity over here when the same people who come out of church mock them as Palagi an hour later or wolf-whistle at them in the street (OK sure, they may have a miniskirt and display 400% more breast than the locals do, but a wolf-whistle is still a wolf-whistle).

A friend reported to me prior to my departure how the pastor in one church bawled out the boys who were downloading pawn in the church service. Not good!

And the physical violence where Pastors and their wives whack others around their head and shoulders willy-nilly! Having been the recipient of physical violence a little too often than I wanted in the past, this one really grates for me, and it happens all the time here. You see even the three year old girls whacking their little brothers. Sitting in the bus today I saw a girlfriend whacking her boyfriend. They say it's good natured and just part of the culture and all cool. Maybe, but I'm yet to be convinced. I don't think the Good Lord would have put up with it from the women around Him somehow.

My take on it is that a lot of Samoa is heathen inside a churchianity society. There are times I actually wonder if there are genuine Christians in the country, but of course I know there must be - I know some of them - but in New Zealand!

So back to this attending church thing . . . [and enough whinging about Samoa]

I chose to attend church - for 30 years. I believed that it was important, and I enjoyed many parts of it. I liked belonging, and commitment and all the things that the church preaches is good about attending the church. I even enjoyed the tithing. When you give more than 10% to "God" what's the big deal about giving 'only' 10% to the church you attend anyway?

Tithing in Samoa is expected. It's the default setting here. We took a photo of the giving sheet hanging on the pillar outside the Moamoa Catholic Church. Public display of giving. Extraordinary elsewhere. Ordinary here!

Tithing is certainly not biblical. Even a cursory glance at the subject raises more questions than answers.

So back to this attending church thing . . . [and enough whinging about Samoa]

I don't earn anything over here anyway and am going backwards at a fast rate of knots! Tithing to keep the pastor (or Bishop) happy isn't the reason I don't attend church here.

I really just don't like sitting in a fancy building for three hours listening to prayers and songs and preaching that I can't understand!

But there's a deeper thing about this church attendance thing, and I talk now more to Christians - at what point does one out-grow a pastor? And if our pastor has it wrong, or is shallow, or doesn't get it, or has an agenda - then what? Can we not back ourselves to hear from God directly, or does the message have to be filtered? And how many times did the pastor say "Just what we were thinking" anyway? To my mind having been out a few years and my faith growing exponetially, there's a lot of misinformation about the role of a Pastor in the mainstream church, but today is not dumping on Pastors day, fortunately.

For any pastor to see the outworking of Pastoral respect to its natural conclusion, please visit Samoa. You will see the flashest cars and houses all owned by the Pastors. They are honoured and respected and some would say worshiped. It will be very humbling and unsettling to the genuine Pastor asking real questions about their pastoral role.

So back to this attending church thing . . . [and enough whinging about Samoa]

The answer for me is "Nope!"]]> Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:37:07 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-05-01/post/to-church-or-not/id/183/ The Five Tala Picture http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-21/post/the-five-tala-picture/id/175/

Tyre blowout

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?]]> Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:36:32 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-21/post/the-five-tala-picture/id/175/ Earthquake Fear Understood http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-21/post/earthquake-fear-understood/id/173/ earthquake this morning put the locals' fear of a Tsunami into full frame for me. During the quake we were all wondering . . . "Is this another big one? Will there be another Tsunami?" and calls came from home to check our wellbeing.

The quake lasted only a few seconds 5-10 seconds or so and was only really a rumble that started like a heavy truck going past and then developed into a decent shake that caused things to rattle on the shelves a bit.

It was the first earthquake that I've been in that I've actually felt.

It wasn't frightening as such - we're inland a fair ways and a pretty solidly built house, but it certainly did stop me to think "Is this the big one? How long will it last? Will there be another big wave?"

I now have a deeper understanding of why the local people relocate inland and basically run for it. To date I've simply observed their fear and thought their responses to be over-reactions. They still are to some extent but I definitely have a deeper appreciation of their plight.

There is another aspect to this morning's quake that was really reinforced, and that is the perception of the world. A mother of one of our SWAP Ambassadors was on the phone desperate to make sure that we were all OK. It was made worse because they were in the shower and didn't answer their cell phone.

I understand this situation. I too have children and want to make sure that they are OK at all times, but there is something very different about the headline "Earthquake in Samoa" from earthquake in Sydney, or Hobart, or Cairns.

Make no mistake about it, Samoa will never be the same post-Tsunami and my desire to make good over here is renewed.

We're all perfectly OK.

Samoa too is perfectly OK.

Samoa tourism however is not.

We all have a little deeper appreciation of what it is like for others around us and are just as keen as ever to help as many people experience life in Paradise as we can - via the web or in person. I would say that it's just wise to stay at a resort back from the beach a little, that's all.

And if you're interested, follow us and support us with the SWAP Foundation.

Thanks]]> Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:30:55 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-21/post/earthquake-fear-understood/id/173/ Tsunami impact http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-18/post/tsunami-impact/id/171/ I've left off the rubble and destruction ones that we've all seen so many of.

George Meredith's Fale Samoa

At the base of the Sagitoa Wharf is a perfectly round Fale which they call here a Fale Samoa. It is owned by George Meredith, the local MP for the Aleipata region. This little 'puppy' was the recipient of rock through the roof! The Tsunami had the power sufficient to drop a rock through the roof from several metres up.

Note that the height of the Toyota Prado is less than half the height of the hole in the roof. A Prado is a big car - a Landcruiser - and the hole in the roof is about 4 metres up from the ground which would be 5 metres above sea level and 6 metres above low tide. Houses on either side of this Fale Samoa were totalled (nothing left but the concrete pads) and the wave ran inland here about 500 metres.

George's relatives are now relocated 500m inland and just past where the waves ran to. When we think of a Tsunami we tend to think of a wall of clean water. In fact debris is also a major force, especially as the wave drains away and comes back in again. One would have thought that rocks would be at the bottom of a wave but apparently Tsunamis have a swirling action. There would have been little chance for any elderly, the infirm or children not able to get inland in time.

Amazing also that the rest of the structure remained undamaged.

The Sagitoa Wharf

The above-mentioned MP campaigned in 2006 on completing the Sagitoa Wharf. Originally started 30 years ago and never completed, George undertook to have the works completed and this was actually done just a week before the Tsunami struck! Twisted metal reinforcing is all that remains of the wharf structure, and a 70 ton digger was swept into the deep of the lagoon. Major work is underway to reinstate the wharf.

One of the two stabilising legs of a large barge was buckled in an instant - 20mm reinforced steel bent like a plastic toy. In this photo, two engineering gurus George Meredith (MP) and Scott Simôn (also one of our visiting Web Ambassadors) scratch their heads and try to calculate the enormous forces that ~~could have done~~ did do this.

As Scott says, "An engineer could never have designed anything to cope with these forces! Simply amazing! Awe inspiring! I'm stunned speechless!" And he was, for hours as he pondered the power of angry water.

The photo shows the end of one half on the right, and the bent section on the left. The bent leg has since been gas-axed in half. The bend was approximately 30 degrees. The strength of the internal reinforcing can be seen on the left section.

Tsunami relief hut

In Fusi Safata, this family relocated to this makeshift hut after the big wave.

While the island Fusitai (actually a thin peninsula that looks like an island) clearly saved them from the Tsunami, these people simply don't want to take any chances. Superstitious; overly careful; afraid; who knows but the consequences of death and destruction around them sent their whole family fleeing to their plantation.

In the Chilean earthquake scare months later Debbie and I were coincidentally witnesses to a second effort from this same family to relocate to this plantation area. For them, it is now a spiritual place; a place of haven.

Their perfectly good Fale a kilometre or so down the road may be given to another family member sometime. More than likely though they will have moved back to await the next Tsunami alert, and then they will flee again to their haven for a while.

These people now live under the cloud of fear - entirely thanks to the Tsunami.

Evacuation

On 7th December 2009, another Tsunami warning took place and Apia was evacuated - entirely. Imagine doing that in Auckland!

Evacuation of Apia

Chaos reigned and two lane bi-directional roads became three or four lanes in one direction. Apia came to a gridlock as thousands upon thousands of people came down from buildings, clogged the streets and went to higher ground. It was like trying to get a camel into the eye of a needle.

Personally I thought the requirement to come down from office buildings and clog the streets was insanity. The way I saw it was that simply put the whole population in the path of any wave - almost like a deliberate decision to expose a large percentage of the population to mortal danger.

If a Tsunami had hit at the time that this photo was taken I estimate that perhaps four or five thousand people would have got very wet, and if it was anything like the one that hit the South Coast, I would expect there to have been many hundreds of people drowned.

Samoa needs to teach and authorise its people in the event of a Tsunami warning to find higher ground where ever this may be INCLUDING higher buildings. Evacuation of an entire city, even a relatively small South Pacific island city, especially bringing hundreds of people already on higher floors, could be a disaster waiting to happen. I doubt that anything will change however and recriminations will likely fly and again nothing will likely be done if adversity does strike again. Let's pray that it doesn't happen.

Coconuts Beach Resort

Coconuts was levelled.

In the background you can see the building twisted and contorted. A nice resort well-known by Aussie and NZ travellers, rebuilding is underway.

As with anything on the Samoan coast now, I believe that it will never be the same again. I understand why Coconuts are rebuilding and I am all behind the rebuilding but it's for good reason that I predict low turnover in the future - nobody in their right mind would take their family to sit on a sandy beach in Paradise in case another Tsunami came again. If I lost my daughter in another wave I would be beside myself with guilt and would find it very hard to explain the decision to distraught relatives. People just consider a Samoan beach fale too risky now.

Most Kiwis will more than likely travel to the Gold Coast or to another place - maybe in the hills or plantations of Samoa, but definitely not the coast of Samoa. Maybe in another 5 or 10 years I might consider it. Until then, I would choose a place that the Tsunami didn't strike in 2009 for my holiday. It may be statistically the same chance of adversity but it will feel a thousand times safer.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for developing tourism post-Tsunami and have done a lot more than many to help*, but we must be realistic about future tourism prospects. Eco-Tourism; Volun-tourism; Cultural-tourism and adventure tourism are the future of Samoa now, not sitting back in a resort drinking and waiting for another wave to pounce.

This is a long-term impact, the Tsunami thing. As I've said before, easily the biggest South Pacific event since Pearl Harbour.

* Selling up the family home after 40 something years in the family, relocating home and business to Samoa, and establishing a Charitable Trust to develop inbound tourism without outside assistance is a major effort and commitment on my part. My medal should be on its way from somewhere sometime soon? The point is not that I'm an angel, it is more that I can say these things from a position from within trying to do positive things, rather than just being a nay-sayer from outside! ]]> Sat, 17 Apr 2010 23:43:16 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-18/post/tsunami-impact/id/171/ Sunday Statistics http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-18/post/sunday-statistics/id/169/

I've been spending time with an extended family just around the corner and up the road a bit. As the crow flies they are our neighbour's neighbour. He's a guy called Mate (Marty to you and to me) and the team have been blogging a bit about him and his extended family and others like him without very much to speak of - nothing actually.

The minimum/starting wage in Samoa is $2.50 per hour. This is WST, so in NZD this is $1.47. Corporate types here may earn double, triple or four times this but it is common for the local unskilled, or semi-skilled workers to receive only a few Tala an hour.

Income of $400.00 per hour is standard for a lawyer in New Zealand. I'm being generous now because some of them charge way more than this. Converting this to WST Tala makes $680.00 WST an hour. For the curious, this equates to about $11.00 WST per minute or 20 cene (cents) WST per second. You literally couldn't count the coins fast enough if you were paying him in 20 cene coins!

Comparative Pay rates - NZ/Samoa

The chart explains it all. My lawyer in New Zealand earns two hundred and seventy two times (272x) more than a Samoan worker - and lawyers seem to find a way to sleep at night?

In New Zealand the legal fraternity have always known how to charge, so I've used another benchmark familiar to my own life - web development. We charge in the order or $90.00 NZD per hour. Whew, that's only sixty one (61x) times more per hour than a Samoan worker! Still obscene but nudging a little closer to parity!

Administrators and office workers on say $20.00 NZD per hour are earning almost fourteen times more and a junior on $15.00 NZD per hour are more than ten times (10x) the Samoan rate.

But it gets worse. The fact is that our acquaintance over here actually has no job and no income. Sure, he can catch a bus to his plantation and grab a coconut, mango, taro and so on but he still wants nappies for his child and busfare and money for medicine and so on.

It is my opinion that globalisation will ensure that poverty and income disparity will increase, so I think that we had all better get used to this sort of thing happening more. The rich WILL get richer and the poor WILL get poorer. I predict that these above numbers will likely increase in the decades ahead.

The September 2009 Tsunami had a large impact on Samoa. Here are a few figures to put the impact into context.

One hundred and forty three people died. That's .08% of the population. If the same size event took place in New Zealand 3416.11 people would have died, and in Australia it would have been 16,980 people. It would be like "Good bye Hokitika!" or "Good bye Turangi!" Aussies would have lost Broken Hill or Alice Springs.

If you take the human impact and factor in a few variables (actually more like constants) we can make comparative statistical projections on the social impact of this event. Samoans are a VERY strongly family orientated society. Compared to Kiwis and Aussies I would estimate that their family loyalty would be in the order of five to six times stronger. I'm being conservative. If you don't believe me, ask any employer of any Samoan inside or out of Samoa, and they will confirm that when mum, dad, aunty, uncle, sister, brother, nephew. cousin or whatever gets married, dies, has a birthday or falls ill then they're off!

This can sometimes be a source of frustration, and the butt of a few jokes, but Fa'a Samoa is VERY strong and is what "makes" the Samoan society tick.

So taking a conservative factor of say five times the impact in our maths equation, an equivalent event in New Zealand will have directly affected 17,000 people in New Zealand and 86,000 people in Australia. This is of course total nonsense, because the correct figure woudl be WAY higher given the relative size of Samoa. I've yet to meet anybody here who is not feeling the consequences - grief, financial, jobs or even recriminations and soul searching.

That variable now puts the figures up to 100%. Statistics just can't catch up.

I've been trying to think of something that I could compare the influence of the Tsunami here with. It would have to be something approaching either of the two World Wars. A nationwide tragedy that had deep impact across all generations and for a long time. Sorry to get so serious for a minute there, but it keeps coming up this Tsunami thing.

Back to lighter matters.

There are things here that make some interesting numbers too. I've been told that the Prime Minister has allocated some $500,000.00 WST to a library in his home village of Lepa, on the South Coast. Some have told me that he's using money allocated to the Post Tsunami road repairs but that's another issue for the moment. At a population of 180,000, that's almost three Tala taxed on every man woman and children for his library.

I understand that there are nigh on 450 employees to Samoa's NMRE (Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy) which is Samoa's equivalent to the Department of Conservation in New Zealand. That percentage of population is .25%. If we put that into context in New Zealand with a population of just over 4m or Australia at 20m, DOC in New Zealand would have 10,862x employees and Australian Department of Environment and Conservation would have 53.435 happy workers!

Samoan Dog

We've done some estimates based on populated land area and projections for dog ownership in New Zealand compared to Samoa. My statistician spent four hours pouring over the latest Samoan census data (1965) and developed a complex spreadsheet with circular formulas that scare the living daylights out of me. His figures work out at 146,523.75 dogs in Samoa. Don't forget the three-quarters there! I think he's emotionally involved in the dog issue and might be damaged goods because of a run-in with a dog in his childhood, and has the wrong figure by a country mile. But he cost me $12.50 cents in WST so I thanked him profusely for all his work and told him to go back to his village to learn Excel again.

My take on things here is that there is an average of slightly over 1.75 dogs per family in Samoa. Some seem to have a dozen and every now and then, say every fourth or fifth house you can find a family whose lawns entertain visiting dogs but they have none of their own. Average the family size to say 7 people and with a population of 180,000 there are approximately 1,964,000 dogs, or 320.25 dogs per acre. That's a fair amount of bark eh?

So if this was New Zealand on the same dog:human ratios we'd be looking at a gazilion dogs. The official dog statistics department more or less agrees with my estimate of around half a million dogs - I think they're pretty close to my questimate with their last dog census.

The bottom line? There are more dogs in Samoa than you can ~~swing a cat at~~, count!

Word count is 1309 words in English (Sorry, that's 309 over my target post length) and around about . . . umm . . . 2500 in Samoan.]]> Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:26:11 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-18/post/sunday-statistics/id/169/ Racism Challenges in Paradise http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-15/post/racism-challenges-in-paradise/id/167/

I'm a fish out of water here in Samoa and the cultural niceties put me fairly and squarely on the back foot.

I have turned down an offer of Mataiship from one village and so I have no village, nor sponsor. I have no plantation nor food source other than what I can afford from my own assets. I am at the mercy of any government official who wishes to put me through any hoops they so choose to do. And they are very adept at that.

By the nature of my immigration here, I am essentially a self-imposed victim of racism. From a Palagi perspective this is "reverse racism" but racism is the same the world over. Again, please readers, it is not my wish to knock Samoa, I just want to share the facts as I see them (from where I sit).

In New Zealand I lived in a white middle-to-upper-class neighbourhood and worked with primarily white, middle-class business people. We would categorise and generalise Samoans along with many other nationalities. It would have been hard for a Samoan to get a job as a web developer with me or my company because of what is effectively racism - "Sorry mate, you don't fit in here . . . we work on computers; we work 40+ hours a week and speak English" sort of thinking.

It's not just Samoans that we would avoid in this employment situation - Asians or any English Second Language applicant would fit in the same boat - again; "Sorry mate, you're not one of us!" This is sometimes just pragmatism, or reality; but it is sometimes bordering on racism when it becomes entrenched and doesn't give an honest chance to an "alternative" applicant.

A champion of indigenous rights recently took umbridge at an advertisement we placed on TradeMe for a Blogger/Journalist. Slipping me an abusive email, he whined that the advert was (in his words) ethnocentric, in plain language calling me racist. The advert drew many positive comments for its humour but it contained a phrase that wound this guy up big-time because it assumed that the applicant would be Palagi. We were refering to the way Samoan children would giggle and point and say "Palagi!" to us and most likely to the successful applicant.

I engaged with this person a little and assumed that his aggression was because he was a Samoan blogger who felt miffed that he was unlikely to get the job because he was of the wrong race. In fact I found out that he was actually a Palagi who appeared to be "standing up for racism against the Pacific Island people". I rolled my eyes around and looked skywards then graciously explained the background and invited him to visit and did all the right things. I'm unlikely to ever see the guy again but I've tried to do the right thing in the face of a bit of aggression over issues of race.

As an aside it is hilarious to me that the successful applicant was a young passionate Maori activist woman who is a self-proclaimed champion of racial and gender equality! No racism from these quarters, mate!

Claims of racism are easy to make and it actually doesn't take much to become a KKK equivalent in our own culture if one takes our indignation and anger over racial pains to the next stage. Speak to the many in Germany who bought into the Nazi "business" with the Jews, and other less desirable forms of humanity.

There is no question that racism exists as a global phenomenon. Since the dispersion of the Tower of Babel, people have lived in same-language groups and are of like-mind. Suspicion of outsiders is the norm, thus racism has existed for eons and will continue to do so. Cross-cultural engagement like my move to Samoa and the racial challenges that occurs as a result are healthy. I think that racial intermarriage is a good thing too. It all stirs the pot, so to speak, and brings us growth and maturity. Getting people to think is a definitely good thing, although sometimes there is pain in the process.

I've been eating a lot of humble pie whenever I've met with officials in Samoa. This is their country and boy do they let me know it! It helps me in some ways that I am a genuine guy, and in due course most people get to see that. It helps me that I always dress in a lavalava and beads when I go out, thus showing that I can be sensitive to their culture, but you just get the sense that under the surface, there is a strong racism that is just waiting to pop its ugly head through to the surface. I'll say that again a different way; there is a very deep resentment toward the Palagi here, and one is very aware that while things are very sweet on the surface, there is a tenseness about the racial/Palagi issue.

I have had many encounters here that have been surreal - where you know that the individual is lying to you, clearly can't stand your very presence, and would just love to knife you in the back if they could, and yet smiles sweetly and is overly polite. Our Web Ambassadors engage with the people outside of the famous tourist spots and it only takes a week or two for them to raise the racism/defensiveness issue. Whether it be a condescending word, wolf-whistle and sexual advances, or the sudden change from talk ABOUT us (in which they sense contempt or derision) to talking TO us, where the lovely Samoan smile I've talked about before switches on like a light . . .

Yup, this defensiveness is very strong. Samoans have been raped and pillaged by the Palagi for a century or more that I can see, so there is on the surface very good reason for them to be defensive and protective. While it is not a Christian thing to do to hold a grudge and dump on me their pain from the past, I definitely do understand the reason for it.

So is Samoa, as a country, racist? I call in the fifth ammendment here, but I do state that all countries, from the most racist person that I knew in New Zealand, to my Maori activist associate, to my Palagi-only employer friends must fess-up to racism issues.

Racism is a challenge to all, especially when there is any major cross-cultural engagement. As a Palagi starting out in a foreign land, I'm certainly fairly and squarely in the middle of these issues.

It doesn't mean that I'm always hated or can't get a fair deal or am not wanted here - that is simply not the case but I'm definitely facing racism challenges in Paradise!]]> Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:36:36 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-15/post/racism-challenges-in-paradise/id/167/ Firsts in Samoa http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-14/post/firsts-in-samoa/id/165/

Dennis in full Samoan regalia at Fagaloa Bay

Dennis in full Samoan regalia at Fagaloa Bay

[Pic: At Fagaloa Bay in now normal Dennis business atire - full Samoan regalia that they love over here - the Ula thingy around my neck that the chiefs all wear and the Lavalava that ~~makes the ladies swoon~~ the ladies all comment how nicely I am dressed. It means the world to them to have a Palagi dress like this. Beats me, but I've got no problem dressing this way if it's what goes down well here. In the background is a lovely Bay with four villages to the right. At the end of this Bay is the start of the 5km 4WD goat-track to Uafato, home of the Ninth Heaven bowl carving community. The rock behind me is home to a giant lizard the size of a cat, well maybe a good 12 inches anyway. He loves to bake in the sun up here in the mountain saddle. On the left are sheer rock cliff faces with greenery from top of the mountain to the sea hundreds of metres below. Spectacular! The road up to this saddle is narrow - about 5 metres across. Amusingly it has a dotted line through the centre! Enough for a motorcyle on each side if they passed each other.]

In the 1970s I ran a fishing trip and boat hire business in Coromandel. When establishing a fishing contest I thought it appropriate to offer the Tanagata Whenua a slice of the action. Basically I was thirty years ahead of my time. The treaty claims only really kicked into full gear decades later!

The local Maori tribes couldn't handle the simple little gesture. What felt like 2432 meetings and 6 weeks later; ideas of setting up special trusts "Because something like this has never happened before" (i.e. a white man offering to pay Maoris for something from the sea) and I told them all to "Stick it!". There was a limit to my generosity. I wasn't in the business of solving 100 years or more of racial or social injustice - I was just a guy running a small business who was happy to cut the local people into it - if they could agree on who was going to take the money.

This was a first. The people couldn't agree. I'm not a racist. My children are both half Maori, but it was too hot a political potato at the time and so nothing happened.

I see the exact same thing happening here in Samoa some thirty years later.

We've been working with a small village, meeting and greeting people from the chief Matai down. They have a unique offering and unique needs and we have a unique offering for them. Essentially they want to have more Palagi come to buy more of their wares, but they can't agree how to do things to be able to market the entire village. In order to help Palagi do business with them, and of course indirectly to help them, they need to understand the basic requirements that will satisfy the Palagi visitors and then agree amongst themselves.

Samoa's culture does not naturally work business with Palagi at a village level. It works primarily at a family level and family pitted against family over future business opportunities is quite normal. The family unit is designed to work (and fight) together and to look after and protect its own. The introducing family has the entire rights to the Palagi business and others in the village "butt out" culturally speaking. This is not what the Palagi want. They want to buy from the entire village and deal with the entire village - not just one family. Unless there is a miracle, and the village comes together as one, these people are very likely to scare investors away and no Palagi will visit.

Miracles can sometimes happen though and if it does, then it will very likely be a first.

Another first here in Samoa relates to a legal matter. As part of what we are doing here in Samoa has a charitable purpose, I have been establishing a Charitable Trust (The SWAP Foundation to be precise). Except for legislation surrounding land ownership, Samoa's legislation is largely based on New Zealand law. In many cases the law is identical to New Zealand. More importantly unless there is local precedent, Samoa leans on New Zealand case law when interpreting their law.

A Charitable Trust must have a stated purpose for its existence. These aims are detailed in the Trust Deed and in NZ are closely analysed by the IRD and others to ensure that they are charitable and comply with charitable purposes that have been identified and tested over many years. In fact the concept and unique terms relating to a charitable purpose have special legal meaning from many hundreds of years ago in our legal "mother" England.

My application to establish a Charitable Trust caused consternation amongst officials in several departments because the common purpose for a Charitable Trust here is entirely for Educational and Religious purposes. These trusts are common in Samoa and officials misinterpreted the law to mean that ONLY educational and religious purposes are permitted. The Samoan statutes however talk of educational, religious AND OTHER CHARITABLE purposes. Our work is neither educational nor religious, so I supplied our lawyer with the extensive information that I was aware of and had available who then took the matter to the Attorney General here. I pushed the boundaries and sought a pre-approval of a Charitable Trust with a different, but legally Charitable purpose.

I was pleased to hear recently that the AG has agreed to use the common interpretation of New Zealand's laws in Samoa. Again this appears to be a first.

The price of entrepreneurialism is the same that happens to anything moving forward - there is a wake. Don't think that I enjoy creating a wake. I don't because it is hard work and there is usually risk, loss or change involved. These can be painful. A wake is simply the price one has to pay when doing something new.

But I like generating firsts. They are fun, and people generally appreciate the effort that comes from one who is trail-blazing.

Every now and then I meet a person here who appreciates the effort I put in and they are my friends here. Good friends, able to ride along with the successes of generating a few FIRSTS IN SAMOA!]]> Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:29:42 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-14/post/firsts-in-samoa/id/165/ Ethical Dilemmas http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-10/post/ethical-dilemmas/id/163/

One of our Web Ambassadors was accosted by a drunken beggar one night last week. He was a target because he was a Palagi. What to do? Grabbing his two bags of shopping, this guy wrestled with our friend until I said it was OK to let him have the bags and then pay him a coin or two for helping him carry his shopping (at most 15 metres!) I knew the man from the week before when he had launched himself at me too begging for a couple of Tala.

A family across and up the road from us has nothing. The man had asked for work to get his baby to hospital. We were a target because we are Palagi. We don't have any work for a Samoan labourer. He asked for money anyway - and came back with gifts of food, the only currency he had. What to do? If we give him something then his whole family will come a-visiting daily. We did send him away with the $20.00 he had asked - but on the second or third time he begged and with a promise not to spend it on BINGO or booze. He returned the next day, and the next day and a few days later with news that the hospital has given him a prescription that costs $48.00. He clearly has nothing but where was his own family? and what would he have done if we weren't around? and we actually spent more on our Internet access for two days than it will take for his babies medicine, and why does the poorest of Samoa have to pay this much for a health essential?

We visited a village that wants to sell more of their products. They want more Palagi to visit but fought amongst themselves over the few Palagi who have arrived on the scene and could have easily frightened them away. What to do? The arrival of more Palagi will impact upon their village in ways they could never imagine. We know this and are challenged ourselves by the ethiccs of disturbing their lifestyle for the sake of "bettering their lives" and of our own pecuniary gain.

The simple act of declaring a desire to help turns a situation of love and goodness into one of hate and greed, as the rural Samoan villagers take turns to fleece as much as they can from the arrival of "rich Palagi visitors". Can you do this? Can you do that? Please give me this? Please give me that? Please help me with this? You have to pay more to the Matai now . . . and it goes on and on and on to breaking point and everybody looses. What to do?

"Please sir, from the bottom of my heart can I have a couple of Tala for my wife and sick daughter to get home?" a BS story from one smelling of booze if ever there was one. What to do? "Please sir, I am just out of jail. Can you help me with a couple of Tala?" from a man with plenty of family and friends around him. Begging too goes on and on . . .

The government changed the law last year unilaterally from driving on the right of the road (American style) to driving on the left (Australian/NZ style). Nobody really knew why at the time. Many possibly valid reasons emerged over time but none really rang true, especially considering the sudden and unusual way that it happened. It now transpires that Government ministers all get to keep their expensive government vehicles, and are conveniently issued with new Right-Hand Drive vehicles. As a Palagi blogger with a history of speaking truth but also an interest in keeping peace with the powers that be in my adopted country - What to do?

There is a lot of interest in Samoa at the moment, especially post-Tsunami. If I write openly and this sometimes means negatively about Samoa, it could impact upon Samoa's reputation as a tourist destination. A few months of high profile blogging and subsequent exposure could destroy the potential of a whole countries tourism for years. What to do? The opposite is also true in that a couple of months of high profile blogging could also INCREASE the interest and tourism numbers, but that in itself raises ethical issues around how much positive hype our blogs should contain and how much of the negatives of a country we should share.

Ethical issues are not solved with a simple mathematical formula, nor in a minute. There are disputes going back for decades over Samoa, ethics of commentators and professional opinions. An example of this is a Coming of age in American anthropology: Margaret Mead and paradise By Malopa'upo Isaia. In it he shares his serious issues with renowned American author and anthropolgist Margaret Mead. What he chose to do was counter negative press with his own dialogue. A lot of his claims makes sense as he undoes some core tenants of Mead's claims.

On the plane over to Samoa I befriended a lady who was fighting a supposedly false claim of land for her family. Greed and lies were her target - a man who had lied in court, but had "status" before the judges so they took his supposedly wrong side. Samoans themselves seem to fight continuously over land and land issues so there appears little chance a newbie Palagi could work much of it out.

Our work in paradise is a balancing act of people, cultures, business, values and ethics. Even within our own team we have differences on which we may never be united. Such dilemmas are challenging. Samoa is definintely different and is definitely a challenge.

This post is a frustrating one to write, and possibly to read also, in that it raises questions - unfortunately many that have no simple answer. ]]> Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:49:25 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-10/post/ethical-dilemmas/id/163/ Yes I Love Samoa http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-10/post/yes-i-love-samoa/id/161/ Do I love Samoa? Ouch! What a question. As a Palagi relocating to Samoa, I certainly love aspects of Samoa but when someone raised this subject recently, it was a challenge to answer.

Yes, I do love Samoa!

After a string of very serious posts, a Libran can't leave things unbalanced you know!

Sure there are aspects of this country that drive me nuts and that I've worked VERY hard to try to come to terms with.

Here though are a few things that I can rant and rave about.

Enjoy them!

The tropical heat - I LOVE not having a winter. I love not needing blankets and how I can just crash on a bed with a lavalava. I've learned to manage the heat - to wear less, walk in the shade, get up early and work while it is cooler, avoid the outdoors midday through the afternoon, carry a spare set of clothes, grab a cold shower throughout the day and drink plenty. The body adjusts and gets used to it (sort of!)
The kids - I LOVE the way they giggle and chuckle and point out "Palagi!" and when they get to know you a little and get really brave, the way they will hold your hand, touch your skin and enjoy someone different.
I love the way our Palagi guests slip back into a lounger chair at the beach at Aggie Grey's Resort, just 10 minutes after vacating the airport, and heave a big sigh; saying "I can't believe that I'm in this tropical South Pacific paradise!" all the while sipping on a cold Vailima, looking over to Savaii, and the breakers on the coral reef! I love it. It makes all my work, risk and bravery to relocate here worthwhile.
I love the way that after weeks of grumpiness and uncooperativeness and one might say simply Samoan rudeness, that when challenged, a Samoan clerk looks at me with a newfound understanding, and flashes a lovely big Samoan smile and becomes my friend. Even if just for a moment, at least until I turn my back and wander away.
I love the way that people here don't think about tomorrow. Sure it's the opposite of my way of thinking - to continually invest, and to look ahead to the future and plan and scheme and suchlike - but it has a simplicity and a freedom that is mesmerising and I love it!
I love the pomp and ostentatiousness - I mean where else in the world would you see a bus with an arial covered in tennis balls, and chains hanging down (just for show) from a buses font bumper? And blue lights, mirrors, and magwheels on a bicycle? And brand new cool plastic hub-caps on a beat-up 30 year old deisel Toyota pickup belching black smoke and running on three cylinders? And women who eat with their fingers and slurp like the animals around them walk to church in the rain in the most beautiful of Sunday white atire including pure white hats that would win awards at an Ellerslie Fashion Show? Who couldn't fall in love with that?
The food - fry or boil or put anything in coconut cream and it tastes delicious. Give yourself a month or two or three and you too will learn to savour the delicacies of breadfruit, taro and a range of fruit that seems to grow like weeds here.
The transport - like the taxi drivers who quickly change their price from $15.00 Tala to $5.00 Tala when they realise that they can't get away with their "Palagi price" on this local. Like the buses that have welded angle iron bolted onto wooden floors, and support a well-worn seat of, wait for it, plywood! And that have the most amazing artwork and pictures and signage and music systems and embellishments that only somebody who truly cared about their pride and joy of a contraption would bother to paint-up - loveable.
Creation - a God that conceived a tall skinny trunk that only an agile boy could even dream of climbing, to twist off a round container of jungle juice hanging in the middle of the sky! And that just needs a stick and a machete to tap into to feed a whole nation for centuries - wow! Subsistence living at its best and an ideal that many Palagi whose fruit and vegetables grow on supermarket shelves would die for - loveable!

Oh, I could go on an on . . .

The lovely little village at Uafato that does bowl carving. I could easily live there. The rivers and waterfalls and rock pools for bathing and cooling off. Ahhh! Loveable.

Yup - it's not a bad little place this Samoa is when you've been asked about it, and you're in a positive frame of mind!]]> Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:44:42 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-10/post/yes-i-love-samoa/id/161/ Marketing Samoa http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-10/post/marketing-samoa/id/159/

Here is the report that I wrote:

Considerations and suggestions for the recovery of Samoa's tourism industry

A personal report, summary and thoughts by Dennis A. Smith (www.dennis.co.nz)

17 October 2009

Issued to SPBD, CSL, STA, SHA, KVA, Trevor Stevensen, Aggie Grey's, Sinalei.

Personal
In October 2009, I visited Samoa for 10 days on what was supposed to be a holiday with my 15 year old daughter. It seems that I spent more time in meetings with tourism operators and others doing business than holidaying but we both loved your country and really enjoyed our time there.

I'll never forget my daughter Rebecca leaning back in the bar of Trevor's resort in Manase sipping a cold drink casually say to me, "You know Dad, I think that I could get used to this!" A Mastercard moment if ever there was one - priceless!

When the Tsunami struck, I was in a unique position in that I had already completed 50 hours personal research on Samoa's web presence, and had already spoken with Fasitau Ula from Auckland STA on the need for Samoa to lift it's web presence. The Tsunami simply raised the importance level of my "mission" by a large factor!

I am grateful to those of you who have shared your time and ideas with me while I was there. Some of you helped me understand the culture. Some of you helped me understand the tourism industry. Others gave me insights to the politics and economy. I tried hard to prepare appointments ahead of time and worked hard to get around as many of you as I could. In fact I only managed to meet the Minister of Tourism on an "extra day" I had in Samoa because I mucked up my time/dates (My usual destination Fiji doesn't cross the time zone from New Zealand like Samoa does!)

Please feel free to share this report to others in the industry if you feel it appropriate. Understandably it is only weeks that I have been involved with Samoa and was only in town for 10 days so I'm very happy to be corrected or enlightened on any issue contained.
Background as I see it
Samoa is a small South Pacific nation of 180,000 people that in the last decade has been relatively quickly emerging from third world status.

It has a warm tropical climate, extraordinarily friendly, outwardly happy and relaxed people with a very laid-back approach to life.

Its local economy appears to receive substantial support from remittances (from Samoan ex-pats in NZ, Australia and the US) and international aid.

Prior to the 2009 Tsunami it had developed a relatively small tourism industry by international standards but a vital and important industry to the economy of the country. In the wake of the Tsunami tourism has n There is however a massive groundswell of goodwill towards Samoa following the Tsunami, particularly from New Zealand but also globally. This is a unique opportunity for Samoa in that the 2004 Tsunami was so big and distributed across so many countries that goodwill was quite dissipated.
Perceptions vs Reality
Globally in both mainstream and online media, coverage of the Tsunami (and the consequences for Samoa in terms of loss of life, infrastructure & property damage with the subsequent loss of tourism) has been strongly negative.ow been decimated with massive cancellations and little new visitors other than disaster recovery personnel.

Headlines such as "Paradise Lost" with associated photos of devastation in the South East of Upolu are imprinted in the minds of the majority so that now there is a strong public perception that Samoa has been wiped out, and of course by implication is still a danger zone.

The reality of course is that the bulk of the country was untouched. Only 10% of accommodation and only 20% of the coastline was affected, and infrastructure in the affected areas has now been restored. Many resorts are rebuilding. Some are reopening shortly.

The reality is definitely not the public perception however.
Tourism Predictions
Following the Tsunami, the Samoan Cabinet has allocated WST$500,000.00 (NZD$270,000.00 or USD$200,000.00) towards rebuilding Samoan Tourism. I'm told that the Samoan Tourism Authority operated last year on a WST$3,000,000.00 budget (NZD$1.6m, USD$1.2m) increased substantially from the year before. I visited Samoa (over our preferred Fiji destination) as a direct result of this promotional work.

Current predictions for recovery range from the buoyant to the pessimistic depending basically on the personal opinion of the individual offering it. Larger resorts that already have a strong reputation and existing client base are in a stronger position to leverage repeat business, but while all have a vested interest in putting Samoa back on the tourism map each of the major players naturally has their own opinions, agendas and interests.

I predict that Samoa will have extreme difficulty for many years bouncing back from the recent negative press. For many, just as Bali now equals bombers, and New York & London subways equals Terrorism, so too will Phuket & Samoa always equal Tsunamis
Approaches to marketing
In determining the best way forward, the Samoan Government, the Samoa Tourism Authority, the industry (primarily represented by the Samoan Hotel Association) and the people of Samoa have some challenging times ahead.

They will need to determine not only how they rebuild their shattered tourism economy but also when they should do this. No matter how hard I try to think positively for Samoa, I think that things will never be the same.

If Samoa's marketing objective is to undo the damage that the Tsunami wreaked by telling the world that they are now all good and open for business, Samoa will need to be very sure that any marketing spend is not undone with another earthquake or Tsunami or even a cyclone. A very big call! Even the risk of another major event will have put some people off Samoa for life.

Rather than abandoning ship or trying to fight the tide however there are other options - perhaps diversifying into niche markets. I saw untapped opportunities within Samoa with eco and cultural assets relatively undeveloped. I would think that the geographical location makes a perfect position for Northern Hemisphere/Southern Hemisphere meetings. I found 4 hours a comfortable journey and the same distance again to American playground Hawaii makes Northern/Southern Hemisphere meetings much easier than the long haul. With a bit of work around the edges (like a decent Internet service and consistency of customer service issues) I would be happy to recommend Samoa as a business destination.

Another approach (one that I see as the most productive of all marketing efforts) would be to invest into building strong web relationships with supporters of Samoa while the mass of public goodwill exists. I suspect that this window could anything up to 6 to 9, maybe even 12 months (more in New Zealand and with ex-pats of course). Investing into systems to capitalise on global goodwill, is long-term thinking but is very doable, and can be very cost-effective, particularly if it used modern Internet technology and systems. This too would be amazing insurance against any future adversity because a "Web Friend of Samoa" is going to step up to the mark at just such a time that they are needed.

I predict that a traditional marketing campaign undertaken along the lines of "Samoa is back" will not necessarily draw visitors to the Samoan shores and could even be a costly exercise in futility. Holidaymakers from New Zealand will naturally compare Samoa (and the risk of a repeat earthquake/Tsunami) with Fiji (with its unsavoury political situation) and with the Australian Gold Coast (with no major tourism issue). Australian holidaymakers will of course eye New Zealand as a more desirable destination.
Vision Setting & The Internet
As at 2009, Samoa has a poor digital footprint. Except for a few notable exceptions, it has low quality websites. Many operators have nothing; FUM (Fresh Unique Meaningful content) is virtually non-existent; interactivity is not offered and so therefore only exists on third party websites such as Trip Advisor and so on. Samoa simply does not cater to the needs of the modern Internet savvy world with comprehensive and upmarket web coverage. The most likely cause of this is because it has itself limited poor and expensive internal Internet facilities. While this is changing and will improve given time, Samoa does have a large resource of web-savvy ex-pats and a massive goodwill that it can capitalise upon.

It just needs vision, structure, seed capital and application.

The Samoan culture appears to me to be one of the most laid-back in the world (well it's certainly up there, anyway). Almost exclusively any progressive business in Samoa appears to have been set up and/or is run by outsiders who have moved to the country, perhaps has married a Samoan, or a Samoan who has return to the country to help family and doing business is a part of it. I suspect that as a result of this cultural influence there is a degree of pessimism and negativity surrounding doing business with and in Samoa. While never actually spoken so directly, the elephant in the room is the idea that "Nothing will ever get done here". The words corruption and nepotism are also sometimes bandied about with a "nudge-nudge, wink-wink, you-know-how-it-works" attitude towards officialdom.

This essentially negative attitude contrasts however with a small percentage of the population in government and in business that are progressive, forward thinkers. These are the ones that recognise the value of customer service, and plan for Samoa's growth and progress. This document shares ideas on how key thinkers and leaders in Samoa can embrace a vision and use the Internet to solve a problem and build themselves a stunning future.

Using the Internet is now the most effective way to share a vision and engage with the developed world. The Internet is the communications technology of the age. Just as those who ruled the waves in the days of ships were able to gain maximum benefit, and likewise those who owned the railways benefited most from American expansion to the West, those who embrace and utilise the Internet are the winners today.

Engaging with the Internet is far more than having a nice website and promoting it, although that must of course occur. It is more than providing good online pre-purchase information systems and booking systems as important as they are. It's more than just opening up a blog or a chat group in social media circles.

What I am talking about here is taking a "thought leadership" role on the Internet in a given niche.
Web Thought Leadership
Thought Leaders are the visionaries of this world. They are the people that understand the way things really work in a given niche (for example like tourism in and to Samoa in the wake of the Tsunami). They are the ones to see opportunities and strategise ways to give people benefit and achieve a given objective. They are the leaders that set a vision that others follow and while there are seven factors that are critical to web thought leadership, a key part to this is the development of systems around a good idea, product or a cause.

This ingredient (viral replication) is the difference between people who are ON the Internet and people who UNDERSTAND the Internet.

Twenty years ago, Ireland reinvented itself as an IT country (essentially out of nothing) and became recognised internationally as a country with vision, unity of purpose and commercial success. For years, other countries beat a path to their door to learn from them and to emulate their thought leadership role in the industry.

A web thought leader is one who takes this same role as Ireland performed on the Internet, not necessarily relating to a whole country per se, but if the Samoan government and business leaders want to, with a bit of effort they too can be thought leaders in the web.

My vision is that within a year, Samoa will become recognised internationally as a web thought leader and an example of a nation that turned adversity into a success story by understanding not only the importance of their web presence, but also HOW to use it to tap into newly created global goodwill for their benefit and prosperous future.
Internet Strategy
For commercial reasons I will keep it brief here and share greater details at a later time but an effective Internet Strategy would essentially contain four stages.

1. The Plan
Samoa needs a clear vision and strong leadership. It needs to unite behind a common vision that will achieve all its stakeholders' best interests. It should complement and support whatever the STA, Government and industry wants and mesh with any offline promotional and marketing activities.

2. Commercially acceptable web presence
Samoa needs to lift its web presence to a commercially acceptable level. At the moment it is clearly not serious about how the world perceives it in the digital space. Every inbound tourism operator, resort operator, accommodation provider, and tourism related service needs to have a decent modern website with good FUM (Fresh Unique Meaningful content). The country needs a modern information portal that is meaningful and constantly kept up to date. None exists at present.

3. Appointing Web Ambassadors
A Samoan Web Ambassador programme should be implemented ASAP. This should be a state-supported scheme allocating privileges within Samoa (similar to an OBE, Knighthood, Chiefdom, Keys to the City or other recognisable award) for influential web businesses, personal web leaders and other centres of influence that engage with and build Internet based business for Samoan tourism.

4. Growth
The primary purpose of a developing Web Ambassador scheme is to feed virally generated business into web-based systems with replication and structured referral business generation so that the country has a source of sustainable high-value clients.
Commentary
Without wanting to cause offence to the people who are and have been working hard for Samoa, as an outsider gradually falling in love with the place, I see Samoa as a land of missed opportunity. Those in the know of course remind me constantly that "We've come a long way in the last few years", so I respect the current situation but Samoa has an awful lot to offer the world and it certainly needs help with getting it out there after the Tsunami.

Apart from the web strategy that I've very briefly mentioned above, an idea that Beverley Barlow from Aggie Grey's has been suggesting I think now has real merit and really interests me. An international Samoa Day (probably a date in March or April to feed into the peak season) that celebrates the Samoan culture and country would be an excellent focus for web based as well as offline activities.

I have in mind a myriad of other ideas for activities, services and publications, as I'm sure you will all have as well. It might be possible for me to help you bring them together. I enjoy a challenge and once onto a project I rarely give up or give in until it has achieved its stated purpose.

It sometimes takes a crisis to take us to another level of maturity, and if what comes out of the Tsunami crisis is collaboration, unity and a successful web strategy for Samoa, then I will feel that good has come from bad. If I am involved I will feel privileged to have been a part of Samoa's comeback.

I have put a personal proposal to the Minister of Tourism to provide Internet strategy consultancy to Samoa should he want it, and will return to Samoa to help should he ask for such assistance. In the meantime I will leave these comments with you to share and talk about as you see fit.

Nothing happened of course and the SWAP programme has grown with my seed capital and efforts - based on some of the above thoughts.

I have taught from last year that there are essentially three messages post-Tsunami Samoa can deliver:

We only lost 10% of our accommodation - essentially a negative message
We are back in business - a neutral message
Come and help us, or share our pain - an enormously compelling theme

The huge international goodwill outside of Samoa towards this country is seeking an outlet or an opportunity to engage. It is my opinion that there are hundreds of thousands of well-wishers and people who would love to be able to help - if they only knew how, and had an opportunity put before them.

Habitat for Humanity is one opportunity but is limited to builders and tradesmen. SWAP is another but while we are moving forward as fast as we can it is limited in scope. I wish we could do more and sooner, and I look forward to the growth of the SWAP project so that hundreds, if not thousands of people can come here to help a country in need.

Whatever people can and will do to help, the marketing of Samoa now needs to be built around inviting people to meet people; encouraging cultures to engage; and with an authenticity in marketing (that simply does not exist when pictures of beautiful white safe beaches conflict with the images and knowledge we have of devastation and possible danger).

For years tourists have come to Samoa expecting to find an inviting, idyllic, South Pacific Paradise, only to find the good beaches only at some resorts; the rest of the country lined with dirty, dusty, rubbish-strewn streets; and many of the population who at best are indifferent, and at times down-right rude.

Countless tourists with expectations of high class service, and cleanliness have vowed never to return here. Sure, they may love the Samoan smile and enjoy a culture from the outside and say what a charming place Samoa is, but speak to them on the plane on the way back, or catch them in an honest moment, and they will raise the issues I've mentioned above.

The difficulty that Samoa faces is that their very culture; their style of government and their approach to business is not condusive to change, let alone a major sudden change in direction.

Post-Tsunami Samoa MUST engage with the world in a different way now or it will forever destroy any integrity that still exists. Marketing an island that has had somewhere like a billion dollars in global negative press over a Tsunami as a safe, pristine, white-sanded beach covered South Pacific paradise is simply insanity.]]> Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:36:36 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-10/post/marketing-samoa/id/159/ Worshipping a Culture http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-09/post/worshipping-a-culture/id/155/ Samoa basically worships their culture".

One of our Ambassadors said to me yesterday "I'm all cultured out!" meaning that the cultural thing was so strong in Samoa (especially with our intense cultural engagement) that coming up to the end of their allotted amount of time here, they were very ready to go home - back to their own culture of course.

As an aside, our Web Ambassadors here don't just have a holiday in a South Pacific paradise. They work hard and engage with a range of people. They really experience Samoa and are faced with deep social, religious, financial and ethical issues in the process of documenting and sharing this amazing country with the world. This experience really can be deeply draining and even life changing.

I define Samaon culture as the set of values, social expectations and behaviours that are common to the Samoan people. Many Palagi have said to me that we (Palagi) do not have a culture but that the Samoan people do. They are wrong. We all have a culture, it's just that our own culture is invisible to us until we experience another one. Samoan people who have never been outside of their country do not know that they have a culture. The church thing; the Sunday thing; their whole way of living is normal to them and totally invisible as a culture.

I define worship as the act of giving honour, attention or focus. The Western worship is essentially that of worshipping self. The 'me, myself and I' mentality that fosters greed, gluttony, excess and other such ugly things.

As a non-church attending conservative Christian at heart, I view church attendance in many cultures as basically an act, or an activity rather than true faith. Just as putting any cold bubbly liquid into a bottle doesn't mean that you have a beer, so too attending a church doesn't make you a Christian.

Another example of this principle is a village that we've been working with that has an almost zero crime rate. Police do not visit. There is no need to. There is no drinking, no fighting, no theft, no graffiti or vandalism.

You would think that this is the result of their deep Christian faith and that it was an example of a model society but it's not. It's the result of a strong village council that will fine anyone found drinking or fighting 'ten pigs', and an extra 'ten pigs' for the man that brought the beer into the village and caused the fight. This is also the village that prohibits swimming in the sea or river on Sunday, and identifies the cause of the September 2009 Tsunami to be God's wrath because of the Southern Coasts disrepect of the Sabbath.

The reality in this village is that the pride, fighting, jealousies and other less enjoyable aspects of life are moderated and pushed under-ground. They manifest themselves in different ways, but are still there, if you dig deep enough. Sometimes it does become visible, like when a young man shouted extreme profanities at our car with Palagi in it as it passed. He will be dealt to severely in due course, but from a conservative Christian perspective, human nature is the same globally - fallen.

Again, we can legislate and control human behaviour but it doesn't change our underlying human nature. That change can only be achieved from within - the Christian view is that this can only occur as a result of a faith encounter with a living God.

I've talked a little before about some of the issues in a light-hearted post and before that in other posts but the real elephant in the room that I see is the act of worship that Samoa has towards its culture.

From the top down, the idea that Samoa is founded upon God, and is a Godly nation is promoted proudly - to the Samoan people and to the world. Their Sunday church attendance is presented as a good thing, and an example of a model society. The fact that this is enforced behaviour is not spoken of. The fact that many of the people do church things as a result of cultural influence, social expectation, tradition and conditioning rather than voluntarily as a result of a personal relationship with a loving God, is presented publicly as a positive aspect of Samoan society.

I'm not for a minute saying that all within the church in Samoa are pew-sitters but many are. In a discussion with a Pastor on the South Coast confirmed that there are those in the church that "work hard" and those that "work when they have to" and those that "don't do anything". This is no different to many cultures and churches except for two things . . .

The bulk of society attends church here as opposed to a small percentage of Western Society, and
His opinion of his parishioners relates to the work they put in, rather than to any aspects of personal faith

Make no mistake about it, the church is a business here, and a very effective monopoly at that. Others have written about this and shared about the corruption within. I do have a problem with hypocrasy but it is not my desire to pull the church down or to attempt to change it as they obviously do a lot of good; rather it is to share the truth with others as I find it, wherever I may be.

So the essence of this post is that Samoa worships its culture. It puts enormous value on the way things are done culturally. Our culture this. Our culture that. It is overt. It is powerful. It is enormously resistant to change with strong protection systems in place that have evolved over centuries. Presented as a strength - e.g. the political stability that Samoa has enjoyed - it is however just one way of living; neither better nor worse than many other cultures, but certainly very different.

The conservative Christian view of a people worshipping anything other than Christ is that it is, or becomes an idol. An idol is something made by man that is a replacement for God.

When mankind establishes an idol, he makes it according to his own wishes and wants. In the Western world it is independence; the freedom to do as we wish without reference to an absolute such as the Bible. In Samoa, their worship of the Samoan culture (the way we do things) allows leaders to benefit. Their dictation of the way things should be - from changing the hours of the golf course - to legislating behaviour is very well micro-managed, one might even say adeptly manipulated, as the Samoan culture is not a fixed universal absolute.

As a non-church-going Palagi, I'm fortunately able to be an independent observer. I have turned down an offer of Matai-ship so I am not associated (or more accurately owned) by any one village and am thus relatively free to conduct business as the Government and powers that be determine from time to time.

In my opinion however, the elephant over here is a biggie.]]> Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:17:21 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-09/post/worshipping-a-culture/id/155/ Tsunami Impact http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-06/post/tsunami-impact/id/153/

The impact I am talking about goes way deeper than just loss of life and broken houses. It has had a deep and ongoing physical, spiritual, financial and emotional impact on both Samoan AND Palagi.

A month after the tragedy, I took four leaders from a South Coast that was literally in walking distance to view the affected areas. These people lived within a short walking distance of four majorly affected resorts. One of their sons even worked at on of them, yet they had never seen the damage first-hand!

These people were so scared of the cultural taboos of visiting their neighbouring village that they dared not even visit and their entire knowledge of the Tsunami was from the local TV and TV3 News. Being an independent Palagi I was however free to take my guests around, and give them a detailed guided tour of where the wave came and where it missed; show them the restoration work and educate the uneducated, even though they were the "locals".

Throughout the tour, these Samoans would not stop talking - many times all four at once in the car - and the Matai would not eat that night after returning.

One of our Web Ambassadors who was knowledgeable of the Tsunami and Samoa explained their experience after travelling through the affected areas as "deeply unsettling". It is all of that.

A day or so after seeing the damaged areas and as the shock settled in another guest was in tears, as they processed the shock from seeing people with so little losing all.

Another guest has referred to being in "awe of the devastation", the power of the backwash sufficient to flip a 70ton digger 100m into the deep; buckle a reinforced 20mm steel plate barge leg, and demolish a massive brand new concrete wharf at Satitoa.

There are now many people without jobs. Many have relocated. Words fly back and forth over government corruption or incompetence, but the people and the country are slowly rebuilding. Many never will return to the coast. Many resorts will never reopen. Samoa as a tourism destination of safe pristine idyllic white sandy beaches will have been forever changed.

The impact of the Tsunami is stunning in its enormity on this nation, even perhaps the world.

Another aspect to the Tsunami's impact, is the negative impact of the Tsunami on the local people now enjoying a handout mentality.

Over the last couple of months we have been privileged to spend quality time with a prominent South Coast MP who has been showing us his land and introducing his village to us. This man has been entirely gracious but has been very cautious in all dealings and discussions with us. He would explain the extent of the damage and details of the Tsunami quite reservedly for weeks.

He really came alive however and was highly animated when talking about the negative impact of the Tsunami upon his constituency.

"The Tsunami was the worst thing for our people" he says. "It has put them into a hand-out mentality. They now even expect people to give them food!"

The context to this is that food is available in abundance in Samoa and for years the issue of Remittances (gifts from relatives off-shore) have been a thorny topic. Relatively rich family off-shore have sent back gifts to their relatively poorer family in Samoa, which is a perfectly natural thing to do, but encourages a poverty mentality, or a hand-out mentality in the Samoan people here. The leaders have condemned this but it makes up a large percentage of GDP and it continues basically unabated.

As one New Zealand based Samoan said to me, "What do you expect? How can I not help my grandmother when she has nothing [by comparison]? It's a perfectly natural thing to do!"

The problem that our MP sees so clearly is that except for the loss of life and the relocation further inland, the Tsunami has been a wind-fall for his people. Who would not milk the system and sit back and wait for another handout if they could? People have been known to deliberately exaggerate their plight in order to get construction materials, food, or other assistance.

There is undoubtedly much to do and much needed; new roading connecting plantations previously unconnected, but now required, power, water and other services. Many of this will take years to achieve and is all important, but the people are higly adept at "milking" the system and particularly any Palagi generosity.

The Tsunami has brought a lot of this to the surface, with a plethora of people wanting to give and to help.

Last year I blogged on how to give to Samoa effectively. A lot of it is still very true. The SWAP programme is designed to help people see and understand Samoa, hopefully with the result in increased tourism to Samoa. Tourism of people engaging with people, rather than people sitting on beaches.

It is definitely a gross understatement to say that the 2009 Tsunami had a big impact. The impact of the Tsunami is enormous and touches all of us remotely associated with Samoa in more ways than one.]]> Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:16:04 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-06/post/tsunami-impact/id/153/ Social Security http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-02/post/social-security/id/149/

After pinging the Samoan government, the Matai system and the church here for a little while (all tactfully and justifiably of course), it gives me great joy to be able to congratulate the powers that be here for not providing welfare for its poorer people.

For crying out loud, the whole nation is a poor! Samoa is essentially a third-world nation that couldn't pay a pension if it wanted to!

A bent Samoan car - needign a little attention

A bent Samoan car - needign a little attention

[Pic: A bent Samoan car - needing a little attention!]

Robert Kyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad has been playing with the idea of a global elite. You know, a corrupt ultra rich class that manipulates global finances and other evil things for their own pecuniary gain. The sort of thing that Obama and Bush and every banker and financial guru would call "Those silly conspiracy theories" but which are 100% true of course.

Over the last year or so he has been sharing with the world his teaching about the New Rules of Money in a book released progressively online. It's been a lovely experience watching a high profile author and businessman spill the beans. The book is called Conspiracy of the Rich.

I've laughed every minute that Robert has gone through their tricks and said "Amen, amen!" at 99% of what he has shared. While the big picture of a conspiracy was "ho hum" to a died-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist such as me, his understanding and teaching about money has been very helpful to me in connecting the dots with my own enterprises - paticularly the use of money and issues around interest and interest rates. Whereas previously I saw all debt as an evil, I've now come to see that managed debt and borrowings in a business can be a tool, which used wisely can be as powerful as the Queen on a chessboard.

I think the realities in Samoa have helped turn the coin for me on this one. I've gone from essentially a theoretical stance (based on the Biblical - neither a debtor nor a borrower be, and a father who preached cash for everything all the time) to a much more pragmatic stance that says, when in Rome do as the Romans do. And the faith and biblical thing applies more into the wisdom of individual business deals rather than an absolute that "We must never borrow, period". I also find it interesting that it's only once I've been cashed up and have no need to borrow that I've even considered borrowing for business investment. Previously the only borrowing in business I was capable of comprehending was to get out of a pickle, pay my bills or other poor lending justifications!

So back to Samoa and no Social Security. In yesterday's current reading, Robert wrote the following:

If you've read COR, you know that trying to save poor people only creates more poor people. Every time the government prints more money, the rich get richer and the gap between the rich and everyone else increases. Taxes, debt, inflation, and the cost of retirement go up for the middle class and working poor with every dollar printed, and it makes more sense for the non-working poor to stay poor. Why try and get ahead when it's easier to just let the governemtn take care of you?

See where I'm going with this?

Isn't this just what I've been saying all along about giving? Yes I know there's been a Tsunami through here recently and that was terrible and some people need a lot of help, but the danger of giving, giving, giving is that it doesn't build anything. It just perpetuates the dependence. Here the PM and many others have also previously spoken about this very problem.

I was at a business function a few days ago and this sector had received $10,000.00 from the government for the last two years that I could see on their accounts. The comment was made that the government wasn't serious about this sector because they gave $8m to Tourism but only $10k to them. On top of that the PM had asked them "Well what are you going to do about your declining performance?" and this had caused them offence.

If they want it, I will help this organisation in due course. I will help them to understand that they are fools to take $10k from the government as a handout. They have to engage with the government so that the government can do what it's good at - help sectors who want to help themselves. Not just give a handout. As an invitee to the AGM I was curious but quiet about their performance. Reading their accounts, I saw that more than 50% of their grant money had been used on food and beverage on their monthly network meetings. I was surprised but not surprised. OK, I'm about to ping somebody here, so I'll stop! You can guess what I think!

The essence of giving - giving from a government to an organisation, or government to people in need - is an action destined to feed and encourage poverty mentality.

Social Security doesn't exist from the government here, so guess what happens? Young people look after the old people. Families and extended families work together. Villages make rules and enforce social justice in the context of their culture. People are taking responsibility for themselves and their immediate environment. Don't you just love the sound of it?

This is Samoa.

Samoa, you've got some real issues here, but your Social Security system in my book is taken right out of the Good Book, and I love every minute of it!]]> Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:00:50 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-02/post/social-security/id/149/ Spending money is hard work http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-01/post/spending-money-is-hard-work/id/151/ Spending money is hard work! Well it was for me when buying a set of wheels recently.

Again, it's the same in New Zealand with a whole bunch of low-performing unprofessional car yards with a few switched on operators scattered amongst them. Samoa seems a little the same from my recent experience.

A week or two ago I started the hunt for a vehicle. Sure I could phone a mate or two in New Zealand and get them to flick me up a set of wheeles but it's good to support the local economy and I wanted to make a few mates in the process, so this is what I did.

I called a whole string of car yards by phone and called in, in person.

"Hi! My name is Dennis. I've relocated from New Zealand and I'm looking for a WHITE Prado, preferably an auto diesel, although I'd look at any other options, but it must be WHITE. Have you got one or could you import me one?"

That's typical Dennis: straight-up, efficient, focussed but ready to listen.

Nobody got back to me. I'll say that again, Not one of the yards got back to me with ANYTHING. One yard, an Indian guy with a Samoan partner (you've gotta have a Samoan partner to do things over here) went as far as to tell me exactly what the PRICE would be for a white one and a non-white one. I thought that was actually cool. He was onto it - or so I thought. But even he didn't bother to follow through even though I called in to his office a SECOND time to ask how he was getting on. It's now three weeks and as I posted a moment ago, we've secured a white Prado, but from a New Zealand guy who has been doing business up here for a couple of years.

Aha! I hear you say. A Kiwi connects with a Kiwi so that's just patriotism. Oh no it's not! I dealt with somebody who got me what I wanted. He sent me emails with progress reports on his buying at auctions. He knew my budget and what I wanted and he got it. I think it was about nine auctions that he bid on before he got one for me. I could have been dealing with a guy from Kazakstan for all it mattered to me. I just knew what I wanted and some dude had the wherewithall to make it happen.

Who knows in a week or two or ten, one of the car yards may get back to me. They will have missed out of course, but really I don't think any of them ever will now.

Mr Businessman, whereever you are, how do you make it hard for your customers to spend their money? I just wanted a car and went the route of least resistance.

As I work with the local people here, I will be finding ways for Palagi to offload their pingas in Samoa. Sure I'll grab a few of them as they pass through my hands, but if a tour bus has say 20 people on it and they stop at a village that has only three carved bowls for sale, they can only ever sell three bowls. The other 17 Palagi are just not going to wait until next week for them to come back, or even meet at the flea-market to do business. I'm sorry, the Palagi is just not in that space.

Just like McDs makes it so easy to spend another 10% with an upsize, Samoa has to make it easy for the Palagi to lighten his pocket. Based on experiences thus far, and especilaly with this big-ticket item, they have a L - O - N - G way to go.

And remember - so do many other countries in the world, thank you! I just happen to live here.]]> Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:39:32 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-04-01/post/spending-money-is-hard-work/id/151/ The Samoa Solution http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-31/post/the-samoa-solution/id/147/

Samoan Boys

Our desire to give, and to help can sometimes be turned on its head, for example when we want to give a product but people actually need a service, or where we prepare something in advance to give, and all they want is you, so they can give to you.

It's an amazing thing when you really get experience a different culture deeply for the first time. It challenges you and your motivations to the core. This is what I call the Samoa Solution.

As an entrepreneur, I see things differently to many. Someone will see a tree and nature and beauty, and I will see firewood, timber or an Eco-Tourism business, and of course beauty if someone draws my attention to it.

When I first visited Samoa I offered to help a family in the middle of ground zero. I thought that seeing as they wanted a tourism business to their village that I could do them a website and help market it for them. I had a preconception of how my giving should look. It didn't turn out that way because I ended up selling all and relocating here!

The thing is that in the process of doing this, the experience taught me a very valuable personal lesson. I won't go into it here now, but I became a different man as a result. Touched and like an electrician sorting out loose cables, able to connect quite a few loose ends into the power source, so to speak. In coming here, I found a solution to a problem I never knew I had.

I've seen it in many others too. There are Palagi all over this country that have come here, married and stayed. Or come here, stayed and married. It happens both ways.

There are people talking to me about Samoa all the time who too, have been touched in many different areas. I think there is something special about Samoa, in a Christian sense, it is like the nation is founded upon God, and He does weave a little magic into many people's lives here.

My problem is this . . . I see opportunity where no one else does. I see Samoa as a solution to so many other people's situations that I'm either overly-motivated, or too one-eyed or too something, because obviously Samoa is not for everyone.

But that said, let me share a few anonymous stories for you. I know a few people who are unmarried. Divorced, never married or widowed. Now the standard question to a Palagi man here is "Are you married?" or "Where is your wife?" If you are available then the Samoan grapevine swings into action within seconds, and you will have your mate in short order. A solution to some people's single status? In my books - you betcha! (I'm married by the way so this one is not for me!). This is the Samoa Solution. A Palagi partner is a dream come true for many Samoans. It's basically a meal ticket, and an escape from poverty, or certainly perceived as such. Are there any Palagi who would like to find a Samoan husband or bride? I think so. It is quite a surprise for many Palagi to see themselves as the centre of attention. Expecting that when arriving? Not at all, but still the Samoa Solution.

Another one. An acquaintance offered to supply a container load of food when I came over here. "Wait!" I said. When I can find a way for your company to receive value from what we are doing, I'll take your goods. When we have accommodation sorted, we will offer this guy from a large distribution company a cheaper, better conference and accommodation for his executive in return for his donation. This will turn into a business transaction where both people win. Goodwill turned into win/win business. A different kind of transaction. Reality was different to his perception but still what I call the Samoa Solution.

Another acquaintance of mine wanted to pop up and see the place. So he bought himself an airline ticket with the possibility of returning in a week or two if it didn't work out. 6 weeks later and he's sad because he can't stay. He's fallen in love with a certain village and wants to settle. For a guy that's pretty unsettled - perception and reality are different but he's touched. That's the Samoa Solution.

A lot of the volunteers at Habitat for Humanity say that they came here thinking to give - and they did, but went back with such a richness of experience that they felt that they had been given to more than they had given. This is a very common experience in the NFP sector. It's the Samoa Solution again, giving more that we expect, and often in different ways than we expected. I say to all our workers and visitors "Just come and see!" No amount of talking can explain it to you. You just have to be here - then you'll understand". Experience reality so that your perception is better.

One lady has planned to visit and really wants to do things to help. She's prepared this and that - all good, but the people may not want it. They may just want to play volleyball with her. Some volunteers have it all worked out what they want to give and how things are going to be and it's all self-focussed giving - well meaning of course but just a little more wisdom and Samoa will give back to them. Her perception and reality will be clashing head-on when she arrives but I am CERTAIN that she will get a big dose of the Samoa Solution and they will go back a different family as a result.

A little thing - speed. I work hard and fast, but I've learned to slow down - deliberately around here. It doesn't mean that I type slower, it means that I respect the way things are done, so that if the Shipping company won't release the goods until Monday, tough. Just don't do what you want to do on this weekend - do it the next. If people are in your way on the road and drive slower than you're used to - tough, just leave earlier. The Samoa Solution has solved my angry traffic problem. I have no choice but to drive at 40k OR LESS now! I perceived a problem with it coming to live here but reality was different. That Samoa Solution thing again!

There are just so many times that I think throughout the day "Boy, if only XXX was here", or Wow, XXX would love to do or experience [whatever].

A large part of what we are doing with the SWAP programme is connecting the two needs. People want to give. Let's give them an opportunity TO give. I know that they will perceive it to be one thing, and no matter how hard I try their reality will be different but they will be touched nonetheless. This is the Samoa Solution in action.

It's all around me. It's deep and it's very real. Some tap into it. Others don't, but I call it the Samoa Solution no matter - available to all. ]]> Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:00:15 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-31/post/the-samoa-solution/id/147/ Sustainability http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-29/post/sustainability/id/145/

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!]]> Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:14:15 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-29/post/sustainability/id/145/ Sunday Fun http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-28/post/sunday-fun/id/143/

Yep. It's about this Sunday no work thing, I'm fuming, frustrated, furious and probably anything else that starts with 'F' - well sort of. In the end I settled on the 'F' word FUN and reckon that today is just a day for fun.

It goes like this.

The THEORY (i.e. the Law here): Sunday is a day that you don't work. You go to church, you have the To'onai then spend the day with your family.

INTERPRETED (i.e. what really happens): You cook the Umu (which is actually much more work than the other normal days and would have the Jewish Rabbis stomping their hobnail boots on you), you then go to church, which is a long walk for some (more work) and you sing, pray and do other godly things for three hours (that's not work? It's hard work for me!) then walk home, eat and sleep. The children actually eat and sleep in another Fale out the back so family time for many means that everybody is "sort-of" but not actually together.

OK, now sometimes some families are different, and not all Samoans do the same thing the same way, and yes, I am being a bit cynical about this but let's ask a few questions about it. This is the FUN part of my day!

The Sabbath is a Saturday. So God's really not happy with all the churchies who set laws to worhsip on Sunday. If you're going to make laws and enforce them and call it God's thing then isn't it sort of important to get the day right? The SDAs are dead right about this one. The Catholics changed the day from Saturday to Sunday and freely admit it. Bother, now I've upset the Christians AND the Samoans in one go!

OK so let's just assume for one little moment that the day doesn't really matter, especially as it's Sunday in my country when it's Saturday in someone elses. or the other way round which I can never get right. (This is a little closer to my own theological take on things BTW). So it's either day, whatever day you chose or whatever country you choose.

There's two ways I see to approach this - looking at my own personal circumstances and assessing the Law the way it affects me OR looking at my own personal circumstances and assessing the Law the way it affects me. Sorry, your theology doesn't bother me because my feet only fit my jandals - not yours. I reckon that I'm up to face my Maker one day and your advice might be fine for you, but I don't think "But he said, she said" is going to work the trick somehow when I'm at the pearly gates! Anyway those are the only two ways that matter for me. (Yes I know they are the same. It's not a typo!)

So, I shouldn't work. So what is work? Web development. That's my profession for the last 10 years. OK I don't do any development any more. Other people now do that. So what about painting the offices or putting a deck out the front for the staff? I'm sort of in construction - on average two months every year so is this sort of OK? What about blogging? I'm a semi-professional blogger. They say that they like my style and that they do business with me because I talk sense (well a lot of the time) so am I working when I am blogging? In some ways I am. What about programming. I enjoy knocking out a few reports or systems in PHP. But that's always business related so even though I do it in my spare time for fun, because it's related to a business it's work too?

OK So you can see I'm really having FUN now - I think I like Sundays all of a sudden taking the mickey out of this Sunday thing!

OK So let's get really serious about this. Cross your heart and pray to God - what is your real work? Then you'll get closer to the application of these universal Sunday laws to your own situation. Ta Daaaaaa! Eureka. No matter whether I am in construction, software, websites or blogging, I am a professional entrepreneur. Yup that's me all over. A creative-gifted. I eat, sleep, think and dream up cool ideas all day, every day and even most of the night! I conceptualise businesses, think about ways to help people and change the world (OK leave that one out for the moment) and then how to ~~make money~~ pay the bills 99.9% of the waking day and 49.5% of the sleeping night.

So there we have it. Stop thinking on a Sunday and God will be happy with you, so will the church and all of Samoa.

Nah, sorry. Life's too short to do that, and I'm having too much fun. God told me I'm OK and He loves me, so ~~there~~ I'll be quiet and sensitive about it. I'll sit outside my office here on my newly built deck in the shade of some palm trees up here in paradise enjoying the neighbours bananas and eyeing up the coconut trees and watching the birds sing and dance and mate; the gheckos and lizards and ants all running about the place, the dogs and Samoans wander past at a rate of knots (about two or three to be precise), and I'll think away furiously to spite them all. And they'll think to themselves - Oh that good Palagi - he doesn't do ANY work on a Sunday. Every day he sits there doing the right thing praying away.

The Jews developed an intricate set of rules for living. Their primary commandments came from God and Moses made it quite clear how important they were. Over the centuries, they developed a secondary set of rules (laws) that they worked out to prevent themselves breaking the first set of rules accidentally. So for example if God said you weren't allowed swim in salt water on a Sunday, their secondary laws might say - no swimming in ANY water on a Sabbath. But after a while these guys who are experts at intellectual niceties developed a third set of laws (that only they could know or understand, and then they too were always arguing about Clause 15c, subsection 45d of some obsure ruling some 346 years previously). So it might go like this: Don't clean yourself with any water that wasn't sterilised first for 16.5 hours before the Sabbath (because that would be how long it takes for salt water to disspate) so that you couldn't accidentally "swim" in sea water on the Sababth. They may also say to hide the salt pot for the 24 hours before the Sabbath and don't go to the beach the day before, unless you washed your feet when you came out OR you didn't walk on the sand. OK all this is made up, but you get the idea.

Samoa as far as I can see is fairly and squarely at the second level in this scheme of things for churchy type laws. Some villages are very close to the third level from what I see. Legalism and Churchianity is very much alive in Samoa from what I see and boy, the Sunday thing is a big DO NOT TOUCHEE this elephant in the room. Samoa is my home now so I don't want to rattle the cage here, but between my mates and me, well we can have some Sunday fun eh?

Sorry to go on about the God thing so much here in Samoa, but this is just how the place is. Honestly!

My work continues though 7 days a week. Life is too short not to have some fun eh?

B L O G - T H I N K - T H I N K - B L O G - T H I N K - T H I N K!

Oops there goes the church bells again calling me to stop thinking.]]> Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:36:48 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-28/post/sunday-fun/id/143/ In God's Name http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-26/post/in-gods-name/id/141/ Public broadcast mode seems to be their default setting and we can sing along a block away. I probably would if I knew Samoan. But it seems to me that God might have a problem or two around these parts.

Church

Please, I know the God thing is a touchy subject. I can feel the air go tense around us as we broach it. A lot of you already know that I'm a quietly terrorising outspoken conservative rebel who is a born again denomination free AngloCathoChristian the fringes of the mainstream Christian community. I've probably already caused somebody offence by calling one of my old denominations "happy clappies" but let's just ~~get over it~~ be generous towards me for a moment and ride out these words to the end.

The church scene here is in your face wherever you go. I mean seriously in your face!

I'll try to share a few things without being t-o-o-o negative . . .

The church buildings.

No kidding, these church guys over here have it nailed. If you drive through a rural village you can be lucky to see one decent house, but you will ALWAYS see a few good big strong well-kept churches. They stand out and are in your face big time. OK some of them are run down but the signs of the wealth of God's business here is overt. The Mormon Temple is a beautiful monstrosity that probably gives the goose bumps to the LDS guys. It puts shivers down the spine of many of my Palagi that I've spoken to though. "That thing over there" one guest pointed "is an abomination to my eyes!" they said forcefully. I know that such overt wealth displayed in essentially a third-world country is one of the main problems.

The curfews.

Slip along the main road at curfew time on the North East coast and you'll pass through one village where maybe 20-30 security guards stand to attention making sure that nobody comes or goes in or out of their house during the prayer curfew.

Many villages have some form of legislation in regards to prayer time or curfew time that has been issued by the village chiefs and is enforced.

The tithing.

The attached image is of the tithe sheet outside the Moamoa Catholic church. Other churches do the same. This is just one that Trevor grabbed a quick photo of when we passed through. Villagers are quick to ensure that they pay their dues in full sight of the pastor and many churches check and record offerings. I have problems with the teaching of tithing and certainly with the enforcement of it. Research of my own shows me that the basis upon which tithing is preached is erroneous at best and fradulent if we approach the matter honestly. For the record, I have tithed most of my life and have given many times more than a tithe when looking at my entire suite of activities, so I am not trying to justify my position because I don't want to give. I believe that we should live as generous givers and that if we're not giving 100% to the Lord then we are selling ourselves and God short, but we're talking about Samoa here - not my own personal sermon for the day!

The prayers.

At any meeting it is standard practice to pray for the people and business to be conducted. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, please help us in business, keep us safe and healthy, Amen sort of thing. Look I'm all for any acknowledgement of God's goodness and grace and anything else people want to attribute to him. That's all well and good, but when the prayers are delegated to the godly one in the group and I know the leaders have demonstrated some pretty un-godly behaviour behind the scenes, I think about the words of the Master along the lines "Don't get caught up in all the public pontification stuff; get behind closed doors and have a little heart-to-heart with the Father"

The Blame thing

God cops a lot over here. Seriously. Some very senior leaders, and a lot of the population have accused God for bringing the Tsunami and they are quite specific about why He did it too. To some it was because the Prime Minister forced through the road rules law change that made everyone drive on the wrong side of the road. Seriously, this was a strong sentiment over here at the time, and intelligent educated Samoans were telling me dealdly seriously that this was fact. The more discerning ones tell me however that it was because of all the Sunday trading that was going on in the South Coast, and that Sundays should be family time - no swimming in the sea or the river - just going to church and staying at home with the family.

I feel sorry for God in that He constantly gets the blame for the Tsunami - but I'm OK with His capacity to deal with it. Personally I think that God is a little less like the big ogre in the sky that these people seem to think He is. I think that mankind is basically responsible for bringing about decay and destruction in what was orininally a pretty nice sort of place. I think that He warned us pretty clearly that this sort of thing was going to happen more and more too. One day we'll all be a lot wiser over this I'm sure.

Golf and the Sabbath.

Sunday trading is a big no-no over here. Everything is closed on Sunday. Believe me - everything. And the local golf course too has just been shut down "In God's name": View the news article here

Note that

"God continues to show his love for Samoa, four or five cyclones have missed us so why not respect Sundays".

Does He not love Samoa if a cyclone DOES hit us?

Note also that the SDA community get pinged unfairly:

A regular at Faleata, Iosefa Rimoni said the decision is unfair. �Because there are others who are Seventh Day Adventist and tourists so they should be allowed to play on Sundays,� he said.

This one could be a real big prblem for me because I struggle to juggle the Sabbath thing with two countries and the time line and this Saturday/Sunday Sabbath issue. If I'm to listen to everybody then I have to stop work on Thursday night here in Samoa, because that's the start of NZ Sabbath and my SDA programmer goes off into "Purda". Then the next day it is the Sabbath here in Samoa, then it is the Sunday thing in NZ then it is the Sunday thing here in Samoa, so there is a good 72 hour three full days and nights where for some reason I can't communicate or work or get anything done - unless I'm prepared for God to send another Tsunami. One day I could get blamed for it, but I'm in good company if its going to happen in God's name. Don't worry, I try to respect the culture here and do it their way. So I keep my head low on Sunday and just work quietly behind the scenes so that nobody can see me working and everything will be just fine. That's how they do it here.*

The trouble I have with many of the rules-based religions of the world is that my bible tells me that you cannot legislate goodness, nor love. nor a changed heart. In my book (and I think, the good book says too), one cannot legislate faith. Faith can be demonstrated but each of us have to exercise faith in our own ways.

Leaders over here are intensely proud that "Samoa is founded upon God". Personally, I actually wonder whether God might have a problem or two with how His name is used here in paradise. Please, don't think I'm picking on Samoa. I just happen to live here. I can and would also do the same spiel about Bishop Brian and his lifestyle. Thanks!

Posted on a Saturday, no a Sunday? oh I give up. Posted "In God's name!"

* Trevor and I witnessed the high chief of a certain village doing good business on a Sunday from the back of his shop. Oh sure, the shop was closed aout the front, but it was obviously OK to just help a few people out if the kids needed lollies or . . . or . . .

In New Zealand we would call that hypocrisy, or insincerity or bad. In this culture it's called OK, because he's the high chief. Once again don't think that I'm pinging the high chief - I'm not because I too could easily sell the lollies on a Sunday but I wouldn't be using God's name so overtly on the Sunday thing if I was selling something!]]> Thu, 25 Mar 2010 22:09:52 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-26/post/in-gods-name/id/141/ A land of contrasts http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-25/post/a-land-of-contrasts/id/139/

As a Palagi, you've got to be patient, gracious, adaptable and again, even more patient to live and work here! It certainly takes a lot of time to get to each base compared to New Zealand.

I've been dealing with a few real estate agents over the last month or two, just looking around at property; getting a feel for what's out there; who's who and sussing things out. I'm a serious punter, cashed up and able to make decisions, so I'll buy if the land is what I want and is what I consider a fair price.

But I had trouble with an Agent last week - certainly one of my lesser enjoyable experiences here.

We'd been looking at a property up on the hill in Letogo (pronounced Leh-tong'-oh). It has a pretty good view; certainly one of the better views around the Apia area. The agent suggested that the vendor was keen to sell as they "had some issues and needed cash" - no further details supplied. The vendor was asking $250,000.00 which was basically a reasonable price - a bank valuation could probably be around $290,000.00.

Due diligence revealed the owner to be a company Eagle Holdings Ltd, which was gifted the property in late December 2009 by a Maxine and Taito Philip Fields. One of the company Directors was Maxine Fields and shareholders were obviously relatives and probably siblings. Most of us in New Zealand knew their situation of course and I could understand the reason for recent transactions perfectly well and didn't have a problem with the offering.

With ownership questions answered and the legitimacy of the sale verified (you've got to be very careful around here over land ownership issues), I assessed the value in the current market between $220,000.00 and $230,000.00 and that's what it was worth to me too. Having told the real estate agent that I wanted the property, I returned the next day and made a firm offer of $225,000.00 and a firm settlement date. She said that she was confident that the vendors would accept the offer as it was very close to their pre-approved minimum selling price.

The next day I returned to see whether they had accepted the offer or not. Ummm, she had not contacted them yet. Hmmm. So I again made the offer - a firm settlement date and price, and a second later settlement date at the slightly higher price that we all knew that they would accept. "Surely the hilltop view would be ours very shortly" methinks for the next 24 hours.

The following day I arranged for my architect to fly up and start planning; obtained colour prints of the property from the Mapping department and my cell phone went. The call went like this:

"Ah Dennis, you know how I told you there was another person interested in the property?" . . . "Mmmmm" . . . "well they're going pay $250,000.00 and they are going to organise the deposit today" . . . "Hmmm, OK so you are telling me that I now have to pay $250,000.00?" . . . "Well if you do that I'd have to go back to the other buyer and then . . . "

Hold on! So we have now gone from an firm offer that would be acceptable to the vendor that hasn't even been put to them to a potential bidding war? No thank you! I don't do business this way - even if Samoa does!

So her solution . . . "I think that it's only fair that the first person who brings in the deposit should get the property! That's what I'll do"

So let's get this straight I'm thinking . . . I'm in a foreign country, made a firm offer of a price we all know that would be acceptable to the vendor, that hasn't even been presented to the vendor in two whole days, someone else is going to the bank as we speak to get their deposit and the first one who brings the deposit in has the land!

Nope, that's an even more obnoxious situation! I definintely don't want to do business on these terms! Gracefully, I just told her to let the other people have the property. At the end of the day, it only cost a few hundred tala and a bit of time - but some big lessons learned!

I contrast this experience with another guy I met by chance. He's an MP although I didn't know it at the time. He's got no reason to bother with me, except he has. "Sure, I'll help you!" he says. "Come on round and let's talk. I'll show you some freehold land. Have a look at it and see what you think." Hours in the car travelling to the other side of the island - chatting away merrily with his wife and daughter and enjoying many great times. "Need help with something from the government, or your residency application, or customs clearance? Sure, don't you worry. I'll come with you and help you sort it out. I might be able to make things a little easier for you."

I have no idea if we'll ever do business with this guy - we could easily sometime, but nothing is a touble for him. He just wants to help an interesting Palagi guy that's landed on his shores and wants to do business here! Talk about chalk and cheese! A real land of contrasts.

The land of contrasts doesn't just affect me and they way they treat Palagi either. Their living circumstances are very strange to a Palagi. In the Western world you have rich and poor, but the difference is quite subtle. Rich areas are geographically located so you can have whole suburbs for example that are higher socio economic groups. New developments often put a minimum standard of construction on land so that everybody's land retains its value. And of course the same in reverse with the poorer, less "desirable" suburbs.

In Samoa, rich and poor are side by side. You can literally have a million dollar mansion right beside a thatched hut. This is just the way it is!

In terms of tourism experiences it is the same. One minute you can be served by the most delightful of Samoans with that gorgeous Samoan smile, where nothing is too much trouble, and the next you are dealing with someone whose body language from tip to toe screams "I just don't give too hoots!".

It's a common complaint from tourists here. Sometimes attributed to low pay rates ($2.50 - $3.00 WST per hour is common) the issue is actually more than this. Samoa is a very laid-back culture that has a large percentage of those remaining in their homelands who have a very low motivation to better themselves. Many of the motivated ones have left for greener pastures in New Zealand, Australia, USA and further abroad.

At Aggie Grey's resort and Hotel, they have gorillas (My name for big burly scary dark guys that wield a machete and make sure you're all OK all the time) clipping the grass and sweeping the grounds and picking up the slightest whisp of dust or dirt, for what seems like 24 hours a day! But less than 100 metres down the road, well actually even the property next door just over the fence, there is rubbish and trash just lying there untouched month upon month and probably year upon year!

So the land of contrasts it is. The heat is constant but the life and culture can be a roller coaster from "He's no good!" to "He's OK" and a lot of my role here is meeting people, working with them and hopefully working out ways to do business with the ones who can maintain relationship. The essence of any successful venture in any country or culture.]]> Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:59:18 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-25/post/a-land-of-contrasts/id/139/ Passionate people http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-24/post/passionate-people/id/137/

Helena at Fagaloa Bay

I've been preaching to everyone I meet that the international goodwill towards Samoa is sky-high; in the stratosphere actually, but Samoans neither know this, nor know the extent of it and certainly have no idea how to capitalise on it.

I was in Samoa the week after the 2009 Tsunami and it was chaos as the whole country from the PM down was in shock and suddenly receipients of a plethora of people, families, friends, NGOs, countries, companies - all who came and wanted to help. And they did.

Samoa was gracious to a man. "Thank you so very, very much" was the nation's sentiment from the top down. Many people here recognised at that time that people from outside cared about their country. But I have never seen anyone, ever, in Samoa who truly recgnises the extent of the post-Tsunami goodwill that existed and still exists.

I relocated to Samoa for several reasons and one of them was that I could see what I assessed to be a desperate need to share meaningful timely information about Samoa via the Internet. Basically except for a few shining examples, their web strategy and web presence was quite third-worldish. More importantly they had no idea that people genuinely wanted to help, but these potential donors were in the second phase of giving. They were just not interested in giving pots or pans and risking their hard earned cash lining the pockets of leaders who we all know are culturally bound to look after their own. These people want and wanted to help; but to give meaningful help; help with something that they were good at or was at their fingertips, not just cash; help that was meaningful, sustainable and/or gave them something in return. [Pic: Helena at Fagaloa Bay]

The last few days have confirmed my understanding along these lines, as applicant after applicant has responded with enormous passion and a deep desire to get up here and help, however they can. The mere possibility that people can get paid (albeit at the atrocious local rates) to experience post-Tsunami Samoa and use their gifts to make a difference seems to have struck a chord with many. As I said before, I knew the goodwill was high but the depth of passion demonstrated has been extraordinary and humbling.

Have a read of some of these words and get a feel for how people think and feel about Samoa . . .

I'm that person, the one you are looking for. There is nothing I cant do. Im a photographer that is organised and I have a heart big enough to genuinely care about Samoa and the efforts to get things going again.

and

No, it's not about the money! After the tsunami I would have loved to be able to provide practical assistance but what could an IT geek do? This gives me a way to help that is both practical and, hopefully, enjoyable.

Asked why such a qualified individual would want to come and work for peanuts . . .

. . . about the money issue and why I would be wanting to engage in a project such as this? well sir.. it looks like a chance and an epic one at that to really get in there warts and all and see what's happening, and get to know the people the places and myself.

and from a successful applicant - Dux of the University class:

I am very interested in making a positive impact on the Samoan community. For that reason the blogs associated with the effects of the tsunami interest me the most. I would make it my main goal to successfully boost tourism numbers in Samoa by showcasing all aspects of the islands and culture that would be of interest to the target demographic traveller. I would also work very hard to change the pre-conception that Samoa is a lost nation. I would do this by not only creating entertaining, informative and inspiring blog entries but also by reaching out to the greater international business community for support.

Still more . . .

. . . the culture seems to intrigue me. I would love to use my skills as a writer/photographer to help these people and get some really ground-zero stories of the redevelopment of the nation post-tsunami. I know this will be hard given their unwillingness to sometimes accept Palagi, but I would be up for the challenge.

Sontrong motivation:

I want to bring the stories of Samoa to life and get them out to the rest of the world. What an opportunity, to see Samoa and have others see back. I want to see the Samoan culture after the tsunami, taste the food, I want to hear a church choir and see if pigs really walk the streets.*

And there's more.

Over time, our systems will allow more and more people to come to Samoa as part of what we are calling the SWAP programme - the Samoan Web Ambassador's Programme. Our team will talk to the world about it over the next few months as things develop and our systems are fine-tuned. Our first three SWAP Ambassadors are certain to have one of the most exciting times of their lives up here. Some of that has to do with Samoa and circumstances. A lot of it will be because of the passion and drive that these professionals are bringing with them.

But while Samoa can sometimes make it hard for a Palagi (it definitely has a darker side) it is essentially a land that gives. It gives its people to the world (there are more Samoans living outside of Samoa than in it) and it gives back to Palagi who come here to help. Palagi often think that they will come here to help people who need help. I've noticed however that many times it is the Palagi who changes the most; from an enormously rich experience!

It is my desire to connect the two cultures in a way that ends up a win-win. Sure some people have a beef with me personally or are aggressive or confrontational, but I really consider it an honour to lead such passionate people into a place where their dreams come true (at least for 6 weeks). I suspect that the energy from our first team will be highly infectious. Somewhere in early June, The Samoa Story (www.thesamoastory.com) will soft-launch. I'm sure it will do us all proud when it does.

UPDATE

How do you tell a gazillion passionate highly qualified motivated and hopeful people that they missed out on the dream jobs?

After a day or so stewing on it, I settled on the following. To those of you who did get the Dear John email. I mean it. I hope one day we can see you up here in Samoa and make ammends!

Thanks so much for your application for the dream job in Samoa. Yes it was legit and yes it is a dream job!

I write however with good news and bad news. The bad news is that we have now appointed someone else for the role. The good news is that there will be more opportunities similar in the near future.

The fact that your application has been rejected may have nothing to do with anything that you have said or had in your CV. A lot of you were way more than qualified and would have been a delight to work with. It's just that only one person could get lucky. A lot of you also made positive comments about the humour in the advert. Thanks. Much appreciated!

Please understand that it is a gut-wrenching task for me to pass up on so many talented and passionate people. Simply responding in a timely manner to all your applications however has been a challenge in itself. After employing some lucky person I've actually sat here for a good day and a half wishing that I could take a dozen other people tomorrow and wondering how to write a Dear John letter to a gazillion people! In time we might be able to slip you in but at the moment, I'm sorry we can't.

You may be interested in a blog post I wrote about you and the others that have applied. It is entitled Passionate People and you can find it on my personal website www.dennis.co.nz.

Please keep in contact. We'll be posting news and opportunities in Samoa on our own website www.swapsamoa.com. You're very welcome to convince the first Web Ambassadors that you're suitable for the second intake, or the third or fourth intake, and we may actually see you up here sometime in the future!

Thank you again

*Yes, the pigs definitely walk the streets, but they get off them when the cars come. If you travel more than 40km in rural Samoa (apart from breaking the law) all the animals - pigs, dogs, chickens, homo sapiens and their offspring gauge the sound of an approaching vehicle to perfection. They will trot across in front of you and disappear off the road just in time. Travelling more than 40k will require constant braking, and you'll likely clip the last chick, piglet, puppy or whatever. That will probably cost you a few tala and a fine woven mat or two if they catch you! Best do it the Samoan way - fai fai lemu (take it easy!).]]> Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:13:02 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-24/post/passionate-people/id/137/ Second phase giving http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-23/post/second-phase-giving/id/135/

When I first came to Samoa, I experienced something quite special - extraordinary in fact. A week after the Tsunami everyone had a heightened sensitivity toward anything - spiritual, financial, physical, social - the whole country was on tenterhooks as hundreds of government officials, NGOs and their officials, family and friends and well-wishers graced the shores of Samoa.

The cleanup began. The fundraising and donations happened and, yes, the stories of corruption and incompetence happened of course. Personal stories started coming out - of loss, of escape, of hope and more.

In the midst of this turmoil, I too experienced something quite surreal. I won't go into a lot of depth at the moment but in a nutshell I came to see, through a vision actually, a connection between the enormous goodwill that existed outside of Samoa toward Samoa and the Samoan people (who quite honestly have no idea even to this day how deep this goodwill is). A large part of my move to Samoa was essentially philanthropic. I knew that with my business, Internet and marketing skills I was in a perfect position to "help" Samoa put itself back on the map as a desirable tourist destination. Of course as an entrepreneur I was also attracted to the business opportunities that abound here, but to be honest this business interest was initially secondary.

Since arriving here, my focus has changed. I now seek to achieve social benefit secondarily to business interests. The reason for the change is quite surprising to me - it's basically that the Samoan people don't want change and deep down really don't respect people who want to help. They do however respect those that want to do business and make a buck.

I know this sounds strange to the Palagi who would think that people struck by a Tsunami would be desperate for outside help but, think about it . . . if you've built houses in Samoa for a thousand years with a machete, sticks and coconut leaves, and it only takes a couple of days for a family to make quite a nice Faleo'o - what's the problem? If you can go to the plantation and bring home enough food for the family with a machete and digging stick, do you really need a TV, fridge and freezer to survive? "Sure it would be nice if a Palagi gave us one but we're not going to change our ways just to get the goods. We do things OUR way and always will" is the thinking.

We think the same too in our culture. Why did the overt social manipulation by Helen Clark grate so heavily on so many Kiwis? For the same reason that Samoans resist change. Outsiders trying to meddle in their affairs.

I believe that the real reason for resistance to outside influences is a deep mistrust of the Palagi's intention. Their past experiences with the colonial attitude that comes in and changes the local lifestyle, is viewed as a rape and pillage of the country by many. When customary land is no longer available for traditional purposes because of a Palagi "trick" that alienated it from them, deep seated mistrust is formed. It is very real here.

A sad offshoot to this deep mistrust of foreign intent is that it encourages the handout mentality - essentially "Well take as much as they'll give us, and then when there is no more, we'll kick them out". So post-Tsunami there is much giving - nice new homes and lots of positive emotion, but when the Palagi has gone, things will be back to normal, "the way WE do things".

This occurs at every level of society. Kids ask for money. Even adults beg when they see a Palagi. A couple of days ago I was accosted by a Samoan man in the street. "Please sir from the bottom of my heart, I am a preacher from Mangere, and my wife and kids are waiting at the bus stop and I need help with the busfare to get them home. She is sick and I have no money. Can I have a couple of Tala? Please sir, from the bottom of my heart?" So my reply, "OK I'm happy to help. Let's go and meet them" stonkered him and he changed the story to "Even one Tala, please sir?" and took off in the opposite direction.

The day before a Samoan guy raced up to me at the markets - yes even Samoans can be quick when a Palagi walks by - and begged for a few Tala. This guy was apparently just out of prison the day before. He had mates all around him all day but the moment he spots a Palagi, "Hey bro, can you help me?"

This happens from the government down, including the church (don't get me started on that one!), and the Matais. They all look for a buck and of course the Palagi gives the most.

I heard about a couple that established a venture and put all their profits back into the local community. The Village was very appreciative of course and assisted the couple get started, all was great for a while, then the demands increased. The rules changed. The people wanted then demanded more and eventually the couple lost all and the village had nothing. This happens all the time over here. I'm constantly told about the string of well-meaning do-gooders who have lost all in paradise!

With subsistence mentality, long-term investment is a foreign concept to most. Most of those with a long-term outlook are in New Zealand or Australia. Some of them don't even visit their own villages when they come home because of the handout mentality of even their own.

To a Palagi, especially an entrepreneur or one with a business mind, this is all very sad, and enormously frustrating, especially if you want to help make the world a better place, but effective giving must be founded upon reality. This is the reality here.

So, second phase giving is a phrase I use to explain the way that a deeper value exchange can occur between two cultures.

Effective giving requires a good knowledge of ones self. If you are giving or want to give to satisfy your own personal needs, you will be giving cash to the various leaders in Samoa, for their political and social and personal benefit. That's the way things work here. You will probably eventually be left drained and frustrated. I've been told of many who have experienced this before!

Effective giving comes from a position of strength, knowing your calling, interests and passion. Engaging with the Samoan culture is then easy, and opportunities abound.

Here are some examples - real ones by the way.

Say for example you love bush walks and you want to help Samoa "recover" from the Tsunami and help the local people somehow, then come over here and cut a walking track through new bush areas. I know of a village that has one young man who has a dream to do exactly that - develop a two day bush walk across a mountain with amazing panoramic views - but there is no way in a month of Sundays he could ever do it by himself. A team of workers who live with the local people for a season, clearing and building a Fale or two and some steps here and there and a bit of marketing will change that village's whole future for the good. The country will get inbound nature tourism (no Tsunamis on the hilltops of course!) which they say they want. Palagi will experience real Samoan hospitality - which they all want to give, and one young Samoan man has a dream that has come true! That's second phase giving at its best - a business engaging with a culture and giving something that a Palagi is passionate about.

Say for example you were into water sports - take Kite surfing for example. A steady 15 knot trade wind on a flat calm coral lagoon would be a dream come true for some - yes? Well get on up to Samoa and bring your mates with you. All you gotta do is scrape together a few bickies and build yourself a small accommodation unit in a village by the lagoon and you'll be helping the local economy in the long term. A three or four room motel in the middle of a rural Samoan village where the locals will feed you and love you to bits just a hop step and a jump away from idyllic kite-surfing spots might sound far fetched but it's not. And this second phase giving is starting to have a long-term positive effect on two cultures. This is a long way different from giving pots and pans and clothes, eh?

I know of an amazing village tucked away almost out of Palagi sight. They do handicrafts and work their butt off - I mean really hard work to make a few things to sell at the markets and wholesale in town. It would take nothing serious to bring tours to that village and help them sell retail. As a guest you'd "unfortunately" have to spend some time with them and their families, eating their food and watching them create the craft products, and you'd have to listen to the High Chief prattle on in Samoan for a little while about the history of their village and share their local stories, and then wait for a translator to translate his talk, but could that be an interesting experience for someone? You betcha! And there might be a little payoff for the people of that village too - they could sell their products at retail price from their own village, instead of selling at wholesale and having to go all the way into the Apia markets to sell what they've created. They would be hosting Palagi guests too - they all love doing that AND getting paid for it as well! The investment to make this happen is a year's wages for a typical Kiwi and one person to spend a month or two or ten in paradise to set it up and market it! Again this is a business. It has nothing to do with encouraging the handout mentality or fattening the pockets of the rich.

I've previously called this concept goodwill investmentoring - a cross between giving, investing and mentoring. It's a fourth sector concept - mixing philanthropy with business, faith and social justice issues. But rest assured - with second phase giving, business must come first. ]]> Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:23:32 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-23/post/second-phase-giving/id/135/ Understanding a culture http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-23/post/understanding-a-culture/id/133/

Fortunately I learn quickly in the "understanding department".

Please don't talk to me in Samoan or expect me to learn it sorry, I've got slow ears and a bad memory for words. I failed Maori at Teacher Training College but got reassessed "up" to 50% because of my empathy for things Maori and my cultural understanding was very strong. I was lucky to get 35% in French at school, and my most enjoyable subject at school was Latin in which I received 6% in the end of year exam but knew all about Roman history and understood the intricacies of their culture.

I've been here in Samoa now off and on several months and I still only remember half a dozen words, no matter how much I try. For two weeks now, I've been trying to memorise the phrase "Luatalo Too Taro Faamolemole" which as far as I can gather from those around me is the best translation for the phrase "Please speak English". I need this phrase all the time, but I still need to refer to my diary when I want to use it.

In October last year, the locals tried to teach me the Samoan words for Thank you (Faafetai). OK, now please trust me, this is entirely true . . . it took me six weeks to learn it and memorise it. No kidding. And I really tried hard to learn it too!

The bottom line is that for some reason I have a problem with other languages. It's probably some form of Aphasia, a fuzzy connection between my ears and the interpretation part of my brain. Whatever the case, it just means that I can't learn languages easily.

But I compensate. I can connect with the heart. I love to understand things, so while the language is just gibberish to me, when I ask questions and "suss" things out about who is who and what they are doing and saying, and more importantly WHY they do things a certain way, I find myself understanding the culture quite easily.

I've observed a difference in the way different people engage with a new culture. It ranges from an arrogant English colonialism on one extreme (where the natives all need help to become more cultured, and sophisticated) to a New Age self-denegrating worship of the Samoan way (because they are the people of the land here, and they have all the answers to our Western world's problems).

I'll talk more about this in time, but the Samoan people too, respond to the Palagi in different ways, just as Palagi engage with Samoans differently. Sure, there are patterns of behaviour that are common to the culture, but you have different people here with different values, who respond in different ways.

I recently placed an advert for a blogger to help set up the content of a new inbound tourism portal. Written by a Palagi, for Palagi in New Zealand, it generated the following response from one Samoan blogger:

So this organisation doesn't actually realise there are Samoan bloggers and journalists too?? Rude.....talk about ethnocentric...

Ouch!

Like I posted recently, some Samoans are just downright rude. This one was. I felt like saying to them "Well if you're Samoan and you're already blogging about Samoa then you don't need an all expenses paid trip to see and learn the culture and then blog about it to the rest of the world, do you? Or are you just peeved that you can't get something free off a Palagi?"

But of course returning rudeness on rudeness doesn't achieve good things, so I politely explained that the target market was Palagi and apologised for any misunderstanding.

Most of the time though they eventually warm to you, but often you've got to put up with the BS first.*

It's not just Palagi though. They also do it to their own quite a bit. The Samoan version of the tall poppy syndrome is to knock their own race, especially when embarrassed in front of a Palagi. When talking about rubbish on the streets (Samoa is really quite a dirty place - I'll share more about this too in time) Samoans will knock their own saying something like "Yes, I don't know why they do that!" or "True, it's not good eh? Samoans are so lazy!" then when you are gone or out of sight they will just throw their own rubbish into the road or drains.

They tell a story about a pot of crabs. A Samoan crab will climb to the top and try to get out. The others will pull him back. However a Palagi crab will reach down and pull his mates out.

While some Samoans do what they can to make life difficult for Palagi, there are others who are real angels. I was chatting to a Samoan guy I met at the recent Tides tourism event. I didn't know him from a bar of soap but as I do, just said "Hi!" and shared a few ideas, observations and thoughts with him. He was interested in what I was saying, asked a few questions and led me on a little. After an hour or so I gently turned the conversation around to him and I found out that he was in fact a senior leader in the community, an MP actually. I quickly checked mentally that I hadn't said anything too obnoxious or offensive and apologised to him in case I did. He assured me that I hadn't and he was either right or he let me off graciously!

We have got on fine since and have spent lots of time together with his wife and family building a lovely friendship. He has offered to help with a few official things and in time it is quite possible that we'll be doing business together. So not all Samoans are obnoxious at the start of a relationship.

The other thing is that defining what a culture stands for is also a challenge. Culture changes and isn't something black and white. As a Christian I view New Zealand as a country in decline. I see the country changing from honouring the Judeo-Christian values contained within the Treaty of Waitangi, and the stripping away the rich pedigree of Judeo-Christian values inherent within New Zealand life to the late 50s. The Americanisation, commercialisation and increase in self-centred thought and practice (a worldwide phenomena of course) means that the culture is now different to what it used to be. Others with different value systems certainly look at the changes as progress, after all the change is what they are seeking.

The same thing is happening in Samoa, albeit a little smaller scale. Modern dress codes and disrespect of the elders are two challenges to this culture.

I've noticed that the Samoan culture is a flexible little beast. It's defined quite clearly in some ways, but in others it is dangerously open. Without getting too heavy on this one, the Samoan people as a whole worship their culture. As Palagi we do this too, so don't get all huffety about this when I say it about Samoa, PLEASE! When you worship something man-made, the tendency is to tweak it to your own ends. Thus while in one village it is prohibited to swim in the river or sea and the shop is closed on a Sunday, it's perfectly OK for the Chief to sell lollies and things out the back of the shop from his home.

In the rural villages, I get different stories about what the culture actually says and means and is, from different people and different villages. A lot of discussion occurs within the leaders themselves about how to do things in the correct way. This is very important here, but it's certainly not well defined like an Oxford dictionary definition of a given English word.

The key point of this post is that when learning a culture, we have to remember that people are all different and it is dangerous to label others - whatever culture you are in or learning.

* As a footnote, I don't think its fair for a guy who has sold up his family home, gone to enormous lengths to engage with, understand and live in a foreign culture just to receive abuse like this, but hey, who said life is fair? This blogger probably just misunderstood the advert and is a little too trigger happy with the ~~pen~~ keyboard. Bloggers are like that sometimes eh? Maybe they should put a 24 hour delay on our posts so that we can sleep on it before we charge off and make fools of ourselves?]]> Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:09:50 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-23/post/understanding-a-culture/id/133/ The Samoan Smile http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-20/post/the-samoan-smile/id/129/

One of the things I want to do with our inbound tours is to put a real scary dude in uniform as the tour guide/host. I want him to open his big beady white eyes, in the middle of that dark scary face, and scare the living daylights out of our guests for a second or two and then, beam that lovely big Samoan smile across his face and make them feel so loved and appreciated for the rest of the day that they don't want to go home!

I spent a bit of time recently in Uafato, a lovely little beach village on the North East coast of Upolu. Doing the rounds (as I do), we were introduced to the chief Matai and his family of wooden bowl carvers. A quick journey at walking speed over roads that a 4WD struggle with gets you to the furtherest place from civilisation that you can find up here. We will be likely marketing this village online some day as The Ninth Heaven. But that's another story!

While everybody else was at church (Sorry but to this Palagi, three hours of monotone in the Samoan language of which I can understand about six words after some 4 months of trying, reminds me more of a monastery than something godly), I snuck out and went wandering down the road. Two houses down from the church I saw the most serious of dudes sitting in his open fale house. That's what they do over here most of the time, especially the older ones - just sit.

Knowing that a scary Samoan face was always the precursor to a Samoan smile, I waved at the guy and got the massive Samoan smile, a big "Malo" (that's Samoan for Hello) and an invite to come in and sit down and make myself at home. Well, actually skip the invite part, I just took that liberty because I know they like it when you do just roll on up and say "Hi!"

I heard later that the guy was totally chuffed that this Palagi just wandered in and chatted away to him! See I told you! So anyway . . . back to that Samoan smile. This guy switched on his Samoan smile like we do a light. They all do that over here too. It's like Click; Smile on. Click; smile off.

You can be walking down the street and see grumpy face after grumpy face just lightup like a lightbulb when you catch their eye and say "Malo!" or smile at them - no kidding it is almost like magic.

I was in at Bluebird Lumber opening a trade account last week. I'd spent the last two weeks trying to deal with the Accounts Receivable clerk who to put it simply was just downright rude and totally unhelpful. No you can't have an account. No your account application has not been approved. No we cannot take a $500.00 deposit on your account, even if Andrew Ah Liki told you that you could. No you cannot have a photocopy of the agreement that you have just signed - not until [whatever]. Talk about grumpy and unhelpful, and not a smile or an inch of grace for weeks on end.

Push comes to shove (and a $1,000.00 deposit after I phoned Andrew in front of the grumpy clerk) and all the business was finally done - or so she thought. I stayed on for a while to chat. Samoans are not in a hurry and when Palagi sticks around for a chat, they like it and things change. I spent a few minutes just talking about my new country, my new home, how different things were here, how hard it was to become accepted by the locals, how they really made it hard for you at the beginning, and then gradually they opened up and became really good friends when they could see that you were OK, and how that over the last couple of weeks I had never actually seen her smaile at me, and "Was she angry with me for something?"

Well guess what? "Oh no, don't you mind me, I'm just like that!" she says, and there was that lovely Samoan smile for me! Ah, now that we were over all that defensiveness and grumpiness, we can finally be friends! I know that the moment I turned my back, the smile would have vanished off her face in a second, but for a few minutes, I was treated to the big Samoan smile and it was good for us both.

The same thing happened last week in the Immigration department. The clerk and then the big boss were both officious and bordering on rude (Sorry you can't come into our country unless you have certificates and so on you know!), but once they'd worked out that I was actually a genuine guy, maybe even a nice guy and could be trusted a little - then the big Samoan smiles came out and we had a great conversation or two.

Back to our chief. After an hour or two chatting away together, our man was really relaxed. Casually sitting there leaning against his pole and me against mine, I envisioned a lovely photograph. "Would you mind if I took a photograph?" I said.

Mayor of Uafato

Well that lovely Samoan smile disappeared off his face like he'd seen a ghost. He sat bolt upright like he'd been shot by a bolt of electricity, dressed and preened himself and sat there stiff and serious until I'd finished the photo session. Every inch of his demeanour cried out "I'm a high chief and high chiefs don't smile. We're serious and important. "Smile!" I said, to no avail. "Smile!" I said again, and again to no avail. Samoan chiefs DO NOT, repeat DO NOT smile for the camera!

Here he is, my mate the chief - no, the high chief (No. 2 in fact) of Uafato.

And of course you know exactly what happnened the moment the camera was off - he was back to Mr Relaxed and totally friendly. Him with that lovely Samoan smile, and me with a dozen serious photos but a story!]]> Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:13:55 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-20/post/the-samoan-smile/id/129/ Oh, He's just a liar http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-01/post/oh-hes-just-a-liar/id/123/

In the Palagi culture, calling someone a liar is a serious slander. It doesn't seem to be quite so here. In the Samoan culture this phrase can simply mean that the person says something but doesn't mean it - a typical Samoan trait.

I've experienced countless times how people will agree to meet at a certain time and place and don't. They want something, go about their business to get it then don't show, change their minds or do something else. This cultural trait is similar to other cultures that smile and say "Yes!" all the while maybe not understanding nor intending to do what they say they will do. Sometimes it is because they don't want to offend but not always.

I witnessed the local people of Fusi Safata become devastated when the Samoan owner of a rental car company failed to show as a visitor. A dozen people were proudly preparing food and so on all for this guest who didn't show. He had forgotten, got distracted or never intended to come. Whatever the case, the locals swore that they would never deal with a Samoan again because, in their words, "He's just a liar!"

The idea that things are not what they first seem runs deep here in Samoa. There are two sides to the big Samoan smile that we all love . . . it is a genuine desire to please. But the other side is a little more ugly - as a people deep down, they really don't seem to want to embrace the Palagi. Those that do, have left the islands, or are in the minority.

It's a little harsh to generalise, because there are always lovely genuine people in any culture, but I've met and greeted hundreds of people now in coming up to three months here. A good half of them hold anything from a careless to an aggressive demeanour toward the Palagi. Almost without exception though they will immediately flick into a big smile, greeting or a wave, and yet when you dig deeper there seems to be a resentement or an attitude that looks ready to bite you, the moment you turn your back.

This comes across as two-faced behaviour, and appears to be the norm - Samoans groomed to smile at the Palagi, then milk them for all they've got, and then go about their own business with little real regard for their Palagi guests.

It's a trait that seems to flow from the top levels of Government down. I've met Deputy Prime Minister Misa Telefoni several times (he has graciously wined and dined me, and is the recipient of a couple of books I've given him) and he has a very strong reputation amongst the locals as one who promises the earth but never delivers. Apparently he is always the first to offer a big smile and talk about things but is the last to deliver. I am told he has promised Strata Ownership Legislation for years and is still to deliver. The locals joke about his reputation and think to themselves "Oh, He's just a liar!"

I think that sometimes it is a cynical, manipulative approach to the Palagi - along the lines of "Rich Palagi is easy to milk. Smile and take his money, then fail to deliver or change the rules", or else just a consequence of a very laid-back approach to life that really doesn't care about the long term. On the surface the Samoan loves the Palagi (and his money) but underneath they'll just say "Yes" long enough that he'll deliver and then move on.]]> Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:23:04 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2010-03-01/post/oh-hes-just-a-liar/id/123/ GREED - and how to deal with it http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2009-12-23/post/greed-and-how-to-deal-with-it/id/121/ issue. Here's a few thoughts on how it manifests itself in regards to Samoa.

Before you think I'm about to whack Samoa - I'm not. Greed is a universal issue and is no worse in this little Paradise than in any other nation on the planet. I just want to share how I see greed manifesting itself in the Samoan culture because any Palagi visitor to Samoa will at some point have to deal with the issue. It's sad for me when a small child comes up to a Palagi and asks "Got any money?" This is not good and unfortunately it happens all the time. But as I said, every culture has issues of greed - a universal evil.

What IS different in Samoa however is that the Samoan people are a little more transparent and in some ways a litle more honest than in the Western world. It is therefore easier to spot greed. They really make little effort to disguise it, instead explain it away with the broad-brush "culture" or "historically . . ."

Take for example the difference in accommodation between some who are the haves and others who are the have-nots. Samoa is such a small place that the rich and the poor effectively live side by side. In one short stretch of roadway not even 100 metres long, you could easily find a couple of Samoan families with very nice "Palagi" style houses, maybe a few middle-class Fales and a whole bunch of stick and thatched roof Fales, some with wooden and others with only dirt floors. At social occasions some are able to feed to excess and others are at the bottom of the pecking order. This is just the way it is.

In the Western world we can be a bit more subtle in expressing our greed. Poor houses are located in other suburbs and therefore out of sight. Rich dudes tend to congregate together at work and play, so the differences are a lot less "in-your-face", but greed is insideous in the Western world too. It manifests more in the thinking that I am the centre of the universe - me, me me. I will make a million dollars. I matter more than you or "the others". If I can make more profit then I will be better off, contrary to the Christian message that it is better to give than to receive. Culturally is is OK in the West to own immense wealth while there are millions elsewhere who struggle to survive.

As with all cases of those who have and those who have-not there are other factors that come into play like the rich tend to work harder, and have a more positive attitude, as well as our different circumstances but greed is certainly a big part in a lot of social injustice.

The institutions

I see greed affecting three institutions too - the government, the church and the Matai system. Once again I'm not wanting to ping the three, or to single them out, its just that they are the three control systems I've observed in Samoa. I know that within each institution there are good people doing good things, but let's be honest, people are human and it is obviously likely that institutions run by people will reflect the values of the people who govern. It would be naïve to think otherwise.

The Matai system - again let's be positive about it before talking negatively, the Matai system of local government in its purest form has been proven to be extraordinarily effective. Samoa is recognised as one of the most stable political environments of the South Pacific. Take Fiji, for example with deep seated conflict of almost a century - there's simply no comparison. Samoa wins by a country mile! But there are nasty undercurrents to Matai control and I've witnessed aspects of power and control that feed greed.

The Church - the whole country of Samoa is nominally and culturally Christian. Church attendance is almost universal and even if the genuineness of the faith probably equates to most other Western nations, the country proudly proclaims that it is "founded upon God". As a Christian it saddens me to see the Samoan church as a business - with "enforced" attendance and tithing but I think back to many Western churches who would fit within that criticism too. So again, I've observing here, rather than criticising.

The Government. From the outside of Samoa the government is perceived in some circles to look after its own and sniggers of nepotism and doubts of corruption abound. From inside of Samoa there is a high degree of skepticism over its effectiveness and integrity. There seems to me to be a widespread attitude of apathy and low expectation toward the powers that be, but that said, the government has actually made a lot of progress in improving their peoples' lot in recent years.

One of the indicators I use for measuring reality is observing the response of the local people to the institutions. In time I will share more of my experiences with these three institutions but they do give me indications that greed is alive and well in Paradise. Sorry to burst anybody's bubble here!

There is another side to this whole "difficult" subject, and that is that the Samoan people can actually be the most generous selfless people on earth. As I see it, this paradox comes about from their cultural desire to bless, honour and serve the Palagi, so on the one hand while they are quick to eye up the Palagi's wallet, they are on the other hand generally only too happy to give what they do have to make the Palagi happy.

Dealing with greed

In the work that we are developing, (i.e. the S.W.A.P programme, the Eco Tours, and developing the Honeycomb Resorts) we've had to develop ways to minimise the influence of greed. One way we do this is to sell at cost and pay a good wage, and funding our work through donation and smart systems.

Of course we recognise that as with any country, in the village of Fusi (our pilot village) there a those who have a giving, charitable nature as well as those who wish to profit unduly from anothers' efforts. Yes, while it is uncomfortable to talk about it and some would like to admit it, there are people who a little more greedy than others, so our system simply pays the same good wage to all families who work. Currently set at the equivalent of $40.00 WST, this is an above average wage in this society.

An example of how this works in practice is this . . .

The local shop currently buys goods from the Wholesaler (Frankies) in Apia. Goods are delivered by truck to the village shop. The shop buys at wholesale and sells at retail. One person only (the shop owner) makes a profit from the village people (the customers). The higher the price, the more the profit. The more business, the more profit. This is a perfectly normal business structure.

Unfortuantely this system actually helps make the rich richer and the poor poorer, because the people least able to pay (the rural villagers) end up paying the highest prices. The city prices are not available to those distant.

The structure for the Eco Tours Samoa shop however is different. For those families involved in our project, our shop buys from the same source as the local shop (Frankies wholesale) but provides goods in return for services provided to Eco Tours Samoa. A village family may for example have entertained a Palagi visitor or two for an afternoon or a day. This service has a commercial value of perhaps $40.00 WST. If this family is then paid with food, clothing or petrol calculated at wholesale price, then they have first an income (whereas previously there was none), secondly a good income (higher than the low pay offered from most resorts) and thirdly increased value at wholesale rates (an effective improved standard of living).

The establishment of a Charitable Trust that provides working capital, vision, mentoring and expertise goes a long way to preventing excessive personal profit. Sure, people will always be people and will always find ways to abuse the system, but in the main I have found that people in both Samoa and offshore appreciate our intent - to lift the living standards of the local people and to help them better their lives.

Local people for example love the ideas for various reasons - some the idea of being able to do something to better themselves, and others lets face it, because there is some income, or even they just like the idea of paying less for their petrol, clothing or their food.

In time I'll share much more of the mechanics and concepts behind the Samoa Story. It's a truly amazing vision!]]> Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:50:57 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2009-12-23/post/greed-and-how-to-deal-with-it/id/121/ How to help Tsunami victims http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2009-12-16/post/how-to-help-tsunami-victims/id/127/

Palagi! Just send Palagi. (That's Pakeha, Whiteman, or Tourist to you and me)

In the wake of the Samoa Tsunami, there appears to be a big chasm between the public perception and reality. The perception is that the whole country was destroyed; that hundreds of people have nothing as a result and need help desperately; that they are starving and will take years to recover; that the resorts have all been wiped out and that there is now no tourism, and so on.

Here is my take on the situation ending with my recommendations and an idea of what we are doing about it. The Tsunami killed 143 people, mostly native Samoans on the South coast who couldn't or didn't get to higher ground after the earthquake. It flattened many Fales (simple Samoan houses) on the beachfront and destroyed some villages entirely. It had an enormous impact on Samoa, particularly the impact of loss of life in a culture where family ties are very strong. Jobs have been lost in the affected areas but while tourism was down post-Tsunami, all resorts and hotels recorded high occupancy levels with relief workers and officials. According to the Samoa Hotel Association, ninety percent of resorts were unaffected in the Tsumani. True, many are still in temporary tents, but for many this is better or equivalent or better than what they had before!

Except for the first day or so when everyone was in shock and taking time to grasp the severity of the event, initial help was well co-ordinated and plentiful. The Samoan governement worked with UN, Australian and New Zealand aid agencies and many NGOs to affect relief supplies, rebuild basic infrastructure, distribute necessary shelter, food and water. Yes, true, some families relocated to the Tsunami to get the free handouts. Yes, true some families were asked to remain in the devastated areas without shelter by their Matai so that they could milk the system but generally most people have plenty of food al beit in temporary shelter.

International goodwill was and is extraordinarily high. The Samoa Tsunami is unquestionably the single biggest event since Pearl Harbour in the south Pacific. Front page international coverage extended for a week, and even up to three weeks in countries closely associated with Samoa.

Most villagers immediately relocated inland to what they call the plantations and many are totally petrified of the sea. I do not think that this is a passing fear. I read it to be a deep and widespread fear and it is rare now to find any Samoan other than a businessman who has a financial interest in building a resort who actually wants to live on the beach. The plantations slightly inland and on higher ground have always been their natural living area. The plantations are cooler, and have more water; food is close by and as the older generations knew, was out of the way of the "wave with fire" - obviously a reference to Tsunamis of pervious generations. I guess that the arrival of the Palagi who wanted to enjoy the water and beaches has drawn the Samoan people out of the plantations and to the low-lying areas in the last 50-60 years

Many rural Samoan villagers are subsistence farmers. They have nothing by Western standards and live from day to day. Their social lives are highly communal by comparison to the Western world and their daily life primarily revolves around growing, gathering and cooking food. Houses can be built or rebuilt in literally a couple of days and moving from one Fale to another is not an uncommon occurrence.

I understand that the first phase of post-Tsunami giving - sending pots and pans and clothes - has started to wane. I think that this outpouring of good intent has generally been well received, well managed and appropriate. There have been stories of misappropriation and claims of untoward behaviour. My take on this is that it has mostly been publicity seeking, petty political point scoring and that most goods went to their intended recipients.

Samoa has very strong family ties. Immediate family, and even extended families are generally very close. Giving is often from off-shore families who send back to their own. I am aware of families stockpiling goods next to families that have nothing. While this may sound "evil" or selfish, this is common throughout many aspects of the Samoan culture. Families with nothing may live alongside of those who have comparative riches. I hasten to add here that I believe greed is a universal challenge, and not unique to Samoa. It is manifested in the West with rampant capitalism and self-centred materialistic living. It just manifests in Samoa a different way - and with the expectation that the Palagi will give to them because he has something and they don't.

This bad attitude is such a big problem that I have heard of Samoans returning to Samoa and simply not visiting certain family so as not to have to go through the "give-me" stuff! I understand why they would do this because this lazy-thinking expectation of a handout from those that do have something is very strongly ingrained. It is similar to the Maori handout mentaality that rubs the Pakeha up the wrong way. Again I hasten to moderate my words, because not ALL Samoans (or Maori) are caught up in this nasty attitude - there are many lovely genuine people who have what I would call the true Samoan heart.

While I know that giving in the wake of a disaster is appropriate, I have real issues with extended direct giving to Samoan people. The reason is that there is a strong undercurrent of greed, that manifests itself in the way the Samoan looks at Palagi. Amongst the discerning, we joke about it in Samoa a lot laughing about the fact that the Samoan only sees a Palagi for his money. Children will come to a tourist and say "Can I have some money?" Villages charge for use of a beach or to see a resort, and the only real cross-cultural engagement that many Samoans have is when a Palagi comes and gives them something. In both Fiji and Samoa, aid money flows freely after a natural disaster and I have heard first hand in both countries how politicians and others enjoy the influx of aid money at such times.

Giving in a way that has a lasting impact and is truly meaningful needs to have a positive cross-cultral exchange. Sending money is fine - the government, religious system and Matai will all take a cut, and people will have a new house, or more food, but it perpetuates the poverty mentality that I believe cripples the country.

Overseas investment is not always the answer either. More resorts will help the country to a point but, lets be real about this - an overseas investor will generally invest into Samoa for a profit. Their modus operandii is to invest at the most favourable terms possible. They will want to buy low and sell high - good tourist dollars and cheap local labour maximises profits - the bulk of them taken offshore.

I've been working with the people of Fusi Safata on a not-for-profit project to develop a tourism and resort business. Our ideas are to work alongside the local people, and help them do what they want to do - serve and honour the Palagi. We are developing Honeycomb Resorts (website and concepts in development) as a pilot so that other villages can do what we are doing - working together at a grass-roots level to help each other. Everything is done by donation. The villagers are paid in a combination of food, clothing, petrol at wholesale prices as well as cash, and they get paid a wage for work done, not a hand out for doing nothing. It's a harder business model but it has the potential to (actually it already is) revolutionising the village life.

Anyone interested in truly helping Samoa should secure their passort, and get over to meet the people, engage with them and participate in the work that we are doing - right down at the village level. Sure, by all means stay at a nice resort. Sure, donate to Red Cross or donate your labour to Habitat for Humanity. Sure you can give people some food or a pot or a pan, but they live quite well off the land without lots of gifts from the Palagi.

The real secret however is what I said at the beginning - the most precious gift you can give to them is to give a rural villager your time. Invite your friends to get ready to meet the people of Fusi. Be ready to help teach the village Matai how to speak English. Get ready to slip into a dugout canoe with the local boys and trip out to a pristine deserted island. Help a local mother care for her child or cook a meal. Spend a few hours in the plantation with a whole family and see what real work is like. Your visit will be the highlight of their week!

And once they've given you a memory of a lifetime, just slip a little donation into their hand at the end of the day as a thank you. That's the Samoan way and it's the best way to help a Tsunami victim - by a country mile!]]> Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:46:33 GMT http://www.dennis.co.nz/samoa/~d/2009-12-16/post/how-to-help-tsunami-victims/id/127/