knowledge australasia Samoa
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Make a date in Samoa I
Author Robert Louis Stevenson fell in love with Samoa more than 100 years ago. Dave Richardson discovers what the 10 remote islands offer visitors today
t may only be a four-hour flight from Auckland to Samoa, but crossing the International Date Line means visitors can be rather confused on arrival. I leave on Friday and arrive on Thursday, but soon forget about that as I delve into Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Sea Tales. He was fascinated by Samoa and is buried here. How much of the magic remains? I soon realise Samoa is unlike any other country I have visited. On the 20-mile drive from the airport to the small capital, Apia, there are no dual carriageways, no traffic lights, no neon signs. But the villages are busy, even late at night.
People are crowded into large fales – traditional houses without walls and with roofs held up by poles. I think they must be having some sort of meeting, but they are in fact watching rugby on TV. A few days later, this nation of 200,000 people beats Australia in the final of the Sevens World Series. I ask my guide why some people sleep outside their fales, on beds decked out with flowers. She explained patiently that they are not beds but graves – Samoans are buried in the heart of their communities. I visit a village on Savaii, the larger but less populated of the two main islands, where the men tend plantations of coconuts,
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bananas and root vegetables while the women look after children. Extended families gather to cook on hot stones covered by earth. One man shows me his bed – a mattress covered with a mosquito net – and his “shower” – a hose pipe hanging from a tree. It’s baffling that his cousin is Everton footballer Tim Cahill, an Australian whose mother emigrated from this village. Does he envy Tim? “Not at all,” he says.
Christianity is central to the Samoan way of life, so they usually ask visitors which church they belong to. Since the first missionaries arrived in the 1830s, every denomination has set up here, and imposing churches tower over the fales. Watching everyone go to worship in their Sunday best is a treat.
But few visitors come because of Samoa’s culture. Most are from New Zealand, and the
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