Apia and more...

On the trip to Apia we got to see some more of the island as we travelled overland, taking a different route to the one we had taken from Aggie Greys to the Sinalei. We travelled through several villages (including David Tua’s hometown) and passed many family farms and gardens, some of which had stalls selling their surplus goods. Others sell their goods through collectives or to exporters based in Apia, where there is a produce/fish market and a craft market. Both are open six days a week, Monday to Saturday. The craft market that we spent several hours at was in a large warehouse with rows of small stalls selling jewellery, carvings, jandals, t-shirts, weaving and numerous other things. Almost all of the goods seemed targeted to tourists but there were a lot of local people wandering through as well. The most crowded area was the food court, particularly at lunch time, but I was really amazed that almost all the food looked to be deep fried. The only things that weren’t were banana cake and fresh orange juice as far as I could see. We ended up going to a café and getting something a bit healthier looking, which had the bonus of being cooler with air conditioning, as by that time we were beginning to melt a bit in the heat.

After lunch we walked the rest of the way trough town on our way to Aggie Greys by the harbour where we were meeting the taxi van. We found out that Aggie Grey is a business empire of sorts in Samoa or at least on Upolu, as there are two locations that the hotels is located at as well as several souvenir/food outlets we saw with the same name.

On our trek we followed along the boulevard/shore wall and enjoyed the sea breeze. This also gave us a great view of the harbour and the church and government buildings along the road. It was fascinating to see and work out the influences of various international groups and other countries and how that has changed over time as seen by the various buildings age, size and quality. One major feature of Samoa was the number and variety of churches, both in Apia and along the village roads. The level of pride that the villages and congregations place in these buildings was evident in the size, structure and “flashiness” of the buildings. Also the fact that a number of the existing churches were clearly being added to or upgraded reinforced this perception. It is a major part of peoples lives in the villages and pretty much everything stops on Sunday’s as people attend church once or twice on that day, as well as spending time with family on this ‘rest day’.

My Mum, Nana, best friend and sister attended a church on the Sunday while we were there. They travelled to a local Catholic church, near the resort, although there is a variety nearby. They told me it was a lovely service, although they couldn’t understand much if any of what was said as it was spoken in Samoan. But they all felt that the most beautiful things about the experience was listening to the singing and seeing the ladies clothes and hats. It was also a great way to see how communities come together and how families interact and behave. It was a particularly good place to learn about the protocols and hierarchies of respect. My sister mentioned a little child who was being disruptive and so was being handed around amongst family to settle him, but in the end was too much trouble for someone so was sent to the granddad or one of the other male elders. The elder man gave him a tap which quieted the child and made him settle and then the granddad gave the child a hug which made the kid smile again before he settled down for the rest of the service. It was interesting to hear a story like this to know how children and adults communicate in these situations.

Another experience of a part of Samoan culture was the Culture Day that the Sinalei holds weekly. There is a talk about weaving and other aspects of Samoan culture such as Ava (kava) drinking and sharing some traditional stories which goes for one hour, then a talk and demonstration of Umu (hangi) cooking later in the afternoon. It was interesting to compare what I knew of things from other countries in the Pacific including New Zealand that have related cultural aspects and seeing how they connected to what we were being told. The day was finished with a dinner cooked in the Umu that we had seen earlier and a cultural performance of dance, singing and fire throwing/dancing. It was very impressive with the voices of the performers creating such lovely melodies with the accompaniment of various drums and a guitar. The fire performing was truly amazing with the youngest performer being only eleven years old.

All the employees and performers at the resort were local people who all walked to work. It seemed that the majority of people, from school kids to the elderly walked everywhere and if they didn’t walk they might take one of the quirky public buses. We saw these during our day in Apia, with their old school box-y look with bright paint work and quirky individual names. We were told that the buses were converted trucks with the shell of the cabin with the passenger seats attached to the deck on the back of truck. I think these old trucks may have been old army trucks possibly from World War 2.

As I mentioned the roads are not particularly crowded, at least they weren’t at the times we were out. The private vehicles we saw were a mix of older cars and flatbed trucks that were a mix of European and American made cars, so some were left and some right hand drive, which was confusing to me. We saw a larger number of vehicles for the first time when we reached Apia on the market day coming up to a set of traffic lights. Initially I was a bit surprised to know that Apia had several sets of traffic lights but then I found out that frequently they don’t work so it didn’t really matter to the people. It then became a matter of close your eyes and trust the driver, two of the intersect lights that morning weren’t in operation at the time. Other then the slightly scary experience at the lights everything else about the roads was pretty good.

All the roads are sealed (or at least the ones we travelled on) and seemed in really good condition but they are a lot narrower then the main roads we are used to in NZ. The marked speed limit seemed to be quite low but many of the drivers on the ‘open road’ seemed to be treating it as a guideline more then a rule (particularly the drivers we had). But for all the ‘playing chicken’ with oncoming vehicles and dodging dogs, chickens and numerous school children the roads seemed very safe. I think partly this was because of the frequent speed bumps to catch out unwary speeders and that people generally seemed like chilled out friendly drivers.