APS

Since adopting the dogs Angela has been wanting to find out about getting them ‘fixed’ and checked over.  Here in Samoa there are no vets, but there is the Animal Protection Society.  They rely on volunteer vets to provide spaying and neutering services and run some education programs.  We will probably have to pay them a visit sometime soon to get Angela’s dogs looked at. 

The other night the APS held a fundraising dinner so we decided to go along.  It was a good night, held at Bistro Tatau – one of Apia’s finest restaurants.  We had never been there before, so it was a good excuse to check it out.  The meals were very nice and between courses there were presentations by APS, quizzes and then the guest speaker – Pamela Stephenson Connolly (Billy Connolly’s wife – although I am sure she doesn’t like to referred to that way!).  Even though she admitted that she is not an ‘animal person’ she did give a very entertaining speech.  

All in all it was a good night out for a good cause. 

Going to the Dogs!

Those of you that know the way Angela feels about dogs will never believe it, but she has adopted 2 Samoan dogs.  

When we first moved in to our house the family across the road had a dog named Lucky.  Last

 year Lucky had some puppies and then later in the year the family moved away. When they moved they took the puppy with them, but left Lucky behind.  At the time there were a couple of 

Americans living down the road. They had some dogs of their own and took to feeding Lucky when they feed their dogs. Somewhere along the way Lucky’s ‘companion’ turned up, the Americans called him Old Man and started feeding him too.  Then the Americans returned home and there was no one to look after Lucky and Old Man.  

Angela decided that she couldn’t sit by and watch these dogs starve, so decided to feed them. Of course we didn’t have any suitable dog food, so had to go and buy some.  At first the dogs were a

bit wary of us, and Angela wasn’t too sure about the dogs, but now whenever we come home we are greeting to 2 dogs with furiously wagging tails! At first they weren’t too keen on being patted, but now they come and have a pat and Lucky even likes having her tummy tickled! 

 

We have also learnt the Lucky is the bossy one out of the 2 and Old Man is a bit slow. When we try to feed them Lucky always barges in and wolfs down the food and Old Man sits back and misses out, so now Angela gives them separate bowls and keeps one inside he gate and one outside until Old Man has had a chance to get his fair share!  

Outrigger Canoeing

One of my workmates is involved in one of the outrigger canoe clubs here and has been asking Angela and me to come down and have a go.  Ang wasn’t too keen, especially after her experience of getting sea sick while kayaking at SaMoana, and we have usually been busy with netball and other things.  But last week I finally went down to the harbour and checked it out. 

Actually we are trying to put together a team from work to enter the Independence Day regatta next weekend.  It is getting a bit late to do any serious training, but we thought it would be a good idea if all of the crew had at least been in the boat once or twice before race day! 

So, I joined the rest of our crew for my first introduction to outrigger canoe, or va’a, racing.  Some of our crew had paddled before, but most of us hadn’t. All of our most experienced paddlers are actually involved in running the regatta so won’t be able to race with us. So our motley crew piled into the boat and went for a paddle. I didn’t get much instruction, but was able to figure out which end of the paddle to hold! After a few easy circuits in front of the yacht club we tried a couple of longer runs.  It was good fun, and when everyone is going in time the boat moves along quite well.  These are 6 man canoes and are quite big. We found it takes quite a bit of effort to get them up and going and that they don’t always go in a straight line!  Somehow I got ‘promoted’ to the number 1 seat at the front of the boat and the very important job of setting the pace for the rest of the crew.  After about an hour it got dark so we had to call it quits, but I must admit I was pretty tired by then.  

Since that first practice I have managed to join in one more session. We did some 500m sprints, and we were puffing at the end of that. I missed practice last night, but apparently they managed to capsize the boat!  The races are this weekend, so I will post an update and our results next week. Hopefully we will have some photos too.    

Mother's Day

A couple of weeks ago it was Mother’s Day, which meant a long weekend for us as the Monday after Mother’s Day is a public holiday. This also coincided with our wedding anniversary, so we decided to treat ourselves to 3 days at Manono Island.  

This time we stayed at Sunset View Fales, rather than with our friends at their fales.  After a pleasant boat trip (no sea sickness) we arrived at our destination to be welcomed to ‘Fawlty Towers’ by Basil.  Basil turned out to be Ewen – a semi-retired kiwi who now spends the New Zealand winters in Samoa and the summers back in New Zealand.  He has spent so long at Sunset View that he is now one of the family and they have even built him his own fale.  Anyway, this particular weekend the proprietor (Leota) was away in Savaii receiving a very special matai title. Because it was such a special occasion his wife (Sau) had gone with him. Apparently this was the first time that both of them had been away at the same time and Ewen had been left in charge. He said he was feeling a bit like Basil Fawlty, surrounded by Samoan ‘Manuels’.  Actually the Manuels were Leota and Sau’s 4 boys and between them they did a pretty good job of looking after us. 

After settling in and enjoying our lunch we decided to take a walk around the island.  This time we weren’t being escorted by our friends’ sons and we were allowed to stop and take photos without being told to hurry up!  By the time we got half way round it was getting really hot so we jumped in for a swim. We got back to our fale just before the heavy rain started, so there was nothing else to do but kick back with a Jack Daniels & Coke, some snacks and a book.  

We were all invited to attend the Mother’s Day church service on Sunday morning. For the keen ones we were also invited to help prepare the umu for Sunday lunch before heading to church.  Much to my surprise Angela was keen to get up at 6.30 and watch the preparation of the umu. We set our alarm and headed down to the ‘kitchen’ at 6.30, but there wasn’t much sign of activity. Apparently the oldest boy had slept in and he is the one in charge of the umu so things were a bit slow getting underway.  Anyway, we watched as one of them peeled the husks off the coconuts. These were later used for the fire.  The coconuts were then spit in half and grated. There was quite a big pile of coconuts to be grated, so after a while I was roped in to finish off grating the rest of them while the boys prepared the fire.  Meanwhile taros and breadfruit were being peeled.  The grated coconut flesh was then squeezed to make the freshest, tastiest coconut milk you will ever get.  Then it was time to make the palusami.  This involves taking some baby taro leaves in the palm of your hand and cupping your hand to form a small dish or well. Some coconut milk (seasoned with salt and diced onion) is spooned into the taro leaves.  Then the taro leaves are carefully folded in to form a ball filled with coconut milk.  The trick is to layer the taro leaves so that the coconut milk doesn’t leak out.  Next step involves wrapping the parcel in a banana leaf and finally it is wrapped in a breadfruit leaf.  The girls were pressed into service making palusami parcels. Some came out better than others, but Ang’s ones looked pretty good.  We boys also had a go, and I was pleased when my effort didn’t leak and passed the inspection of Junior, our teacher.  Once everything was prepared it placed on the hot rocks and covered with leaves and left to cook.  

After breakfast we had time to get dressed up in our Sunday Best then it was off to church.   The Mother’s Day service was a bit longer than the usual service, and of course it was all in Samoan so it was a bit hard to follow.  Most of the other guests from Sunset View came along too, but as the service went on most of them left.  For the few of us that stayed to the end we were rewarded when we were invited to stay and enjoy cookies, cake and ice cream with the congregation. 

After church it was time to head back and check out the results of the umu.  As usual it was pretty good. Of course the palusami tasted even better the normal because we had helped to make it. 

After a big lunch the rain came back, so it was time for that traditional Samoan Sunday activity – an afternoon sleep.   After dinner we were treated to an impromptu fiafia show, put on by the boys. It was a mixture of traditional Samoan dance and even featured a fafafine performance. The show was rounded out with some hip-hop from the youngest of the boys.    

After breakfast on Monday we were taken out to the reef for some snorkelling.  It was pretty good, but not the best we have seen.  Since we have been here we have done quite a lot of snorkelling and I guess we are getting a bit picky now! Still, Angela managed to take a few more photos and it is always nice to be in the water.  

Then it was back to shore and time for lunch before we had to catch the boat back to the mainland.  We had a great weekend and were well looked after by ‘Basil’ and his trusty Samoan ‘Manuels’.  

Netball and the 'Happy Juice'

Over the last month or so Samoa's Men's Netball Association has been fundraising to send a team the men's netball world cup in the Cook Islands in October.  One of their events was a 1 day tournament held one Saturday recently.  Of course Angela could stay away from a netball tournament, so we turned up to play, this time with our mates from the Hyundai team. 

As per usual the 10.00am start didn't happen and we finally got started at 11.00.  They actually had more teams than expected - 12 in total - so had to modify the draw. The end result was that we had to play 5 games, plus a semi-final and final if we got that far.  Fortunately the games were shorter (2 x 10 minute halves) but it is still a lot of netball for one day.  

Anyway, we got started and were going OK. It was good to be playing with the old Hyundai team again.  After a couple of games we were all hot, tired and thirsty and this is when the 'Happy Juice' was concocted, as per the following recipe:

Take 1 chilly bin (or esky if you are an Aussie, cooler for the Americans) and tip in a couple of bags of ice. Then mix up a few bottles of Sprim (Sprim is a powdered drink like Raro or Refresh in NZ or Tang in the US) and pour them into the ice. Then take one bottle of vodka (cheap, local vodka - don't waste your best 42 below on this brew!) and pour it into the chilly bin.  Stir and enjoy!   

So it was compulsory shots of 'Happy Juice' after each game - the more shots the better.  It seemed to be doing the trick as our performances picked up after we had been 'refreshed'.  Some of the boys might have over done it a bit,  I did notice some of them slowing down in our later games!  

Because of the late start and large number of teams the tournament seemed to go on forever.  We had done well enough  to make the semi-final, and we won that game quite easily, so we found ourselves in the final against the V-Bar Girls.  It was a tough, close game, but we won and collected our first trophy for the Hyundai team!   

We were all convinced that the 'Happy Juice' had made the difference, it was our edge over all the other teams. Luckily there was no drug testing at this tournament!!   

USP Netball

Some people have commented that they haven't heard about our netball for a while and wonder if we are still playing.  Of course we are - Angela can't stay away from the netball courts for too long! 

In late March a business house competition started. Like last year this is a social competition for mixed teams, but this year we didn't play for the Hyundai team. At USP there was a group of students that were keen to play, so Angela organised a team and we played for USP. 

The first few weeks were interesting, some of them hadn't played netball before and some were not very fit, so it was a steep learning curve!! As the season went on they all improved and we had some good wins.  We had a few games where some of the Fijian boys came and played for us. They are all keen rugby players and were very fit, athletic and enthusiastic - but unfortunately they didn't know the rules! They certainly provided great entertainment for the crowd, but didn't always help the performance of the team. 

Anyway, the season ended last week and we found out that we managed to finish 3rd in our division. A pretty good result for a new team - must have been the expert coaching we got from Angela! We are still waiting for the prize giving to find out what we have won, but in typical Samoan style no one knows when that might be.

Turtles, Turtles everywhere!

Nearing the end of our holiday now but it wasn't over yet! We decided to cut our stay at Jane's fales a day short and carry on around the coast in search of a nice place to stay for our final night on Savaii. Along the way we stopped off at the spot where you can swim with the turtles. Now some people do not like the idea of this as the turtles are enclosed however I was very impressed with the large fresh and salt water pond they were in. It was very clean and clear and the turtles seemed well looked after. We got there earlyish in the morning around 9.30am and there was no one else there so the place was peaceful and quiet. It only cost us $5 each to go in to visit.

We got changed into our togs then got into the water and quietly swam around just looking in awe. It was so amazing to see the turtles up close and we got some fantastic photos with the underwater camera. At one point I stood up to adjust my mask and snorkel and felt a bumping on my legs as a small turtle decided to try and swim through them!

Before long though our peace was shattered by a rowdy Australian family who thrashed about in the water and churned up the sand so it was time to get out. I would hate to see tourists destroy the wonderful opportunity by overstepping the mark. I have heard stories of people picking them up etc. I'm not into that ..................

One last thing to vist and that was the lava flows, caused by the eruption of Mt Matavanu between 1905 and 1911, which buried villages and churches etc. We stopped to look at the village of Mauga where we saw one half buried church and the Virgin's Grave where the lava flowed around and left it undamaged. It was extremely hot on the black lava flows and amazing to see the local vegetation, frangipani trees etc, growing up out of cracks in the rock.

To finish off a brilliant holiday we finally stopped at the Siufaga Beach Fales where the Italian restaurant has a good reputation. We were lucky to get in as they were quite heavily booked but flashing about a few tala during lunch in the restaurant seemed to do the trick and we were quickly shown to a lovely room which was decorated with flowers. The shower was outside in a stone walled area which we all found fascinating. We went for a bit of a snorkel and got yelled out by the locals to get out of their roped off area! We are not sure whether this was because it was a protected area or whether they again wanted money for us to be snorkelling there. We didn't go into shore to find out. We also went for a swim in the hotel pool and had some fun taking photos of us all sitting at the pool bar on stools that were under the water.

A delicious meal to celebrate my Birthday early rounded off a great few days in Savaii.