Blogs from Samoa, Oceania - page 2

We spend most of morning lazing on the beach, and I use this as an opportunity to read up on the history of Samoa. There seem to a be range of theories on where the Samoans originally came from, but the predominant one is that they travelled here from South East Asia about 3,000 years ago. We’ve noticed the Samoan and Indonesian/Malay words for the number five are both "lima", which is surely more than just a coincidence. The European powers started to take some interest in the islands in the 1800s, mostly due to demand from the chocoholics in their homelands for cocoa, and in 1889 Britain, Germany and the United States all sent warships to Apia and a major conflict seemed likely and imminent. Fortunately a big storm destroyed most of the ships, and ... read more

We head off towards Apia and stop at the Robert Louis Stevenson museum which is in the village of Vailima on a hill overlooking the capital. The museum is a spectacular colonial mansion with wide verandahs, set in huge manicured gardens, and was RLS’s home when he lived here from 1889 until his death at the age of only 44 in 1894. We join a tour of the Museum. Our guide tells us that RLS came here from Scotland with his American wife and family to try to get some better weather for his tuberculosis. He originally went to Hawaii where he was good friends with the King, but the King suggested that perhaps he’d better leave Hawaii and go somewhere else after he discovered that RLS was having an affair with his sister. I suspect ... read more

Issy and I both seem to have caught colds. Issy blames me for hers. I have a slightly different view of events, but she sounds a lot worse than I do so I don’t feel brave enough to argue. It’s both Sunday and Father’s Day here. The Sabbath is strictly observed here in deeply religious Samoa; the whole country is closed for the day, so we plan a day of doing very little. We tried to guilt our offspring into believing that it was Father’s Day the world over and that they should therefore shower me with love and gifts, but it seems that they haven’t fallen for that little ruse. There’s also a public holiday for Father’s Day here tomorrow. I think this is something that should be instituted in Australia as well; only for ... read more

Issy’s keen that we have a couple’s massage while we’re here. I’m not a big fan, but we stumble across the resort's spa during our wanderings, and I think I might be in a lot of trouble if I try to run away now. Fortunately the available time slots don’t suit our plans for the next couple of days, or at least my version of our plans, so I think I may have temporarily dodged a bullet. The spa attendant is a Fa’afafine. These are Samoans who identify as having a third gender. They are an integral part of Samoan culture and have a recognised role in traditional Samoan society. They are classified as male at birth, but have both masculine and feminine gender traits in a way that is apparently unique to Polynesia. We‘d read ... read more

Today we’ve booked a full day tour which will take us all the way around Savai’i. We‘re collected by our guide who introduces herself as Una, and she tells us that our driver’s name is “Naughty Asu”. We don’t ask why our driver’s name is Naughty Asu and just hope that it doesn’t have anything to do with the quality or speed of his driving. We set off through some of the villages that we walked through yesterday. Una tells us that every family must have a fale at the front of its property to use to welcome and entertain visitors. This even applies to the more well off families who might also have a European style house behind their fale. She says that there is a very strong culture of village families helping each other, ... read more