First weeks...

After a flight cancellation and a 3 hour delay, the twelve of us AYADs arrived at Apia Airport in Samoa… a sleep-deprived day and half late.

Orientation
We were soon whisked off to a town centre hotel and then out to the tropical paradise of Lalomanu; supposedly one of the best ways to be eased into the Samoan way-of-life. Lalomanu is a popular beachside retreat boasting pristine white beaches, overhanging palm trees, some of the best snorkelling on the island and traditional Samoan fales (huts with no walls) lining the shore. If you’re imagining Pacific Island tourist brochures right now, you’re on the right track.

We met some of the AYADs from the previous intake between snorkeling, throwing balls and frisbees, eating food, playing beach cricket, chilling out and chatting. We were treated to some energetic Samoan dancing on the Saturday evening. I could hardly believe how they managed to keep such natural smiles on their faces while exerting so much energy. I couldn’t help but smile myself. ;)

Week One: House + Easter
Unlike the Samoan dancers, our first week was very chilled out, but this is Fa’a Samoa – the Samoan way. The greatest achievement is that I’ve found a place to stay… It’s a two storey, wood-paneled house on the main road to the east of Apia, opposite a sports complex and only 25 minutes walk to the town centre. I’m sharing with two ladies and another guy, all Australian volunteers. They’re great fun to live with and they love to cook! Since Samoa is warm and humid, the house has open slatted windows on all sides, covered with the all-important fly screens. It’s great for encouraging the cool breeze, but terrible for sound-proofing. The backyard is shared with two other households (Samoan properties don’t have many fences, though the Australian High Commission is a notable exception!), and we are treated to the at-times comedic antics of a host of farmyard animals. This is great fun during the day, especially when the dogs start chasing the pigs around the house. At nightfall though, the ‘zombie dog’ packs take over (bring a rock if walking at night!). By 5:00am, it’s the roosters that decide to announce themselves. Fortunately the subwoofer-enhanced buses don’t start until 6:00am, though some of the utes are just as loud. Let’s just say that it’s tough to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

The first week climaxed at Easter, which is a pretty big deal in Samoa. I attended Apia Protestant Church; the closest English-speaking Protestant Church to my house. On Good Friday morning, I read all the gospel accounts of Jesus’ final days, and was struck by the blatant injustice of his trial before the Jewish leaders. I walked into church and heard beautiful Samoan voices singing of Jesus’ greatness in the song “Above All”: the contrast was particularly impacting. Since attending this church over the last few weeks, I have regularly been inspired by their music and drama, as well as the fire-in-the-belly preaching of the minister.

Week Two: Language Classes
Our second week was defined by language classes. The highlight was attending a traditional kava ceremony at the National University of Samoa, where honoured guests (in this case, from Otago University) were welcomed with words of great Samoan oratory. One of our language teachers was the leading speaker, and she relayed to us palagis (foreigners) how she, with good humour, had to silence the responding speaker due to a technicality in her Samoan chiefly status. I’m learning that hierarchy is a visible and important part of the Samoan social structure.

To summarise other notable tidbits of my experience so far, us volunteers have learnt how to prepare coconut cream, to cook fresh seafood in an umu (slow-cooking underground oven) and to slide down waterfalls on our hands and feet. To burn off the excess of sugary, fatty foods, I’ve been either running, paddling, playing touch or ultimate frisbee every day other than Sundays, which is a day for church and Sa (prayerful rest).

Week Three: Work
I’ve just finished my first week at work at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE). In my next blogpost, I’ll reflect with more detail on this… suffice to say, my skills will be well suited to this role.


First Impressions
Defining first impressions of Samoa? Family, church, rugby, smiles, party buses, coconuts, ‘zombie dogs’, palm trees, pigs, roosters, heavy rain, voluminous clouds, rainforest, steep mountains, crowded ute trays, iafataga (skirt)-wearing bicycle-riding police, “It’s too late to apologise”, afternoon naps, super warm seawater, thongs, right-hand drive debate, sun, taxis, singing, Vailima (locally-brewed) beer, foreign aid, malo (hi)!

Great Expectations for Samoa

In less than 30 hours I will begin 12 months as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) in Apia, the capital of Samoa. On Friday, March 14, I'll be flying out to work as a hydrology engineer in the Water Resources division of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Meteorology.

To begin the Samoan version of my blog/journal, I though it'd be best to start with some expectations for the coming year. Then, when I finish my final post, I'll compare these expectations with what actually eventuated 12 months down the track.

So... will it be an extended summer holiday in a Pacific Island paradise or a hellish ride of misplaced hopes and derailed plans??

Hopefully neither. I wouldn't be satisfied with either a self-indulgent life of luxury or a mistake-ridden car crash in slow motion. My expectations for life in Samoa are...

1. Personal challenge. Having being forced to be a decision-maker while adapting to life in Scotland in recent years, I imagine that Fa'a Samoa ("the Samoan way") will have its own set of unique personal challenges. The things I'm most likely to find difficult are:

(i) the slower pace of life;

(ii) cultural Christianity (especially any unrepentant hypocrisy);

(iii) the humidity;

(iv) learning the language;

(v) balancing work, study, relationships (in Samoa & overseas), church, sport and relaxation.

2. Work goals. To be honest, I have very modest expectations about what can be achieved in 12 months. I imagine this to be the best I could hope for:

(i) improved coverage of flow gauges in rivers near major towns/villages;

(ii) slightly better trained young employees in yield assessment and water resource monitoring;

(iii) improved staff capacity, in quality and/or quantity;

(iv) greater protection of water catchment areas through public awareness.

3. Relationships

I have increasingly realised the importance of a strong network of relationships, and this will be particularly evident in Samoa. I hope to:

(i) develop the respect and trust of locals in all the social circles within which I am engaged;

(ii) minimise the cultural barriers to communication while being strong in my own identity;

(iii) prioritise key friendships in Samoa, without neglecting important relationships overseas.

4. Spiritual. Faith in God is on the agenda in Samoa, and I hope my own journey will be challenged and strengthened by being immersed in this culture. Specifically:

(i) compare what is being spoken and practised by Samoan Christians to my own expectations/ traditions and enable that to transform my expression of faith;

(ii) understand God's heart in the Samoan context and speaking out boldly but gently;

(iii) be engaged in positive social action, especially within the activity of the churches.

Since 2001, I have been hoping to work in a developing world context. This Samoan experience will have a large bearing on whether to continue on this trajectory. Hopefully there will be growing clarity on whether this is a path best suited to my skills, desires and priorities. Through the process of journalling, these factors may very well be revealed...

Intriguing India and an Aussie Wedding Week

There is one major advantage for an Australian living on the other side of the world: every other country on the way home is on-route. This is one reason why another family wedding back in Australia (the second in six months) gave me a rather convenient excuse to pop in to India.

There were other reasons too: I have become increasingly intrigued by India, with its colour and diversity, its cricketing dependency and its culinary delights. Also of particular work-related interest is the acute challenges of water management in such a rapidly urbanising society. There were two other convenient excuses: my friend and West of Scotland cricket team-mate, Barrington (Barry) Rowland hails from Bangalore, and my ex-church minister and his wife also live in India.

While the trip itself was convenient, the timing was awkward: I left a painfully short Scottish summer for a monsoonal India and wintery Australia, my makeshift tour guide Barry was stuck in Scotland while I would hang out with his family whom I'd never met, and I would have to fork out for yet another flight back to Australia. Despite all this, the trip would certainly prove to be worthwhile.

On Friday 22 June, I flew out of Glasgow 3 hours late due to typically poor British weather, and subsequently missed my connecting flight out of London Heathrow. After standing patiently for hours in a number of different queues, I was fortunate enough to be booked on a direct flight to Mumbai the next morning which was due to arrive only 2 hours after my original flight. I arrived safely in Mumbai in time for a domestic flight to Bangalore... unfortunately, my luggage did not. This didn't arrive until Tuesday. In future, it's unlikely that I'll fly British Airways, and even less likely that I'll fly via London Heathrow if it can avoided.

The domestic flight out of Mumbai was also delayed by about 2 hours due to heavy monsoonal rains (proper rain, not any of this wet mist they get in the motherland). Barry's father had patiently waited for 3 hours at the airport. This was typical of his hospitality and generosity for the four days I spent in Bangalore. I was treated very well. The first picture shows Barry's parents, his cousin and his friend alongside me. The second picture shows a colleague who was my chaperone while I was in Bangalore, pictured in front of Barry's house.

I arrived on a Sunday and was hoping to visit a church service in the evening. I checked out the church next door to my hotel, but instead was pointed on to the nearby Sacred Heart Catholic church. Once around the corner, I saw thousands of people crowding the street in some sort of procession. In the midst of this swarming mass of politely-dressed Indians was a flowery mobile stage, upon which sat a priest (apparently visiting from Manchester) who was being showered with petals by four angelic-looking children. The procession progressively moved and then paused at variation stations along the route, where there would be either a blessing by the priest, tacky Christian keyboard music played and/or sung by a number of competing and cringe-worthy musicians, or there were some prayers being recited.

We were a major traffic hazard, although somehow vehicles managed to squeeze past the edges of the group, assisted by occasionally-animated police officers. When we finally returned to the church premises some 1.5 hours later, we were herded into an open air quadrangle. The surrounding buildings were replete with hanging neon lighting and the dirt floor also doubled as basketball courts. The formalities of the short service were lost on me, although I managed to have a good chat with one of the local guys there who had grown up in the church. I had, he told me, stumbled upon the annual Sacred Heart Feast, celebrated on this day by Sacred Heart churches around the world. This procession was the culmination of the 10-day feast. I'm not sure how this compared to other such events, but apart from being impressed at the crowds that were drawn and my chat with this congregation member, there appeared to be little there that commended Jesus to the general public. Still, spirituality seems to be much more in the public sphere in India.

My four days in Bangalore seemed to go particularly quickly. I was treated to a range of Indian foods, both from high quality restaurants and street vendors. I experienced the noises (car horns and Muslim prayers at 4:45am), the smells (spices or dead animals), the traffic (10 minute wait to cross one road), the spirituality (Hindu temples and religious processions), the TV (Bollywood!), the wildlife (cows lining the median strip), dodgy rickshaw drivers (bargaining for every last rupee), the affluence (palaces and 7-star hotels) and the poverty (beggars with disabilities).

On a day trip by bus to Mysore, I saw some glimpses of rural India and tourist India. I was impressed by the quality of sandalwood and silk products and the persistent salesmanship of the roving sellers who swarmed to the westerners! The ancient Hindu temples had stood the test of time, although the associated merchandise was awful: one man gave me a flower upon entry to "offer" to the god, and when I returned with a flower still in my hand he demanded that I pay him money to receive a blessing... I gave him the flower instead and said that I knew how to get a blessing for free! One amusing highlight was a motorised water fountain with lights and movements choreographed to a range of popular Indian and Western music.

From the chaos of the city of Bangalore, whose population has doubled to over 6.5 million people in the last 2-3 years due to the economic prosperity offered by the IT industry, I flew to Pune, a relatively tame satellite city to Mumbai containing only 4.5 million people. My ex-church minister and his wife, Graham and Heather Simpson, hosted me at the Bible Seminary where Graham teaches. Being closer to the coast, Pune experienced more monsoon rains than Bangalore, and there was hardly a moment where God's tears were stemmed. This enforced time off with my temporarily surrogate parents turned out to be a blessing in disguise, knowing that my week in Australia would be non-stop action. Other than being transfixed by books on Everest climb attempts, I was also invited to share how my faith impacts on my working life to about 200 residential students at morning chapel, and was able to watch the Wallabies beat the All Blacks in the first Bledisloe Cup rugby match.

Fortunately enough, there happened to be an Indian couple at the Bible Seminary who were also heading to Australia from Mumbai on the same flight as me. So, we squeezed five of us (including driver and compulsory relative) plus our luggage in a medium-sized hatchback for the 3.5 hour drive to the airport.

My Indian experience was overwhelmingly positive, although too brief. I was undoubtably protected from many of the potential pitfalls due to the experience of my local contacts. I found it to be noisy, busy, spicy, traffic congestionising, mildly chaotic, unsanitised, more openly spiritual, containing social class extremes and diverse. In many ways I found it refreshing, but in the longer term, it could be frustrating and draining. I would like to go back...

As expected, Australia was an entirely different proposition. I had a week to catch up with the comings and goings of family and some close friends, as well as to prepare for the wedding. This time, contrary to the last time that I was MC at a wedding, I would make sure to prepare well before the wedding day!

On the Thursday, I was fortunate to be able to head up to Katoomba for a day with mate Tim Harris, and we were treated to a surprisingly tranquil walk down the Giant Staircase and through the valley to Leura, just before the heavens opened. He also pulled off organising a sensational HSC Study Camp 10-year reunion that evening, which saw seven original 1997 campers converge on a cafe in Parramatta. On Friday evening, I also managed to surprise my mate Snowy at his 25th birthday party.

The wedding day on Saturday was absolutely stunning. Sunny, cool, clear blue sky, with virtually no wind: a perfect winter's day. I left the surprisingly calm but definitely tardy bridal party to find the church almost full with 15 minutes to go. At 10:50am, 20 minutes late, it was standing room only, and the bridal party were ready. And what an impressive sight they were. The pools of water rapidly filling my lower eyelids soon overtopped my woefully inadequate optical floodgates. The rest of my family were the same. Must be a genetic thing...

The service itself was top quality and really appropriate. It was clear that Kat and Pete were special to many of the people in the congregation, and that their family and friends were willing to support them in the public promises they were making. I was impressed by the genuine words spoken by their school principal, with whom both Kat and Pete have an impressively close and mutually respectful relationship. Our minister Colin expressed clearly what they were promising, although Kat less so... she struggled to get her vows out due to her highly emotional state!

After the usual photos and hasty conversations over morning tea, we were whisked off to The Mirage restaurant at Newport, overlooking the tranquil waters of the Pittwater. We were welcomed by a string quartet from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and treated ourselves to champagne and wine on the outside balcony overlooking the water. The setting and the food were immaculate. During dessert, there were speeches from both dads, the best man, maid of honour and Pete and Kat. They were all very impressive and complementary. It was a little bit disturbing to hear from the best man Mikey that Pete had previously bet and lost my sister over a game of cards... twice!

My brothers Josh and Will were MCs at the reception. Josh was particularly laid back and funny, despite his lack of preparation. Must be a natural. I'm not sure if he gets it from his father...

So the happy couple spend 10 days in Fiji before moving into their flat in Randwick. It was an exceptional start to their married life. I only hope and pray that the rest of their marriage can continue to be a great blessing. I didn't get my 20-rupee blessing in India, but the wedding was a blessing far more profound than what money can buy. With good hearts, wise heads and God's guidance, I'm sure their bound to be a vending machine of unlimited blessings!