egonomics tasi-oh-tasi (101)

“He’s starin in my eyes just as I’m walking past

I’m tryin to avoid him, cause I know he’s gonna ask…”

Hole in the bucket - Michael Franti & Spearhead.

A beggar on the street corner asks in English for “10 tala to buy some food”- and for an odd moment you’re not sure if you can spare it…right before you realise you spent more than that on Vailima yesterday…

The minimum hourly wage in Samoa is 2 tala (about $5000 tala a year…under NZD$2700)-making it less than half of the allowance I get as a “Volunteer”.

There is, as anywhere, a range of income levels here from “where do I put it all?” to “what’s income?”…and some sparsely populated territory in between.

My living budget is about 50 tala per day (about $25NZD) and it’s enough to live comfortably, as the roof at Smurfy is paid for too. The simplest way to explain relative costs is with some everyday items (all in tala);

…from Smurfy to town one-way is $25 tala by taxi, or $3 by bus. Walking is of course free, and you chance a lift from passing a’iga, colleagues, neighbours and strangers…all of whom have picked me up and dropped me off at various points.

…a 750mL fagu of Vailima is $6.20 from the fale’olo (store). In a place this hot, where bottled water costs about the same as beer…overconsumption of the latter is a risk, but a serious hangover would be almost unendurable.

…a box of cereal; or a 250gm jar of Nescafe will stretch you to $20 tala or more; and the last sunscreen I dared to pick up was $45 tala, the bottle just big enough to cover a couple of Aussie retirees.

…if you have a hankering for a café latte- expect to pay $7-8 tala…or $1 gets you something coffee-ish at the corner store, which tastes like it came from a diabetic road worker's thermos.

…$50 is enough to get 5 days worth of povi or pua’a (beef/pork) at the butcher, along with bread & rice from the fale’olo, and fresh veg bought on the roadside or at the market.

… $10 tala will buy you a plate streetside of “BBQ” any night of the week- rice, chops, lamb & sausages or sapa’sui (chop suey) and fuamoa (eggs), with a cooked banana or piece of taro will make the plate…but don’t expect anything green (unless you eat too much, too quickly).

…or you could spend 5 to 10 times that on restaurant dinner, depending on the time, venue, the chef’s marital status and prevailing breeze.

So…my tan and stamina are developing according to my budget…although I have a quite literal soft spot developing for the BBQ and Vailima.

Talofa Tamā… “Tâtā le fatu” (the heart is still beating)

Crotch Pot Hot

" "What's the weather like out there?

"It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest things is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking." …

What do you think it's going to be like tonight?

"It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but it ain't no good if you're in the jungle." "

- Robin Williams as Adrian Cronaur as Roosevelt E Roosevelt… “Good Morning Vietnam”

The weather here has taken a seasonal turn to the wet-side, with daily torrents interspersing periods of vevela tele (crotch pot hot) and humid. And so it has been revealed to me the very useful nature of the humble umbrella- a tool which had proved nigh on useless in South Auckland. Here it serves as rain & sun protection; it effectively wards off dogs; offers support as a walking stick; in the event of a fire in the building, one may or may not (depending on your faith in Disney) be able to leap from a third storey window and float gently to the ground. An umbrella also acts as a serviceable replacement for a rifle when I feel like playing soldiers (more often than not, re-inacting the handover of Samoa by the Germans to the NZ army at the outset of World War 1…a remarkable event, and one of the most pragmatically managed confrontations of the period- the handover was conducted without blood being spilt http://www.goethe.de/ins/nz/en/wel/kul/mag/wwi/sam/12799764.html ).

And so it was a great relief this week, that I had returned to me my new-found wire framed detachable appendage. I stopped at a shop on the way home, and left not just my umbrella but my wallet, sitting on the concrete footpath, while I packed my purchases into my backpack. It was 15 minutes later, while hiking up the hill- completely oblivious to my impending poverty- that  a van pulled up beside me, to return both items, having recognised me from my drivers license photo! I was obviously gobsmacked and grateful…so much so, that I let them drive away (after offering me a lift) with just a “fa’fetai tele lava” (thank-you very much)…in retrospect I should have handed over what cash I had, and thanked not just my lucky stars, but the finder in a more tangible manner.

It was also a gentle reminder that I stand out like a sore thumb, and am apparently recognizable to local traffic as the walkie-talkie palagi…

In the same vein, sensible walking shoes have proved to be a good investment (I had some concerns that I’d bought shoes needlessly, when I realised that thongs are considered “corporate wear”). Walking uphill in wet jandles is like trying to ride 2 butter coated skateboards simultaneously, through a slalom course laid out with baby-head sized rocks, dog mines & giant snails. Shoes make a pleasant walk in the rain possible without breaking an ankle or stumbling into traffic.

And finally at home- flatmate and reigning heavyweight gecko Les Norton and I have had a minor falling out…apparently Sunday evening is date night for Les and he’d taken the liberty of moving from the bathroom into my bedroom. I’m not sure how well he converts, but he was pretty bloody vocal and the beige babe magnet was spitting lyrics until well after 3am Monday morning. So my working week started with an eviction to the spare bathroom and a stern, if somewhat one-sided, conversation about personal space. (Les moved- not me…)

Welcome to Smurfy

“It’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock and roll…” ACDC

“It’s a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll…” someone else

For those who have been waiting (modesty, what a way to begin…), the press is now rolling in Tiapapata and so begins my Samoan plogg*.

A note before we get too far…I’m learning, slowly, tautala fa’asamoa (to speak Samoan). Accurate translations of Samoan terminology, if desired, can be sought on Coogle*. If I have made an error (fa’amalie atu- my apologies) and if you’d like to correct me- relax, I’m surrounded by Samoans who seem intent on assisting in my lingual development. So I’ll drop in a word or phrase now and then for your interest, and for my benefit- practice makes perfect, eh?

My digs…after 3 nights in the Apia Central Hotel- on Aso Lua (Tuesday) I moved into a 2 bed, 2 bath fale in Tiapapata with the kind of ocean and mountain views that would make Auckland real estate agents fizz at the bung. About 10km from town, pretty well straight up the inland hills of the island, on the main cross island road- Tiapapata is lovely and cool and slightly inconvenient in a relaxed and inoffensive way…I work out for about an hour each morning, and then have a 40 minute, downhill walk to work (my workout by happy coincidence is also a walk and these activities have so far been consecutive). It’s a mania tele savali (a very nice walk)- with lots of people along the way, all very friendly. By the end of next week, I hope to begin riding a bus. They’re cheap, always overloaded and always on time…I’m just not sure what time, and neither apparently are they. They often have printed motos on the windcreens and while I’m happy to take a punt on the bus with “One Way, the right Way- with God”- I’m less keen on “The Widow Maker”.

The weather up here is about 5 degrees cooler than in town- which overnight makes it very comfortable. There are 5 houses all painted blue and surrounded by a fence in our “compound”- a horrible word, which suggests the high fences and locked gates of the diplomatic reserves a little lower down the hill. Our place has a gate- but it’s left open, and the fence is more of a corroding support for a significant creeping floral display. I’ve no any idea of what’s being locked out of (or what’s so valuable inside) the secure compounds occupied by the colonialists down the hill. I refuse to refer to home inside a “compound”. Instead lets call our little village within a village Smurfy.

Dogs are a constant here in Samoa and we have 4- or they have us-  they were here before I was. They’re rather charming in an unkempt, mildly aggressive, possessive, suspicious and noisy kind of way. There must be 30 or so roaming dogs within a couple of hundred yards. Next door to me at Smurfy is a volunteer vet who is here to work on a huge desexing programme. (prior to the UN Small Island Development conference, held here a month ago- about 1000 dogs were also euthanized…) The vets get through an average of 50 dogs, desexed, every day, in villages all over the country. Every night on our hill is filled with the howls, barks and occasionally downright saucy tones of dogs in packs, in fights or in one another.

The Smurfy dogs are Captain Nimo, Costanza, Fritz &… the other one (relax- I’ve only been here a week- I’ve met a hundred people and 4 dogs…forgetting the odd name was inevitable).  Fritz and (the other one) have been named (forgetfully) and adopted by chef/musician/café proprietor/German/dog whisperer/ and all round show off Christoph who lives behind me…he is very nice, and very interesting, and I sometimes fall asleep briefly, listening to his classical/blues/jazz music wafting from his stereo through the night- which the dogs seem to have an inexplicable regard for. It’s hard to describe, but the majority of dogs in Samoa are not owned in a traditional sense- they tend to live on scraps from the village, and they’re slightly built, slightly feral and roundly respected and feared in equal measure (…it’s a bit like coming home to a pack of unfed but affable dentists, bankers and politicians…). So Christoph’s love of Smurfy’s resident dogs is quite endearing, and in return they occupy and protect our shared territory, sleep on my balcony an even allow the occasional pat.

Talofa- and afio mai to Smurfy Tiapapata… Photos at April Showers…

*obviously not a real samoan word….