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)