"Samoa, Th ..." a Independant State of Samoa Travel Page by Fotuosamoa

Samoa, coined the Heart of POlynesia is ...my home.
Theres endless beaches, cool people, crazy nitelife, fun stuff happening all year round, and,......drum roll........Vailima (created by German brewmasters, appreciated by Samoans and everyone else for that matter,...VAILIMA!!...now thats the only GOOD thing the Germans did
when they administered Samoa back in da days!!!...Guten Tag!!

The Southerrn side of Savaii is an array of colours, fauna and flora.
The least populated region of Savaii, it is also the most diverse landescape of recent lava flows, waterfalls that meets the ocean, large cliffs, fresh water catchments, black sand beaches, unexplained starmounds, pyramids, lapita remnants and explosive blowholes.
Most people visit Savaii for the beaches on the northern side.
Few make the trip to this side, and the ones that make the effort are well rewarded.
Key Places to check out:
Nuu Black Sand Beach, Gataivai Village
Pulemelei Pyramid, Olemoe Waterfalls: Palauli Village
Alofaaga Blowholes: Taaga Village
Mu Pagoa Waterfalls: Puleia Village
SeaArches: 3 minutes drive after Nuu Black Sand Beach
Satuiatua Village: stay at Satuiatua Beach Fales....have breakfast and watch dolphins jumping from your table....snorkell to the reef and watch a million fishies...love it here!!!

Falealupo is the last place on earth to see the sun set each day.
It is also the last to see the sunrise, the rain, tarsealed roads, adequate western education, medical services, clean water and all else that we take for granted.

I make it a point to be at Falealupo each December.
It is becoming my yearly 'to do' project.

As 2005 came to a halt, we stayed again with mom's good friend, Ausega Tautali at Falealupo Tai.

Tautali and Ime have moved to the family fale tele in the villge, leaving Lautofa, her husband Aomua and 6 children back at the old place.

Falealupo Tai hardly rains, the government ingores them - basically.

Anyhow, despite these setbacks, people are rather resilient, after all they have survived three hurricanes, two which wiped away Falealupo settlement in 1990 and again in 1991.

Tautali, still makes the finest tanoas/kava bowls, and traditional artifacts from ifilele. His son-in-law continues his work.

The children
I had to mention the children, six of them, running around half-naked in the sand- aged 1 to 8. Every waking moment is dominated by the loud stern voice of their mother, Lautofa, "Hey, you ***, go fetch some water". "i'm gona wring your neck if you don't peel those 50 bananas right now" "if i see you look away from the baby i'll smack you in silly".
Now don't be too alarmed,...behold, this is normal dialogue between frustrated mom and unplanned overpopulation of children.
At first, i was stunned by the crudeness of these words.
By the time i left, i too wanted to knock someone's face in.
Just imagine that you are minding your own business and a fiesty 3 year old ***head decides to whack your back with a broom.
Much of the children's leisure is outside, with no 'made in china' toys, and robot gadgets.
Nope, a flat tyre becomes a source of amusement. Each child takes turns hopping into the inner circle of the tyre while it is rolled, sometimes to the sea. Funny. Even funnier when the kid is hurt, because everyone laughs and points to the upset victim, ''Ha ha, you are sooo stupid!! Ha Ha Ha"

Anyhow, we took the kids for a ride to Asau, only to find that the only petrol station in the area had no friggin' petrol. So we had to drive back to Falealupo Tai, with all 6 kids in the car. All staring out the window, all feeling the car seats, flipping the windows up, down, up, down, up,..until i asked nicely, "please stop doing that"...and got ignored again and again,...and then i yelled "STOP IT or i'll throw you out of the vehicle!", to which they all started laughing at me.
They are so used to getting yelled at that when you do talk normally to them, they don't respond.
These children do things their peers in America wont do, (unless there's a candy dangled).
Each day, they carry heavy buckets of water from the sea for food preparations, they sweep the floor of the fales, feed the pigs, weed the gardens, do the washing, run errands to the village and back, help with the food preps(thats no easy task: youre peeling 50 green bananas, scraping 20 ulus and lighting a fire using dried leaves and wood).

Who said life's a beach in Samoa?
Depends who youre asking.