The Virtual Reinhard
Created | Updated Sep 21, 2006
A Letter from Samoa Part One
As we crowded up the airbridge into Apia airport terminal, Bronwyn ended up slightly ahead of me, side by side with a young local man. He was close to seven feet high, and easily twice as broad as Bronwyn; she looked like a child next to him.
Out in the airport proper, we realised that this was standard physique for a Samoan. It appeared through our foreign eyes as if we had inadvertently stumbled on a rugby players' convention, if you can imagine rugby players walking around wearing the traditional lava-lava skirt, stuffed in many cases with large bunches of grass to keep out the cool 30-degree evening breeze.
Friendly taxi-drivers directed us to their competitor, the airport shuttle. Although this bus left with only we two tourists aboard, it soon filled up with locals grabbing a lift, and we found ourselves in the midst of a crowd of chattering people.
They seemed to consider themselves less the citizens of a particular country and more inhabitants of the Pacific islands as a whole. For instance, one young guy, who described himself as 'Fijian Indian', had been raised in Tonga, and was now living in Samoa because his sister was at university there. We gathered that, if his sister got her degree, she would be trying to move to New Zealand.
We'd been up since 5am, and it was now 2am the following morning. The bus rattled through the night, tooting merrily to every other vehicle, almost all of which were taxis, and occasionally at packs of wild dogs hanging around in the road. It was wet and hard to see outside; we had vague impressions of palm trees, but suddenly we came across three beautiful brightly lit churches, one after the other; then it was dark again.
The bus detoured off the tarmac and up a muddy track. Apparently all the local guys were going to the same place, and suddenly there it was, a beautiful white mansion in the rain forest. We said our goodbyes, and the bus plunged back into the darkness.
Eventually the trees parted, and we were decanted into downtown Apia. We had a vague impression of the sea, and a small wood-framed building which was our hotel. A smiling woman, who had clearly been waiting up for us, assured us that she had not, and showed us to our sparsely appointed but pleasant room.
The night was hot and humid, but bearable with the ceiling fan on, and we clambered into the somewhat rickety bed and fell instantly into a deep and undisturbed sleep.
Apia
On the following morning, we had arranged to be picked up to go on a kayaking trip. The guy was supposed to pick us up at 08:30, but he didn't show and we dozed until breakfast, which turned out to consist of white sliced toast and a chunk of pleasant, almost savoury, mango. The coffee was thin and weak, but we had been forewarned and had come prepared with our own ground beans. The remaining coffee in the bottom of our bodem became instantly popular with other foreign diners.
Still frazzled from our long trip, we gave the kayak guy until 10:30 and then wandered out into town.
Apia is, of course, the capital city of Samoa. On the ground, it is a largeish village hugging a natural harbour, comprising of a couple of shops, the Australian/Canadian combined High Commission, a bank, some insurance companies, and an inordinate number of churches. A handful of visiting yachts swung serenely in the bay, along with two small container ships of the Samoa Shipping Company and what was, apparently, a small tramp steamer.
We dropped in to the Green Turtle, a backpacker's tour operation, and found that the reason that the kayak guy hadn't shown was that we had crossed the International Date Line and it wasn't even Sunday yet; we were reliving Saturday morning.
The Swimming Hole at Piula Theological College
This meant something of a rethink of our plans, which was quite hard as we were very tired and suffering from the heat, so instead we ambled up and down the only two streets in the city until 13:00 when the shops started closing, at which point we checked back into this morning's hotel. After some discussion with the receptionist, we ordered a taxi to take us across the island to a famous freshwater swimming hole which, we were told, was situated at the Centre for Theological Studies.
Samoa has a long history of missionaries from just about every christian group imaginable, even some of the odder American sects, and many of them have stuck. Each church maintains a very strict hold over it's congregation in terms of tithes, and enormous beautifully appointed churches tower everywhere over the often far less salubrious dwellings of the locals. Schooling is highly regarded on Samoa, and the Centre was typically well-kempt and spacious.
On our arrival, the students were deeply involved in the national pastime of Krikiti. This seems to be played wherever a group of young men get together and is vaguely like cricket but played with a rubber ball, a huge three-cornered bat, and a lot of laughter.
Nevertheless, one of the players ambled over and took a few dollars, which entitled us to descend some steps by a derelict church to a stony beach, where a limpid freshwater stream emerged slowly from a rock cave before trickling between some rocks down into the sea.
About half a dozen Samoans lounged about on the edge of the pool. We were extremely hot and sticky, and so quickly got changed and entered the beautiful cool crystal water. Small fish nibbled at our toenails as we swam into the cave, revelling in the unexpected cold, jetlag and apathy falling away in swathes.
After some splashing about, chasing after jewelled crabs, and diving for pieces of loose coral, we emerged once more into the sunshine, two very different and much happier people.
As we clambered back up the steps, I noticed a rubber ball lying in the grass. Off to one side, Krikiti players were combing the bushes, so I picked it up and lobbed it back. Smiling their thanks, they restarted their game.
