Samoa Perimeter Relay

Aside from the road switch, the other much anticipated event around here is the Samoa Perimeter Relay. Well, tomorrow is the big day. I have just got back from the race briefing with our final instructions, so now we are all set to go.

For those of you that didn’t know, I am part of the NZ High Commission team that is running in the Samoa Perimeter Relay, a relay run of 64 miles (102 km) that goes halfway around the island of Upolu. The route is divided into 23 legs, and we are in teams of 6. I am running 4 legs, a total of 18.7 km.

Training has been ok over the last few weeks, but with netball practices twice a week and a game every Saturday it has been hard to fit in as much running as I would have liked. I am sure I will be ok, too late to do anything about it now!

At the briefing there were a few surprises. First they gave us our start times .There is a staggered start depending on each teams pace. We know we aren’t fast, but we were surprised when we were told we were going to start at 3.30am!! Looks like we are now going to start at 4.15 instead, so I can have an extra 45 minutes sleep in.

Next surprise was that our team has been entered in the Diplomatic Community category, and we will be competing against the Australian High Commission’s team for the trophy in that category. Unfortunately for us the Australian team is stacked full of their Army guys who are all fit and fast, so we might struggle to beat them.

The last surprise is that the 2 High Commission teams will also be competing on behalf of the 2 charities of the event – Samoa Victim Support and the Samoa Youth Orchestra. Based on the fundraising that these charities have done to date some sort of handicap has been calculated to even up our two teams. I couldn't quite understand all of the details, but we will be running for the Samoa Youth Orchestra. It just looks like another good reason for some extra NZ – Australia rivalry.

Time for me to head off and pack my things for tomorrow and try to get some rest. Will post the results sometime next week.

Road Switch

Well, the countdown to the September 7 ‘D-Day’ – the day we change the side of the road that we drive on – continues. On the front page of today’s paper I noticed that we are now down to 9 days to go. So, how is it all going?

Well, first of all it is still not absolutely 100% going to happen (unless of course you are the Prime Minister because he has decreed that it will go ahead). The group that is opposing the switch, PASS (People Against Switching Sides) have finally been allowed to have their objections heard in court. They have been trying for over a year, and previously had been told to go away because they had no case. Now they have successfully argued that the road switch might be contrary to the Samoan Constitution, in particular the Government’s obligation to provide for the safety of the people. Anyway, the case has been heard this week, with all sorts of ‘experts’ giving their views on how the world will come to an end because we have to change the side of the road we drive on. One of these experts, an engineer for NZ, gave evidence saying that changing sides is dangerous and the way to make it safer is to widen all the roads by 1,5m and allow vehicles to overtake on the left, i.e. overtake on the inside - turns out this road expert is a mechanical engineer! The judge is due to deliver his ruling at 2.00pm this afternoon, so we will all be gathered around our radios to hear the news.

Meanwhile, the bus drivers are getting upset because they will have to put doors on the left side of the bus so that they can pick up and drop off their passengers safely. This was identified more than a year ago, but it has only been in the last week or so that anyone has actually started talking about it in more depth. Anyone that has seen the state of most of the buses over here will realize that it is quite possible to simply cut another door behind the drivers seat and put in some steps and away you go. Sure there are costs and it will take a bit of time to do all the buses, but why hasn’t anyone started doing it already? With just over a week to go it sounds like a big ask to put doors in all the buses before September 7. So far I have seen a couple of buses with ‘new’ doors on the left, as well as the existing door on the right, but not many. The bus drivers now want $50,000 tala compensation per bus to convert them. Fair enough, they should get some assistance with these forced changes, but to raise the issue this late seems a bit strange to me. So now they are threatening to keep the buses off the roads until they have their compensation and the new doors have been installed. Fortunately we don’t have to rely on the buses anymore, but a lot of people here do and it will be a major problem for them.

While all of this has been going on the Land Transport Authority has been busy painting the roads, putting up signs, advertising on TV, radio, newspapers etc. It is the first time we have seen a centreline on the roads here, so that is an improvement. They have also been getting ready to paint arrows on the road to remind you which way to drive. For now they are just painting the dash and will add the arrowhead or point at the time of the switch. Unfortunately in some places the locals have taken it upon themselves to paint the arrowhead for them, in some cases on the current side and other cases on the ‘new’ side which of course is very confusing for people driving on the roads now. They have also temporarily lowered the speed limit, from an already slow 25 miles/hour to 20 miles/hour (no metric system for speed here for some reason). To help slow cars down they have instaledl speed humps everywhere. Apparently they will remove them sometime in the future, but we will see if that happens. The traffic lights are also being changed (yes, we do have traffic lights here), but they have been out of action so much recently that no one will notice the difference.

The final instructions have now been issued for the actual moment of the change: At 5.50am on September 7 all drivers are to pull over to the right side of the road and stop. They are to wait there and ‘think about’ the switch. At 6.00am drivers are to move to the left side of the road and stop where they will again sit for 10 minutes and prepare themselves for driving on the left side of the road. At 6.10 everyone starts driving on the left side. Apparently in the Samoa version of the ad the phrasing is a bit ambiguous and could be interpreted to mean that after 10 minutes you change the side you are driving on – every 10 minutes! Hopefully they have got that one cleared up now!!

So, with all of these preparations and the all of the advertising are we ready to change? Probably as ready as we will ever be. At least we get 2 days public holiday to help adjust! I think we will stay off the roads as much as we can for those first few days. Stayed tuned, we wil let you know how it all goes.

Netball - Ups and Downs

Its been a while since we gave an update about netball, so for those of you that are interested here is a quick recap of the results from the last few weeks.

We missed 2 rounds while we were in Australia, but is was business as usual. The Men's team had 2 solid wins over weaker opponents and the Women's A side played the 2 top teams (SCOPA and St. Mary's) and were soundly beaten in both. I think Angela was secretly pleased to have missed those 2 hidings!

The first week we were back the Men's team had another comfortable win and Angela's team also had a win. This was a very rare occasion - all 3 teams in the club managed to win their games.

The following week was a big one for the Men's team -we were challenging Marist for the shield. This shield is a bit like the Ranfurly Shield and it was our chance to take on the current holders. We were keen to win and everyone was fired up before the game. It was a tough game and there was a big crowd cheering on each side so it was getting very noisy. We played well, probably well enough to win by 10 or more goals, but in the end we had to score a goal in the last moments to secure a 1 point win! Our attackers seemed to struggle to get the goals in, but us at the defence end kept us in the game. Still, must give some credit to our GA, Lavi, who very coolly slotted the goal to break the deadlock with just a few seconds to go. Very exciting for the crowd to watch, but extremely nerve wracking for us players!

Angela' s team won again that week, which I think is the first time they have won two games in a row (but she doesn't like me to mention that!). Of course the club had to celebrate and the shield found a new home at Ray and Mary's house. That weekend was also a long weekend, so as well as the Saturday night party there was also a BBQ on Monday afternoon, with the shield as guest of honor. I think the party lasted well into the night for some.

After winning the shield that meant that the next week we had to defend it against GM Bakery. They are one of the better sides in our competition and have a well earned reputation for being a rough team. We were quite disappointed to find out that our game, which we considered to be one of the key games that week, had been scheduled on court 2. Court 2 doesn't have a scoreboard or clock, so you can't tell who is winning or how much longer there is to play, and one of the goal rings is broken! For whatever reason (some people still hungover from all the celebrating?!) we started off slowly and were behind by 8 after the first quarter. We improved as the game went on and got to within a couple of goals at one stage, but we couldn't quite catch up. Again the goals just weren't going in, so after only 1 week we had to hand the shield over. Angela's team also lost, so there wasn't much celebrating that week.

Yesterday Angela's team played St Mary's again, and this time instead of a 60 goal thrashing their team played really well and stayed in the game. After being quite even over the first 2 quarters St. Mary's finally got in front and ended up winning the game by 10 goals. But it was a much better performance and it is the closest that they have ever been to one of the top 2 sides.

For the Men's team it was our last round-robin game before playoffs start next week. We had no shield to play for and had already made the top 4 so the result wasn't critical, but we were playing SCOPA. They are the only unbeaten team this season and were the only team that beat us last year so we were quite keen to knock them off and maybe claim top spot going into the playoffs. Again we had been put on court 2 and weren't happy about it. Not only had they still not repaired the broken ring, but the ring at the other end of the court is now bent too and the net is only just hanging on. The first quarter ended in confusion when the timekeeper brought the quarter to an end after 10 minutes (instead of 15). When several of the players asked what was happening the umpires realised that there had been a mistake so we had to go back on court and play the remaining 5 minutes! It was a pretty close game all the way, we were down by 2 after the first quarter, up by 2 at halftime and up by 5 after 3 quarters. But the last quarter didn't go our way. First, there was another mistake with the time keeping, apparently they hadn't stated the clock, or something. By the time they had realised we had already scored 2 goals to SCOPA's none and had possession, but the umpires for some strange reason decide to give 1 point to each team then restart the quarter with SCOPA in possession. No one can understand how they thought that was fair. Then we only played 10 minutes after the restart, no one can explain how they figured that one out either. Anyway, between all the confusion we let SCOPA catch up with us, again the goals just weren't going in, and at the final whistle apparently they won by 1 goal. I am still not convinced that timekeepers and scorekeepers got it right, but I guess they won't change the result now. So, we didn't manage to get our first win over SCOPA, but maybe we will get a chance for revenge in the playoffs.

Magic Circus of Samoa

It was with great anticipation we waited under the big top for the show to begin. Not often you get to go to this type of entertainment in Samoa. Like when other things are available I think everyone turns up with their kids which is great for supporting Samoan talent.

Anyway I resisted getting a blow up toy (!!!) A nemo, rabbit, snake, spiderman or batman (jeeze you people!) There was no icecreams just popcorn and candy floss so avoided that too. We took our seats on the wooden benches and waited for the show to start.

It was pretty good actually. Quite funny. Had a good laugh. My favourite act was the dwarf conducting the bell orchestra. So hilarious. We also saw acrobats, trapeze, clowns, motorbikes riding in the globe of death, balancing, Samoan Siva, unicycles and contortionists. I have to say though that I also saw the most disgusting act ever. The vomiting woman aka Human Fountain. An Indian woman dressed beautifully in her sari who proceeded to swallow jugs of water at a time then regurgitate it as the human fountain. It made me want to gag! She also swallowed 4 goldfish whole and spat them back out into a jug - they were still swimming and mixed up a green cocktail and I won't even go into detail there.

So there you go a great night's entertainment in Apia. Harry Potter at the movies this weekend!

Little Lincoln

Just wanted to give you a quick update on our trip to Australia - Brisbane recently. We had a week with Raymond and Lisa and the new addition Lincoln. The time went so fast. Far too fast actually. Baby was really good. Started to sleep through the night just before we got there so perfect timing. He is quite a good shopper as long as milk and clean nappies are still at hand. Smiles and laughs away at you all the time which I thought was pretty impressive for a 7 week old. I'm not biased of course! Photos of us are on Flickr so check them out. Lincoln is like a chip off the old (my brother) block and raised much attention when out and about with his Dad.

We also got to catch up with some family and meet some we hadn't met before plus a couple of friends and their kids. Adam was warming to the baby thing by the end of the week especially when he got put in charge as the rest of us were busy cleaning and baking for imminent arriving visitors! Did a pretty good job actually.

So did the feeding, nappies, playing, nursing and putting to bed thing. It was great. Also ate strawberries every day and marvelled at the amount of food choices availalbe in the food courts! Maybe we've been in Samoa too long?????????????

The case of the missing jandal.....

Talofa everyone. Yes we are still here alive and kicking!

The other morning Adam got up and ready for work when he discovered he might have to hop!! Yes 1 jandall had gone mysteriously missing from outside the door. He hunted high and low, around the property and up the road to no avail.

The jandal was however spotted by more trained eyes up by the shipping container. A puppy must have been the culprit! Jandal is now restored to it's rightful owner albeit a bit slobbered on and chewed.

Have a great weekend everyone. It's Father's Day here this weekend so we get Monday off. Off to Netball tomorrow and partying Saturday night in celebration of USP Business House netball team's 3rd place. The $50 tala on the bar won't go far! Hope those students behave ....