Savalivali lemu

"...just slow down everyone
You're moving too fast
Frames can't catch you when
You're moving like that"
- Jack Johnson

"Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly."

- Plato

Many of my colleagues will admit readily that planning isn’t a strength of our organisation, or in fact any organisation here…in fact “organisation” is probably not a term that should be bandied about with too much vigour…in fact “vigour” isn’t a term which should…um- well, you get the point.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing happens.

My work is organising a Trade Fair…centre of town, about 30 separate small businesses will be showing their wares in front of the Samoan government building. There’s a big rugby game on this week…I’ll tell you more about that another time. Stalls, food, music, entertainment, visiting dignitaries, tourists- it’s a shebang, a big affair. John Key will be there- but so will John Campbell…only one of them is incredibly popular. It will be one of, if not the, biggest tourism event of the year.

The Game was announced over 6 months ago.
The Trade Fair was announced a fortnight ago- when funds were allocated to the organisers (us).
It starts on Monday.
Today is Friday.

We just had a meeting to talk about what needs to be done. Our first meeting.

As I watched a manager explain why he was so far unable to source 300 t-shirts of varying sizes…today, I thought- I have been spoilt. In my last job we had a marketing manager so responsible, that I wondered how he slept at night. I wanted to be at his house one Christmas – just to see the gifts given to the family of a man who put so much time, preparation and thought into everything. I mean, if that was how he treated work, the people he loved must be drowning in consideration . If he were here- I’d have known in May what I was wearing, what time to be there, what to do- I would have been prepared.

But…it’s different here. Preparation is something one does for Church…preparation is for to’ona’i (the Sunday meal)…planning is something you do over a pia, when you’re deciding whether to have the next beer or whether you’re hungry yet (answer- “le'ai, not if there’s still more pia”).

Put simply- planning and preparation are two words more “p” words to go with palagi, which are too long, and haven’t really caught on.

However- and this is the point- I have absolutely no doubt, the function will be a smashing success. There is a simple, quiet, efficiency which denotes the moments before something important in Samoa. Where the shadows seem to flex and grow, and bodies and teeth and too much floral print seem to spring gently from gardens, called to giggling duty…and stuff begins to happen. It’s organic- watching the something grow, as the quiet evaporates into laughter and smiles (and the occasional shout)- and it all comes together. The town will be a flutter, the tourists will ooh and ahh- and a great time will be had by all.

It can be frustrating this lack of planning- of not knowing what's next, not being able to “get ahead”….but it seems that while the rest of the world plans, and predicts and schedules efficiently into the future. Polluting, and pillaging, consuming and whining away what’s left of nature- speeding toward fate. Samoa ambles, meanders, savalivali lemu…unable to stop or turn backward, but there is absolutely no hurry to get to where it doesn’t want to be.