Talofa!

Which means Hello! in Samoan (that first ‘a’ is long, as in ‘amen’, not ‘apple’ – I’ve been saying it wrong for years). But we’ve heard Hello far more than Talofa – people do, obviously, speak Samoan here, but, without exception, everyone we’ve met so far speaks English, with a Kiwi or Australian twang and an ‘eh?’ at the end of a sentence, often when talking to each other, rather than just when they’re talking to tourists. Most people seem to have spent time in NZ/Aus or have family there now, and you can really feel the NZ/Aus influence here – the buildings, street layouts, signs, way of speaking, rugby in the park instead of football – it doesn’t feel French anymore!

I think this is the friendliest place we’ve been on our travels so far – everyone – immigration officials, taxi drivers, members of the local outrigger canoe club who let Charlie go out with them (it was hard work, and he was about a foot shorter than all the other men, but he had a huge smile on his face), kids at the bus stop – has been not only super friendly and helpful but also very proud to be Samoan and keen to show us how beautiful their island is. The immigration officials were slightly bemused when we they asked us what religion we are and Charlie said we didn’t go to church but they took it in their stride and quickly got back to admiring our blond boys. (To put the church comment into context, you can see 6 churches and a cathedral from our anchorage in town, and every village has at least one church. I’m writing this from the playpark on Sunday morning and there is literally no-one else around. According to our taxi driver, before the missionaries arrived, neighbouring villages spent all their time fighting, but once they all turned Christian they all united and got along peacefully).

Tom, the taxi driver, also explained the system of villages and chiefs, as he drove us around the island sightseeing (waterfalls, cave pools, Robert Louis Stevenson’s house – more on him later). Samoa is an island of villages – there is nowhere even remotely similar in size to Apia, the capital. The rest is small groups of houses, often with family graves outside, around a central, communal, fale (raised platform with a roof but no walls, used for meetings, communal eating and general getting together). Each village (150 people ish) has a hereditary chief, who’s house is much bigger than the rest, and only chiefs can be elected to parliament. We hardly saw any foreign developments outside a few hotel resorts – certainly no large villas in the hills like in the Caribbean. The villages are simple, but very neat and tidy, and at the moment they are all highly decorated to celebrate the 60th anniversary of independence on Sept 1st (postponed from June 1st due to covid lockdown restrictions – the borders only opened on Aug 1st, after 3 years of isolation, so people are very pleased to see us – there aren’t many tourists at all, and only 12 boats here (in Fakarava, a tiny atoll in the Tuamotus, there were 50 in one anchorage) so it feels pretty authentic – Tom even invited us to his house on Sunday for church and umu (a special underground oven where you cook meat in coconut milk wrapped in taro/palm leaves – he shook his head, in a similar way to Obelisk saying ‘these Romans are crazy’, when we said we were vegetarian – we managed to compromise on fish instead. Sadly the umu/church experience didn’t happen in the end – Kit and I turned up, him in his lava lava, me bearing home made shortbread, at the appointed time (0600) – I even got bitten by the neighbour’s dog for my trouble – but his house was dark and his neighbour said he was still in bed! Arrangements here seem to be ‘loose’ to say the least…) Buildings seem generally well cared for (we’ve been to lots of places recently where that’s not the case), but there are lots of empty shops after such a long closure.)

As well as the churches, the other thing you can see, and hear, from our anchorage is the daily morning marching band – around 0800 every day the police force marches along the sea front, the cars all stop to make way for them, and they raise the Samoan flag outside the Government building. Just next to this is the Cultural Centre where they have dancing/drumming demonstrations (we went to see a fire dancing display – the boys were mesmorised – Kit said it was one of his ‘lasting memories of Samoa’) and also a traditional tattooist, one of only 3 people who do it the old fashioned way, by hand rather than using machines. We don’t have enough time for Charlie to get a full Samoan tattoo (from navel to knees covering everything in between) but he wants to fill in a gap on his left arm. The Samoan designs we’ve seen are quite different from the Marquesan/Tahitian designs – far more geometric patterns rather than swirling lines/tikis. The boys got shirts with Samoan designs at the Robert Louis Stevenson house museum – we were the only people there and had a fabulous guided tour of the only (old) 2 storey house on the island. RLS only lived in Samoa for 4 years (he went there because he had TB) but he is revered as a bit of a local hero – the staff at the museum were very excited to have visitors from Scotland! Roo is now devouring Treasure Island…

I’m now perched outside the post office in Wallis – a small French island between Samoa and Fiji where we decided to break our journey – there was only one other yacht here when we arrived and acres of beautiful beach/palm tree/turquoise lagoon. Sadly, there are no SIM cards for tourists, so it’s back to the good old days of travelling and having to save all your downloads for internet cafes (or in our case the free wifi at La Poste). So, here are some pics of Samoa – more about Wallis when we get to Fiji next week x

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (right next to the Immaculate cafe…)

Charlie goes cannoeing

RSL living room – only/oldest fireplace in Polynesia – never used! Boys fascinated by the lions head on the right – “is it real?”

Charlie makes a friend on the beach

Lunch in a fale

Pretty view from our taxi tour

Kit’s gone native – local print shirt and lava lava (which he said is very uncomfortable to walk in!)

Typical Samoan village

Captain Ron movie night with Pania (blame Charlie for the fuzzy pic!) specially for Maggie. (It’s been great hanging out with Pania the last few months, and very amusing listening to the boys when they are playing with Abel, who’s 3 – Roo and Kit have said things like ‘he’s so exhausting’ or ‘please be quiet during the film’! Ha! How the tables have turned!)

RLS grave on top of a hill, where he asked to be buried in his boots. Took us 75mins to hike up there – there was a photo in his house of the funeral party, in pristine starched white uniforms, carrying his coffin – no idea how they managed that!

View from his grave

Skateboarding and playing with local kids in Apia’s brand new kids playground. Kids and families were so welcoming – we were invited back to play at their house and only didn’t go as we were leaving Samoa