“Words of sorrow and words of spite,
Ringin' in my head right through the night...
Don't you know it's a cryin shame- when you got yourself to blame.
Don't you know it's a cryin shame- you got yourself to blame.”
Johnny Diesel & the Injectors
Aso Faraile...I'm at the markets, waiting while my guests browse. There's a young guy- late teens or 20's-large and muscular lounging against a steel post, flanked by 2 friends, eyeing passers by in the limited shade between the main market place buildings. A neck tattoo- albeit unintelligible- indicates literacy (in that he asked the tattooist for a word instead of a picture...). To the unfamiliar there might be a threatening air to their non committal loitering mid market...but I make eye contact and am obliged by interest and manners to say hi while I wait for my guests. We chat for a second or two- exchanging poor Samoan for passable English.
“He's not so bad” I think, after an exchange.“It can be easy to misjudge people...”
“So...you wanna buy some drugs?” he asks after a bit.
Ah- you've let yourself down there tiger...that's a shame.
The sun is up early on Aso Sa. I've got a car for the weekend, unusually, and so I drive to town for a walk along the waterfront. The Harbourside is empty- but across the road people bustle in out of Churches, like white ants, hollowing and hallowing. The sun is rising, and it's already approaching 30 degrees- but the light is bright and the waves are lapping onto the low tide sand. The sea wall is made for easy walking and there's a breeze beneath the intermittent shady trees...it's nice. But my eye is drawn from the sea and sky, to avoid stepping into the detritus of Saturday night...bbq remnants- plastic forks, “disposable” polystyrene plates and cups, al-foil wrappers and the broken glass have been almost cleared from the walkways- only to become mortar in the sea wall. I look too closely and discover a “disposable” nappy or three...that's a shame.
The Tourism Centre stands opposite the monstrous Catholic Cathedral midway down Beach Road. A cardinal- in red robe and cuttlefish shaped fascinator emerges gloriously from the building surrounded by a fluttering parish of white and brown... “that's nice” I think. Across the street, where in front of me, a man begins to assault a woman, dragging her across the grass in the mid morning sun, not 20 meters away from the hand of god, and in view of all. It's a minute or so before I intervene- while the congregation watch, or look away. It ends with him letting her walk away...at least until I move on. “It's my wife” said the man repeatedly, in what he appeared to believe was a plausible explanation for handling the woman... that's a shame.
Sunday afternoon, and I'm still in the need of a walk- a week off with Dad has left me overloaded on “carbs” and insufficiently exercised. I head to Mt Vaea, to take a walk up the mountain to Robert Louis Stevenson's grave site. The birds sing loudly- protected here from hunting (an edict from the burial of Tusitala on the hilltop a century ago). The track is dry-ish for the first time in several weeks. As I sweat and climb, my heart begins to find it's rhythm-”this is nice” I think... My eyes wander from the trees to the track to maintain my footing- not fast enough to miss the water bottles and lolly wrappers cast aside at numerous points by sweating fat fools who can't sustain the weight of an empty plastic bottle as far as the bins at the top of the hill or in the carpark...that's a shame.
If you're too unfit to carry an empty plastic bottle to a bin- don't bother exercising. Just hurry up and die.
If you don't know how to dispose of a disposable item like a nappy- you're not competent enough to purchase one (let alone to raise a child).
If you're standing in front of a church watching someone commit a domestic assault, and you don't have the ability to intervene- you don't need God, you need the wizard of Oz to give you Courage, a Heart and a Brain.
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