Vailoa Palauli

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  Apia, Samoa Western
Thursday, August 17, 2006

This was written the beginning of August.

Hi all, Well things are starting to seem much more real now that we have visited our village. We have been placed on the second, larger, island of Savai'i. We have to take a bus to the wharf, about 45 minutes from Apia and then the ferry to Savai'i. The ferry takes about an hour and 15 minutes. The trip there and back was nice and smooth but I am going to keep the Dramamine in my pocket just in case.

Vailoa Palauli is a pretty large spread out village of about 800 people located about 15 Km west of the wharf town of Salelologa. The first impression is that there is a good amount of money and that the various village committees are well organized and strong. The Women's Committee is building a new fale (building/house) that they received 70,000 tala from the EU to build. I also heard that the Women's Committee does a regular Saturday village clean-up to pick up garbage. The main part of the village, along the road has a lot of houses/fale close together with nice plantings around them. There are dogs and pigs running around but not too many. Much of the rest of the village, away from the road, has rock walls and other types of fencing keeping the pigs out of large tracts of land. This means that it will be very easy to plant vegetable gardens in these areas.

Ray and I were kind of unsure about this whole Samoa thing because it didn't seem to meet our skills or preconceived notions about where we would be and what we would be doing. However, having visited the village we feel much better. Now we have different set of concerns: language, meeting expectations....

We were taken to Vailoa on Monday, after a meeting with Peace Corps and members of the 5 villages that were getting volunteers. Three people from our village came with a van that had to be push started several times before we made it out of Salelologa. When we got to the village we went to the pulenu'u's (mayor's) house. He and his family will be our new family. We will be living in a fale just in front of their house. The pulenu'u is also a talking chief, orator, in the village. I heard that he is known throughout Polynesia for his oratorical skills. Toluono and his wife, Fonise, are very nice. They have 4 kids at home and one at school in Apia. Fonise is a 1st grade teacher and speaks very good English. Toluono has fair English. We also have a Peace Corps committee that we will be working with. Tulipe is kind of in charge. She speaks very good English and is much more forceful and on-task than the two men on the committee.

Tulipe took charge of us right away. She took us around to meet about 25 families on Tuesday starting at 8:00 in the morning. She would explain or skills and then ask the person if they wanted to be on the list for a vegetable garden or a chicken coop. It is amazing how many people you can get on a list with strong arm tactics. Anyways, people do seem interested in gardens and animal things. They are especially interested in having me work with them on castrating cattle. I guess they get more money for a steer than for a bull. We talked to about 15 more people the next day, including one of the pastors, the secondary school principal and the head of a second chance school run by Marists. They are a teaching order of the Catholic Church and have had a school in Vailoa for 25 years. It seems that there will be some teaching opportunities for us also. The secondary school has metal and woodworking tools and is supposed to teach these classes as part of the curriculum, but there is no qualified teacher nor any workbenches. As you can imagine, Ray is really looking forward to having a room to work again.

Anyway, we had a good time in the village. We have 3 more weeks of training to get through and then it is back to the village for the duration. I am putting some pictures in with this message but the may not make it. You can try to get them from Rob or Sarah or wait until I get a photo page up. I will be close to 24 hour internet in Salelologa in three weeks plus some settling in time.

The village is quite beautiful. A river cuts through it and runs along the main road for a distance before turning into the lagoon. Its banks are landscaped and planted and lined with pretty houses along the way. The visual beauty of Samoa is not just due to its lush tropical climate, but is an important expression of Samoan culture. In many cultures-including our own-lack of material wealth is often associated with filthy and squalid surroundings. Not so, here. Even the poorest Samoan will attempt to beautify his dwelling as best he can. It has surprised the 'western' sensibilities of some of our volunteers that village beautification ranks high amongst the development concerns of Samoans, as compared to what we regard as more practical issues.

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