Our House in Vaigaga, Samoa

Our rental house is great. Last weekend we got the keys on Saturday and received a ride to the house, with our suitcases, from our landlord. Everyone in the street seemed to be expecting us including the people up in the fast food shop on the corner! The landlord did a very thorough check to ensure all lights, electrical equipment and water taps were working in the house. He was very disappointed to discover 1 light was out – I thought this was no biggie – however a few days later he turned up with a new starter for the tube to get it working again. We have got hot water. This consists of a gas bottle that sits outside so we need to keep an eye on that or have a cold shower (which wouldn’t be a bad thing!) We also have air conditioning in 1 bedroom and the place is tiled throughout. The temperatures at night at the moment are not too bad so after a short burst we find we can sleep with just the fan on. Actually in the New Zealand winter, Samoa is a bit cooler too. Our house is 1 of 2 on a fenced section, owned by the same landlord. The couple in the other house are very nice. Similar ages to us. They are Indians from Fiji. Richard works at the Vailima beer factory across the road but his wife is still searching for a job. I am pleased that our houses have a lockable gate and barbed wiring on the fences as this is more secure and also means we can keep the stray dogs (and there are a lot of these) out. Dogs are actually a bit of a problem here. Not everyone has theirs fenced in and they seem to be allowed to run wild having puppies. I have heard some nasty stories about people receiving dog bites which don’t please me. As if I wasn’t apprehensive enough about dogs to begin with. I met one of the lecturers at work the other day out for a walk and when I asked him what the stick was for he said “dogs”! If a stick is not to hand than apparently you shout at them or throw a stone. I was approached by a dog owned by the Asians up our street last night and discovered they don’t understand Palagi shouting!! “Go away” didn’t work that’s for sure. My backpack seemed to warn it off though!

We spent our first 2 days in the house cleaning. It was necessary to go and find some cleaning products and a mop (with no bucket!) so that we could do a bit of a tidy up. Walking on the floor and getting black feet let us know how dirty the place really was. When walking back from the supermarket I heard my name called and turned to find a colleague from USP, who we met in February, walking up behind us. It turns out she lives around the corner from us which is great. I thought it was really amazing to have someone call out my name on my first weekend in Apia although not so good that she found me carrying a mop! It took the first day to clean up the kitchen and the lounge area plus scrub the bathroom so we could have a shower. Sunday was a little easier going as we moved some furniture about and mopped the floors some more. I’m not certain I really want to think about what the stains on the mattresses are so we have currently covered them up with mattress protectors and sheets. I will have to figure out how we clean them up a bit. The welcoming committee has so far been the cockroaches and ants that made our house their home! They have been slowly eradicated I’m pleased to say. It’s quite disconcerting however when the pile you sweep up is moving (ants) and when you keep seeing things move out of the corner of your eye, such as the cockroach in the cupboard and the gecko behind the fridge! Gecko and I came eye ball to eye ball and I ran in one direction while he ran in the other. ‘TIS’ though, This Is Samoa! We are waiting for our household items to turn up on the ship next week and then we will have some containers to store our food in etc. I am wondering though where we are going to fit our stuff as the limited amount of furniture we have in the house is already full! We have also already had to use some ‘Kiwi Ingenuity’. During cleaning we suddenly had no water but could hear a gushing sound outside. Upon further investigation we found that the water pipes, which run across our lawn, had burst apart. Adam managed to jack up a couple of rocks to hold it in place which did the trick until the landlord came on Monday and glued the pipes back together.