Masina Lima

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” - Winston Churchill
“You get a sore neck looking back” – Old Samoan saying (probably)

This week marks 5 months (lima masina) since I arrived in Samoa. Not quite half way through my 12 month assignment period.

Next door to my office- there’s a massive church which has emerged from the earth since I arrived- one more for the great Apia Cathedral Competition…i.e. “which denomination can squander the largest fortune on the gaudiest landmark in which their parishioners can pray (to an omini-present universal being in no need of shelter) for immediate earthly financial assistance?”

The structure is immense- built by a Chinese contractor, with Samoan labour and more quickly than I could imagine it being done in NZ. Sure there were some exciting moments around the scaffold and roofing- with limited provision for safety…like watching a two meter square aluminium panel drop about 3 stories to hit a worker on a window sill, miraculously not cutting him in half. 

However, the fact remains that they have built it, pretty well, and in a very short period. I have watched it take shape- while by contrast, my assignment has progressed very slowly indeed…

So perhaps, not quite halfway, is a good time for me to review; re-phrase; re-adjust my priorities.

I have learned that I have a family who will travel 3000km to see me- and who still consider it reasonable to bring gifts and buy me dinner, drinks and more…their company has both offered a welcome distraction, and strengthened my resolve to accomplish something with this opportunity.

I have also found another family in Samoa, for whom barely knowing me has been no inhibitor to treating me as though I’ve been around the corner all my life...including me in family outings, Christmas dinner and Vailima sunsets like a long lost cousin.

My grasp of Samoan language hasn’t developed quickly at all, as according to the popular “immersion” theory…with Samoans more inclined to speak English for ease of conversation with me…and language study a lesser priority to entertainment or exercise. Splashing about in the kiddies pool is a better comparison than “immersion” for my “talanoa Samoa” – although when occasionally led out of my depth, it’s a bit like snorkling with Dad- choking, struggling and ultimately exhausting but not so much that you don’t desire a beer afterwards. I now understand the feeling of a foreigner communicating not just in “broken” English- but rather in completely irreparable syntax.

I walk a lot…a total of something like 1000km since I arrived…which I have found consumes both time and energy otherwise in frustrating abundance, and allows me the pleasure of meeting more people and seeing more things than I could by any other means.

They say if you want to accomplish something- you need to set some goals (in fact I say it too- I’ve just written 4 pages of this fluff into a new customer service training course…)

I’ll keep it brief and spare you the details…here are my priorities from now on:

1. Write, develop, deliver, discuss whatever assistance I can- to whomever displays an interest- within or without my “partner organisation”. 
2. Refuse no fair invitation- be it dinner, drinks, sporting event or animal de-sexing surgery… 
3. Struggle with the language of my forebears (many of whom may not have spoken it)… just because I feel like a wrestle occasionally… 
4. Persevere. Not in a matyr-ish, hard luck, sad-sack boring way- but in an open minded, un-expectant, “thank you life for this opportunity” kind of way. 
5. Get home healthy & happy and repay my family for this opportunity 

Photos of the Church at Facebook...