Faiaoga ma Aoao Faatasi

Well, I have managed to get some pictures for you! (Breaking the rules to do it by the way) THIS is a WATERFALL. It is far more amazing in real life than in this photo, it is the direct water supply to the villagers.

I guess I should show the beach scenes, but honestly you've seen that before, and it is really like that - bluer than blue sparkly water, white sand, palm trees, islands in the distance. I always thought the photos you see were touched up - little bit of saturation, little bit of constrast and hey presto but no, I think it's more speccy in real life.

THIS is a sample of the work I am doing this week. Putting together a slide show right now called Taamilosaga o le Vai - CYCLE OF THE WATER.

I am learning Permy-speak in Samoan - very nice. My favourite phrase so far is pitu o le vaomatua - 'edge of the forest.'

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Or maybe taamilosaga o le vai i totonu o le laau.

Literal translation - 'cycle of the water through the tree' (closest we could get to 'transpiration').

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Above: Air is pushed upwards and compressed at the edge of the forest.

And in the cloud: Organic Particles combine with compressed water vapour to form clouds.

And maybe you can guess: molekule o le vai - water molecules, taapeape -spread out, putuputu faatasi - close together.

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This is one of the simplest slides, but it is this kind of work that I came for. I love it. Teaching and learning at the same time is the only way to live, in everything we do. This is my conclusion (and the title of my blog today)!

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So faiaoga ma aoao, baby, Fie-ah-onga, ma (sharp as in 'up')u'o-u'o!

And That's This:

Dear God, let Creative energy flow freely through me, and lead to me a path of harmony and abundance. Focus the potency of my many desires to serve only those which are true and divine; purify my motivation. Strengthen me and prepare my soul to take the next step towards you God. In my heart I am ready. Prepare me to move forward. Amen

Each day in Samoa at 7pm a bell rings. After this bell families sing together, no one walks the streets, families sing and pray together as darkness falls. At 7 I pray too, or meditate, or give thanks, or whichever words you like best. In Samoa it is called Sa, which, ironically if you look at the Christianity situation here, means both 'God' and 'Forbidden'. Sa doubles as a curfew as well as a scheduled time for prayer. Anyway, I take what I like from this tradition and leave the rest at the door. Last night something like the above prayer formed on my lips, to alleviate this 'stuck' feeling I seem to be able to do nothing about. WHile I'm talking about prayer, I must mention that I am sincere when I say that I believe we are all capable of direct communication with God - God which for me is the creative force that drives all systems, otherwise known to me as love.

So I asked to please know how to move forward, but I asked not with my mind but with my heart. I asked from a place of truly wanting an answer with all my being, I think I asked with unnoticed tears in my eyes. My mind felt blank and I layed down on my grass mat, and suddenly found myself pondering an idea I had never before encountered coherently. Case, you remember the scene in Waking Life where the old guy does his speil which ends in 'The answer to that can be found in another question, and that's this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear, or laziness?' (He is talking about the inability of the majority of the human race to reach anywhere near their full potential.)

I realised then that FEAR is something I recognise and admit to and almost always do whatever it takes to overcome. I know it is a trick of the ego and I try never to fall for it. But LAZINESS... laziness I would never admit to, never accept, always always deny the existence of. And so what do you think happens to me? I am plagued by laziness - it begins to work better on me that fear! So, I wonder, what does laziness want? It wants to avoid, and it wants to preserve. I know for a fact that physical tiredness is an amazingly gratifying sensation when work has been done towards harmony, which means that laziness and the urge to always rest is ego's newest attempt to prevent progress - and like I said, it works better on me than fear because I will never admit to being 'lazy'. And I am not lazy. My true, divine self has never heard of this strange condition. At times I have worked so hard for what I believe in that my body has all but given up, and it is the greatest feeling I know.

I take this new understanding as a piece of pure evidence of successful human contact with God. I know because when I ask with my heart instead of my mind, I always recieve an answer. If you are open to receive the messages tangibly, and you are open to consider what it is you really want, the true divine desire of your soul, there is nothing you can't work out. Nothing you can't achieve, one step at a time. I am moving forward now, excited for the next page of my story, determined to unfold the perfect plan written by my soul. And this is how I will change the world.

A Day in the Life of this Palagi

So, since I'm living in it, I don't find my life here particularly exciting, but I think my family is interested in it to some degree, so I could go through 'a day in the life', I guess.

I wake up in my fancy double bed inside my modern house. The developed side of Apia is a world away from the villages - which are actually just half an hour away. The house I live in is actually a big step up from where I last lived in Australia - in a tent or sharing a caravan on the farm. Except for the absence of hot water (boo hoo, in the hottest country in the world, surely) I am totally safe and comfortable. The water goes off sometimes and you can't drink it straight from the tap but the electricity so far is constant and the Samoan family in front of us mean that we feel pretty protected (you can't even see our house from the street). And anyway our particular village (only one street) is pretty quiet. Except for the dogs...

So, I suck it up and have a bloody freezing cold shower (past the swearing, cursing stage, almost through the grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it phase, on the way to enjoying it!) I don't know how they get the water so cold like that, must be deep underground. I walk to work, or I walk to the bus - oh the bus, a beloved pasttime - (I am still working on the photo situation) The buses are wooden, they play Samoan music very loudly and they fill up so far past capacity you are just waiting for the scraping sound. 'Si'i' means 'get up so I can sit underneath you'. They stop whereever you want, just bang your coin against the window loud enough to be heard over the pumping tinny r&b, and have a guess at the fare charge. One tala should do it (about 50 cents).

On the way to work (a 40 minute walk) I get to have a look at how Samoans live. That's another thing, privacy is a big joke here, no one lives alone, and traditionally the houses are completely, unreservedly open for all to see inside. Something else, Samoans are incredibly houseproud. Or garden-proud, at least. Often they take a broom to the garden bed, and SWEEP it 'clean'. They then proceed to burn all loose organic matter on a regular basis. This is part of a different rant, soon to come when I gather enough information. Suffice to say for now this practice sucks.

At work, for the moment at least, I write. I write and write and write, and right now I've got writers block and I can't write anymore, alright? In the end I will post what I have written, but it's got a long way to go yet.

In the afternoons, I become sporty now! (sortof). I play netball Tuesdays and Thursdays, outrigging on Wednesdays, I try to get in some Serious Dancing on Friday nights (which must involve Vialima, the national beer - you don't understand, the music is so ridiculously bad you have to get drunk to dance to it) and Saturday usually involves some sort of swimming activity. I should go down and play Ultimate Frisby with everyone on Monday, but I'm not so keen on it because I'm so unco. Sunday enforced rest, or sometimes a disapproved-of beach mission. I am devouring the books I can get, which is a limited supply.

My good friend gave me his yoghurt maker to borrow while he's in Germany, so I'm making yoghurt which is very exciting. I'm going to make a full inventory of everything you can get in the supermarkets here one day - American imports, different kinds of transfats and glucose and salt. The healthiest thing is baked beans. But nutritional awareness and obesity is a whole separate entry again.

Well, everything is getting a wash today in Samoa, and the potholes will be growing. I am in the office looking for inspiration, but my entire body is taken over by a new kind of lethargy that comes with complete emotional exhaustion, squashing humidity and too much alcohol on the weekend. Before we left Australia, they told us about natural psychological changes that everyone undergoes when they travel long-term overseas. There is the initial excitement and depression, a stage of rapidly switching highs and lows - and I've definitely had that experience. And then there is the 5-6 week slump, where everyone just wants to bail. If this is true by the end of this week I should be coming into the get-me-the-hell-out-of-here phase of my journey.

At the moment I am facing my own capacity to lack motivation. By putting it in writing I am hoping to kickstart some action in the right direction, because at the moment I am not even close to living what I preach. I need to start seeing obstacles as opportunities rather than impossibly large, ridiculously sturdy brick walls. And I need to start seeing brick walls as creators of niches in space-time rather than obstacles. The problem IS the solution! For example, neighbourly conflict as an opportunity to gain a different, deeper understanding of people and culture than the friendly niceties of peaceful but disconnected relationships. Radically opposed ideas and practices in the garden as an opportunity to display the real qualities of both extremes. Lack of easy access to material as a lesson in observation, resourcefulness and creativity, a test for my ability to interpret pattern and landscape and find what I need.

The 'problem' then is that in order for this to work, for me to succeed in the challenge of living an ethical life in this place, I need community. Community is the key, especially here, but there is something in my disposition now that wants me to disconnect. I don't know exactly why but I am compelled to ignore the world around me and exist in a bubble of my own egotistical imaginings, memories that comfort me and validate my self-image, long indulgent hours of bedridden daydream that accomplish nothing but to instill a hazy poignancy to the day. My drive to learn the language has diminished, now I want nothing but to wave 'fa!' and drive off in a nice car with English-speaking palagis and talk about, mostly, myself. I don't have the patience to withstand conversations that cannot trancend communication barriers and so remain in the realms of 'manuia le aso', but neither do I have the desire to go further, so what can I do but avoid conversation? I'm sure this all will change, but perhaps I need to make the most of this chance to explore the superficial topic of 'my' life and mind.

I should get back to work, but I just made the boss happy, and myself, by hitting another spark with CLUMPING coconut polycultures. We will be the first in Samoa to grow in this way, improving yeild by allowing clumps to self-mulch and creating ease of harvest never before seen here. Plus it leaves 80% of total space free for other crops, and I'm pushing for avocados as another major species. Then you wait till I show them trellis ideas and maybe even some aquaculture thrown in with pigs and chickens in there to keep it all under control.

Dad just rang and asked me if I thought I was gonna stick it out for the whole year. I told him yeah I think so.
Yep. I think so.

Anhialated Assumptions

I just received a shocking reminder of my own stunning ignorance. The morality high-horse I've been flogging to death finally just bucked me off. And how did this occur? I spoke to the man who lives 15m away from me, the one who walks past my windows every day to do some unknown business in the backyard, the one I haven't bothered to speak to because 'ah, it's too hard, he doesn't speak any English...' Well, he speaks better English than me. Literally, since I've adopted this pidgin slang, pretentiously throwing in a 'manuia le aso' or 'fa'amolemole' to show the extent of my cultural awareness. And he's got plenty to say.
Imagine me, being gloriously resourceful and bringing in a Samoan-speaking translator while I mime the actions just in case they don't quite get it, to communicate with this family who have been watching me make racist assumptions about them from the day I trundled in. Imagine my humiliation when they answer, in nicely-accented English, my ridiculously elaborately planned question. Well it's lucky I decided I would risk my comfort zone with a conversation, even if it was only to find that actually me and my housemate have really been blatantly rude to the whole family for nearly 3 weeks. In my defence there was not such an easy opportunity to form a relationship in the beginning but there is no denying that was my responsibility. I guess I'm holding onto my Western values, wanting too much privacy and independence in a culture where interdependence is key. I came here to experience another culture, not to stubbornly and pridefully cling to elements of my own.
By the way, the 'unknown business' in the backyard is the manifestation of information I have been looking for, it was right under my little pointy palagi nose - every night they are cooking traditional food on a coconut shell fire, practicing the ancient methods of a rich, strong culture. And when I asked the much agonised-over question 'Can I do some things in your garden?' the answer was a simple, eloquent OK.

So, first step? MAKE COMPOST! It's time to observe the bats... follow the bats, and steal their guana!
(More on this Mission to come)

Matareva Village

A new meaning for hungry, a new meaning for poor. Hungry is having more food than you can eat, and no nutrition. Poor is a communal state, money is a communal commodity. We are all as wealthy as one person's divisions of income amongst us. But my God are we hungry, tired and fat. I slept in a village last night, on a weaved mat next to Halleluia. I was fed as a guest of honour on a meal of corned beef from a tin, a rich bowl of gravy, banana and white bread with butter. The Coco Samoa was delicious, half coco half sugar with water which may or may not have been the cause of my continuing bowel problems.

I want to, but do not understand this culture. I do not know if their motivation to invite me to their village has anything to do with the 50T they obtained from me, or if their curiosity stems from their desire to share themselves or their desire to share in my hilarious ethnicity. I know Samoa is a kind place, but cruelty has it's place in every hidden niche. Children grow up striking dogs, striking cats, killing bugs. Men hit women and women hit kids, like everywhere, violence is rife. Hospitality is expected, and offered, in all instances. No one will ever starve in Samoa, and I believe you would have found a smile (genuine) on every day in history, had you been looking, in every strata, every condition, every circumstance. No one sleeps alone, parental responsibility is shared amongst entire (very) extended families. I was invited to shower 3 times in a day in a 44 gallon drum (which easily beats my shower at home) and there was always some kind woman there to hand me a towel and help me put on my clothes.

Why not go to Matareva Beach with Halleluia? Because I am scared? Because I don't trust what I don't understand? Why then, did I feel so peaceful and blessed sleeping next to a village woman inside a mosquito net weighed down with riverstones? Why am I here?

First Time for Everything

This 'blog' should have started the day I first left Townsville, the transit time when people around me didn't know who I was, and I started trying to find out.

Now, 9 months later, I am blessed to be living in Apia, Samoa, working on a Permaculture project, living proof that you get what you ask for.

This is the first time I have been able to regularly record information (and subjective findings) about my journey, for others to read. I do have an extensive written records, and readers should not be surprised to find amongst current entries, my musings from the time this blog should have begun.

But, OK, it is what it is - the name comes from a peom written on the back of my shirt by a very good man, originally by Michael Leunig from the anthology When I Talk To You.

This blog will be a personal account of my appointment as Permaculture Development Officer for METI here in Samoa, and may I remind you that filtered through my worldview Permaculture covers every aspect of experience, so don't expect an unambiguous report.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily represent those held by ANYONE ELSE. (They made us do this - can't even say who 'they' are.)

Let it out
Let it go
Let it all unravel
And it can be a path on which to travel