Story 9. Tropical Paradises or Para-Dices - 23-12-007 – 6

NB: The good, the bad and the ugly are all present in the South Pacific. You have the choice to see it, believe it, experience it or change it.


Tropical Paradises or Para-Dices

There are paradises and there are paradises. Some people live in the same paradise, and yet some have different experiences depending on the ‘throw of their dices’. We call this your ‘para-dice’, and life in Samoa is just that gamble.

Your grandmother can beat you up (that’s normal), your uncle can abuse you (that’s normal), your sister can even suicide (that’s normal), and, sadly, today, your brother can get hooked on marihuana or even ‘methyl-ice’ (that’s now normal) and the adults perpetrate these aberrant behaviours and profitable businesses (at the expense of we Kids).

Well, excuse me. We Kids are not prepared to gamble our lives away, swapping our tropical paradise for your perverted para-dice. See you later. Whilst some people have the same desires in life, some visitors to paradise are simply running away from ‘reality’, however, some of us are running towards ‘reality’.

Some of us make too many comparisons with our past and some of us are better off wearing our deeply tinted rose-coloured glasses, preferably all the time (like our Dad). That way, you can turn your para-dice into a real paradise, best done without a further throw of the dice – take the gambles out of your life and replace with adventures, joy and magic. Amazing how it all falls into place.

Admittedly, the South Pacific is still portrayed as a paradise of tropical islands – no cyclones, no sweltering heat, no mosquitoes, no malaria, no traffic, no political corruption, no evangelical trickery, no sickness (Fiji – 50% living in poverty), no banned imported pesticides, no discarded cheap animal fat donations from our key Aid Partners (I make this a Proper Noun as these partners should behave more properly).

Thanks Australia, Thanks New Zealand). Talk about gambling with our lives and profiteering at our expense. We Kids call it neo-colonialism and it’s rife in the Pacific, but don’t get us started just yet. Read-on.