My Book

Bio-fools or Bio-fuels?

2009-01-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

PS: Let's accept the fact that if our biodiversity (wildlife) is disappearing, not only is this a foolish thing to allow, but we need to accept that we are the only bio-fools allowing it to happen. Loss of biodiversity globally has been fuelled by need for more energy, and bio-fuels now may be our answer here in the South Pacific.

Just the words, ‘South Pacific’ or ‘South Seas’, bring to mind for most quite quickly a feeling of ‘romance’ and ‘exotic holidays’ luring holidaymakers onto tropical palm-fringed golden beaches, even some 200 years or more after the first earliest discoveries by European explorers, missionaries, whalers and traders.

But the Pacific, today, as you’ll soon realize, may have changed considerably after these initial and more recent and more fatal impacts on the lives of today’s Pacific Islanders. These impacts are now daily, so, for the past two centuries or more, an accumulative effect has led to a more non-sustainable lifestyle for most Pacific Islanders.

These impacts have been largely driven by outside influences from the so-called developed world that is today no longer coping financially, morally, socially or environmentally. The health and education of Pacific Islanders is also at stake. We need to find solutions, earlier rather than later, and if this means planting bio-fuel crops, becoming independent power producers, replacing our diesel imports and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, then we Pacific Islanders are prepared to do anything to save our islands and peoples from the devastating impacts of global warming.

The Pacific languages in Oceania, all 3000 or more, are the fastest disappearing of any region in the world. And our Oceanic avian species are also now the most threatened of any region in the world. Why? A cash economy is now leading to mass destruction of ecosystems, both terrestrial and marine, and little effective technology has been implemented to reduce this increasing demise.

The Pacific is facing a global energy crisis, rising energy bills and/or failing energy supplies. And the global food crisis is pushing the cost of imported low-quality foods up within the Pacific. The impoverished are now even more impoverished, leading to even further widespread destruction of ecosystems that are so vital for the survival of the Pacific’s unique biodiversity and the integrity of its diminishing watersheds and cultures. Even alternate hydro-power options are declining as once perennial rivers cease flowing for many months. Action must be taken now to transfer this technology across or, better still, allow Pacific Islanders to better manage their own natural resources.

The choice is to remain a bio-fool or lunge into bio-fuels and help save this planet for future generations.

However, a new wave of energy saviors and energy investors are now needed, and urgently so. The Pacific needs some cost-effective alternate energy sources and alternate income sources, but where are these technologies in the Pacific today? Some Pacific countries are already rationing their energy supplies, many Pacific families have already reduced their energy demands, and now our standard of living can all but fall as we resort to a more subsistent existence compounded by irreversible climate change impacts (i.e. extinction of species being one).

There is a plethora of alternate technologies in the South Pacific, and yet these technologies are available worldwide, well so it is presumed. Samoa is poised to lead the way as it continues its fight against climate change, using both adaptation and mitigation technologies and methodologies.

Samoa and Fiji, for example, have sufficient fertile lands to grow bio-fuels, albeit just coconuts for now. But alternate and possibly more suitable biofuel crops (e.g. palm oil, Arundo donax [giant reed] and Jatropha curcas) already exist in the Pacific. And that is why it is so critical to integrate our emerging lifestyles into a low carbon economy with a stronger emphasis on biofuels. But how do we do this if we are the bio-fools that we are?

To conclude, today’s tourist brochures and websites for the South Pacific have as yet not dispelled this myth of a magical paradise full of pristine ecosystems and laced with happy villagers living an idyllic energetic lifestyle. Not one South Pacific ecosystem has escaped global climate change impacts, pollution is now global, mostly atmospheric and oceanic in origin. But, just imagine holidaying in a South Pacific ‘carbon-neutral holiday destination’, off-setting your carbon footprints with renewable energy technologies at your resort, visiting bio-fuel energy plantations that are producing more than just energy, and no longer being the bio-fool you thought you were.

Tourists today would welcome this opportunity to witness firsthand how Pacific Islanders are having to adapt. But, it will take a certain amount of money, and surprisingly, Samoa may soon have all the money it needs to make this transition thanks to the Clean Energy Fund, numerous Climate Change Funds and possible Clean Development Mechanisms that may further assist Samoa and other Pacific Island Countries.

With your help, we can energize the Pacific, saving our unique biodiversity and even saving the lives of Pacific Islanders. It is now time to prepare for a carbon-constrained economy within Samoa, taking it regionally and even globally, but with you bio-fools, it ain’t going to be easy.

Food for Thought

2009-01-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

PS: Can renewable energy technologies really assist Samoa?

Samoa in 2009 may explore for geo-thermal energy, but it will trial wood gasification utilizing different biomass, a project that will impinge on our farming communities that lack both export markets and access to clean energy.

To augment this initiative, cocogen options are also being considered thanks to IUCN’s implementation agency skills with their $USD1.3M grant for Energy Efficiency in the transport sector.

Two additional projects, once unrelated to renewable energy (RE), but now very much becoming an integral component, are the agro-forestry and sustainable forest management projects, worth in excess of $USD6M.

We can now commence selecting biofuel cropping practices, but we lack the expertise and experience. However, FAO are kindly assisting thanks to a grant from the Global Environment Facility Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (GEF-PAS).

However, Samoa’s private sector are being further marginalized by rising energy costs, rising food prices and an increasing inability to compete in export markets. Value-adding locally and import replacement strategies are now in place and renewable energy technology transfer is the key to this new development paradigm.

Samoa is striving not only for greater sustainability, but also addressing its survivability in a world that it is now finding more difficult to survive in. Samoa is one of the most vulnerable nations on the planet to Climate Change and the Government of Samoa is now possibly the most prepared of all the Pacific Island Countries to combat climate change impacts.

However, these attempts are in vain as carbon and methane emissions continue to rise globally. To us in the Pacific, this is ethically unacceptable.

Our first concerted effort in 2009 is to secure in excess of $USD10M to address climate change mitigation and adaptation issues, and we now have these funds secured: we just need the renewable energy technology transferred to Samoa in the most sustainable manner possible.

However, there is a dearth of expertise in this area of proven renewable energy pilot projects within the Pacific. Why? We need more consultants stationed in the Pacific that have the skills to assess renewable energy needs, calculate technical assistance required, source and purchase equipments, install and train the operators, and even maintain these technologies so that our projects remain sustainable.

The challenge is to make these renewable energy projects boost the value-added potentials within the Pacific so that our socio-economic issues can be addressed quickly.

However, RE technologies continue to be trialed on ‘remote atolls’ before they are proven in our own capital cities. Let’s not make this mistake again.

We in the Pacific need proven working models/pilots, trained technicians and some efforts made to take a cross-sectoral approach and get the food security issues addressed in the Pacific, sooner rather than later.

Traditional Technologies Combating Climate Change

2008-06-09T00:07:00.001-07:00

PURILE PACIFIC PLEAS FOR THE PLANET

After 16 years of ongoing negotiating within the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), and even more to come most likely, it is promising to see a Climate Change Bill being passed in the UK. Thank you.

We in the Pacific Islands are already suffering from climate change impacts, spending 50% or more of our environmental restoration grants on combating (adapting and mitigating) the negative impacts of climate change.

Now we have just learnt of climate-related diseases, and as if our Pacific health systems aren't already overloaded. With 130,000 people dying globally and annually from climate health-related diseases, we Kids want to make a difference.

Please help save our Pacific indigenous cultures, our unique wildlife and some 300,000 mostly low-lying islands. This is all we have.

After all, this is a human rights issue is it not? And surprisingly, little known to most of you, our forefathers have all the traditional knowledge to sustain life on this Planet. Just ask us.

And we Kids in the Pacific are rebelling against these senseless impacts of global climate change - our futures erode, our Pacific parents seemingly unable to react.

What can we Kids do next?

Guess we can transfer this traditional knowledge, South North as they say, from the less developed nations in the South to the developed nations in the North.

Guess we can publicize this traditional knowledge on how best to combat climate change impacts – better still, on how to prevent climate change impacts.

Put simply, all you need to do is follow in our forefathers’ footprints, along our deep soft white sandy beaches, adjacent to our tranquil azure lagoons, beneath the swaying coconut palm trees.

It’s that simple – just 4-5 Es.

Eat wisely, fresh native foods in-season.
Energy from the sun and the waves, with a little firewood collected from our beaches - forget fossil fuels.
Empathy for nature abounds in our Pacific cultures.
Ecosystems need to remain as they were, abundant, pristine and sacred.
Education, traditional or contemporary, as long as it is sustainable.

EEEEasy.

Got it.

To learn more, in person, we can train you here right on-site. It’s eco-friendly, energizing, delicious and respectful of our Elders’ collective wisdom. They’ve been practicing this for 3000 years or more, on these very islands, and they are still here.

But for how much longer?

We need our Elders to design a new curriculum to update their knowledge, improve their skills, and improve global capacity building techniques.

Can we do it, in time?

BEST DIVE EVER

2008-06-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

NB: Rule No. 1 - never dive on your own, always take a buddy along just in case he needs rescuing!

Talofa. For 20 years, we've explored some real gems around our 10 volcanic islands, my favourite an underwater (obviously) volcanic 'Nuutele Pinnacle' with 4-5000 fish/hour, including dog-tooth tuna, sharks, turtles and shoals of fish so dense that they block-out the tropical sunlight.

'Turtle Minefields' is another with both Greens and Hawkesbill Turtles all foraging on seagrasses and shellfish. Amazing to watch.

2500 foot crater lakes, Lake Lanotoo, with a bottomless history. Wanna try it?

Underground lavatube caves filled with water and entering the ocean.

'Piula Cave' with 3 caves all connected, but for the experienced cave divers only.

Miniature 'killer whales', all 4 inches of them, black and white and real cute.

And to surface, looking up at 6000 foot rainforested craters before you, gives you a real high.

Even the odd whaleshark from time to time, with Humpback whales in season - no calving, that all happens in Tonga (Vavau) from August to October - another diving must - only a one hour's flight away.

Highly recommend Aggie Greys Hotel next to Airport with all the watersports facilities (allow $USD1-200/day), great dive facilities and instructors/operators.

And try our nearby beach fales (grass huts) on Manono Island for $USD50 a night including 3 meals!

Want to read more? Try these scribbles My Book where 4 little Polynesian (half-cast) orphans get hit by a big wave out sea kayaking one day and end up for years living and diving on an uninhabited island, living the Life of Riley, comparing the West with the Traditional way of life of their Ancestors.

Mind you, these Kids are not so happy with what we adults have been doing to our colourful coral reefs. These Kids are now accusing us adults of 'adult-ery' and you can work the rest out.....

Some say I can talk underwater, so now trying to write underwater - my 20 year diving holiday is near over as we record these fantastic encounters, some real gems.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, Samoa, even for non-divers, friendly islanders, lovers of music, singing, dancing and laughter (so bring your guitars and be prepared to gift them to the first guitar-playing fisherman who takes you night diving catching crays and octopuses and spearing sleepy fish - bring a spare underwater torch, 6 batteries - makes another perfect gift, as do googles). You won't want to leave.

And Air New Zealand ex LA or Auckland (New Zealand) is the way to go, or Polynesian Virgin Blue ex Sydney (Australia) and NZ I think?? Only 2 hours from Fiji and twice as good. No real shopping here so safe guys to leave your credit cards with your wives!!

Google "Margaret Mead, Samoa' and she'll tell just how good Samoa still is.

BEST DIVE IN SAMOA - BEST DIVE EVER - my last birthday, all geared-up and my buddies all thinking about the 'morning after', no longer prepared to dive, so I exhaled, sank and left them wallowing for 75 mins whilst I sat at 40 feet and the fish came to look at me - nothing manmade in sight except one hell of a nice bottom (aluminium, right above me). I was so frightened for the first 5 mins!!

Time to tackle Climate Change

2008-05-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

NB: Samoa is very late in tackling the climate change debate and even later in tackling the climate change impacts. The Pacific has waited too long to respond to such environmental insults. Our Ancestors would be turning over in their graves if they knew the severity of this situation.

For our rural villagers to respond to climate change, we Kids offer here 36 different activities for adults to contemplate, but preferably very quickly.

Samoa may have just won the 2008 International Rugby 7s Tournament against Fiji (May 2008), but if it wasn’t for a vital call from the Side-line Referee just as the final bell rang, who had mind you luckily identified a ‘late tackle’ penalty against the Fiji Team, then Samoa was bound to have lost against Fiji who had just scored hopefully their winning try – to then have it disallowed.

And, ironically, Samoa may have once again been saved by yet another ‘late tackle’, this time from the GEF-PAS. Yes, the Global Environment Facility's Pacific Alliance of Sustainability is offering millions of dollars to help Samoa fight climate change.

And we Kids in Samoa are inheriting $USD2Million in August 2008 from GEF-PAS LDC Climate Change Fund to ‘tackle’ climate change impacts on its 10 islands. This is indeed a very late ‘tackle’ in that we Kids have all known for many years that global warming is seriously affecting our Pacific Island Countries.

But, by the way the whole community is responding, rugby seems by far to be much more important than climate change impacts. Well, so it seems to us Kids anyway.

So what will it take before 20,000 Samoan Kids are seen marching on Parliament House in protest against the following array of serious climate change related impacts already being felt in Samoa, namely:

1. high susceptibility and vulnerability of Pacific Islands to climate change and sea level rise,
2. episodic extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, floods and droughts,
3. sea-level rise with salinization of ground-waters,
4. ecological impacts through temperature and ocean acidification related stressors on natural systems,
5. storm related inundation of low-lying coastal communities/infrastructure,
6. increased coastal erosion due to worsening tropical cyclone events,
7. flooding as a result of higher intensity/increased duration rainfall events,
8. drought as a result of longer periods without rainfall,
9. increased evapo-transpiration at higher ambient temperatures.

This could all be exacerbated in some low-lying areas by sea level rise,
threatened socio-economic development,
reduced national security and development,
increased necessity for extra hazard management,
altering traditional community disaster preparedness,
growing reliance on ecological and environmental knowledge,
growing necessity for culturally appropriate adaptation policies and measures,
necessity now for climate early warning advisories,
need for improved climate change decision-making,
need for capacity building framework,
need for community awareness building framework,
need for improved climate change educational outputs,
building the overall resilience of Pacific Islands to climate change related hazards,
need for strengthened weather and climate observation systems and activities,
updating analysis of existing climate data for all South Pacific Island nations,
developing international scientific linkages,
Improving climate change risk assessment skills,
Improving adaptation development at community levels,
Developing hazard models for communities,
Improving Cyclone Recovery Reconstruction Plans,
Designing appropriate stakeholder engagement and adaptation plans,
Implementing CIMs and CERPs,
Identifying fundamental gaps in understanding the effects of climate change on Pacific Island communities,
Developing practical hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation measures to respond to these risks,
Increasing the investment in sustainable development by implementing "An investment for sustainable development in the Pacific Island Countries – Disaster risk reduction and disaster management – A framework for action 2005-2015",
Increasing economic growth without harming ecosystems,
Alleviating poverty,
Improved environmental and social resilience to the impacts of such natural hazards,
Help implement the Pacific Island for Action on Climate Change 2006-2015 and
Making ESD compulsory in the schools and all public sector segments.

This is a comprehensive list of things to consider. For the sake of those who have just joined this broadcast, GEF-PAS is investing $USD99Million into hopefully restoring vulnerable, threatened and degraded Pacific Island ecosystems. And about half of these funds are going towards adapting to climate change impacts in one way or another.

What if Pacific governments still prefer to importing fossil fuels and, therefore, continue to add to the global warming impacts being felt globally? Samoa has taken a different tack by looking at growing its own ‘oil’. This may be the saviour crop our farmers have been looking for?

Also, Palm oil is now being grown in Indonesia at the expense of its own valuable vast tracts of native rainforests. Yes, the third largest set of ‘lungs’ of the Earth are being ‘surgically’ removed.

But, no matter what bio-fuel crop we plant in Samoa, we still need to complete a safety check, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), to ensure that no such damage like this is caused in Samoa.

But, just think about it. Samoa can grow these ‘energy’ crops and make its own electricity. In fact, we can help replace some of our expensive imported fuels (~$SAT100million per year is imported).

Samoa is about to design an agro-forestry project that could, if considered in light of the climate change impacts on Samoa, indeed become another very ‘late tackle’ from our agricultural sector.

Now our health sector needs to adapt to climate change. Yes, climate health is now a priority area for our health services to concentrate on. With more climate change impacts, Samoa may get more floodings and hence more typhoid and other water-borne, food-borne and vector-borne diseases like dengue fever and leptospirosis.

Should Samoa’s tourism industry also adapt to climate change impacts?

Should Samoa’s energy sector also adapt to climate change impacts?

Should villagers also adapt to climate change impacts?

These are just some of the questions that the Ministry of Environment (MNRE) is asking their key climate change stakeholders.

And the question we’d like to leave you with is: “Why are we Kids all tackling these climate change impacts in Samoa so late?”

Why the late tackle?

Luckily, The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has asked all Pacific Islanders to form a Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS) so that all the governments of the Pacific can take a serious programmatic approach to one of the world’s most serious environmental challenges.

The GEF-PAS is going to tackle this climate change issue very seriously, spending in fact well over $USD10million to help protect the Pacific from climate change impacts.

So, what can we Kids do to help?

What can you adults do to help Samoa protect itself against these serious consequences of air pollution - all caused by too many carbon emissions from all the oil and other fossil fuels?

ISLANDS TO BE EXPLORED AND ENJOYED, but..

2008-05-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

NB: To travel to Samoa these days may cause too much carbon pollution – better we all just learn to appreciate Samoa on the Internet. In case you are interested in Samoa, and choose not to travel to Samoa for environmental and cultural reasons, then, at best, we can offer a few words of encouraging descriptions. We appreciate your thoughtful consideration. You are not alone. Many travellers are no longer at peace with themselves travelling such distances by these polluting jets. If you can here to Samoa, then this may be acceptable (depending of course on the 'carbon footprinting' caused in the purchasing of your yacht).

The Samoan Islands are abundant with opportunities, offering, for some, the best of the best. Take for example a blissful carefree life, surrounded by tropical fruits and vegetables, all organically grown. You can eat safely to your heart’s content. The soils are rich, the rainfall guaranteed at 3-5 metres per annum.

And if you are a vegetarian, then you can even live more sustainably, especially if you are prepared to grow your own foods, walk and paddle your own canoe without burning fossil fuels.

These traditional systems still abound in Samoa, this empathy for nature is immersed in the very substance of this Samoan culture, proudly equipped with ancient values that put Samoa’s communities ‘streets ahead’ of modern societies.

But how can Samoa hang-on to these livelihood skills, all too precious to lose, especially in today’s rapidly declining ecosystems?

The following is one man’s exposure to such a traditional culture, recognizing that these traditional Samoan technologies are today being poorly broadcast to the world, and even, possibly, poorly understood by Samoans themselves, or even ignored locally at the expense of retaining our vulnerable and fragile tropical island ecosystems in an intact state.

SOME AMAZING ISLANDS AND EXPERIENCES TO BE EXPLORED
For nearly 20 years, Dr. Steve Brown has explored these mountain tops, deep valleys, even climbed inside volcanic craters and descended down lavatube caves, reaching some amazing locations, many still yet to be photographed. To have explored these islands with ethnobotanists, ornithologists, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, epistemologists and even theologians has been an immensely personal journey. To personally witness these somewhat grave consequences has commenced yet another journey for Steve, a fulfilling experience ensuring that we adults leave something of note for our children to inherit.

INFORMAL OUTDOOR EDUCATION ABOUNDS IN SAMOA
To be accompanied by enthusiastic colleagues of all disciplines, all willing to share their professional skills in this abundant beauty has provided some significant personal experiences, and to revel in this personal education that these experiences can bring to one’s life, is still a joy remaining unexplored to its limits. Feelings often too difficult to describe, feelings too elusive at the start, all soon begin to overwhelm the more open-minded, the more receptive, the more adventurous. Samoa is an outdoor classroom, the teachers are the custodians of this knowledge, this traditional way of life. The Chiefly system, the fa’amatai, must be preserved at all cost. One day, the world will buy this technology, proven technology, from Samoan Chiefs.

BUILDING A SAMOAN SENSE OF COMMUNITY
Gaining one’s outdoor confidence comes easy for some, more difficult for others. But setting a goal, just reaching a family living in isolation along the forested clifftops, arriving with nothing, but offered everything in return, means a lot to most Samoans living on-island today: the gratitude, the hospitality, the friendship, that sense of community still abounds. You soon learn to rely on these remote Samoan ‘guides’, the hospitality of their families, and access to their natural resources. For that, Steve is so grateful, especially in today’s world where ecosystems are under constant threat, even here in Oceania, South Seas, the Pacific Ocean. A Report on the Status of the Pacific Ocean, 2020, will soon deliver some rude awakenings, even for Pacific Islanders who still remain oblivious to these happenings on their doorsteps.

This sense of community has to transgress all national boundaries: we need a sense of community for the entire Oceania region. After all, we are losing our 3000 languages and hence 3000 cultures, faster than any other region in the world.

A WHOLE RANGE OF SAMOAN LIFE EXPERIENCES WAITING TO BE RE-DISCOVERED
To return to such splendid locations on a different day, at a different time, with different colleagues adds even more weight to the range of life experiences that only Samoa can offer, from meeting villagers going about their daily lives to sharing close encounters with Samoan marinelife and seabirds and verdant rainforests.

A whole range of different habitats remain to be explored, but for how long?

To fully understand this wide array of delicate and vulnerable tropical ecosystems, from mangrove forest lakes to coral lagoons to remote island beaches, is a growing nightmare as the list of Rare Plants and Animals increases almost daily, often without us even knowing.

Meeting some of Samoa’s most intrepid traditional modern-day explorers, skilled enough to survive at sea for days, sleeping in freezing temperatures at 6000 feet, hunting pigs in high altitude (overnight) and uncovering ancient villages which have been deliberately forgotten, some of Samoa’s lost archaeological sites from the days when we supposedly were worshipping the 'devil' (mind you, we realize now that these were our true Ancestors), all takes determination of a differing kind.

Just listen to these legends, these stories, these experiences and compare these with our own life experiences abroad: no where in Samoan traditional oratory are there references to the modern-day threats that face these highly vulnerable small islands today. Climate change, ozone depletion, atmospheres poisoned with radiation, today raining down on these lost Pacific cultures, Pacific cultures losing their stronghold on humanity.

SHARING THESE SAMOAN EXPERIENCES WITH OTHERS
Having walked around Upolu in 5 days, cycled Savaii Island in 14 days (1990) and again in 2008 (3 days), kayaked to all 10 Samoan islands, over-nighted in over 100 villages (330 in total to choose from), climbed to the top of all 15 islands in the Samoan archipelago except Upolu and Apolima Islands, slept overnight at 6000 feet on Mt. Silisili, walked underground for 2 hours in the Aopo Lavatube Cave, and having walked and cycled and kayaked and scuba’d much more, leaves Steve with only a yearning to write about these experiences and the experiences of those that he has been so fortunate to share these beautiful sites with. Steve sends a sharp warning signal to all that dare venture to these remote corners of the globe: doing so will leave a ‘carbon footprint’ too big to wipe clean.

GROWING THAT SAMOAN SPLENDOUR
Therefore, having explored these pristine islands with so many friends and family, and even overseas visitors, it still brings Steve great pleasure to show-off the beauty and splendour of these islands, sometimes showing-off their hidden beauty, hidden deep in the oceans, deep inside lavatube tunnels, deep inside the lush rainforest, deep inside his innermost thoughts.

Steve now recommends sharing these experiences on the Internet, no longer able to consciously do this in person. We have all very sadly left ourselves with very few alternatives. We are all still leaving carbon foortprints today, too deep to mention. Or can we mention their depth, and the depth of dispair that is already being felt by Samoa's youth, here in Samoa and abroad?

SHARING THE SAMOAN SECRETS
Few realize today just how many sustainable livelihood skills it takes to survive on this Samoan archipelago of 15 islands, all volcanic, formed over 3 million years of eruptions. Samoans, unassisted by outsiders, are still living sustainably in absolute harmony with nature, but the global pressure is being felt locally. Samoans still have these skills today, but they still need to be identified and recorded, preferably practiced wholeheartedly by all on-island. However, this reliance on overseas support is now almost life-threatening, literally and figuratively.

Few other places on this planet can boast such abundance of natural resources, so little pollution, warm climate and a traditional indigenous society with an intact and intense sense of community that has been practiced for over 3000 years on this archipelago alone. Learn more of the fa’aSamoa and help put it into practice, worldwide.

ENGAGING IN COMMUNITY PROJECTS IN SAMOA
A whole range of activities and experiences (see below) are available today including participation in village projects. Steve is personally involved in over 20 environmental restoration projects valued at in excess of $SAT30-40 Million, ranging from mangrove re-plantings to rubbish dump restorations, coral farming to aquaculture, sustainable agriculture to organic farming, archaeological restoration to renewable energy projects, and much more.

Opportunities may exist for more and more Samoans to share these rare opportunities to engage with local environmental and cultural restorative projects, offering a greater sense of civic pride in the nearby communities and hopefully strengthening the eroding Samoan culture.

SERVICES OFFERED
A whole range of environmental and cultural services are now being offered in Samoa by a wide array of professionals ranging from from lectures, film nights, environmental discussions, introductions to guest speakers, fieldtrips, overnight treks, sporting and adventure activities, even new experiences like yoga and meditation, community project development and much more.

SAMPLE LIST OF LOCATIONS AND ACTIVITIES
1. A trek to Lake Lanotoo (day trip or overnight) through ancient fortresses
2. Discovering more ancient fortresses, left abandoned and hopefully forgotten
3. Searching for rare and possibly extinct birds deep in the rainforest
4. Fossil fuel-less Manono Island with boat tour to Apolima Island
5. Exploring Aleipata Islands and their rare seabird nesting colonies
6. An overnight on Nuutele Island, Samoa’s most remote national park
7. Walking the Tiavea Coastline to Amaile (and 100 other ‘walks’ available)
8. Exploring the legendary sites in Magiagi Village, including the Home of the Giant Octopus
9. Overnight on Nuusafe’e Island to catch coral worms – a real delicacy
10. Trip to forested blacksand Aganoa Beach and surrounds
11. Exploring the underground river in the National Park
12. Exploring the archaeological sites on Mt. Vaea Scenic Reserve
13. Locating a newly discovered fortress near the Bahai Temple
14. Exploring the Vaisigano Rivers and all its tributaries
15. Overnighting in Uafato Conservation Area amidst legendary sites
16. Exploring the mangrove lake systems of Saanapu
17. Exploring a lavatube cave and underground system too complex to describe, and
18. Visiting Savaii Island’s craters, remote beaches, wetlands, legendary sites and much more.

The fact now remains to be seen as to exactly what it will take to reverse these ecological and cultural trends being observed in Samoa today, and whether Samoans themselves can assist in a truly traditional way, preferably relying on those traditional values that once upheld their culture so proudly.

Societies' carbon footprinting today, causing global warming impacts on these small island developing states (SIDS) like Samoa, is bringing about social injustices of a magnitude never perceived by mankind in the past.

Steve is asking all citizens to please reconsider the impacts of their actions. If you a no longer part of the solution, then you are still part of the cause.

PLANET PANIC PACKAGE

2008-04-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

N.B. We are taught that the divine relationship with our Creators’ creations is (or at least was once) paramount. Sadly today, our Paramount Chiefs no longer recognize this paramount importance of respecting and revering our surroundings, Gods’ creations. Our islands are being degraded internally as well as from external foreign sources and impacts and imports.

Should we panic? Before we all panic too much, just try our simple proven ‘4 Point Survival Packages’ below. Our Ancestors followed these rules and they worked, at least in Samoa, for over the past 3000 years. Our Ancestors left no ‘carbon footprints’.

We Kids just need to find out if Samoa can really become a ‘carbon-free’ society like some other villages elsewhere in the world today.

Please excuse us Kids, but we’re just trying to think with our brains (and not our pockets). But having just seen the DVD “NOBELITY” last night (where 10 Nobel Prize Winners raised some grave concerns for Kids trying to live on this Planet for the next few years), we Kids now fear for the rest of the children in the world. We saw on this DVD so many beautiful Kids in Africa and India living in absolute squalor. If only our parents had taken us to these countries on our last school holidays? This would have meant more to us than going to Disneyland amidst all the glamour and disrespect for these same children who are losing their own traditional ‘Disneylands’.

Excuse us Kids if we do sound a little ungrateful and even panicky, because we are. Whilst our grandparents all kindly handed-down their traditional and sustainable livelihood skills, they did not once forewarn us of what may lay ahead. Although, they did have a saying “Look-out, the foreigner or palagi will get you” as if he was a demon or someone for us Kids to be scared of. Reality today is that our grandparents in Samoa are now equally scared of the palagi as we were as little Kids, and rightfully so.

So, whilst you may be led to think that we Kids are in a little bit of a panic, we Kids in Samoa at least (see the rest of our blog) have decided to take a 'class action suit' against all adults in the world, charging them all with 'adult-ery' for what they have already done to the Planet, and, surprisingly, are continuing to do to the Planet, despite all our little ‘panic attacks’.

Makes good sense, don’t you think?

And with another additional 1 million species thought to become extinct by the Year 2050, mainly because of the negative impacts of global warming, then we Kids would like to register here our grave concern, hoping that the whole Planet panics with us. 1 million beautiful creations globally all going to the grave. And our parents are the cause of this? Can’t be true?

So what can we Kids really do to get this message across to our parents, in fact every parent in the whole world?

We Kids have tried to articulate our concerns in this blog whilst living on this small island developing state in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean (called SAMOA, 10 islands we still own as indigenous Samoan landowners, the other 5 Samoan islands were ‘taken off us’ by the Americans - this recent change in geography was never part of our traditional Master Plan, but American Samoa may have more political pull than we indigenous Samoans here in Independent Samoa have, especially when it comes to US politics on climate change). We Kids need to get our messages to the Whitehouse, letting the President of the USA know that we are unhappy with these outcomes and impacts on us Kids.

But, regardless of our different geography on this beautiful archipelago, we Samoan Kids are so far away from the rest of the world, so far away from the Whitehouse, and we are so far away from the real causes of global warming. Or are we? Or is there something we can do here right at home? You bet there is.

Let’s admit it: we Samoan Kids alone are increasing our annual consumption of fossil fuel-generated electricity by a whopping 10% every year - a rate that we may soon be unable to afford, even unable to generate on-island. We Samoans are now searching for more energy sources, and hydro-power is our environmentally-friendly solution (we already generate 40% of our energy needs in Samoa from hydro-power – we have so many rivers as you can imagine with a rainfall of about 3-5 metres or 10-16 feet). And a figure of 80% has been targeted, leaving 20% of our energy from fossil fuels and/or, wait for it, bio-fuels – YES, we grow our own energy crops, and the markets are here on-island – no need to export these crops long distances overseas.

Yep, we small Kids are looking for some micro-hydro power stations, we want to generate our own electricity, pumping it back into the grid and earning money as Independent Power Producers or IPPs. Wow, we may even then be able to afford to leave all our remaining forests intact. We may even be able to afford to plant a few extra trees in our greenbelts, even planting-out a few more bio-fuel species like breadfruit, palm oil, candlenut, etc.

WOW, things are starting to happen, and we Kids in Samoa need to make it happen even faster. We have to contact our newspapers, our TV stations, even hop onto the Internet and get the world rolling nicely again. Even our own Samoan ‘SAVALI’ newspaper needs to change its name, because SAVALI means to ‘walk’, and we Kids need to hasten the speed a little. Anyway, that’s the least of our problems.

As part of our Planet Panic Package, we're deciding to send our proven traditional technologies from the 'South’ to the ‘North' as they say, surprised that with all our epistemological studies now completed here in the South Seas over the past 45,000 years, we have never been consulted by the real carbon-polluters in this rapidly modernizing world up there in the Northern Hemisphere.

Are you all ready for our very simple advice, handed-down from our Ancestors, and from their Ancestors’ Ancestors going right back to their origins in Asia?

It is real simple, only 4 steps to follow, and, if you live on our islands, it may be even easier to adopt such measures than if you were living in Sydney or New York or London or some African desert: firstly,
1. Grow all your own foods, hunt and gather all this beautiful marinelife (no more wasted diesel for our cargo ships, and no more of those expensive imported foods that are now costing us in excess of 40% of our health bills due to all our cousins getting these new lifestyle diseases – diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, cardiovascular disease, gout, etc.). Within 100 years, we may all be afflicted with such non-communicable diseases, let alone being affected by the direct impacts of global warming! So what are we waiting for? Secondly,
2. Eat only healthy foods, all organically-grown, no pesticides and no imported fertilizers polluting our foods and soils and waterways and coral reefs, preferably eating only native meats/proteins, and even eating vegetarian-like diets (very different from our carnivorous cousins abroad who rely today on more and more cattle invading their last forested areas and being fed cattle fodder which was just grown where beautiful forests once grew). Starting to all make sense? And thirdly,
3. Walk or paddle your canoe to ‘work’, saves a lot on fossil fuel consumption. Yes, we all need to do our small bit. It is now time to pour our coconut oil or our candlenut oil straight into our ‘diesel’ engines. And YES, it works. Samoa may soon no longer need all those polluting carbon-rich fossil fuels. And we just need to stop Australia exporting all their carbon-rich coals to China to help power-up these new coal-fired power stations. God help us! Are we now having to turn to God because we are panicking or because we really know and understand his teachings, especially when it comes to living in balance with His and Her creations? Finally,
4. Love our forests and reefs, and cherish our traditions which have been proven over millennia. We Samoans have many traditional conservation techniques, taboos on fishing and hunting grounds, even legends and stories and proverbs all guiding our daily behaviours and traditional protocols. We Samoans have a certain spiritual relationship with our siosiomaga, our surroundings: we are taught that this divine relationship with our Creators’ creations is (or was once) truly paramount to all in Samoa. Sadly today, our Paramount Chiefs, as they still like to be called, can no longer recognize this paramount importance to protect the future of us Kids. Whatever happened to va tapuia, that spiritual relationship with ones siblings? Yes, it seems that our Fa’aSamoa, or Samoan culture, is eroding fast. Don’t they love us Kids anymore? May be we should all re-read Divine Nature by Michael Cremo who points-out very clearly the 4 most logical steps that need to be taken by all villages.

Well, how soon can we Kids all put these 4 trade secrets back into practice as part of the whole package to save the whole world, Samoan-led? In fact, led by Samoan Kids.

We Kids may need to export these traditional technologies to all other countries, as soon as possible. But, before we do, we need to do a few little experiments here at home first before we get all 4 truly sustainable livelihood skills functioning simultaneously again.

Another 4 Point Planet Panic Package needs to be designed, this time targeting our Paramount Chiefs:
1. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs of this crisis that we Kids are panicking about.
2. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs of the urgency of which we are expecting some response from them.
3. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs that they actually have the answers, all proven traditionally and all traditionally proven. And
4. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs that they have the skills to transfer this proven traditional technology to the developed countries (like USA, Australia, Europe), or to those countries that are also the heaviest global polluters (like Australia, China, USA and India), or to those countries that are the main exporters of carbon products such as coal and oil (like Australia and the Middle Eastern countries).

Now, how do we put all this into action?

Last week, Monday 14th April, 2008, 20,000 Samoans marched on Parliament protesting at the switching of the side of the road we drive on, switching it from the right side to the left side. The People Against Switching Sides (PASS) never once argued from a Kids’ perspective: and that is, excuse us, we Kids are more interested in Saving Our Siosiomaga than we are interested in saving a few dollars in our pockets (which was the bulk of the senseless arguments being presented against this recently proposed piece of legislation).

We Kids just sat back and laughed all day at the silliness of these protesters. What does it matter to us what side of the car we hop into or what side of the road we drive on? What really matters to us most is “Will we still be driving our diesel cars on this polluted Planet in 50 years time?” Next we’ll have our teachers all telling us we need to write with the other hand!

And if this is really the level of conscienciousness of our Elders, then no wonder the Planet is in trouble, and no wonder we Kids are having to panic, and justifiably so by the looks of it.

To conclude, we Kids will give all our Paramount Chiefs one last opportunity to avoid any further legal action (remember the class action suit we are preparing for you)?

We need to organize another PASS March to help foster some Pacific Alofa for Samoa’s Siosiomaga (PASS) – yes, some Pacific love (Alofa) for Samoa’s environment (Siosiomaga). We Kids need you all marching on Parliament House, and it’s better we all do this on a day that Parliament is not sitting because we want all the Parliamentarians marching with us and all of them on our side this time. And we are expecting a turn-out of about 180,000 people, in person and/or in spirit. Yes, we Kids need the entire nation focused this time on a real issue, a real serious issue, an issue that is important to who?

And you guessed it.

Us Kids.

So, please, don’t PASS-up this opportunity because we are planning another PASS Protest March, this time a Pacific Alliance of Sustainability for Samoa (PASS) all funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Yes, the GEF has recently formed the Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (GEF-PAS) by contributing $USD100Million to saving the Pacific delicate and vulnerable and threatened environments, but this time we are calling on all Pacific Islanders to help Samoa attain true sustainable livelihood skills like our Ancestors once practiced.

We want all Pacific Island Countries to aim for fossil fuel-free economies by 2020. And we Pacific Islanders have the technology to do it. And more importantly, we need to send the same message to those palagi as well, and that is “Look-out, the palagi will get you too”.

Samoa, and the whole South Pacific, needs to demonstrate by example that we are all truly capable of meeting our own energy needs here in the Pacific without relying on imported carbon-rich fuels, without relying on disease-causing imported foods, and, most importantly, without relying on imported doctrines that are not yet proven.

Our Ancestors had got it right, had practiced it like the Professors of South Seas Sustainability. The least we can do is give our Ancestral Paramount Chiefs the credit they so rightly deserve.

Faafetai tele lava
Malo galue

Well, that's our standpoint

2008-03-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

PS: Not sure if this standpoint is correct, but we Kids all agree that men have disregarded women, generally speaking, in the past: hence the global female liberation movements and gender equality emphases of today. Likewise, we Kids feel that our views on the world, our parents, etc. have not been sought, not even by our mothers.

We Kids feel that even our mothers have devalued our importance as Kids, possibly more so than men have devalued and discriminated against women themselves. Is this really possible? Can our Mothers be that hippocritical?

WELL, THAT'S OUR STANDPOINT

We Kids have looked at the 'Standpoint Theory', as we understand it, in such a way as an attempt to not only portray who we Kids are, but more so of showing-off the innate knowledge we Kids have of understanding exactly what traditional skills come naturally from indigenous peoples such as our Ancestors (who we kids still consider as the professors of sustainability).

This study of our indigenous knowledge (epistemology) is embedded in our indigenous Samoan society and similar Polynesian societies, but scientific (economic and Western) methodologies of researching social successes have only altered the real value of indigenous knowledge in the global world because the results need to reflect the current 'GDP mentality' based on economic capital building versus www.neweconomics.org: the latter having a different set of economic and environmental and health parameters to be considered in an indigenous framework of social sustainable value systems.

Hence the more culturally-intact a society, (a) the more values are likely to be retained, (b) the greater the appreciation of nature will prevail, (c) good health (longevity) will be revered in terms of all generations benefiting, not just the present generation, and(d) the greater the emphasis placed on such indigenous societies to pass-on such indigenous knowledge to us Kids in terms of ensuring our sustainability (an indigenous Samoan education will ensure the transference of such traditional livelihood skills and values-systems to the following generations of Kids, and that's why we authors are going to an indigenous university in Samoa - we enrolled when we were only 3 years old. The Le Amosa Iunivesite is to take 15-20 years to re-educate us to make us think and act like our Ancestors.) This is a 'hard ask' for us Kids in such an oblivious modern society, but we authors are determined to at least try: albeit a pessimistic last-ditch effort to save humanity. We owe it to our parents, our Chiefs, we are still prepared to tautua you, to serve you, but only on our terms. Is that understood?

Insufficient emphasis on Pacific epistemiology has been inflicted upon us indigenous Pacific peoples by the Westerners, colonial powers, and also by our own Pacific people who are misguided by aspiring to Westernized lifestyles only – even if it means the loss of our Ancestors’ value systems, the loss of our forests, the loss of our health, the loss of our culture, etc.

DAMN, what's wrong with these adults?

It is time we Kids got to question our modern inadequate education systems, both formal and informal. To admit that our mothers are leading us down this path is a heinous crime against humanity.

We can forgive our fathers, the so called 'dominant' mis-guided males across the Planet, but we Kids never thought the proof existed that our Mothers as well were abondoning their Kids as they abandoned their values and keep abondoning their husbands. Shame Mum.

We Kids have seen enough divorce, family break-ups. Take our advice and hang-on to your traditional values Mum and Dad: we Kids are prepared to help you, as much as you like to blame us Kids for your own divorces. We've heard you at night quarrelling, each of you blaming us Kids for your own inadequacies.

We understand and we can accept this barrage of accusations, We Kids know exactly what economic hardships and frustrations you parents are going through as you try to hold down two jobs, get the best house and car for us Kids, etc. We appreciate all this effort. But we don't need it. We just want you, your indigenous values. And they all come free. Well, that's our standpoint.

We Kids will use the Standpoint Theory as a descriptive tool to help clarify and magnify, from our meager standpoint, the current educational problems that exist in our Samoan society today. Our Ancestors would beach themselves on Vini Beach in subtle protest, interpreted by the West as a 'insidious whale beaching of unknown cause' as if we were to find some scientific pathological lesion to describe such a frequent anomaly here in the Pacific. Our whales, our Ancestors, have been harpooned literally and figuratively enough thank you, and thanks to the Japanese (Sa-shami).

May be we Kids have lost you adults in our attempt to put across some very mature thoughts here, but you can be excused for not understanding our reasoning or our arguments presented here.

To help you, especially our beligerent and indifferent Fathers and customary Chiefs, we will explain it in the usual forum of fagogo or traditional storytelling. We Kids love these stories: we just thought that the messages carried in these stories were real messages to be handed down to us Kids. May be we were wrong in making this assumption.

This time we Kids want to hand these messages back down to you adults whether you like it or not.

To make our argument even more precise, we have decided to make an analogy, utilizing the 'feminist perspective' as it relates to the ‘Standpoint Theory’ as mentioned above: this will help demonstrate our very different points of view, yet we are from the same culture. Our Mothers need more respect as well, thank you. Enough of your male dominating platitudes of caring and responsibility, and ........

Firstly, we Kids strongly believe that human equality does exist, but is being ignored by indigenous societies, and hence the more modern derivatives of once true indigenous societies are also suffering. The same way feminists, such as Sandra Harding (1991), Bell Hooks and Dorothy Smith (1987), Nancy Hartstock (1983) and Hilary Rose (1983), portrayed themselves as different and mistreated in society, is exactly the same way we Pacific Kids will portray ourselves in our 'cries from the grave': different, worthy and mistreated.

And, just as women's insights regarding their own gender position have changed society’s views about women, we Kids hope that we have the word-power and fagogo skills to re-train our re-educate our Elders, giving them a more solid grounding in proven traditional value systems. We Kids think this is the easy part.

Getting these adults, both our Mothers and Fathers, to actually apply such values is now the real challenge for us Kids. We'll be accused of being, if not already, disrespectful because of our customary traditional respect for our forests and fishes and all feathered friends, not to mention the flavoursome flowers and digestible ferns and edible fungi that we Kids once relied on for good health, good medicine and good spiritual guidance as we played in our forests. Today, we nolonger play in our forests: they have all but gone (to America).

May be, may be just one, Samoan Chief will read past this point and endorse our indigenous thoughts, just as if they are original thoughts, new thoughts worthy of some consideration. And there are some new thoughts below: imagine asking the High Chief to give-up eating pork, stop jet-setting across the globe, ...... Yes, we Kids are at least going to ask.

Well Kids, let us just give ourselves a little 'out' here because we do not want to raise our hopes that we will be so successful in this simple endeavour. It will take some serious legal action to get the courts to uderstand this 'genicide' and this is where Judge Tui Vui steps into this picture to play his role, albeit only by default.

Well, that's not entirely true: he is afterall a judge, Samoan, practicing in the Privy Courts in England, but it was his indigenous roots that allowed him to instruct and guide his jury to re-value these indigenous values that we had portrayed to the TV viewers and documentary-makers. Again, by chance, Judge Tui Vui had selected the youngest untitled jury of his career that was to see the most unlikely verdict of "Not Guilty for first degree child abuse" prevail. It was, after all, the decision that we Kids had wanted, but we had also expected something more.

The tabloids picked-up on the case for a few editions, but the advertizers were horrified at this 'anti-consumeristic propaganda', these on-going neo-colonialistic behaviours so entrenched in the Pacific these days that they have all become merged with our traditional cultures and merged with our modern religions and belief systems here in the Pacific.

If we in Samoa were all members of the International Society for Samoan Consciousness, assuming it was once identical to Krishna conscienciousness (pun intended), then we'd still be the professors of sustainability here in the Pacific, practicing common(sense) law in London, and advising Judge Tui Vui to take a more global standpoint, rooted in Pacific epistemologies.

Luckily, after our fruitful case in London, we Kids were able to fly back from London to the Pacific, knowing we had won the battle of our lifetimes, but admitting we had again lost the war.

Even Judge Tui Vui had not been able to have his verdict stand in a court of law where 'contempt of court' would have been inevitable. Every adult would have been 'check-mated'.

The world has continued, from this day on, down a spiralling pathway oblivious to the depths of despair that mankind is so capable of.

To Judge Vui Tui, we thank you for your steerage, your understanding, your verdict and your foresight. If only we Kids could offer you, next time may be, another such unique angle to trick these adults into further 'adultery' and definite comtemptuous behaviour (guilty of 'Contempt of Court') and locked away for life.

Don't worry Tui Vui, we Kids have an idea. Proceedings will soon recommence. We will be arguing for a re-trial, and you will grant it Judge Tui Vui. You owe it to us Kids. We Kids are appealing. You thought you made the most appropriate decision that would reverse humanity's destiny. But you overlooked a crucial point of law. Vui, you have let us down by your professional ineptitude, as judged outside our cultural value system.

We Kids had also failed to prepare a water-tight case, although we got the verdict we had wanted. Just that we never appreciated, at the time, the limited repercussions of such a positive verdict. Tui, we want a verdict that is more enforceable, legally, culturally.

We may have to have all adults on 'home detention', to have all adults reporting to their nearest police stations (even the adult policemen and women reporting to their own police stations), and their passports confiscated (that'll stop the increasing impacts of global warming overnight), we'll put all adults on a proven vegetarian raw-food diet (just read Lord Krishna's Cuisine) because we can save the planet on so many fronts (including reducing the consumption of fossil fuels within the USA by a staggering 60% by just going vegetarian).

"Excuse me, what's this connection?".

Well, it's been a pleasure having this discourse, and intercourse, with you adults, but onosai tele, just be patiet and relax whilst we Kids re-write 'Divine Nature' by Cremo and Goswami. The facts presented to us Kids in this Divine Nature book are staggering (excuse the pun). We just need to present them more eloquently so you adults can understand them. Please, don't get all defensive. We are only trying to help you, so sit down and shut-up!!

We Kids need to leave you adults with this simple thought, backed-up by Westernized scientific statistical analyses just to help 'prove' to you that we Kids are right (on track):

1. "For each person who kicks the meat habit, an acre of trees will be saved."

2. "It takes 16 pounds of grain and soybeans to produce a pound of beef."

3. "Half the world's destruction of tropical rainforests is directly linked with livestock enterprises, including hamburger chains."

In Samoa, the cattle ranching industry has taken-off in 2008 up into our last remaining indigenous rainforests: Government even wants to expand the industry and build a meat abattoir to encourge more exports and more loss of water catchments and more loss of unique wildlife and more loss of our precious soils for growing our foods in.

Time for a Kids Parliament, whether it's justified or not, this standpoint stands and this is our 'Standpoint Theory'. You adults have presented your theories, even in child rearing, and they haven't worked. We Kids are horrified to say the least.

And sorry if it is so poorly explained here, but our 'editor' will simplify things for you adult readers. And that's why she is rating this book "PG". "Parental Guidance" required. Every Kid reading this book MUST read it in the presence of at least one adult: be prepared Kids to painstakingly interprete the more difficult parts so that these 'adulterous' adults can learn, once and for all, that there are some indigenous values that will teach them how best to tautua us Kids, and not just on White Sunday, once a year.

And did you adults really think that you could buy us Kids with just a few litres of coloured icecream and all your best oratory skills? Good try.

KIDS SEEKING THE RIGHT 2008 DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS

2008-03-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

PS: We Kids need the right partners, now, and we need someone who cares about us. We're fed-up with unrequited partnerships (with our parents, our clergy, our chiefs, our teachers doing just as they please). We are taking, for the first time, a more responsible and commercial approach, seeking ethical partnerships with large companies, like Digicel Group that offer mobile/cellular phone services throughout the Pacific Islands. We need our cause publicized and outreached throughout the Pacific Islands, to every Kid in the South Pacific. And mobile phones and Internet access will help us. May be we need our own blog, http://www.digicelkids.blogspot.com and get all the comments and feedback we need, quickly.

And watch-out Kids for all our promotions, promoting good education, good health, good communications, good access to the Internet and, most importantly, a good future for all adults.

"From Samoa, South Pacific, we Kids offer Digicel our highest congratulations. Within just 2 years of operation in Samoa, Digicel Group is already not only a successful cellular competitor with 85% market-share, but offering us Kids and all rural Samoan villagers a unique DigiCare programme.

Yes, we in Samoa are very much a part of the Third World, a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), a Least Developed Country (LDC) and we/re facing some serious socio-economic and environmental issues. Our very-own traditional sustainable livelihood skills are being eroded as we face globalization, cultural erosion, climate change impacts, ozone layer depletions, failing international commodities markets, insufficient and/or expensive global communications (including Internet access), insufficient investment capital (especially at the micro-level for Samoa's rural poor) and ailing health and education services.

We need climate health issues being addressed now, we need Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), we need free Internet access in our schools, and Internet access for all our new forms of e-business (micro-enterprises with micro-technologies all funded by micro-enterprise loans from South Pacific Business Development [SPBD]), preferably supported by a private sector that not only 'cares' about its business partners/clientele, but can actually partner sustainable development enterprises.

Samoa is launching a new Global Environment Facility (GEF) Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS) Programme that will need excellent project partners like Digicel. GEF-PAS is about to launch in the Pacific (including Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and PNG) a 3-Year $USD100 million environmental development programme this April, 2008. However, it lacks the right development tools, the right development partners, the right reciprocal ethics.

Luckily in Samoa, we are grateful for the excellent services being offered by DigiCare to rural Samoan villagers in desperate need of development assistance, in need of more care and future direction. It is communications partnerships like this that can help alleviate poverty from the Pacific Ocean and the whole world. And we Kids are going to capitalize on this unique opportunity.

We will keep you abreast of any mutually-beneficial commercial developments/partnerships.

PLEA FOR HELP before the paralysis sets in

2008-01-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

PS: We Kids are after change. There's a certain climate of apathy looming over the Pacific, and Samoa is no exception. Western Samoa once was a haven of sustainability, but, today, our unique tourism assets (our water supplies, forests, fish and other seafoods, tropical fruits, coastlines, climate, corals and soils/air) are in peril - perilized and paralysed.

Climate health now a serious threat to us Kids. Even our food security is being threatened as climate change impacts on our health - the latest climate health reports are staggering, predicting new diseases, more pandemics, more lives lost.

We Kids wanted to, very quickly, publish our poems, draft filmscripts and short stories, seeking your comments and possible interest in turning this 'Plight of Pacific Kids' account into a possible documentary or even a Kids' adventure film, growing-up in the South Pathetic, sorry, the South Seize.

After all, we Pacific Kids have reason to be concerned, and good reason to think that someone out there will hear our cries from the Pacific.

As their father, I’m anxiously trying to correct these ills within the Pacific in my own small way, but the problems lie fairly and squarely on us adults failing to do the right things (e.g. failing to implement anti-corruption legislation, making it illegal to harvest, sell, export even import our natural resources, and much more).

We all look forward to the possibility of one day publishing alone, or even jointly, should anyone of you be at all interested in taking our poems, scripts and short stories to another level.

THANK YOU, faafetai tele lava

CHAPTER 7 - Class action Suits

2008-01-13T01:35:00.000-08:00

We Pacific Kids may need to take legal action. We're left with very few options. Our Kids Parliament is becoming more and more justified. Simply broadcasting our concerns and solutions may not be enough, especially if it is met with stern opposition by those that are less concerned, less informed and less skilled.

We Kids struck it lucky at the most opportune time. By some strange quirk of nature, our presence was required for an unrelated court proceedings in London - someone thought we had been abandoned on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific, and even if we had, what is wrong with that? The rest of the Kids in the world (and most of the adults, unfortunately) would be envious. Anyway, during the trial (we were invited to London to try, surprisingly, to get 12 adults off some serious child abuse charges - they were all our film directors, remember? We were the key witnesses: I mean for Gods' sake, we Kids insisted that we be left behind on this uninhabited island as the rescue boat departed, full of camera gear and these whinging Pommies who had not only become our best friends, but had also stopped whinging - they didn't want to leave either. However, the viewers misconstrued the circumstances we Kids were in, and yet we had broadcast our views for over 12 months convincing the whole world that we were onto something here).

At least we can rely on 'contempt of court' allegations should our adults fail or refuse to follow the courts' decisions. And this is where Judge Tui Vui comes in. And we Kids will go to the Privy Council in London if we have to.

Story 157 – Untold Number of Untold Stories – 30-12-007 - 6

2008-01-13T01:32:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids need to reflect a little more having written this faleaitu because there are an untold number of untold stories, most of them too self-incriminating to broadcast.

We Kids have adopted a policy that all untold stories need to be told, if our mothers are being beaten, then we will report this to the police and suffer the consequences (another beating I guess). “Hey Dad, wake up Bro.”

Untold Number of Untold Stories

Need a passport, or a new birth certificate to make you look older (err, just to get conscripted to fight another palagi war), need an excuse to waive your Development Bank loan, need to get elected or you just want to become Minister, then we can help you.

Shock. Horror. To hear all these stories about my Pacific Island is uncalled for, despite the good that it might do.

Ok Bro, we’ll change the name of your island, we’ll call it “A Pacific Island”.

Story 117 – FOBs – 29-12-007 – 6

2008-01-13T01:27:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids try to do something significant with our lives, we study hard, even if it means going overseas to study, we're even prepared to come back to the islands and apply our newfound knowledge. But we are considered a threat to the less educated but highly ranked. A dilemma exists. We need a solution and we Kids have found one. We'll create our own jobs, we'll apply for our own funds, etc.

FOBs - Fresh Off the Boat

Fresh Out with his Bachelors – back home to reek havoc. But if we're genuine, we’ll have to self-exile ourselves back to NZ - FACT.

Story 100 – Palagi – 27-12-007 - 6

2008-01-13T01:25:00.001-08:00

NB:

PALAGI

(from STORY 76)

Story 83 – Palagi Pipilo – 26-12-007 – 6 - T

2008-01-13T01:19:00.000-08:00

NB: Pacific Islanders have had enough of the Western influences, packaged and delivered in so many surreptitious manners. “Palagi pipelo” are the naughty white lies told by whiteman, whereas “palagi pipilo” is “whiteman stinks” and often this treatment stinks.

PALAGI PIPILO

No offence meant, but, please, enough is enough. If you are not aware of the impacts and insults being made on PIs, and are prepared to at least acknowledge them or even do something to correct them in order to make a better world, then sit back and relax as the story unwinds, the facts emerge, the realizations get realized and accepted. An apology is even possible. Legislation is even better. Failing that, a class action suit is pending.

The Pacific Ocean is currently under siege and Pacific Islanders are becoming second or even third-rate citizens in their own country because of social, political, economic, historic, trade, environmental and even touristic reasons.

So, when you go on a holiday to Oceania, choose your holiday destination carefully. For example, you will not see us Kids in the Pacific French Protectorates (muraroa Atoll, Tahiti, Maquesas, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna) because of their Napoleonic arrogance and the dismissive social graces of the colonial powers.

We Kids just can’t relax on the beach as a family amidst the Tahitian oppression, overt materialism at any expense of the Tahitians themselves. But that’s just us. You adults may relish in such oppression.

Story 80 – Rats can fly too – 25-12-007 – 6

2008-01-13T01:16:00.000-08:00

NB: Samoans see things often very differently from palagi, often looking at fruitbats, for example, as nothing more than flying rats. But for good reason. And octopuses hate rates. Can you imagine why? These stories account for some of the 'most beauuutiful legends' in Samoa.

RATS CAN FLY TOO – BATS

A fruit bat is really a rat with wings, just ask your Ancestors.

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

2008-01-13T01:13:00.000-08:00

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.

Story 156 – Vui our Tui – 30-12-007 - 6

2008-01-13T01:08:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids have taken a very litigious approach throughout this faleaitu, and having Judge Vui (our Chiefly king, our hero) as our one and only adult mentor who has provided us Kids with all the hope we need. At least we could rely on one adult in our lives, Tui Vui becoming the main character throughout.

Vui Our Tui

Judge Vui was to become our Tui, Professor of the new Kids University Law School.

He took some convincing, but when he understood his brief (and applied the law), he was our God of Lore, folklore or modern day law, it was the same to us, and it should be the same to our Ancestors.

In fact, this folklore has been plagiarized by modern day lawyers, they have stolen our traditional knowledge, contravening their own basic modern-day laws of Indigenous Traditional Property Rights. This equates to breaches of copyright. Vui, our Tui, we have another case for you. Another class-action suit against all non-indigenous Law Schools in the World.

Story 153 – Oh No, Not Good Governance – 30-12-007 – 6

2008-01-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

NB: We PIs are really unable to help ourselves, we’ve gone beyond all sense of survival. Given the chance to even legally protect our PI adults from themselves, by introducing Anti-Corruption Legislation (something that we Kids advocate so often in this faleaitu), PI Parliaments are refusing to accept such legislation, especially if it is made retrospective and especially if our adult chiefly politicians may end up in gaol. Geez, thanks Dad. Now we know where you adults are coming from. We Kids know what you adults think of us Kids. It’s OK. We can cope, but allow us the right to write about it first.

And you watch it, the biggest critics of “We Little POPITS” will be the adult race. Fact. They will be incensed at the accusations, they will offer ridiculous counter-arguments, something as ridiculous as we experienced in Heretic.

Oh No, Not Good Governance

We Kids prepared Anti-Corruption Legislation, presented it to all the Pacific Parliaments for their prompt approval, but we Kids were astonished with all the non-justifiable reasons why no such legislation is ever welcomed. Anyway, just as well as the last thing we Kids wanted was sending all our Daddies to gaol for their on-going self-financing programmes.

Their first question we Kids got was “Will you make this new legislation retrospective, meaning will we politicians go to gaol for all our wrong-doings in the past as well?”

Their second and last question was “Do you Kids have anything better to do than write these pathetic legislations that incriminate adults?”

“Do you Kids know how disrespectful you are?”

“You Kids just don’t understand.”

P.S. Editors’ Note – We wanted to print more of the following tirade, but it was censored by we editors because it really was some of the most derogatory dialogue that would put the adult readership into denial, refusing to buy the book or even failing to recommend it to others (adults), and our sales would be adversely affected. Sorry.

And for cultural reasons, Samoan children would be accused, tried and convicted of being culturally-insensitive, disrespectful, even, wait for it, ‘fiapoto' or just 'trying to be clever', which is, in the faaSamoa, the insult of all insults. In order to protect the identity of the authors, we have had to make-up some fictitious Samoan names so that these children will not be beaten-up by their relatives (another serious problem in Samoa today, especially in the schools - you wonder why we Kids even want to go to school).

Chapter 6 - Time to Reflect

2008-01-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

NB: The previous 5 Chapters give a general overview of just how adventurous and culturally-significant life in Samoa can be, especially for Kids without their parents getting in the way.

From this unique standpoint, we Kids have been able to reflect quite deeply on not only our past lives, but our future years ahead. With a lot of help from our Ancestors, we seem to have come-up with all the answers we need. Mind you, our proposed lifestyles may not suit all Kids, but let's say one thing: it suits us just fine.

Sure, we'll need to make a few adjustments as life goes along, but we are not prepared to compromise ourselves. If the adults simply don't conform, then we'll choose a retirement village that suits them (remembering that it is often your children that get to select your retirement village, so be extra nice to them).

So, we Kids have adopted the policy that it is better to present the solutions rather than the problems. Afterall, who could we submit our problems to anyway?

Chapter 6 offers readers an insight never offered before. Just like changing from lefthand drive to righthand drive, various other cultures in the world may like to look at adopting the faaSamoa in its purest form. And if you don't understand the faaSamoa, then how can you wisely say "No'? Chiefly meeting houses are being erected in Australia and elsewhere as much to the astonishment of nearby residents as to Samoans living back in Samoa. These elaborate o mea sina are a tribute to a culture that possibly offers Samoans all the resilience they need to live in a culture-less society like Australia. People die in Sydney in their apartments without their neighbours even raising any concerns for at least the first year. True. This would never happen in Samoa.

Story 55 - Malosi Matagi – 24-12-007 - 5

2008-01-13T00:38:00.000-08:00

NB: Timely to say the least. Our Mum received the good news that we were all still alive at the same time she got notified by the BBC that we were all summonsed to court in London – our BBC colleagues being charged for child abuse (i.e. leaving us abandoned on Nuutele, just as we had requested).

Malosi Matagi

Little did we know that we were all soon to be re-united, as a family, our Mum was arriving, secretely, somehow. Word was out. We were about to be rescued when a big storm warning came across the radios on the mainland. We had no idea of what was about to happen, but what we did know was that there was a cyclone coming. We all knew this the day before, well before the radio announcements. Had we had a radio ourselves, we would have not only heard the weather warnings but also that a plane had sighted children riding horseback down a remote beach on an island way off-shore. We had seen this plane the day before, but we thought that it was out searching for more lost fishermen: they had given-up looking out for us 2 years prior.

Our Mum heard this news report thinking that this could be, should be, us, alive at last. With the cyclone warning, how was she to get there to ‘rescue’ us, cyclone pending. She was prepared to take every risk, she was frantic, she asked for no help, for she knew the story of the Ulutogia Ana Ala Sopo as much as we did – she told us, Sa told her, Uitime told him.

She arrived in the village late at night, unannounced, and before anyone woke, she trekked towards Lua-O-Teine. She knew the entrance: our Dad was an avid speleologist, mapping every cave in Samoa. We used to go with him all the time. Av made it into the entrance, carrying TJ. Yes, she was carrying but this didn’t deter Av. She was on a mission to re-unite her family, first time ever. ‘There they were, by the family name of Brown, Lost at sea and never found’. Well, not until now.

All Av had to do was to follow the same secret pathway as Solo did, escaping from one island to another by an underground cave, in fact, a cave that went right under the ocean and popped up on the slopes of Mt. Nuutele Crater. As Av got closer, unbeknown to us, she could hear those familiar laughters, she knew it was us. We had no idea who was about to join us for Sultanas and Bananas (STORY 57 - Coconut Bread-Baking), hot, Tahitian Almond butter mixed with grated coconut – who could ever say no?

Somehow she was so super-confident it would be us. Our love of horses, our ability to survive alone in remote places, the sighting of 3 kids riding side-saddle on a small pony through the shallows at high speed, she knew it just had to be us. She could even picture us riding our Magic Pony, Sose cuddled up-front in Nu’s arms, Steevie standing up on Solo’s back holding onto Nu’s shoulders. And she was right. That was our normal positioning, our normal pose.

The plane never circled, never came close, it just flew back to the mainland as the dark clouds swept higher and higher, darker and darker, swirling high in the sky like bread dough in a bowl. We weren’t sure the pilots saw us, but somehow we knew word was out that we were still on the Planet, alive, thriving and surviving on this beautiful tropical island, with our Magic Pony and JR.

Something strange. We could all feel it. Our wildlife fairies appeared nervous, no longer going about their daily routines like clockwork. For a gogo not to go fishing far was unusual. Instead, they remained close to shore diving in and out of a shoal of anae, baby mullet. There was a dark cloud, in the ocean, just outside the breakers, entering the lagoon. The gogo knew that this was a tell-tale of something about to happen. More so, there was another dark cloud, this time high in the sky. It just appeared, it didn’t drift and hover all the way from the horizon in the East, as usual. This was different. A cyclone pending.

We had only hours to prepare. What could we do? No different from what our grandfathers would have told us – check the masi pits (done), put some dry leaves inside the cave (done), and firewood as well (done), not to mention coconuts and bananas (done), Oh, some fish as well (those baby anae we thought – we needed about 5 days supply) – we quickly surrounded them, Solo helping, we mustered them into a tiny small hole with no real escape routes, then we scooped handfuls of them into coconut shells – mind you, the ava PNG was already soaking, they were soon anaesthetized (STORY 29) – we had no time to waste (done).

Water? Well, there’s always the rain, but the wind can be too strong for us to venture too far outside. Coconuts, our saviours. And enough for Solo as well. Yes, Solo and Solo JR were to be with us (done – Solo knew his role as he carried saddlebags full of supplies, and every saddlecloth we made he left inside the cave – the best saddlecloths are the beach grasses, Solo loves chewing on them, but again we needed 5 days supply – done). We had only minutes remaining, the coconut palms began to sway, brown nuts began to fall like cannon fodder, we had to run inside, all of us.

Hey, the camera crew. “I’ll get them” shouted Skivi as he tore off down the beach, riding like a jockey in the Melbourne Cup. “Stay in the shallows Skivi, not under the palms – you’ll be safer. And come back the same way with those whinging Pommies.”

They were so relieved to see Skivi and Solo, having had no idea what really was about to happen. The rain hadn’t begun as yet, just a strong wind. But the first wind is the most dangerous as all the ripe nuts are dislodged at once.

“Quick, bring your cameras. There’s a cyclone coming, we need to be in our Secret Cave, all of us, including Solo who is here to help carry all your gear.”

No questions asked. They knew better by now. Safe inside, we prepared our fires, our beds, our meals, even some lighting as it was so dark. Yes, we had sleeping platforms, just like the olden days, we had a hearth where we could build our fire, just like the olden days, there were even seats we covered in coconut fronds, later to be our firewoods. We were so comfortable, just like the olden days.

PS How are all those Golden Gems – I love writing about them – trying to think how I can introduce TJ into the script?? Born on the island just like Solo (The Magic Pony’s) new foal. And you arrive via the Ala Sopo Ana, a secret ancient lava tube cave used as an escape route in times of local tribal fighting - but you were concerned as the cyclone commenced and we were still out on the island (mind you, safe inside the cave, already stocked and stacked with enough food for 5 days and 5 weeks. Guess what, we met you two inside the cave by surprise - we were all safe, safer than anyone else in Samoa (errrr, except for all the rest deep inside their caves at Saanapu-uta Sauano Cave with Malietoa's Throne and stone axes, Dave Parker Caves, Aopo Caves).

Story 82 - Solos’ Cavings and Cravings – 26-12-007 – 5

2008-01-13T00:32:00.000-08:00

NB: As the two cultures mixed and mingled, Magic Ponies included, a little cultural friction would no doubt develop, especially with Samoans and ponies having traditionally oral societies. Paper notebooks, smeared in coconut oil and native bread crumbs, may have tasted scrumptuous for starving ponies.

SOLO’S CAVINGS AND CRAVINGS

Solo made his way to Nuutele thru the Ana Ala Sopo, beneath the Nuutele Straits.

On the last day, all by accident, Solo ate the camera crew’s logbook, valuable data from an intense 8-month shoot.

Story 77 – Palolo – 25-12-007 – 5

2008-01-13T00:31:00.000-08:00

NB: Another example of nature’s annual food offerings not to be missed. And you could be excused for missing this delicacy as it only lasts for 4 hours each year, same morning each year. Amazing. And tasteeeeeeeeeeee.

WORM, WORMS & MORE WORMS

Palolo season. How did we know? 6 nights after the full moon every November, the gogo stayed put. Eeerie. Something was amiss. Normally, these Noddies would fly off towards the highlands to nest at night. Tonight they pulled-up short. Most unusual – it was as if they were trying to tell us something, you know, like the rats jumping off a ship before its last fatal voyage………………

Time to hide guys. This island would be awash with fishermen tonight, paddling their wooden canoes to their favourite palolo worm hunting grounds. The last thing we wanted was more visitors. Luckily, a big storm blew-up and all the worms were ours, just like liquid oysters or oyster flavoured spaghetti marinara. Fantastic. But we had to be up early, 3am.

Story 71 – Birdwatching – 24-12-007 – 5 - T

2008-01-13T00:28:00.000-08:00

NB: More and more visitors are interested in a learning experience in Samoa, preferably in a traditional setting, preferably with an active itinerary. Many of the locations, activities, adventures, attractions and cultural experiences referred to can be combined with the best holiday itinerary specifically prepared for you to meet your objectives and budget.

In addition, you can include some exciting village projects, community tourism being the most exciting project in some of these villages in that the village has the income to meet all its development and training costs. You can overnight in these villages in a very traditional manner. Relax as your village hosts, hostesses and guides immerse you into the culture in something that is meant to be a fantastic learning experience.

These Samoans know more about sustainable living than the rest of the world put together. Learn about a culture that still has taboos – and for good reason. Learn the art of sustainable living – Samoan-style.

BIRDWATCHING – Nuutele-style

Whether you are into birdwatching, different cultures, new culinary experiences or just rainforests and natural scenery, you will enjoy Samoa, the Samoan culture and Samoans as the most hospitable people on the planet.

………………..

Imagine being on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, with abundant food – all natural, all organic, all before you – with 4 children from 1-7 years old.

What was to be 3 days of Survival turned into 8 days of Heavenly bliss. Our ecotour guide, the father, had us catching raw crabs and eating them live – sorry, catching live crabs and eating them raw – Oh, same taste, same technique – and I promise you, you will never cook crab again – absolutely sweet and tender and salty and tasty. Just like our Ancestors did.

What was a little more difficult to stomach was that Sitivi (I called him SirTV) was only 2 and I had to have him showing me how to run, dive, cup the little crab in your hands as the crab tries to bury itself in the sand, and then pull one leg off for me, pulling another leg off for Sose at 3, Rainbow at 6, and stuffing 4 legs in his own mouth, shells and all (soft shells of course, really soft, and tasty). By this time, I was on the fast-learning curve – I had a little catching-up to do it seemed.

To watch these 3 little Polynesians surviving on papaya, crab, bananas, breadfruit, bird’s nest fern leaves (taste just like peas in the pod), seashells, raw octopus (hmmmmmmmm, another taste sensation – little octopuses that they could see but I couldn’t – yes, hidden in the reef as the waves go out, exposing just one tentacle only 1” above the waterline. Sose would race out, pull his other 7 legs from beneath the rocks, pull one off for me to try and stuff the other 7 legs in her mouth, smiling gloatingly, gluttonly like she was enjoying it – we were all soon eating these seafood delicacies, smiling all the way - sumptuous. There is only one way to eat seafood – fresh, caught personally and shared with these 3 little water babes. We never went hungry, we ate all day, may be opening 20-30 coconuts, all different flavours.

By the way, we never cooked either, we never washed-up, we never set the table, we ate and played continuously, we all gelled with nature, a culture too beautiful to describe, scenery beyond words.

This beach is not for the fainthearted, but these 3 little survivors did not leave me any room to lodge any complaints – I was seeking a birdwatching experience as well, I wanted to observe the endemic Starling and Reef herons seeking refuge at night on the island, I wanted to see the 5 foot wingspan of the Fijian and Tongan Bats (flying to the mainland at night), I also wanted to see how menacing the giant coconut crabs were amidst the seabird nesting sites.

I had already sent a message to my wife that I was likely to be late (she was used to that – often finding my dirty washing in the clothes basket in the morning and deducing that I must have come home late last night for an office-break). My days were getting busier and busier with my 3 little intrepid explorers, birdfanciers and rockclimbers – there we were perched on a hidden cliff shelf overlooking a tiny bay with pastel coloured parrotfish beneath us, turtles wallowing off-shore, seabirds soaring above us and fruitbats scanning the cliffs for food – it was nature at its best. We sat and pondered for over 3 hours mesmerized. This was God’s Resort of Distinction – nothing manmade in sight.

OK, alili seashells, as big as hen’s eggs. “Wait for low tide Chris, get your goggles on and we are going under those rocks out near those breakers” – this is a 2 year old snorkler telling me – I was so humiliated. We had to drag him out of the water each sunset – mind you, we’d been there since sunrise and we were all asleep as the sun set, waking just before sunrise (but not before we swallowed a little Mateus and cooked popcorn in the sandhills at sunset singing “Isalei” (Good-bye and Farewell in Fijian) – they wanted me off their uncle’s island, teasing and laughing at me because they knew I was flying home soon. I had never had so much fun in all my life. Then the tide turned: “Come on Chris, don’t leave us here on this island on our own. Who will keep the swing swinging?”

The taste of these giant ‘oysters’ was fantastic – you guessed it, raw again. This time with ‘vara’, or coconut apple, a tasty crunchy white apple hidden inside every coconut with 12-24 inches of green leaves sprouting from one end. Rainbow taught me this trick, so we spent no time cooking (just no time to cook), we were so busy fossicking for coconuts, carting coconuts to our favourite swimming hole beneath a Sivi (Tahitian Almond) tree, “killing coconuts” and eating Tahitian almonds, tasting just like pistacios. Another adventure. Humiliating to be honest.

“Chris, you just hold the leaves, my Dad says you just try to kill the coconut, beating it against the rocks here where we are swimming in the shade and close to the breaking waves, until it splits open. Let us know when you have it opened – and don’t get it wet.” Kids!

So to the sound of “You naughty naughty naughty coconut”, there I was smashing this coconut against the rock, splashing around like a 6 year old, laughing, swimming, eating and searching for more crabs legs, seashells, ‘dry vara’ , alili and seabirds.

“Chris, come and push me”. We were all singing and laughing and yelling as we tried new swinging modes, clockwise, anti-clockwise, the big-dipper, etc.). The swing never stopped as they shouted “Tell the teacher we’ll be late for School”.

All I wanted was a seabird experience as I am an avid birder. Well, this is the best seabird nesting colony in Fiji, a conservation area with only one volcanic cone. Noddies nesting on the ground, frigates with 6 foot wingspans hang-gliding above us, rare forest doves, yes you guessed it, these little brats knew all the bird names – by Day 3, I was no longer humiliated by these 3 little eco-champions, they taught me more about life in 3 days than I had learned in the past 53 years. What a place to bring up kids. That romance in the South Pacific is still alive and flourishing today.

I was dressed in a lap-lap sulu skirt for 3 days, the same sulu, wet, then dried, wet again, then dried again, I never heard a phone, a car, just magnificent sounds from the distant reefs, even waterfalls cascading into the sea. Imagine sea kayaking up rivers less than 100 yards to then swim in 30 foot waterfalls beneath verdant virgin voluptuous rainforest. For me, it was the best holiday I have ever had.

PS. I’m a banker, I was given 6 weeks off for capturing a billion dollar account holder, an African industrialist, I selected an uninhabited island, all to myself (errrr, with guides – no one mentioned they were 2, 3 and 6 years old – and yet they were the highlight of my stay). I was told (by them) that I could stay as long as I could handle the isolation, the sun, the food, the kids, the beauty, the repetition, the boredom, …………. And here I am 2 years later still writing about it.

We all dined the last night in the best formal restaurant I have ever been in – no walls, just a Samoan fale, overlooking the Pacific skies ahead and overhearing the birds and the serenaders, all beautiful singers and guitarists. I ordered a red wine, only a bottle of white wine arrived (already opened??), I requested the Penfolds redwine (finally it arrived, already opened again???, but with no label???). I was bemused and amused. “Sorry Sir, the label came off in the ice cooler”.

The South Pacific is nothing short of fantastic, cultures too valuable to lose. So don’t change the Samoans – we Brits have already tried that stunt once so let’s be a little more culturally-sensitive this time. And don’t think that we can mine Samoa’s gold, log its rainforests and buy its islands. Timeshare is the answer. After all, Adventure Island is an ecological Paradise and we all want to keep it that way. Our new tribe will have to be very good to do it better than the Samoans have done for the past 3000 years – they are our Professors of Sustainability. Adventure Island could become a Centre of Cooperative Research for Sustainable Island Living.

Story 57 - Sultanas and Bananas – 24-12-007 - 5

2008-01-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids are reknown for making Samoan breads, something we call faapapa. We had to cheat a little and add a little flavouring, altering this ancient recipe just a little.

Sultanas and Bananas

I scoop of scraped coconut, one scoop of wholemeal bread mix, a little yeast or a lot of beer, throw in sultanas and ripe bananas, wrap in laupapa, throw inside the umu and there you have it, the best faapapa fai ever.

Splash on some peanut butter, sit on the beach under the coconut trees and you have a taste sensation that rivals the masi bread of olden days. And guess what, we just found an ancient masi pit on Nuutele Island, a grave on the beach, a grave on the summit and a umu tagata.

Alofa Bread – add stories/recipe

Story 45 – Fishermen Coming – 24-12-007 - 5

2008-01-13T00:18:00.000-08:00

NB: The Samoan Islands were not called the Navigator Islands for nothing. Captain Cook spotted Samoans fishing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in their tiny wooden canoes, way out of sight of land, land that Cook himself had no idea of its proximity. Mind you, Cook had been advised, however, not to call in to visit these noble savages. Clever man. May we we Kids should spread the word again sending all our holiday-makers off to Fiji and the Cook Islands where the villages are being replaced by the perfect mega-resorts.

FISHERMEN COMING

We’d hide and then the orphaned 'Spirits' would raid their paopao supplies

Story 33 – Clifftop Wildlife Viewing – 24-12-007 - 5

2008-01-13T00:12:00.000-08:00

NB: Sitting perched on twisted tree roots, protruding out over the edge of the 700 foot cliff, gives the viewers the perfect viewpoint as the wildlife swim, fly, crawl and climb about you.

Clifftop Wildlife Viewing

Nuutele Island offers one of the 'most beauuutiful locations' in the South Pacific for viewing wildlife, marine, terrestrial, aerial and arboreal. It is simply amazing, like watching an un-edited wildlife documentary.

Sitting cross-legged, as you do in Samoa, meditation comes easy especially when communing with nature as such. Law 1

Story 32 – Lepa Colony – 24-12-007 - 5

2008-01-13T00:07:00.000-08:00

NB: Amazingly, we found some ancient ruins, indicative of an old leper colony. Someone in the past knew where this island was, built a hospital for the lepers and let them be. Charming.

Lepa Colony

Eels, freshwater prawns, Friendly Ground Doves, turtles nesting and more. Surviving on this island was difficult enough as it was, but being incapacitated with leprosy would offer an additional challenge.

Story 27 - Giant Clams and Coconut Soup - 24-12-007 – 5

2008-01-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

NB: Just finding the giant clams was hard enough, but getting these heavy beasts to the surface proved even more difficult. However, we solved both problems. We used our liquid looking-glasses and then de-frocked the clams making them easier to get to the surface (and easier for the sharks to sample their first clams ever). Excuse me!

GIANT CLAMS AND COCONUT SOUP

Story 26 - Eel Evolution - 14-4-007 – 5

2008-01-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

NB: Watching animals behave, such as eels crawling out of the ocean and up onto the beach to capture crabs under the rocks, paves the way for foragers like us to devise new capture techniques. And we did.

EEL EVOLUTION

Story 25 - Catching and Cooking Gogos - 24-12-007 – 5

2008-01-12T23:56:00.001-08:00

NB: We just had to survive and gogo tastes like quail - delicious.

Catching and Cooking Gogos (Tokelau)

Story 22 - Tiger Sharks - 24-12-007 – 5

2008-01-12T23:51:00.000-08:00

NB: The Pacific Ocean is like a giant Seaworld Aquarium filled with magnificent beasts, some with notorious reputations as man-eaters, eating spearfishermen and even plastic kayaks. Fatalities have occurred.

TIGER SHARKS

He would take us sea kayaking, even into dark dark caves until, one day, a tiger shark was prowling around our kayaks. Half-way across the Nuutele Strait, “I think I just hit a turtle, ooops, may be a log”……………………

Chapter 5 - Life Ashore - an experiment in 'reality' television

2008-01-12T21:59:00.000-08:00

We Kids had made it ashore, albeit 7 months or more later, unprepared for what was about to happen. We had talked all the possibilities through very carefully over the past 7 months, afterall, we had all day, unable to escape each other's company. And it was fun: it filled-in our days, weeks and even months waiting.

When we made it ashore, it was like some type of metamorphosis, just like a catapillar turning into a butterfly. We felt like beached whales with a confusing sense of weightlessness. We literally had to learn to walk once again, it took us days before we could even run, falling over frequently, our faces covered in sand. Were we complaining?

A whole new survival strategy was needed, new skills, new foods, new challenges, new dangers, new excitements, new joys. It was really magic, hard to describe actually. Anyway, all we knew for sure was that we were in for a great adventure. We were to put our own culture to the test, under the microscope right here in our beach laboratory.

And little did we know that there was to be no rescue, a second tsunami, even visitors washed ashore, but arriving with a purpose. We found ourselves the subjects of some type of anthropological research as if we were a lost culture. We little POPITs were to have ample time to reflect on all things cultural (Chapter 6).

And we soon exploited these visitors and the opportunities that they provided. We were to end-up being televised in the Supreme Court in London (Chapter 7), amazing television viewers with our feats of survival, our cultural integrity, our distaste for all things modern and our deep distrust of adults.

We eloquently, in a court of law, put our best case forward with a little help from our legal friends. However, we've jumped a little ahead of ourselves, but what we are really trying to say is that over the next 2-3 years, surviving pretty much alone on this uninhabited island, we were able to formulate our future with uncanny clarity. We had put these BBC filn directors under the microscope as much as they put us under. We compared our two cultures and lifestyles, even voting them onto our team at our end of the beach where we continued to live a very traditional meaningful and culturally-rich lifestyle, somewhat idyllic to be exact.

We Kids enjoyed winning their attention, capturing it all on film: a masterpiece in the making, and all written without any script. The director saw things well before we realized what he was capturing. The viewers interpreted differently as well, in fact, some viewers were diametrically opposed in their conclusions. However, the director was great the way he manipulated his audience overseas, week after week, month after month.

We Kids enjoyed all the feedback we were getting. Likewise, we Kids enjoyed the same opportunity to get our viewpoint across to the whole world who thought they were watching some type of 'scripted reality TV programme'. For us Kids, it was reality, more real than you could ever imagine.

Our lives were to revolve around hunting and gathering, designing a Utopia for Kids, riding our Magic Pony, some amazing wildlife ewncounters with our Ancestors, a cyclone and another tsunami to contend with.

Our 2-3 years living on an uninhabited tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (without adults, disregarding 12 whinging Pommies at the other end of the beach who, for some reason, never interferred with us at all 0 they were the perfect adults in some regards but totally useless in others). But that's another story.

We Kids played into their hands, hardly cognizant of their intentions. We just went about our daily lives living life to its fullest with as much adventure and joy and magic as we could humanly muster. To be honest, life was so good on Nuutele Island that we never wanted to leave. We were not sure whether this was because being land-lubbers was more attractive than floating for a few more years at sea or whether we had perfected a culture that was so abundant with so much potential.

We Kids would often sit and analyze our cultural findings and refinements, filling in the gaps where we needed to, even if it meant making-up some new legends, refining some old values or designing some new lores. We were being enriched day after day with such a wonderful culture. The faaSamoa, as we knew it, provided us with a solid foundation and stood the test of time. As we repeated our experiments, as we recaptured and analysed our experiences, we knew that our Ancestors had also done likewise, possibly under even more limited conditions.

However, what we did realize was that we were only babies, aged 1-7 years old, we didn't have the practical experience that our Elders would have once had, and we didn't have the luxury of a boatload of carers to take care of us. We Kids were all alone, possibly a bigger challenge than any of our forebears ever experienced. And to us, this didn't matter because we were surviving, observing nature at its best, recording, this time, a unique comparison with the all pervasive faapalagi.

There was no way that those Western values, if you can call them such, were of any use to us at all. We Kids were totally independent, equipped with all the traditional knowledge and skills required to survive some pretty challenging circumstances. Of interest, however, was the fact that the skills and values had all been packaged into legends and lores, proverbs and stories, many of which had been told to us from the time we could walk and swim.

Life ashore on Nuutele Island was like sitting for our final exams, not in writing but all practical. However, there was a need to record it on film, and we did, and there is also a need to record it in writing, either in a story format or as a series of poems. We Kids want so much to ellicit a sense of joy, a lust for adventure, the magical warmth of living on an island in the tropics with a colourful backdrop of proven cultural principles, so vital to our wellbeing and, to a lesser extent, our survival.

And if anyone knows how to improve upon this, then please let us know. We'll be either in our beach laboratory or over at the living museum with the descendants of our Ancestors.

Story 133 – Tsunami – 29-12-007 - 4

2008-01-12T21:50:00.000-08:00

NB: The giant wave hit us, without any warning. We Kids knew instinctively what to do if we were to stay afloat, stay alive.

TSUNAMI

Islands are surrounded by water, surrounded by waves crashing on foreshores. Vavau Beach was no different except that this coastline was pocketed with bays, smaller islands, rocky lava outcrops, underwater lava tube caves and tunnels, sinkholes, even caves that went way inland to wet and dry holes, To Sua and To Le Sua. Cliffs covered with ancient Pandanus trees, banana palms, coconut palms laiden with fruits and coastal forest lined these narrow rugged lagoons.

The waves were unexpectedly horrendous. What the hell happened to us? We were just playing on the beach, jumping on and off the sea kayak, pushing TJ around in circles, when suddenly we were all washed up the beach, washed down the beach, under the waves, over the reef, back into the lagoon, down the sinkhole and out to sea again. Suddenly we were in a strong current going way out to sea.

You OK Sos? Where’s Skivi? Quick, grab him. Grab that kayak. Where’s TJ? He’s here, washed down inside the kayak, luckily, screaming his head off. Shake him out. Climb up on that rubber tube quickly. Where’s the paddle? Tighten your life jacket Skivi. Grab that rubber tube and hang on Sose. Tie that rope onto the rubber tube.

Coughing, spluttering, yelling, crying, we all settled down, united, exhausted, happy that we were all just alive and together, well, for now at least. What lay ahead for us was to be an ordeal, for our father, it would have been a normal few days fishing. We could never understand why he went for days on end, on his own, out of sight of land, bring fish home for the village, still fresh.

The noise was deafening, waves crashing all around us. It all happened so quickly. No sight of the beach now, the waves too high, the beach hidden behind an island. No sight of Steve or Ava either. We were orphaned, we were alone, but not for long.

Suddenly, we were surrounded by dolphins, spinner dolphins, doing their water acrobatics and aerobics and aqua-robics – what a sight. We needed their company, we felt more safe with them. We wanted to climb on their backs as they swam close to us. We had swum with dolphins before, in Satuiatua, behind the reef. We were kayaking one day when one cheeky spinner dolphin jumped right over our bow. Wow. It was like a circus act.

Suddenly, Sos was cuddling a baby dolphin, he seemed to be lost also. Where was his mother? Oooops, who is that? It was Dolly the dolphin, pushing his nose and head right up inside our rubber tube, staying there for all of us to see and cuddle. He was beautiful, so friendly. (STORY)

Suddenly a huge SPLASH. Geezus. A Humpback Whale breaching, right next to us. They come to Samoa with their newborn Tongan young, making a few laps of honour of our small islands before heading back to the Antartic summer. For 3 hours, we were accompanied by these sea creatures, guiding us out to sea. Well thanks to our Ancestors, these giants of the sea, living in their Ancestors’ ocean, their Ancestors’ graveyard.

“Sos, look, a Whale Shark. Look at all those spots. Cute hey?” Why we should be blessed with the company of such a wonderful sluggish and gentle giant is beyond us, but the Whale Shark stayed with us, well Skivi, until he was escorted ashore a few days later.

The sun had set. The sky was studded with stars, the last gogo was flying homeward-bound, the last atafa flying to the East against the strong breeze, even bats circling in the night sky, and, strangely, Samoan Starlings flying out to sea. There was a plan in the air – everyone else knew the plan. There was a sense of purpose to all this wildlife movement and direction, but we could not see any land in sight and nor could they. Well, so we thought.

Story 43 - Sea Kayak Shark Attack – 24-12-007 – 4

2008-01-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

NB: There are days when sharks fancy a little fast-food, and our kayaks are pretty fast, but not oviously fast enough.

Sea Kayak Shark Attack

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, nudge nudge, wink wink, somethings suddenly nudging your stern...............

Story 18 - Sinkhole Near Lion King's Cave - 23-12-007 – 4

2008-01-12T21:40:00.000-08:00

NB: The name ‘Mose’ etched into the rock above the cave like an ancient petroglyth marks the spot where Mose obviously was sucked to his death, a travesty for his family who knew Mose knew this coastline so well. May be a rogue wave, may be just caught unawares by the rising tide. His body never found.

SINKHOLES NEAR LION KING’S CAVE

This same cave, in fact a sinkhole, was again to capture a few more victims, this time a family of 4. A good tourguide may have prevented these deaths, mind you, he tried his best but the current was too strong.

And this is a travel tip if you’re thinking of coming to Samoa. Book a local guide and take him everywhere with you because avoiding cultural insensitivities and death are both recommended. Last thing you want to do is offend the Chiefs or waste their time searching for lost tourists – usually the whole village downs tools and gives priority to such a search. Most fishermen know exactly where to find the bodies, unless they’ve been consumed by our shark-like Ancestors.

Geoff, this is an amazing rock formation, a blind lagoon, safe and sheltered from the ocean waves. Well, so we thought. The dark blue seastars captured our attention, mesmerized. Suddenly Oliver was floating past, ooops, heading for an underwater cave. “The sinkhole Geoff, quick.”

Oliver was picked from the jaws of the sinkhole, unhurt, alive. We had been in just the same location yesterday, and no problem as such existed. Or did it? And this is the importance of having a local guide with you in Samoa at all times. Someone to tell you the legends, show you the nicest locations, including dangerous caves and sinkholes, then saving your life.

Over the headland is the One Inch Beach, the Wet Hole and the Dry Hole, even an underwater cave bar, complete with a hidden tunnel into a rainforest setting, complete with its own private beach. Dangerous? Take a guide and take precautions, and have a contingency plan for the contingency plan. Only then are you safe. And keep a boat nearby just in case, may be a rope, even a helicopter comes in handy at times. Compass? GPS? Yep, they all save lives.

Any Rescue Service in Samoa? Sure, all you need to do is phone Tony. Keep ya mobile handy in its waterproof bag with spare batteries.

.......................

Story 11 - Lion King's Cave - 23-12-007 - 4 – T

2008-01-12T21:19:00.000-08:00

NB: Vavau Beach is voted as the best beach in Samoa, best for kayaking (well, it is pretty dangerous in some locations, in fact, it is possibly THE most dangerous coastline in the whole of Samoa – and they plan to put 200 guests there in a concrete hotel overlooking THE most beautiful coastline and the most dangerous coastline). Adults!! There are huge lavatube caves that you can kayak into and through – just fantastic. And beware of the rogue waves when you least expect them, especially if you are well inside these caves.

The undertow in the reef channel is another challenge. Not to mention a hidden sinkhole, big enough to swallow you and your kayak, in fact your whole family, down the hole and hopefully popping-up somewhere out there in the Pacific Ocean. Luckily, we had scuba’ed through on a calm day to be met by a huge Hammerhead Shark and an ocean current big enough to take us all to Tonga – and it did.

Lion King’s Cave

My Dad takes us sea kayaking, even into dark dark caves (“ARRRRRGHHHHHHHHH”) – “What’s that?” Oh yes, it’s the roar of the Lion King (deep inside the cave). I was so frightened I nearly fell out of my kayak.

“Take me out of hear, QUICK DAD, I’m scared”.

Sure enough, another “Roarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”.

I turned around and I couldn’t even see MY DAD – gone – vanished in the darkness – and we were, only seconds before, sitting together in a two-man canoe!

I couldn’t even see the end of my nose nor my paddle nor, nor, oh no, MY DAD.

“DADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.” Suddenly, the kayak accelerated out of the Lion King’s Cave, and there we were safely back in broad daylight, somewhat relieved. Well, so we thought. We were minutes away from being separated for 2 years. There we were, all washed down the sinkhole, the sinkhole our Dad had told us not to go near. And where was he now: leaving us behind as he clung to the rim of the sinkhole entrance. Lucky man.

CHAPTER 4 - Tsunami

2008-01-12T20:58:00.000-08:00

Well, you pretty much understand where we Kids are coming from today (Chapter 1), living here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and enjoying a somewhat idyllic lifestyle (Chapter 2), however, having to put a little extra thought into it in order to take control of a few of the pending adult atrocities (Chapter 3), when suddenly we Kids are all swept off our feet literally by a huge tsunami whilst swimming on our favourite beach.

Surprised as we all were, we were not poorly prepared. Fotunately, we had all re-gathered out behind the breakers on the reef, still clinging to our kayaks. It was getting dark, we could just see the village lights fading on the distant horizon. We immediately assumed we were in a strong current heading somewhere towards Tonga from one Vavau Beach to another.

First priority was to account for everybody, all 4 of us. Next we needed to overcome the calamity and make a few survival plans, bedding arrangements, especially for baby Tofu who, at this stage, had settled down quite nicely after a feed of turtle algae mashed with jellyfish - it reminded us all of lime jello our parents used to make us (well, nearly anyway).

We were all finally safe, afloat, warm, well-fed, very observant and drifting-off to sleep (excuse the pun). However, we woke to find ourselves separated in the morning - we had lost Skivi, now out of sight, trailing his lifeline aimlessly in a different current somewhere not to be seen.

We prayed for his safety, as did our Ancestors, who unbeknown to us, had come to his rescue but not ours. We were happy for Skivi knowing he'd be back home with our parents well before us.

The months ticked by, we grew from strength to strength, albeit a little cramped, but we swam and played in a warm tropical ocean as blue as the sky. In fact, we could see nothing but blue ocean and blue sky. We had ample time for further informal education, putting all our survival skills to the test. Nothing we had learnt at school was of any real value to us now: we had to survive long enough until we reached another island, just like our Ancestors did. And they sailed on a supermarket: well, so they told us. And it was true. We were overwhelmed with a diet so rich, so varied, so tasty, so welcomed.

Then suddenly, our luck turned.

Story 140 – New Laws – 29-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T20:57:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids are convinced now that we need to legislate to help protect adults from themselves.

New Laws

Imagine a Law against Parents

A Law against Polluting Parents

A Law against Japanese (whalers).

The latter Law extends to all Japanese. You are no longer welcome in the South and North Pacifics. So, pack up your bags and migrate back to the West where you came from. And see how well the Chinese tolerate your whale-killing antics.

We need a movie “Japanese, the Whale-Killers”. With a little bit of linguistic licencing, the national food of Japan should be ‘sashimi’, now pronounced ‘sashami’. (STORY 142 – Sashami POEM)

Law against Aid Donor Countries’ Negative Impacts on the Pacific Islands

Story 137 – Adult Thinking – 29-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

NB: A few examples are presented here to illustrate a point..........

Adult Thinking

Landmines? Yuk

“Thanks America, especially for continuing to manufacture such childhood atrocities”.

This is typical adult thinking, is it not.

“Wake up Daddy.”

Let me think again: ‘Adult thinking’? Another good oxymoron for the older generation to think about.

Ever read the Third Testament, sorry, the “Third Revolution” by DD GG? Another lovely account of what ‘adult thinking’ has done to our islands,our planet. There was the First Revolution (Industrial), there was the second revolution (Agricultural, or was it the other way around?), and then there was the third revolution (technological, with all its manmade chemicals that are now getting into our mothers’ milk and their ovaries and their thyroids and their breasts and their brains, all causing ‘prostrate cancer’). (STORY)

These previous generations, all adults I might add, didn’t have a clue. I don’t wish to be disrespectful, but really. They don’t even have the decency to say that they are “Sorry”. Not even the current generation of adults can say its sorry.

Can we take them all to the Hague, a global court in Europe where all the adults are tried and convicted for their atrocities to Humanity and the rest of the non-human life on this beautiful planet.

Story 136 – Green Gospel – 29-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:53:00.000-08:00

NB: Why we Kids ever want to live with our parents is beyond us. Adults can be a bad influence sometimes.

Green Gospel

I remember My Dad one day on his soapbox, always preaching his ‘green gospel’ to us: he should have been a priest.

Mind you, I preferred his ‘Third Testament’: the First and the Second were a little outdated and, anyway, not part of our ancient epistemological weaponry. We needed the cold hard proven facts, not those 10 new Commandments that put a stop to:
1. some tasty ritualistic cannibalism (My Dad’s words, not mine),
2. some exciting adventurous warfare where maximum use was made of our ancient stone axe sharpening skills (STORY),
3. some creative fortress building with mad rushes to build bigger walls, deeper land traps, deeper moats and longer bridges with tighter doorways, and gathering our lava-rock grenades as big as rugby balls,
4. some of our tracking and trekking and espionage skills, not to mention the need to equip our secret caves with mattresses, food, firewood, fire, cooking utensils, weapons, escape routes, O Mea Sina, and much more.

Christianity put a stop to our proven successful sustainable human ecology: we were in balance with our own island ecosystems, even in balance with the rest of the world, and we didn’t even have to fight in Iraq or Vietnam or North Korea (but, today, these same Christian sources do have to engage in such warfare despite their commandments, especially the one that says Thou Shalt Not Kill).

We Kids just hate this hypocracy, and the fact that they had the audacity to stop our minor scuffles, but continue today to expand their global onslaughts using nuclear bombs (harmful to unborn Kids as well), chemical weapons (harmful to the unborn Kids as well) and millions of landmines that continue to maim millions of children across the world – “Thanks America, especially for continuing to manufacture such childhood atrocities”. This is adult thinking, is it not. “Wake up Daddy.”

Today, thanks to the bible and the “Thou shall not kill” philosophy, our islands have suffered from human population growth, serious overcrowding, rainforest destructions, insufficient wildlife habitats left causing depletion of wildlife, insufficient drinking water, human waste disposal problems and subsequent over-nutrification of our beautiful coral reefs, too many jets and ships transporting too many processed foods to our islands and using-up all the limited fossil fuels and producing GHGs in the process.

At least we now get hotter summers and longer summers thanks to Global Warming (STORY 104).

Those early missionaries have caused this and they are not about to say “Sorry”. Ironically, we are less capable of protecting their God’s creations today than our Ancestors were. Our Ancestors actually did the opposite: they went out of their way to protect their wildlife, making taboos, harvesting sustainably, selecting the sexes where necessary.

And the missionaries introduced marriage as well. Today, we have single mums and single dads, broken families, pre-nuptial agreements (wait for it, you take the girls and I’ll take the boys). This is ‘premeditated divorce. Adults? Really! Why we Kids ever want to live with them we will never know.

In the olden days, we lived in villages, we lived with our uncles, we lived with our grandparents, we sometimes lived with our parents, whoever they were. We never asked. It was better that way. In fact, there was no piece of paper to say who our parents were. In fact there were no papers, no pens, no writing skills – we were into oral and auditory communications. Besides, books don’t keep well in the tropics – the humidity gets to them, the salt air makes them sticky, the geckoes eat them, the horizontal rains wet them, one cyclone alone will blow them away, we had no library shelves to even store them.

Story 134 – 7 Spiritual Laws of Success – 28-12-007 – 3 – T

2008-01-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids recognize disasters when we see them, and the lack of values within our culture and society today is nothing short of a disaster. So, a little ESD for those that want to learn a few fundamental values, apply them and hopefully pass them on to their Kids.

But, if international tourism is a disaster as well, then we Kids need to tell all the Kids in the world that if they are planning a holiday away with their parents in the Pacific, then they need to first consider some of the following values. And this will sure tesat their mettle.

7 Spiritual Laws of Success

LAW of PURE POTENTIALITY
Be silent each day – attain ecstacy We like being alone, silent
To just Be We love living life to its fullest
Sit alone in silent meditation (am & pm) We escape momentarily
Commune with nature each day We love these islands with all this wildlife
Silently witness the intelligence in everything We love watching the Gogo navigate
Silently witness the sunsets, sunrises We even follow the phases of the moon
Listen to the sound of the ocean We love the sounds of all the seabirds
Smell the forest, flowers, sea air Feel the vibrations, the waves
Enjoy the life throb with unbounded creativity
Judge nothing that occurs Practice non-judgement

LAW of GIVING
We love bringing gifts - Flowers, prayers Compliments, stories, legends
Give something to everyone you come in contact with
Circulate joy, wealth, affluence In my life and in others’ lives
Happily receive the gifts of nature Sunlight, rain showers, the first whale
Receive from others – food, material gifts Epistemological advice, lures, adzes, flower
Prayer, compliment, smile
Keep wealth circulating in my life By caring, affection, appreciation, love
Offer joyful greetings (Talofa, Bula) Wish happiness, joy and laughter

LAW of CAUSE & EFFECT
Witness all choices – be conscious of them Live every day as if it were your last
Consider the consequences If your heart is comfortable, ….
Ask my heart for guidance Bring fulfillment and happiness

LAW of LEAST EFFORT (acceptance, responsibility, defencelessness)
Practice acceptance Accept people, situations, circumstances
This moment is as it should be Accept things as they were at that moment
Then take responsibility for our situation Don’t blame ourselves
Take responsibility for all those events we see as problems
Every problem is an opportunity in disguise
Be alert to opportunities Therefore giving greater benefits
I will no longer defend my point of view Remain open to all points of view

LAW of INTENSION & DESIRE
Make a list of all my desires Check it when communing with nature
Release this list of my desires Surrender this list of desires to the Creator
Practice present moment awareness in all my actions
Accept the present as it is
Manifest the future through my deepest desires

LAW of DETACHMENT
Allow myself and others the freedom to be as they are
I will not force solutions on problems Therefore creating more problems
I will participate with detached involvement
I will factor in uncertainty as an essential ingredient of my experience
I will willingly accept uncertainty
Therefore solutions will spontaneously emerge out of these problems, confusion, disorder
The more uncertain things seem to be The more secure I will feel
I will step into the field of all possibilities and anticipate the excitement that can occur when I remain open to an infinity of choices
I will step into the field of all possibilities and experience all the fun, adventure, magic and mystery of life

LAW of PURPOSE IN LIFE
Nurture the Goddess within me that animates my body and mind
I will make a list of my unique talents
I will make a list of all the things that I love to do while expressing my unique talents.
I will use my unique talents to serve humanity,
Thereby creating abundance in my life and in the lives of others
I will ask myself daily, “How can I serve others?” and “How can I help?”

These answers will allow me to help and serve humanity with love.

Story 132 – Why God Created Children – 29-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:50:00.000-08:00

NB: If we Kids are giving you adults a headache or two, then please follow the instructions on the Aspirin bottle – “Take 2 Aspirin and keep away from children.”

WHY GOD CREATED CHILDREN

To those of us who have children in our lives,whether they are our own, grandchildren,nieces,nephews,or students...here is something to make you chuckle.Whenever your children are out of control,you can take comfort from the thought thateven God's omnipotence did not extend to His own children.After creating heaven and earth,God created Adam and Eve.And the first thing he said was "DON'T! "
"Don't what ?"Adam replied.

"Don't eat the forbidden fruit."God said.
"Forbidden fruit ?We have forbidden fruit? Hey Eve..we have forbidden fruit !"

"No Way !"

"Yes way !"

"Do NOT eat the fruit ! " said God.

"Why ?"

"Because I am your Father and I said so ! " God replied,wondering why He hadn't stoppedcreation after making the elephants.A few minutes later,God saw His children having an apple breakand He was ticked !"Didn't I tell you not to eat the fruit? "God asked.

"Uh huh,"Adam replied.

"Then why did you ? " said the Father.

"I don't know,"said Eve.

"She started it ! " Adam said.

"Did not ! "

"Did too ! "
"DID NOT ! "
Having had it with the two of them,God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own.Thus the pattern was set and it has never changed.

BUT THERE IS REASSURANCE IN THE STORY !If you have persistently and lovingly tried to give children wisdom and they haven't taken it,don't be hard on yourself.If God had trouble raising children,what makes you think it would bea piece of cake for you ?
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT !1. You spend the first two years of their lifeteaching them to walk and talk. Then you spendthe next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.
2. Grandchildren are God's rewardfor not killing your own children.
3. Mothers of teens now know whysome animals eat their young.
4. Children seldom misquote you.In fact,they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
5. The main purpose of holding children's partiesis to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.
6. We childproofed our homes,but they are still getting in.
ADVICE FOR THE DAY:Be nice to your kids.They will choose your nursing home one day.
AND FINALLY:
IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF TENSIONAND YOU GET A HEADACHE,DO WHAT IT SAYS ON THE ASPIRIN BOTTLE:
"TAKE TWO ASPIRIN"AND "KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN"!!!!!

Story 118 – Natural Disasters – 29-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T20:47:00.000-08:00

NB: The disasters, natural and otherwise, experienced by our Ancestors are very different to what we are experiencing today. We Kids have come-up with a list of 2 dozen disasters, in some form of chronological order, that all need synthesizing. Sadly though, many disasters today are manmade, are of much greater severity with more long-term and serious impacts on humanity.

Now, we Kids just need to put a little more thought into this and this is what we have decided to do: we are drafting retrospective legislation holding all adults responsible for both the short-term and long-term damages, and we are expecting some kind of restorative action, to be supervised by we Kids.

Natural Disasters

Drift Voyaging
Pirates
Starvation
Tribal Wars
Cannibalism
Invasions
Volcanoes
Earthquakes
Tsunami
Cyclones
Underwater Landslides
Human Population Growth
International Warfare
Whale Extinctions
Global pollution
Wildlife extinctions
Global Climate Change
Deforestation
Over-harvesting
Desertification
Cultural Erosion
Religious Intolerance
Ignorance
Value-less Society
International Tourism

Story 108 – Tactics and Tackles – 27-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

NB: We little Professors of Pacific Island Thoughts believe that some serious cultural corrections are possible, even justified. However, these issues have never been discussed before, well, at least with us Kids. And it now seems that these key cultural issues have not been discussed further, even debated, let alone corrected.

Just what can we Kids do? We need to decide on our tactics and tackle these cultural issues head-on. Do you agree?

TACTICS AND TACKLES

RUGBY BLACK-BIRDERSOh yes. We need to buy those A-Grade Coconut Sevens rugby players, put them on a contract outside Samoa and thus strengthen the All-Blacks and Ozzie and English IRB Sevens Teams (AND water-down and weaken those bloody Coconut Teams from Fiji and Samoa). Leave them with only their B-Grade Teams to play in the IRB World Cup Series – we’ll fix ‘em. Yeah, yeah. Sorry guys, our so-called B-Grade Team beat the lavalava off you’re A++-Grade Teams – next time may be, but we want your ‘indigenous’ teams playing only. New IRB RULE guys, sorry and Good Luck.

Show me your indigenous All Blacks line-up?
Show me your indigenous Ozzie line-up and I’ll show you their national anthems, in full traditional costumes, complete with spears and legends and chants and fervour that have meaning. Really. The only culture you have in NZ and Australia we hear you make yoghurt with.

And you had the palagi referee on your side making 8 Players on the field. And you still lost. Mind you, you are all good losers and we love you for that. The next IRB Grand Final Sevens Match is in the Blue Pacific – if you will allow this or don’t we deserve it? Rugby is just another form of neo-colonialism. I know you don’t even think like that but that’s just how subtle your rugby tactics and tackles are.

Your overseas immigration policies target our most highly skilled Islanders, leaving us with who here on the Islands? Thanks for your one-sided Multi-lateral Development Agreements, and all your bandAid policies from your Aid Agencies (guess that’s how this programme got its name?). And you are the Blue Pacific Aid Partners. You buy our best Rugby Players and hand out free rugby balls in rural villages with no goal posts, no rule books, no playing fields. Thanks Australia. At least we don’t have to buy your uranium and, if we did, we’d test it first on your beaches at Bondi and Burleigh Heads.

And just as you gave your Aborigines the right to vote in the 1970s, you also gave us the right to vote (using your Yesminister or Westminister system of government – mind you, we have had to make a few special changes to make it work our way, with our Politicians appointing the Auditor General, the Judges, the Public Servants just so that these key positions can learn to tautua our Politicians in a customary sense. Good-bye to the tri-partite Policy of an independent judiciary, public service and political system.

And because you insisted on your UN Human Rights Programmes, with Universal Sufferage and a Right to Vote from 21 years of age, we now have a very corrupt beligerant team of voters and votees. Only our Chefs (sic) could vote before. This was our traditional system. And it worked for us for 3000 years. And our Chiefs were indeed the best chefs – afterall, they were all cannibals.

Would you like to reverse it now that you forced it on us? Do you accept any responsibility for the above irresponsibilities. Are you prepared to do a series of EIAs to assess your direct impacts on our culture, our environment, our rugby prowess? Your answer is an emphathetic “No”.

We rest our case. The Professors of Pacific Island Thought rest their case again.

Story 103 – Modern-day Blackbirders – 27-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids are disgusted by all these injustices. To think that our parents are allowing it, or even don’t realize it, is intolerable. We Kids are going to do something about it, even if we just write about it.

However, to us Kids, that’s is not enough. We are going to turn our messages, our concerns, our disappointments into faleaitu. We are going to write some faleaitu scripts.

Modern-day Blackbirders

All our best rugby players are on contracts (overseas), watering down our international home teams to B-Graders only. And we still beat the Brits, the French, South Africans, All-Blacks (NZ) and Ozzies (who, mind you, had stolen our PIC players like modern-day black-birders - STORY 106). They abuse our talents without compensating the Pacific in general.

And overseas wages are seducing our university graduates – unable to return to the Islands to serve their countries, their Chiefs, their families. More modern-day black-birding. Our graduates stolen as slaves to work overseas.

Then there is those palagi who come to the Islands to marry our sisters and take them home (more modern-day blackbirding). “Hey Bro, you leave my sister alone, or I’ll take you fishing, and I didn’t promise to bring you home though, did I?”

Story 99 – It’s no Joke – 27-12-007 – 3 – T

2008-01-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids are all going to have to take another angle, appealing to our adult audience a little more pungently. That’s it. Laughter. We need to make a joke of this global crisis, this cultural crisis, this social crisis. We Kids are going to resort to the traditional Samoan faleaitu. We boys may have to dress-up as women, put on an effeminent accent, hitting each other with our handbags and jocular insults and subtleties.

It’s no Joke

It’s an horrendous task for us Kids to write a script suitable for a faleaitu with all the issues, and solutions, contained within with maximum appeal to all age groups, all Pacific Islands, all sectors of the community and all Chiefs and decision-makers without it ‘falling flat’. Or is it?

Faleaitu has wide appeal, even internationally, especially within the Pacific Islands because we PIs have a certain Pacific sense of humour, often wrapped-up in a dress.

Well throughout this broad faleaitu, we will be targeting certain issues that appeal to the faleaitu forum, in fact, we’ll be writing it in such a way that we will be calling for all Samoans within the diaspora to come to the rescue, assist this global faleaitu effort.

Story 98 – Sleeping Sickness – 27-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T20:39:00.000-08:00

NB: This is a ‘Travel Alert’ to all Samoans living outside Samoa. Head home for an almost free treatment for your obstructive sleep apnoea. One in five Samoans suffer, so get your check-up. This sleeping sickness is indicative of an ailing world. Take heed: fix yourself and fix the world.

Sleeping Sickness – METI

My GM used to snore, gasp, we were so frightened at times, awoken at night …

Story 97 – Wildlife Campaigner – 27-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids have got to think fast again as to how best to save what wildlife we have left in the world, in the Pacific, in Samoa, even on Savaii Island. Our Dad was in Africa in 1990, 30,000 giraffes remaining, today only 3000 giraffes remain. Had he known this, we Kids are sure he would have done something about it. Did he do anything in Samoa to save Samoa’s wildlife? Sure he did.

Wildlife Campaigner

Our Dad had campaigned to save wildlife for nearly 40 years, studying them at university, traveling to many zoos and nationa parks and even wildlife research stations around the world. But that wasn’t enough for our Dad.

He became zealous, even obsessed at the fact that no one else cared. There was funding to research diseases in dogs and cats, horses and cows, but no one had funding to save Australia’s unique marsupial wildlife from extinction. In fact, the detractors, including Australian governments and their newspapers and their TV stations, took umbridge at the fact that there was too much doom and gloom in the public eye that could affect our image overseas, could even affect our exporting of native fauna, could even affect our tourism industry.

Best to remain blissfully ignorant. Other wildlife campaigners were exhausted, dismayed, heartbroken. There was no united front to save Australia’s wildlife. Some 40 years later, Australia was to be horrified at Japan killing 1000 Minke whales, 50 Humpback whales. No one was horrified at our own slaughter of Australia’s unique fauna and flora. And no one has orchestrated a united front to address this wholesale destruction of unique ecosystems, some aspects also vital for our own survival not only within Australia, but also within the world.

Tourists to Australia should be told the facts. Instead, tourists are told the opposite, pushing them, and us, into a false sense of security. This deception is all pervasive crossing all sectors, all ages, all States, all political parties.

To commence taking a stance, our Dad formed the Australian Koala Foundation in 1987 (AKF) with its campaign continuing some 20 years later, www.savethekoala.com, in 1990, he was a Founding Member of the Samoa O Le Siosiomaga Society Inc. (OLSSI) and then in 2000, he helped found the Matuaileoo Environment Trust Inc. (METI) in Samoa as an environmental health trust. Sadly, all organizations have attracted more than their fair share of detractors, most of these detractors remaining blissfully ignorant some years later and offering no better alternative.

What the Pacific needs is a ‘sustainability trust’, designed specifically to address issues of sustainability. No such trust exists, but Samoa is justifying the Gafatiataulima Trust of Samoa Inc. (GTS) in order to help put a little more focus and direction o preventing the on-going plight of the Pacific

Story 96 - Pacific Pandemics – 27-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T20:36:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids need to think a little harder as to how best to care for our elders, our parents and grandparents, inflicting themselves, and us, with so much disease, hardship and heartache, unnecessarily. We may even have to resort to legislation in order to better protect adults from each other.

Pacific Pandemics

AIDS
Lifestyle Diseases
Neo-Colonialism
Slow Learners Disease
Pandemics
Prostrate Cancer

Story 95 – Social Breakdown – 27-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

NB: For a more objective viewpoint, we Kids have traveled the South Pacific and noted some very distressing differences between the Kids from different islands. This is disturbing for us all because we Kids are not quite sure who is going to address this problem in each Pacific country, and each country seems to have a different set of issues. Why?

SOCIAL BREAKDOWN

There’s a big difference between Fijian and Samoan villages, societies, law and order. No village Chiefs’ policing programme in Fijian villages like there is in Samoa – no traditional courts in Fiji like there is in Samoa.

We Kids think that there are some big differences between Samoa and Fiji - Fiji is lagging way behind Samoa. Big topic to discuss later - just wish our children could fight for a better inheritance. Time to cancel the Ski-ing Holiday in each Pacific country.

The Taiwanese are funding some Island countries, no strings attached. No accountability expected, hence the aid monies go straight into improving the welfare of politicians. We Kids on the outer islands get no benefit, in fact there are negative impacts on us for many generations to come.

Story 89 – Kids’ Parliament – 27-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T20:29:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids need some new laws to protect us or even some old lores re-enacted. But without a vibrant culture today, we Kids can only rely on the palagi approaches available to us. Interestingly, when you think about it, these laws today are designed to teach adults to behave correctly, another sad indictment on adulthood and our once beautiful chiefly system.

KIDS’ PARLIAMENT

Story 84 – South Seize - 26-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T20:28:00.001-08:00

NB: We Kids believe that the South Pacific is under siege, unrequited foreign relationships designed to deceive us Pacific Islanders, and it’s working well for them.

PIs need to take ownership of their own development strategy, have the absorptive capacity to implement it, and call on international assistance when we need it, but, this time, on our terms.

And whilst tourism in the Pacific is being heralded as our life saviour, chances are that it is not. Why not?

South Seize

And we were sitting on the beach one day, looking out to sea, when bursting from the clouds/horizon was a boat, getting larger and larger, closer and closer. It was the BBC film crew. A legend re-created. The Aboriginals had seen this (STORY 74 – Aboriginal Fagogo), the Samoans had seen all this, we have lived in fear of more such arrivals (Visit Massacre Bay in American Samoa and ask why? Ask about Rev Thomas Baker in Fiji and how tasty his captives thought his shoes were, after they had eaten what was inside his shoes – White meat - yummmmmm.)

The Pacific has had enough of these do-gooders arriving, but it hasn’t stopped. Today, they disguise these cloudbursters as ‘tourists’, organized and funded by our major Pacific aid partners who all want somewhere nice and romantic themselves to relax whilst on holidays, somewhere to sell their goods and services (usually the ones we don’t need like cigarettes, pre-diabetic pre-cursors called sugars, and somewhere to build their concrete hotels out of our beachsand on our best swimming and fishing beaches.

Well, excuse us, enough is enough.

We Pacific Kids will soon have no beaches left, our raw crabs will have all gone, Solo will have no access no more to his favourite swimming beaches either, and Sose and Skivi will all be making beds for a living, dancing next to the spa in the evenings for the palagi tourists, re-creating or fabricating the ‘romance of the South Seas’, for $1 an hour, being seduced by ugly foreigners carrying AIDS.

Thanks, but no thanks. As for Nu, she’s singing in the Piano Bar, her favourite song “Palagi Pipilos” (STORY 83).

And the barrage of propositions we keep getting from these tourists are hideous: “We can sell all your forests for you.:
“We can show you how to capture all your tuna all at once.”
“We can even find a market for your whale meat, in Japan.”
“We can sell all the turtle shells you can capture for us”
“Now, China, they want all your sea cucumbers and faisua – they love clam meat – we can take it all – you will be rich.”
“We can even allow you to relax and we can get someone to do all the hard work while you sit there and watch us – we can ask for help from India, Solomon Islands, China, they all want to come and work for you.” Indentured labourers and human trafficking is rife in the Pacific.
“And my friends in Peru, they would still welcome you to come and visit their country – the trip is free – just come on board and have a look at our mirrors and cloth and steel knives – just climb down into our hold (excuse the pun).” Blackbirding/slavery is still rife in the Pacific. Oh please, don’t sound shocked.

And yes, this has all happened in the South Seas, and is still happening in the South Seas against all Human Rights Conventions – but no one cares.

We now call it the ‘South Seize’ thanks to you palagi – you came, you raped, you pillaged, you converted, you distorted, you eroded, you polluted, you stole our lands, our freedom, our cultures, our future. You palagi have either seized all that you can get a hold on, or our societies and cultures have all seized-up like an over-heated engine. Or both?

Now capture all this on film and see how much you can sell it for, see who really wants to watch it, see if you are understanding enough to come back to Samoa and make an ifoga, a formal cultural apology. And we hope you know what happens to you if we are unable to accept your apology. We love ‘long pigs’, so tasty.

Story 79 – Lua-O-Teine – 25-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

NB: Gender equity Samoan-style

LUA-O-TEINE LEGEND

In the Samoan culture, women are better than men. Samoans have 2 true legends to prove this.

Story 62 – Nuclear Families – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids would prefer to radiate hope and prosperity for all. However, a different kind of radiation is before us. Colonial powers within the Pacific are not embracing all Pacific Islanders. We Kids want to see this changed. Want to know how we are going to do it?

NUCLEAR FAMILIES

French nuclear testing makes more nuclear (irradiated) families and ecosystems

Ozzies boycotting French Restaurants??

I thought the ‘nuclear family’ was the brothers and sisters?? Yeah sure!!!

Story 59 – Stay out of our Wars – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids today are into self-preservation, acts of humanity, survival, pacifism…….

STAY OUT OF OUR WARS

Fijian soldiers and AS soldiers are returning in boxes – 12 corpses in 4 weeks - 12 of our brothers and sisters.

Is WTO another example of neo-colonialism – one way to take over PICs. War is trade exemplified, trade amplified, trust us.

Story 56 – Oh My God – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:16:00.000-08:00

NB: We little POPITs need to think a little more clearly about religious influences on our culture, society and even God’s creations.

Oh My God

Really, these palagi are still trying to pull the wool over our bodies and pull the wool over our eyes, and make us pay for it. No wonder some PICs banned the film The Da Vinci Code: Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Islands and the like (2006). However, we all accepted the earlier teachings of the early missionaries without any such questioning. Somehow, the Da Vinci Code film needed to be scrutinized. The contention that Jesus married Mary Magdalene has been propagated by the Mormons for the past 100 years. In fact, the Mormons believe that their Founder, Joseph Smith, was a descendant of that union.

Our take on religion is a little unorthodox because we like the ancient Gods of Samoa, the ones our grandfather told us about – Tagaloa the Creator, Nafanua, the Goddess of War, etc. We were more interested in our Pacific routes than we were in the Mediterranean history of 2000 years ago that is obviously still contentious. After all, the Catholics are killing the Protestants, the Muslims are killing the Christians, Holy Wars are sanctioned, Suicide Bombings are sanctioned – you can become a Martyr.

And you can even go to Heaven for your good deeds in killing innocent children – the palagi are making and selling and profiting from the sale of butterfly landmines designed to maim innocent civilians, including children. Oh please, leave us alone.

Solo is our Guardian for now, our God.

Story 52 – Samoan Nomenclature and Passport Puzzles – 24-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids believe that there is a need to simplify matters in this increasingly complicated world, especially when it comes to orphans like us and the need to formalize, or informalize, adoption procedures. As the number of orphans escalates within the Pacific due to HIV/AIDS, poverty and lawlessness, we Kids need to improvise.

SAMOAN NOMENCLATURE & PASSPORT PUZZLES

Including your new adoption papers – with the unreal father on it.

Story 48 – The Stolen Island – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

NB: We POPITs needed to understand where our islands came from, and to learn that Manono Island came from Fiji was a fascinating realization for us. Another story we had heard was that our islands were formed from volcanoes, in fact, there is a new island coming.

THE STOLEN ISLAND

Story 40 – Birds with no feet – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T20:07:00.000-08:00

NB: Samoan birdlore reveals some remarkable avian biology. Sadly, little is known scientifically of the birds in the Pacific, other than the fact that we are losing them to extinction – the highest avian extinction rate in the world.

Birds With No Feet – peapea

Story has it that if you need to find a cave, follow the peapea or White-rumped Swiftlets.

Story 34 – Coconut Crab Catching – 24-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T20:03:00.000-08:00

NB: Understanding the biology of the wildlife around us as Kids gave us a few clues as to how best capture our meals of native foods. Coconut crabs are more vulnerable at night as they tear through the coastal rainforest floors in search of ripe nuts, coconuts. Our grandfather taught us to make a trap, so easy, so simple, so effective.

Coconut Crab Catching

Story 30 – 5 Baits to Catch Trevally – 24-12-007 -3

2008-01-12T19:54:00.000-08:00

NB: Hunting and gathering can be a tournament for all of us within the village, almost like the Olympic Games or even our own South Pacific Games. Our traditional skills were once the equivalent of our modern-day CV or curriculum vitae. We Kids today need to learn these skills, apply them, understand them, even improve upon them as our world changes and as our world torments us.

5 Baits to Catch Trevally

Taga clifftops – WRITTEN - FIND

Story 29 – Ava PNG – 24-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T19:51:00.000-08:00

NB: Our grandfather taught us to do things the easy way, get your food for the day and then play. Boy, did we soon learn to hunt and gather, and play.

AVA PNG (Fish Anaesthetics)

Story 28 – Swim and Drink Water in the Ocean - 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

NB: Our forefathers taught us all we needed to know to stay alive without relying on imported foods, fancy navigational equipments, etc. Often, what we wanted most in life (e.g. a thirst quenching drink of cold mountain water) would be right there in front of our eyes where many could not even contemplate its existence.

SWIM & DRINK WATER IN THE OCEAN

Tokelau

Taga

Story 24 - Mr. Go-Go - 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:38:00.001-08:00

NB: The joy and magic of observing nature, and having a good understanding of epistemology, gave us the single most important clue and where to start looking for land. These gogo (White-Capped Brown Noddies) were at last in our sight, at the limit of their 60 miles range from land. All we had to do was follow them ‘home’, somehow.

Mr GO-GO

So, when you’re lost at sea or just fishing at sea, out of sight of land, the gogo will show you the direction towards home. And we Little Professors of Pacific Island Thought (POPITs) already knew this, we even knew why one of our landbirds was becoming extinct, if not already extinct.

We all loved our native birds, seabirds and landbirds. We loved our birdlore, just so many lessons woven into this lore by our Ancestors. Study birdlore deeply enough and you can find all the vital survival tips. Really? Tell us more. ……………………

Story 24 - Mr. Go-Go - 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

NB: The joy and magic of observing nature, and having a good understanding of epistemology, gave us the single most important clue and where to start looking for land. These gogo (White-Capped Brown Noddies) were at last in our sight, at the limit of their 60 miles range from land. All we had to do was follow them ‘home’, somehow.

Mr GO-GO

So, when you’re lost at sea or just fishing at sea, out of sight of land, the gogo will show you the direction towards home. And we little Professors of Pacific Island Thought (POPITs) already knew this, we even knew why one of our landbirds was becoming extinct, if not already extinct.

We all loved our native birds, seabirds and landbirds. We loved our birdlore, just so many lessons woven into this lore by our Ancestors. Study birdlore deeply enough and you can find all the vital survival tips. Really? Tell us more. ……………………

Story 23 - Modern Day Drift Voyaging - 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:34:00.000-08:00

NB: Pacific Islanders are still drifting in the currents, lost fishermen arriving weeks, even months, later on far-off islands, even far-off countries. These modern day drift voyages tell us something about our primordial voyages thousands of years prior.

Modern Day Drift Voyaging – Tokelau

You soon learn to take advantage of the seasons, the currents, the night skies (epistemology).

Never fight the currents, “go with the flow” our Elders used to say.

We learnt as fishermen to rely on these currents, taking us over the reef, out the reef channels, along the island and, hopefully back to shore safely, just as we predicted.

We knew the tides, the moons, the seasons, even fish spawning months. We knew to the hour when Palolo Worms would have a mass spawning.

2 days at sea, 20 miles off shore, in a current going to Tonga, suddenly, it will turn, reversing direction provided it’s a tidal current. Amazing. But our fishermen, our Master Fishermen, knew this, used this knowledge to gain survival advantage.

Tokelau to Fiji, Tokelau to Vanuatu, Tonga to Fiji, Samoa to Tonga, Kiribati to Samoa, Tokelau to Vanuatu, Fakaofu to Nukunonu to Atafa in two nights, as long as the Atafu star shines.

See Story 133 TSUNAMI

We settled down for a long night – luckily we had the kayak all bailed out, TJ asleep on his life jacket, tucked deep inside the kayak out of the sea breeze and seaspray. Skivi was hungry, Sose lazing in her big rubber tube and, wait for it, 2 coconuts tied together. This looked like dinner. Luckily, whoever they belonged to, had kindly stripped them bare of their husks, as you do in Samoa, carrying as many as 30-40 nuts on one set of shoulders.

These were the tricks we learnt as Kids. SMASH. Two nuts together, one spiked pole against the equator, right on the first seam, second seam, third seam. Coconut milk began to dribble out. We fed TJ, fed Skivi, Sose drank a little, all thirsts quenched. I used the tube valve to pierce the eye of the second nut, drinking slowly, sucking loudly.

SMASH. White flesh, tasty, crisp, nutritious. We ate the lot, two nuts in all. We soon fell asleep. Suddenly, a flying fish hit our kayak, narrowly missing our eyes with his long beak. What a beautiful blue creature, stunned, broken jaw, gills pierced with 4 little fingers, a strong bite on the head and, yes, fresh fish steaks. Everyone was awake again, mouthfuls of fresh fish flesh, yummmm, our favourite. We had eaten all the coconut flesh beforehand not knowing it would soon come in handy. Still, we enjoyed both courses. Back to sleep again.

Oooops, something scraped my leg, like sandpaper. A fin, above the water. Feet up guys. It’s a small reef shark interested in some fresh fish flesh as well. Well, news to you old boy. WHAM. Nu hit him over the head with the paddle, stunning the small 4 footer. Two hands inside the gills and out with the heart, full of red milk for TJ. At 4 months old, TJ was still being breastfed, liquids were his favourite: the colour didn’t matter. He drank the lot. The rest of us went without. TJ was more important. We had to keep him warm, well fed and comforted. He was off to sleep again, content, rocking now more gently as we got further and further out to sea, moving fast it seamed, in a current.

Look, a Fuao, sleeping on the sea with its juvenile young. SMASH. Sose? Seabird flavour. Feathers were out, plucked live, both of them. We had enough feathers to fill a pillow. This time we kept the giblets inside the kayak so as not to attract any more reef sharks. Rip, morsel after morsel torn off the light seabird skeleton. More red meat in this heart as well. We had eaten Gogo flesh, raw, before. We had no choice, hidden inside the hide, on the beach, scoring more birds than you could imagine.

Story 33. A feast expected at home. But if you got hungry, there was no way you could cook your catch and still keep ‘stoning the crows’. We had a mission and nothing could have distracted us.

We all fell asleep again, and again, and again. Luckily, this current was warm, the air was even warmer on the sea than on land, the wind had died, the seas had calmed, but we could hear waves crashing again. The dawn sky was before us.

So was an island. Nuutele Island. Our current was taking us past this island. We had to make it ashore. We didn’t panic, we just watched, studying the waves, the currents, the breeze beginning to pick up, the birds flying overhead. Suddenly, we were stationary. We knew this was it. Beach these craft or else take another drift voyage to another ocean. We were ready. We were prepared to paddle, swim, even sail our craft beachwards. We had the wind behind us, the reef waves were gentle, it was low tide, we just wanted to stand in the lagoon, on the coral even, it didn’t matter to us.

All we had to do was get over the reef, through the breakers, pounding around us, without capsizing. We all climbed on the backend, holding on to TJ, and, here we go, feet up guys, hold on, don’t let go, stay with me, stay together, we’re nearly there. Drowning in the whitewater, wave after wave, we were not so sure we would make it.

LOOK OUT. A huge wave hit us from behind. Washing us well into the middle of the narrow lagoon. All we could see was a small beach lined with coconut palms, rocky headlands at either end, a steep cliff forested to the summit, seabirds nesting everywhere. Where were we?

We just lay there in the warm lagoon, again exhausted as we sputtered and coughed more seawater. We were laughing, all laughing, rejoicing triumphantly. We all lay on the beach, in the shade of a large Talie tree, amongst large crimson nuts. Later we thought. We needed some more milk for TJ. The beach was splattered with scattered nuts, all shapes and sizes, all colours, some with their leafy handles, some without. A beach crawling with hermit crabs.

Grabbing 5 or 6 by their handles, we charged back to the waters edge and commenced ‘killing these naughty naughty coconuts’ on the nearby rocks. TJ just loved ‘oo’, a crisp white juicy flesh that he could suck on for hours. We treated him to some coconut milk as well, out of a green nut that Skivi had climbed to pick. Easy as. He had found a tree leaning horizontally over the lagoon, walking out to the tip to dislodge his booty, SPLASHING beneath him.

“Fuga, look.”

He could see these pastel coloured Parrotfish gliding around the coral heads beneath him. Wait till low tide and we’ll stone them as well. Fuga, cooked in one dry coconut palm frond, all plaited together nicely and quickly singed. Soft white flesh all BBQd in seconds. Cooked fresh fish within 3 minutes; captured, wrapped, plaited, fired, unwrapped, dusted and eaten with your fingers.

Suddenly, a plate, well, a smooth green young banana leaf, laiden with misaluki, ripe ladyfingers, was presented. Skivi and Sos had been into the interior watching fruit bats devour these yellow delicacies. They could hear the fruit bats fighting, low in the banana palms. Must be fighting over food, ripe food, possibly ripe bananas. Always works. Just let the wildlife tell you where the food is.

We were all surprised that we had drifted so far in 7 months, so quickly, so safely, even escorted part of the way by our Ancestors (i.e. our dolphins and our whales). We knew we were safe. But who guided us we were not quite so sure. But we were here. Safe. All of us. And well fed along the way, shark’s blood, coconut milk, coconut flesh with fresh fish flesh thanks to one blind flyingfish after another. We had drifted for nearly 7 months or more, not knowing where we were going, whether we would be found or whether we would ever see land again.

This was a drift voyage, unplanned. We had drifted before in our short lifetime, with our Dad whilst out fishing. He knew the currents, the tides, the stars, he knew all the fish and birds and marine mammals. We once even saw a New Zealand Fur Seal, way off course close to the tropics. Once, we were out of sight of land, fishing all night, 3-4 inches of freeboard, I was 5, and I was surprised when, at dawn, we were surrounded by blue Pacific ocean and nothing else. What a feeling. Dad was there unswayed by my thoughts, fears. I never let him know my feelings. I was soon comforted by his explanations: it was as if I needed to be told something important.

See those Mr. Go-Gos? Going way out to sea. Wait, this afternoon, they will …..

Story 21 - Shark Blood Matais & Bloody Marys - 22-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

NB: Raw foods were good for us. Just read www.genefitnutrition.com and you’ll soon realize two or three things:
Just how our Ancestors flavoured their foods without added flavourings,
Why auto-immune diseases occur today and not so much in Samoa and
Why no anorexia nervosa and bulimia occur in Samoa (well, it’s just starting in the afakasi in Hawaii – now, do your epidemiological studies on that for your next masters or PhD).

SHARK BLOOD MATAIS & BLOODY MARYS (Kiribati Fishermen)

Even today, hopefully, we could still stay alive afloat at sea for 2 years without any supplies on-board. Do you know how to catch a seabird by seducing it onto your boat? Easy.

7 months at sea ………………….

Story 19 - Manta Ray Madness - 23-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T19:23:00.000-08:00

NB: We POPITs know our currents, we can drift for hours, days, months and even years in the open sea provided we know our epistemology, those vital traditional lifeskills that kept our Ancestors afloat for generations.

MANTA RAY MADNESS

Just watch our Ancestors today, afloat, migrating from continent to continent. Our turtles and whales, even pelagic tuna species, all tracked by GPS via satellites, crossing borders without the need for any passports, maps, GPS or pilot boats.

Amazing that our Ancestors once had these skills and more. Want to learn what they are?

Take time out to communicate with nature, and watch the birds with avian malaria drinking beneath the quinine trees high in the mountains. Why? Because they feeeel good when the quinine juices kill all the malarial organisms. And watch the fruitbats eating ripe nonu (Morinda citrifolia) during the mating season – our Polynesian Ancestors don’t need aphrodisiacs, but our Micronesian cousins still do, and that’s why nonu is still considered an aphrodisiac in Palau today.

8 hours at sea, drifting in an ancient ocean tidal current, still within sight of land, even at night, the lights in the villages shon like consecutive railway stations.

SPLASHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH………………

To be escorted by my Ancestors was a priviledge, albeit frightening at times when they’d scare you as they leapt out of the wave next to you. Not to be out-done, you’d find yourself also leaping out of the water, this time in fright.

Little did we know that these flattened Ancestors, these large bi-coloured rays, were protecting us from some other more elongated Ancestors, circling beneath us unbeknown to us. …………………..

Story 17 - Kileve Kings - 23-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:19:00.000-08:00

NB: Time to reflect on the impact of alcohol and other additives in our lives. We Kids get drunk on adventurous living and may be adults just don’t understand this. And may be we Kids don’t understand the need for alcohol in their lives. Thing we hated most was seeing our neighbour getting drunk and beating-up his wife, right in front of us. Or he’d come home from the pub, late at night, demanding his dinner be cooked, waking us all up. There was no way we wanted to witness another flogging next door so we would all go next door with plates and plates of food.

Our Dad was great, he’d be there before us with another cold bottle or even ‘home blue’ and he’d have Afamasaga laughing loudly, forgetting he was hungry and drunk and married.

Kileve Kings

For 36 hours I had slept on the aft deck under a woven pandanus mat with my mother. She was seasick. Can you believe this? Polynesians seasick. We waddled ashore, enervated. We returned at dusk in readiness to sail to Atafu Atoll. Where was our Captain?

We waited until the news arrived. He had met up with the Kileve Kings, drinking an alcoholic coconut brew made from the sap of the coconut flower. It is beautiful for babies if drunk immediately it is collected – coconut nectar, just like honey.

However, let it ferment for 3-4 days and you have a real ‘knockout’ ready. Unfortunately, this time, it was our Captain. He could hardly make it back to the boat, drunk. Before we knew it, we were in a spin so close to the reef that the engineer had to come deckside to see if this was really true. Our Captain’s head was going around in circles just like his boat: one engine in forward, one engine in reverse, as it should be in order to turn this big boat around. However, the engines had been configured like this for 3 minutes.

To be honest, I nearly told the Captain off, and I was only 5. All I heard my grandmother saying was that she couldn’t swim and she wasn’t about to start learning now. To risk the lives of my grandmother, other elders of Tokelau and all us children is unforgiveable. This had to be reported. And it was. And I got into deep trouble as it broke every maritime law in the book regarding safety procedures. Not even the authorities wanted to hear about the incident. Adults? Sometimes they disappoint me. Just when will they ever grow-up?

Story 94 – Culture Vultures – 27-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

NB: Suddenly, we Kids today realize that epistemology and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) have something to offer us, something our parents had kept from us for some reason.

Cultural erosion doesn’t seem to be recorded as a real problem in Oceania, despite the consequences. And what are these consequences? Well, we Kids have got a solution or two.

CULTURE VULTURES

Cultural Purity – some countries, like Brunei, only offer passports to those from Brunei, even if second or third generation immigrants.

The FaaSamoa has it all.

The FaaSamoa has put the Samoan Islands in the top 5 countries in the world, along with Tokelau, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

No orphans, no orphanages, no homeless, no poverty, no street kids, some drugs sneaking in (thanks to our rich politicians who condone it).

Amidst Fish Festivals, song and dance, fagogo, legends, customs and traditions and protocols, architecture, cuisine, ………………..
We wanted to know more about our culture, more so, how to apply it. We were what they call Culture Vultures. Epistemology was of immense interest to us all.

Story 72 – Songlines, Samoan-style – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

NB: We are still writing the songs about Solo the Magic Pony, the Ana Ala Sopo, Crab Mustering on Horseback, Eco-Men and Eco-Women and Eco-Kids, Yoghurt Cultures, Protocols and Protocols, Miss-Adventures, Bloody Sharks, Kayak Krunching, the Lion King’s Cave, Modern Day Drift Voyaging, Whale Goddesses, etc.

SONG LINES – SAMOAN-STYLE

Our Dad has so many stories to tell, we forget sometimes which are real and which are legends. He prefaces them all by saying “This is a real legend” confusing us even more.

Well, we Kids are growing-up now, educated at an indigenous Samoan university where we are learning the true true legends, dances, customs and meanings behind our Samoan protocols and customs. One day we will be able to tell the same stories with conviction, but, until then, we’ll just have to read about them, watch the movies and recite the musicals with our organ, guitars and ukalele.

But, wait for it, we are about to break-out into song, using the lyrics in all our poems. Our friend, Vanyah, is going to help us. Music is already the best medium for us Kids, as it always was until the missionaries tried to silence us.

Story 70 - Apologies to the Apologisers – 24-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

NB: Thomas Baker’s family is coming to Fiji to receive an apology – for what? Thomas Baker was killed by villagers who were refusing to convert to Christianity, a doctrine espousing ‘thou shall not kill’, yet those that refused to convert to christianity were killed by these prosletizing Christians.

Apology for no Apology

And we Pacific Islanders can still not get our heads wrapped around these injustices even until today. Why?

A Samoan ifoga
A Fijian matanigasau
A Tongan hu-lou-ifi
An Aboriginal .......
A palagi ........

We Kids would like to apologize to all those who have come back to the Pacific to receive an apology (like Thomas Baker’s family) cos you ain’t getting one from us Kids. We loved our traditional spirituality and to be told that we were, and still are, worshipping the Devil is ludicrous and contributing to our own cultural ignorance, lasting until this very day. Why?

(The little Professors of Pacific Island Thought strike again).

We would like to tell our parents also that we want an apology from them for offering their apologies to these Neo-Colonialists (N-Cs or Nancy or Nancies as we call them)

Does this make our Parents’ Nancies, in collusion with all the other Nancies?

Don’t give us Kids the problem, just give us the solution.

Therefore, weKids, as future Prime Ministers, take off to see Kevin Rudd, Australia’s new PM to discuss making a formal, culturally-sensitive, environmentally-friendly and Kids-sensitive apology, Pacific-style. Sorry, Kevin’s apology, not ours. We Kids are only sorry about the fact that this apology has not been forth-coming, we’ve waited, along with the Australian Aborigines, over 200 years.

Like the Aborigines, we Pacific Island Kids have grown-up to expect a certain traditional decorum. After-all, we’re brothers and sisters, raised on a platform of traditions, many, if not all, very meaningful, very significant, very similar, but poorly understood by most outside our own cultures, have a certain expectation of adults.

Kevin, this is addressed to you because you are our only hope. John Howard was too much of a coward to make his apology to our Aborigines, let alone this apology to us nearby Pacific Kids, and that’s why we call him Johnny Coward. Only joking.

Sorry Kev, but the ‘penny’ has just dropped! We Kids are not going to ‘swan’ around here any longer, we are going to ‘bite the bullet’ as they say, we are going to cautiously offer you some advice that you will find very easy to swallow as it emulates all your election promises, albeit somewhat disguised for many of your ill-informed servants and voters.

Follow our instructions, our values, our traditions, our advice as Kids and you will remain our favourite ‘Chief’ forever. Firstly, we need to prepare you for making your apology, in fact, we’ve written it for you (see below). At first, it appears as if it is too pungent, even unnecessary in today’s economic climate, but as you get to understand where we Kids are coming from, even your political colleagues will be unable to argue sensibly against the essence of your pending National Apology, not only to Aborigines, but all Australians, as well as us Pacific Kids (errr, we’re your partners in sustainability as our Ancestors were the professors of sustainability).

We Kids have had ample time to reflect on whether an apology is justified or not, but, collectively, we have jointly come to the conclusion that, sorry, you should now apologize for not making any such National Apology until you have taken some fundamental steps, not so much at the policy level, but at the implementation level.

Before you ever make an apology Kev, at least in our cultures, Aboriginal or Pacific, you first need to understand the rules of making such an apology, the lengthy procedures you need to go through, the costs involved and, most importantly, how well you can authenticate your apology with sorrow, restitution, etc. in order to receive our forgiveness.

Well, we Aboriginal Kids and Pacific Kids are not offering you, or anyone else, no forgiveness until you satisfy the above criteria and procedures and implementation results. We Kids have all the time in the world to help you Kev work through this process: we are only interested in one thing, namely, results. We want you to convince us that you will accept our interpretation of all the wrongs your party committed whilst in opposition. You failed to educate your electorates, your voters, your Shadow Ministers that enough was enough. More so, you failed to educate the more liberal thinkers.

So Kev, there is no need to make your totem apology, directed at Aborigines, but indicative of we Pacific Kids as well, and of course, indicative of we Australian Kids who just want ‘a fair go Mate’.

And, as we Kids promised, we will help you work through it, treating every obstacle as an opportunity. Let’s start with the easy issues first, such as offering farmers drought relief.

1. On no account do you, Kevin Rudd need to feel obligated to pay any farmer any of our taxpayers’ money for destroying the arteries, the riverways, of this continent. The farmers have ignored the Stocking Rate Acts, ignored contour farming practices, have ignored Bill’s principles of Permaculture, have removed the lungs of the earth (our forests and native grasses) within all our River Murray upper catchments.

We Kids now call the River Murray the ‘River Hurry’ because you will need to be in a big hurry Kevin if you are to help put water back in the River Hurry, help reafforest its water catchments, start growing crops that are vital for addressing food security, forget growing crops that are drinking too much water, even telling the farmers to stop farming non-sustainably in areas that are inflicting nothing but pain on the ‘River Hurry’. You need to help farmers, but on our conditions, yours and ours.

Keven, we Kids give you 12 months only to gain Federal control of natural resource management – neither you nor anyone prior to you was able to manage the ‘River Hurry’ successfully. You all simply did not have the tools, the commitment, the teeth nor the political foresight. For our sake, we Kids, we need you to set an example. We Kids are sick of labouring over all these issues, election after election, generation after generation.

We Kids see ourselves now as ‘the lost generation’, not just our half-caste Aboriginal brothers and sisters, but all of us. Whether you take us away from our mothers and fathers or not, you are taking us away from our future. Our hopes, as Kids, have been dashed. Fact. We’ll continue to sniff petrol, consume alcohol, having our ‘methyl-ice meltdowns’ and you continue to wonder why. We need to develop our future, preferably with a river system without salinity problems, we need a river that flows: arteriosclerosis now afflicts our river arteries and our attitudes are also hardening. Kevin, we need to soften you up a little.

2. Kevin, take another piece of advice from us Kids, the lost generation, and see if you can include this in your apology. Read the Development Journal, 2006, about Australia’s world record as the largest spender on illicit drugs, only $AUD500 per year per person (multiply 22 million people by $500 and you get $10 billion dollars being wasted in the economy, not to mention the costs of law enforcements, legal actions, house break-ins, road accidents, lost human resources, lost productivity and more lost generations).

For us Kids, its very hard for us to understand why the police allow this to happen, unless they are protected by the customs, quarantine, unions, judicial system and other public servants profiting at the expense of we Kids. Kevin, you owe us an apology: apologize for this largesse before you apologize to us Kids as to why your have been labouring over this moot point for so long. We Kids are addicted to our ethics, just that you adults set the wrong examples for us. Agree?

We Kids need an apology from you Kevin on behalf of all the adults. What’s been done to Aborigines and us Kids pales into insignificance with what you are doing to your own bodies, our Australian health system, our economy, our international image and even our Pacific aid programme. Pacific Island Kids are fed-up.

We kids want a healthy apology, a hefty apology, with guts and thought. Kevin, we want you to be the Professor of Pacific Island thought, Australia being the largest island within the Pacific. China, Taiwan, Japan, Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia are the Pacific Rim aid partners, but we Kids call them our ‘raid partners’, raiding our natural resources of whales, rainforest timbers, migratory fish species such as tuna (only 3 years stock left within the Pacific). Raiding, raping and pillaging goes on today, within Australia and within the Pacific, and we Kids expect more than a token apology. We need action, reaction with a little implementation just to regain our survival, if nothing more.

Kevin, you’re exporting to the Pacific your uranium, unprocessed or processed, enriched or otherwise. You’re exporting sugar in lethal doses (diabetes is a Pacific epidemic now and we Kids are losing our parents), you export S8 drugs (i.e. paraquat weedicide without a prescription) and we Kids feel that this is just one more ongoing injustice. Nuclear contamination from Australian uranium lingers throughout the Pacific inflicting harm on us Kids.

The G8 countries killed our exports of bananas, coconut oil (swapping it for locally grown vegetable oils with all their trans fats), kava (the Pacific pacifier) and of course tuna and rainforest timbers. We Pacific Kids are now dependent on aid and remittances, a waste of Australia’s economic resources. Kevin, if you wish to reduce interest rates, increasing your national profitability, we Kids have identified over $AUD20billion dollars worth of savings/improvements, not to mention possibly also simultaneously improving your international relationships with the Pacific leaders. Previous Pacific relationships with Australia were being tarnished and your ability to re-build these relationships is easy-as if you just follow our advice. We Kids need to labour over your ‘Operations Manual’, giving it the kiss of approval, before any attempt is made by us Kids to offer you an apology (we appear disrespectful but we are really not). If we sound disrespectful, then we will apologize, but it is conditional (sounds like an oxymoron in the making). And your planned apology to Aborigines is oxymoronic unless you commence operating in a culturally-sensitive manner, here in Australia and overseas, especially with your Pacific neighbours and all its aid partners.

3. And Kevin, like all Pacific Chiefs, you need to prepare for your apology very carefully, you need to have the best orators with you, surrounding you when you make your apology. Find out how it is done in Fiji (matanigasau), Samoa (ifoga), Tonga (hou-lo-ifi) and Central Australia (a corrobboree with a difference, with a meaning, with a purpose to change the Dreamtime of our Kids).

Why not an international apology Kevin, taking in all your strategic allies. Let’s do it on one of your warships, preferably a non-nuclear warship if we are to get the NZ Maori involved as well? And we can do some whaling surveillance whilst we put the $AUD1.4billion dollar refitted to better use than just fighting wars. We need to start by fighting our own ignorance and misconduct and exploitation at the expense of the next generations (our lost generations).

Your new Ministry, Kevin, of Defence should be doing just this, not offence. We Kids have always wondered why you G8 countries don’t call it the Ministry of Offence? And we Kids are offended by this arrogance and dismissal of the impacts you are having on we Kids, the most recent lost generation. Let we Kids apologize right now if we ‘just don’t understand’. You may think that we Kids are trying to be smart, and we are. We’re glad it shows.

4. Last thought from we Kids, the real professors of Pacific Island thought. Kev, please, our health is dear to us and no doubt dear to you/for you. Let’s do what the Kids do in China by putting their doctors on a retainer, with deductions clicking-in when people are unhealthy. In other words, doctors need to reduce suffering, not encourage it like they do here in Australia.

We Kids need the medical profession to stand-up against (a) smoking (many of them still smoke), (b) drugs (many of them are taking drugs, legal and illegal), (c) food additives (where’s the research on raw food diets and elimination of auto-immune disease symptoms), and (d) other medical issues (where’s the research on obstructive sleep apnoea and diabetes and high blood pressure and strokes and irritability).

5. In conclusion Kev, we Kids have no one to look-up to. Our politicians have failed us, adults are failing us, our doctors are failing us, we are not even taught ‘sustainable development’ in our classrooms and hence our teachers are also failing us. Why? As you can see Kev, you already have a lot to apologize for. You have 3-4 years to show us Kids exactly what you are made of, and show us whether you can repair your relationships with us Pacific Kids.

We Kids look forward to renaming the ‘River Hurry’, even voting for you for all your labourings. And most of all, we Kids are looking forward to your imminent National/regional Apology. From the bottom of our dear little hearts, we stand behind you in hope alone. Prove us wrong.

Story 67 – Our Favourite Authors – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids today need to be guided by the most emminent authors, those that share our vision of a Pacific fit for Kids.

OUR FAVOURITE AUTHORS

Our apologies to all the following authors for plagiarizing their best thoughts, in some cases we've even added to them, updating them where we can..........

Marjorie and Ron Crocombe (Cannibals and Converts)

Deepak Choprah (The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success)

David Suzuki (Wisdom of the Elders)

A Man and His Mountain

Fatal Impact

Geoffrey Badger

Story 66 – Wisdom of the Elders – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T18:43:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids think that our Ancestors got it right , they were so wise in all respects. Our culture today is meant to be a reflection of this wisdom

WISDOM OF THE ELDERS

Spear the Moon

Our language

Our culture

Our land

Our Ancestors

Our Legends

Our Survival

Story 65 – No No Moses, Please – 24-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

NB: Moses had nearly finished loading the Ark in preparation for the next 40-Day flood, 2 elephants, 2 giraffes, 2 dolphins, 2 Kids, 2 whales, etc. when in the distance come running 2 adults………………he looks………and says “No No, sorry guys, not this time. We made this mistake last time”.

“NO NO MOSES, PLEASE”

Loading the ark with foreign investors, tourism planners and other neo-colonialists disguised as Pacific aid partners, etc., Moses offers to carefully dispose of them all………..

Drawing/cartoon

Story 64 – Pacific Apathy and Ignorance – 24-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T18:37:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids need to take stock of what has been happening to us, most of it without any real understanding of the real consequences. On that basis, we Kids are going to examine in-depth the key issues affecting us, sadly more significantly than it will ever affect adults. Why is that?

PIC APATHY & IGNORANCE

We allowed the blackbirders, the slave traders, the merchants and the missionaries to arrive on our shores, or did we? Most of them forced their way onto our island and onto us, and they are still forcing their way on us via various global trade policies, international tourism and even global human rights, some such policies that may conflict with the fa’aSamoa. And which ones are they?

WTO??

UNWTO

WTO and UNWTO have a lot in common. They force their way into the Pacific, they inflict their tourism and trade policies, not ours. They convince the Pacific leaders to do it their way, the WTO way, and not our way, the Pacific Way.

True??

Where are we Pacific landowners written into the WTO and UNWTO Tourism/Trade Strategic Plans?? After 20 years of EU Tourism Plans, landowners are still growing taro for their foreign investors, planting their peppercorn rents, living in squalour (Sanasana, Nerewa) next to these multi-million dollar integrated mega resorts, an embarrassment to whom?

Story 68 - Official Opening of the Kids Parliament - 12-1-008

2008-01-12T18:15:00.000-08:00

NB: Welcome to the Official Opening of the Kids Parliament in Samoa. Let us Kids begin by saying that we probably have more development questions to ask than we have answers. So here goes the test – see how well you do.

Official Opening of the Kids Parliament in Samoa

Our whole speech is under-pinned by a new development policy permeating Oceania, commencing in April 2008 and coordinated by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Secretariat. They have designed for us a “Pacific Alliance for Sustainability” or G-PAS as they prefer to call it. Samoa stands to receive $USD4-5million of development funding within the next few months in accordance with our National Country Priorities and also your Regional Priorities .

GEF-PAS Goal and Objectives are as follows:

The goal of GEF-PAS is to enhance and stimulate economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security for Pacific countries through regionalism. The overall objective is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of GEF support to PICs, thereby enhancing achievement of both global environmental and national sustainable development goals. A strategic objective is to contribute to sustainable development through improvements in natural resource and environmental management, in part by addressing the main barriers preventing effective action by the PICs to safeguard their rich natural resource base and heritage.

Each time I step off the plan, arriving back in Samoa, I see some subtle developmental changes, socially, culturally, economically, environmentally…..and Samoa, as you are beginning to realize, is possibly different from what you were expecting.

Over the past 3-4 decades, while Samoa has emerged into the modern world the way it has, all your Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have also developed at different speeds in different directions for different reasons.

Why? Who was at the helm steering this development ship? What were the motivations, what were the costs to humanity, the costs to our cultures, the cost to our vulnerable Pacific environments?

So what is the best development formula?

When ever I ask this question, especially at conferences like this one, I immediately get bombarded with different viewpoints, some of them diabolically opposed.

So what is the best development pathway to take? Seriously, I’m expecting some answers within the next 10 minutes.

Do we follow the G8 countries or do we develop our own Pacific style of development, one that is in harmony with nature, supportive of indigenous cultures, and offering a lifespan approaching 75-80 years?

Well, I spent a few minutes searching the web last night brushing-up before I was to mix and mingle with you all here today – wow, what a plethora of information!

One website, http://www.neweconomics.org/, ranked all countries in the world in terms of their ‘development success’, and Samoa was ranked 14th, Vanuatu was ranked first, the G8 Countries were low on this list, very low in fact.

Does anyone know where all the PICs were ranked in relation to each other?

And why?

How can we all develop our Pacific Island Countries so that we can climb up this list?

What do we need to do to make ‘sustainable development’ profitable, meaningful, culturally-sensitive and environmentally-responsible?

Is global climate change going to affect our Pacific development pathway?

And if so, what are we going to do at this Conference to change the course of Pacific development?

As PM of Samoa, I welcome your advice and direction, your cautioning and your wisdom. The Pacific means more to us than we are prepared to admit, but it is already one of the least troubled corners of the globe in terms of peace and security, we are blessed with an abundancy of natural resources, surrounded by oceans once filled with enough food to feed the world.

But what are we doing with these resources today?

PICs are rapidly gaining a reputation in recent development circles here in the Pacific (i) for making considerable progress in the broad sphere of modern development and (ii) for newly emerging development issues that we are only now just learning to acknowledge and adapt to.

The science of development studies crosses all boundaries. Today, one needs to be a historian, an anthropologist, an economist, a socio-economist, an environmentalist, an educator, a health expert, etc. in order to make sense of just a small portion of the development debates here in the Pacific.

I’m pleading with you all to share your experiences with each other and let’s jointly make the Pacific the epitome of modern development, underpinned by traditional developmental techniques that have been responsible for shaping Oceanic development for thousands of years. And we need to be careful that we don’t lose these skills, skills that our forefathers used to conquer this Ocean, surviving sustainably on most occasions.

When I attend these Regional and even Global Development Conferences, inevitably, someone presents some opposing views to confuse us all even further. What I thought was right for development 20 years ago (as Samoa was frantically exporting high quality tropical hardwood logs to the USA), I’m advised this year (on 1st January) to introduce a new national policy prohibiting the commercial logging of indigenous forests in Samoa because of the downstream repercussions for Samoa. Within weeks of releasing my latest development policy, I was listening to arguments in favour of further logging our indigenous and plantation forests “for the good of rural development”.

My own Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment took a different stance, arguing that Samoa needs to protect its upland forests, forest genetic resources, terrestrial biodiversity, watersheds, potential hydro-power opportunities, fertile soils, etc. I thought I had heard, and understood it all, then in walked some more ‘development arguments’ in terms of carbon crediting, Carbon Stock Markets, environmental foot-printing, payments for ecological services (PES), climate change adaptation and mitigation, carbon sinks and sequestrations, and many more new terms that I’m only now beginning to use in my vocabulary.

My own Ministry of Education recently signed a Framework of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) – September 2006 – in fact, all Ministers of Education in the South Pacific signed this Framework.

So, how come we are not applying ESD here today in this Forum, or are we? ESD is not just for Primary and Secondary and Tertiary students, it is also for us politicians, leaders, decision-makers and development workers. When I went to school, I was taught little about the environment and less about development, so it is no wonder that we are making some serious mistakes today.

I think I will have to stay-on at this important Development Conference to really learn all there is to learn about such a topic that is so dear to my heart, and obviously all so dear to your hearts – otherwise you wouldn’t be devoting your time and even your careers to such a complex science.

Development reminds me of the health sector, one year red meat and cow’s milk are good for you, then the next year, these things are considered bad for your health if consumed in excess. Then we hear that vegetable fats are better than animal fats, and how bad coconut oil is for your health: then suddenly everyone is again singing the praises of coconut oil.

I’m sure at this ODN Conference over the next 3 days, we’ll all learn of a wide array of development issues covering almost all sectors: education, health, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, environment, social, cultural, etc., views being presented that are novel, innovative, even questionable.

As the Speaker of the House in the Kids Parliament of Samoa, what has been exciting for me personally has been the positioning of Samoa amongst all the PICs in terms of economic success, environmental protection, cultural enhancement, good governance, national security issues, health status, etc. Whilst some issues and experiences in our short history of modern development for Samoa are purely pertinent to our own national interests, others are more multi-national, regional, even global.

At times it is quite perplexing for me, but it is exciting to also see our own regional inter-governmental agencies like PIFS, SPC, SPREP, SOPAC, SPTO and others all embracing ‘sustainable development’ at different speeds.

To conclude, I want to wish you all the best with your deliberations over the next few years and that you are all given an equal opportunity to explore new development horizons, learning from the mistakes that we have all made in the past few years, and applying the best principles of development to all PICs.

And as actions speak louder than words, and using sustainable forest management as a development example, our Samoan Government has just declared 3 new National Parks on Savaii and is designing 2 more National Parks for Upolu, giving us a total of over 50,000 acres of upland forest fully protected for all future generations of Kids.

Our Samoan Government was just advised of a $USD150,000 grant to protect our National Parks and Reserves, thanks to the GEF-funded Programme of Works for Protected Areas. In fact, Samoa is also applying for a GEF-PAS (Global Environment Facility – Pacific Alliance of Sustainability) grant for $USD1.6million for a 4-Year project to Sustainably Manage the Upland Forests of Savaii Island, developing a rural economic development model that can be replicated elsewhere in Samoa and other PICs.

We need the best development knowledge and skills and applications at our finger tips. So, you give them to me, and I’ll apply them. When they fail, I’ll be back for more advice.

Good luck for the future Kids.

Story 63 – Neo-colonialistic Pacific Tourism – 24-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T17:56:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids need to describe this insidious neo-colonialistic approach to tourism in the Pacific. We feel that the end-result of modern tourism will not benefit us Kids. We Kids need to monitor some serious sustainable tourism indicators here in the Pacific. Do you know what they are?

TOURISM - NEO-COLONIALISTIC

So, is tourism another form of neo-colonialism?

Story 88 - Spending the Kids Inheritance – 26-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids today have got to inherit this Planet, so, if we are to be the future caretakers, then we need a say in what status the Planet is in before we are prepared to accept this responsibility.

SKI-ING HOLIDAY

Seriously, we need a team effort, we need everyone’s contributions, we have no time to negate positive efforts, we need innovative thinkers, we need to learn from our Elders, we need to learn from both sexes, we need to learn from both the young and old, we need to learn from all cultures, and we need to learn from the mistakes that the rest of the world in the West is making.

As Kids, we are pretty disappointed with what we are witnessing thus far. We will get to inherit this world, but you politicians are screwing us, you are raping us of our inheritance. You are Spending the Kids Inheritance (SKI), you are all going on a SKI-ING HOLIDAY – at our expense. You will leave us out in the cold. In fact, ever heard of ‘downhill skiing’? Exactly, we are all going downhill as you continue to deprive us of our heritage, as you erode our cultures even further, as you sell off our wildlife, and as endemic species become extinct. Thanks. We need to get one message across in this faleaitu or comedy – in its Title – The Little Professors of Pacific Island Thoughts.

The world is making plenty of mistakes and Samoa may be following in their footsteps. While the others are polluting the upper atmosphere, mining uranium and polluting the Pacific (and these are our so-called Pacific Aid Partners doing this to us), these same Aid Partners are shipping us their banned chemicals & pesticides, forcing us to eat unsafe foods like animal fats and poor quality processed foods, eat foods contaminated with radiation fallout from as far away as South Africa (in Australia, sheep’s thyroids from the 1950s reflect the nuclear testing blasts from as far away as South Africa). And , so-called developed countries offering to give us (Tokelau) free food and water for the next 50 years should their above ground nuclear tests in the nearby Pacific Islands should cause any deleterious impact on our staple food crops (fishing grounds, coconuts, taro, etc.). Charming.

So where is our awareness at home? We are still in the dark (STORY 64).

Where is the legislation to protect ourselves? Not even Belize can protect its World Heritage Sites from Global Warming. And Belize is now using the legislation it needs to try and stop the polluters, the polluting countries – thanks to the WHL legislation.

Where is the goodwill to care for our dear beloved next generations, us Kids?

Where are our real development partners in this debate? Answer is “At home, on the islands.” No one else cares. All we have are our Matai, our Elders, our Chiefs to rely on. Only trouble is, all our politicians are either Chiefs or Matai or our Elders. We rest our case. Time to do an EIA on our Parliaments and close them all down because of their ‘non-performance’. We need a Kids’ Parliament (STORY 89).

And you had better listen to us Kids cos we get to choose your ‘Old Folks Home’, GET EMAIL JOKE and put in here…(STORY 99).

The answer is “You Elders don’t listen to the Lord, just the Devil inside you.” This is the time to question what roads have you been down and why? And with who? And for what benefit to Samoa? You have been making too many mistakes, destroying God’s Creations – this is nothing but the work of the Devil. Now, argue against that.

We Kids don’t mean to be rude or impolite or disrespectful in any way, we Kids just need some answers. You owe it to us. This is our inheritance that we are discussing. And if that doesn’t strike a chord with you, then we are simply talking about God’s Creations and the 10 Commandments. Now, if you can comprehend this, will you listen to us?

Surely this is the work of our faifeaus, our pastors, our clergy, but they also are causing the raping of our Samoan landscape – the Church needs its tythings ‘at any cost’, even if it means selling off our forests and fish and wildlife friends, even our families’ inheritances.

Just imagine for a moment, the next 40-Day Flood (STORY 65), Moses loading all the animals on board. Nearly finished loading all his wildlife cargo, he sees two adult human beings running towards his Ark, waving frantically. In a very decisive motion, Moses waves his arms equally frantically and shakes his head simultaneously, saying “NO NO, NO, Not this time. We made that mistake last time!”

Remember the time when our Ancestors were once our guardians – they were the ‘Professors of Sustainability’. They knew right from wrong. And they knew all the consequences: “A planet without Beasts is a Planet without Man” – Native American Indian mandate (STORY 41 – Tavae). To help prompt our memories and improve our compliance (and implementation), our Ancestors would make-up a new legend, a new proverb, even a story to add to our already long list of faagogo entertainments, stories to be handed-down from generation to generation.

We Kids are left with no choice. We are about to go and “Spear the Moon”, we are going to try and try and try until we succeed (STORY 66). We are going to save our wildlife, save our rainforests and mangroves, we are going to save our water catchment areas, save our reefs, save our people from homelessness and starvation. Poverty of hardship, poverty of destitution and poverty of starvation are increasing across the Pacific, and it can only get worse unless we re-act now. But how?

These may sound to you adults like unusual words from us Kids, but we want to hear some pretty unusual sounds from you all as well, some standing ovations as we conquer our problems one by one. The first problem is easy to solve: just change our attitude. The Law of Giving: give a smile, give a compliment, give a kind thought AND, wait for it, the Law of Non-Judgement – ooops, no one is allowed to judge. Who will be the first one to break this ‘Law’? Seriously, let’s start practicing now, set an example for each other. We assure you, you will all fail miserably. We’ve tried it in our ‘island laboratory’, we were there on our own, but we had to concentrate too hard. Deepak Choprah, he’s our latest hero, so you are going to hear a lot about him over the next few years (STORY 67).

We were all sitting on ‘beach laboratory’ one evening, too tired to intellectualize, but Nu wanted to tell a story. We all sat up and listened as best we could. It was about a radio interview she heard just before we left for the island. “Well, I may be the ‘Leader of the House’ at home, but I am also Leader of the House here in Parliament today. So this is not an usual role for me to play. But I wish to take no credit for all the apparent progress made by previous Governments. And for good reason as you as you will soon come to understand. There is, wait for it, little to be proud of: I will be calling for every politician’s ‘resignation’ within the next 12-24 months if I don’t see progress. And you can call for my ‘resignation’ as well. We will be opening a new store here at Parliament House selling fine mats – and they won’t be cheap. If you are a Minister, then the price will go up. And if we have to start each Parliamentary Sitting with a series of ifoga’ or traditional apologies, then so be it. There will be no way out, no excuse, and I will keep you honest to your word. Luckily for you all, our PM has limited the number of fine mats at such faalavelave to just one at a time, so that of you who plan to do repeated apologies (excuse the oxymoron), we Kids have something else in store for you to help improve your performance. Yes, we will do what you do best and that’s enact new legislations, even prosecute the offenders. Sorry, but you are leaving us Kids with no choice.”

We never realized until then that our Dad had just entered Parliament. Nu released the news to us by surprise. We were so excited. We were so proud of our Dad at times, he was so modest, ahead of himself at times (in fact, most of the time). He was once asked whether he would write his autobiography. His answer was “About what?” May be this faleaitu is just this autobiography and we Kids are just here to help him write it. And our Mum filled us in on the gaps. She always let us do whatever we wanted, as long as our Dad was there with us. And if our Mum and Dad couldn’t agree, well, you should have heard our Dad weaving our way out of the house. “OK, OK, we’ll go and give the faifeau his money to buy more Vodka to get more drunk to help toughen-up his liver, if that’s what you all want.” He always found an angle to water-down someone’s opposing arguments whilst highlighting some of the ludicrosity (if there is such a ludicrous word).

None of us deserve to be here on this planet today if we are not prepared from the start to make a solid contribution to help repair it. In fact, I have contracted our Samoan Rugby hero, Umaga, to be our fitness leader here at each day’s recess, before and after each day’s sittings. Is this wrong? I already see some of you laughing. Your weights will all be recorded, along with your achievements. Your blood pressures and pulse rates will be monitored in line with all your successes. Those sleeping in the House will be tested for Sleeping and Snoring Disorders (STORY 98 – Snorers), and treated (ooops, sorry, Fiji does not have such treatment available here, a disease so prevalent within the South Pacific apparently – Samoa is setting an excellent example in this field of preventive medicine, and corrective medicine, so why can’t Fiji and other PIs?)

Now is the time to act. What are we waiting for? Let’s learn from our neighbours. Does anybody in the House know the size of Samoa’s Military? I rest my case. Samoa has no Military, Fiji has 4000 soldiers. Why?

I’m singing Samoa’s praises because they are such good losers. To see all those Pacific Islanders (Fijians and Samoans) in the IRB Final (June 2006) at once was an honour for all us Islanders. Serevi has attitude, the right attitude. His team was not allowed to celebrate the IRB victory until AFTER their last game: “Stay focused guys, we need to Spear that Moon” and spear it they did. This House needs someone like Serevi keeping us all focused, well trained and well disciplined. If he spent more time with us, then we may be able to make a lot more progress.

So, let me begin.

Samoa’s state of development is currently under the spotlight. Cries of poverty, homelessness, water restrictions, on-going natural resource depletion, pollution, cultural erosion, excessive human population growth, non-sustainable tourism, wildlife depletion, degeneration of popular tourist attractions, social disorder, gender inequities, lack of personal security, drug and alcohol abuse, land-use mismanagement, poor food imports leading to obesity and diabetes and heart disease, the real risk of pending pandemics that will cripple our societies and economy (worse than the 1918 Flu epidemic where 25% of the Samoan population died), inexcusable rising road tolls, poor legislation that does not protect future generations, insufficient focus on our Sustainable Development Plan for Samoa, lack of implementability of the Pacific Plan, global climate changes that are already impinging on our future survivability, etc. are now all too common and almost too many in number to comprehend, let alone tackle successfully and sustainably. And who is teaching Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the schools, universities, villages and even parliament?

And I am not sure if we Kids even have all the answers. For example:

1. It will take more than a committed Government to correct this within the next 5 years, no matter how good we all think we are.
2. It will take more than a multi-party Cabinet to steer this corrective course despite all the best advice in the world.
3. It will take more than an excellent opposition to encourage us to address the most important issues first. But, seriously, we need more input from the female gender – we men have put the world in a mess, we continue to fight every one else’s wars that are not bringing peace to this planet. May be we should let more women rule the world.
4. Let’s think for a moment. It is not so much “What can Samoa do for me, but what can I do for Samoa?” We all entered Parliament with an ambition to bring about change, a change for the better, so we all need to learn each other’s good habits, not each other’s bad habits, and that includes my bad habits. Correct me. Bring me into line, teach me a better way, lead by example.
5. Already, you’ve detected my avoidance of preaching to the Prime Minister, but only out of respect. Well, he will be sorry he appointed me as Environmental Whip because he can’t silence me any more. If you want to see progress, some real progress, then we have some excellent minds in this recipe, and already what I am seeing is beginning to taste good.

I leave you now with a few parting serious thoughts. I hope you have all been taking notes, committing them to memory and buying a copy of the 7 Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Choprah – I should buy you all a copy, it’s better than the Da Vinci Code.

Tourism is being designed as our economic saviour, but are we doing it right? Why are we destroying our vistas, why are we seeing our corals dying, why are we selling off our rainforests at $F65 per acre, logged and abandoned. For $F65 a night, I can host you in my village, every night for 1 year and make $F20,000. Bring your wife, and I’ll charge you double.

I’m no resort designer or architect, but Sili Village knows how to build fales, repair fales, live in fales, showcase fales and make you pay for it. For 50 years or more, Sili Village has preserved our Samoan way of life with a vengeance. Talk to the women there, they will tell you more about Samoan cultural authenticity than you could ever imagine. Did you know they have the best restaurant in Samoa, fresh prawns from the river, a river full of traditional conservation techniques?

Can we replicate Sili Village, people living sustainably like the Professors of Sustainability?

To learn more, we need to call on the regional inter-governmental agencies to act as a team of development workers All of us in this room know very little about these organizations, we may like to think that we know a lot, but the reality is that these organizations are not doing their job. It’s that simple. Because if they were, our work would be completed. We would just ratify all the global and regional conventions, one by one, country by country. In fact, we cold even start writing a few more conventions – well, I’ve made mention of some that we could all commence with (or have you forgotten them already?).

OK, OK, I get the hint. Sunday is still a few days off. I don’t mean to be preaching to you (although I know you have all heard it before). But that’s just where I rest my case. You’ve heard it all before, yet still choose not to act. This time, we not only decide to act as a Team (with Umaga as our Captain, Player and Coach), but we are going to perfect what we do.

Do you want some starters?
1. Ban the Da Vinci Code. Thought I’d start with something provocative. Personally I prefer all the violence on Jacky Lee’s latest?????
2. Prevent Aids – 1000 deaths per week in PNG by Year 2010
2000 deaths per week in PNG by Year 2020.
Please God, don’t let this happen in Fiji. Are we all prepared to be voluntarily tested in this room. Would you like to know your results, your son’s results?
3. We need a full-time environmental adviser her in the House
4. We need a full-time sustainable development adviser her in the House.
5. We need to implement the next 20-Year Development Plan for Samoa (2000-2020) – has everyone got a copy? I will get you a copy – it is fascinating to read because we are already 6-7 years into the plan and our development is getting worse, not better. Can we turn this tide?
6. Anyone heard of the Pacific Plan? How can we address the key issues and help implement such a Plan with all our neighbours. And there are plenty of neighbours who need help.
7. Are we all going to vote, as Pacific Islanders, to continue the slaughter of whales in the Pacific? Tell our neighbours “enough is enough”.
8. Nuclear testing? Globally or regionally, it makes no difference. We just cannot handle the waste. And our Pacific Aid Partners are mining it, selling it, accepting no responsibility for its toxic by-products, and will soon be looking to the Pacific for a new toxic waste dump. You just wait for it. Our Aid Partners? Have they all signed the Kyoto Convention against “Hot Air”?

Well, that’s enough ‘hot air’ for any sensible human being. Take a deep breath, fill those lungs with air and not smoke, flex those leg muscles and come and help me demolish some carrot juice and lettuce leaf salad for morning tea.

So, let’s turn over a new leaf, it’s never too late. We are One Nation with One Goal – to live a Spiritually fulfilling life with all our Creators’ creations intact.

Last thought: “Don’t give the Man a fish, give him a net and show him how to use it – errrr, sustainably.”

I hope I have been able to sustain your attention for this long. Would somebody please give that gentleman over there a pillow.

Sweet Dreams, God Bless and may all your dreams over the next 5 years come to fruition.

Story 102 – Indigenous and Ingenious – 27-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T17:42:00.000-08:00

NB: Just as in world sports, the Pacific Islanders are getting raped and pillaged without really knowing it. Indigenous cultures are losing their native forests, replaced by tobacco which will soon rape and pillage the health of Pacific Islanders.

Whilst the palagi profits, we PIs are left to rely on our newfound equally uninvited modern-day palagi prophets.

We Kids think it is time to have our say, set-up our own University for Kids, even our own Parliament for Kids to help legislate some legislation to help protect adults from themselves.

(Faleaitu skit)

INDIGENOUS AND INGENIOUS

Fiji and Samoa met in London for the IRB World 7s Rugby Final. Well, 2 indigenous Pacific teams faired extremely well, in fact both were actually our B-Grade teams playing the world’s best A-grade teams, as we had sent all our best players the year before on contracts (overseas), thus watering down the home teams to B-Grade players only (not that anyone else would agree to this interpretation).

And we still beat the Brits, the French, South Africans, All-Blacks (NZ) and Ozzies (who, mind you, had all stolen our best Pacific A-Grade players like modern-day blackbirders). They thought money would buy them the IRB Cup. Sorry Bro’ (Bro’ is short for ‘brother’, a term of endearment).

And it’s time the next rugby world series is played throughout the Pacific Islands. Come on Bro’, same rules as the America’s Cup – you lose, you snooze. The Ozzies took it off the Americans, holding the next America’s Cup Yacht Race where? In Australia, Freemantle, WA. Got the picture. Pacific Islanders win the World Rugby Series in Europe, we then hold it in the Pacific the following year.

Next IRB series will be in Samoa and Fiji and, this way, we Pacific Islanders get to share in the millions of dollars of profits. However, the world rugby planners are just another form of neo-colonialism, trying to keep all the profits abroad. So, watch-out Bro’.

We pick our team from less than 200,000 players, you pick yours from 20-200 million populations. You, therefore, need to give us a few strokes Bro’, just like they do in Golf. And no more playing those Coconuts in your palagi teams – we call that rigging, cheating, fraud, neo-colonialism. We want your indigenous palagi teams, got it Bro’?

We’d rather play rugby and soccer and golf than to play all your other ‘dirty palagi games’ thanks Bro’.

But think about it, foreign aid is another dirty palagi game. But where are the ‘aid’ umpires? We Kids are the umpires. In fact, we have a school for such umpires here in the islands. It’s fictiously called the University of Pacific Island Thought. Some of us Kids call it the ‘University of Pacific Blues and Island Thought’ and others call it just our ‘Kids Parliament’.

We have had to give our Kids’ thinking a little more status, a little more recognition cos no one’s listening to us wee little ‘umpires’. And if you won’t listen, at least read on.

And we worry about you adults. For example, we Kids print in big bold letters on the sides of your cigarette packets a simple warning, so easy to read, and so easy to understand. But you share your cigarettes with your best friends and hand them out to us Kids with gay abandon.

We Kids have had enough of your bad smoke, your bad attitude, your bad guidance and your bad trend-setting. If only you knew how much rainforest has been removed off the Earth just so children overseas could plant tobacco crops for a living, this being their only option of survival, offered to them by the global traders and global Aid Partners.

If only you knew how many baby monkeys are starving as they look out over the tobacco plantations where their lush tropical forests once stood, teeming with other wildlife mind you. The tobacco farmers now shoot any such stray wildlife, wildlife that didn’t even know that you can’t eat, shouldn’t eat, tobacco leaves.

May be we Kids should print something on the green tobacco leaves as well: WARNING TO ALL WILDLIFE – TOBACCO KILLS.

(Drawing and faleaitu skit)

We think we need a little more legislation to protect children from exactly this type of adult behaviour. Only thing is, we are not sure if you would vote in favour of this new Kids Bill or not.

Story 147 – RAMSI – 30-12-007 – 3 – T

2008-01-12T17:38:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids believe Samoa to be so beautiful, just look at our faces – Samoan looking, Tongan influence invading our genes, some labouring with their golden blond hair indicative of a Solomon Island influence, try an inquisitive Chinese look (again from the indentured labouring days), and then there’s the palagi or European influence commencing from the earliest missionary days until today.

Most striking are the Solomon Island Samoans, fluent in Samoan language and Samoan ways, forgetful of their past culture and origin. Accepted. The first tourist wave into Samoa. Why all this extra help? Were the Germans that incompetent of doing the work themselves or just incompetent in getting our Ancestors to ‘work’ all day in the sun for menial reasons and few rewards on our Ancestors’ lands now sold/free-holded. Samoans are so gullible, and still are. “The palagi will get you” is our prediction as Kids, but based on history, fact and first-hand experience.

We Kids want to know why we gave-up our land and our women, and are now giving-up our culture. Luckily today, we Samoans are still prepared to fight for our land and our women. Samoa mo Samoa.

Royal Army of Mea uli from Solomon Islanders

Do some research Nu on the Internet

Solomon Islanders, or mea’uli or black-skins, as indentured labourers in Samoa – 1900

Brought into Samoa by the Germans (1899-1914) or before

The Modern Day RAMSIs

Story 111 – Our Forgotten Elders – 27-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids would never have replaced a perfect Samoan diet with a palagi diet that causes disease, in fact, many diseases. We’ve forgotten the wisdom of our Elders or we’ve chosen not to adopt it. What will change our attitude? There are many reasons, but the first and best step that can be taken is to write it all down, make an Operations Manual of rights and wrongs, make a Traditional Manual depicting the best practices, highlighting today’s mistakes.

We Kids cherish our Ancestors and their beliefs.

OUR FORGOTTEN ELDERS

(Cultural Erosion)

We seem to have lost respect for our Elders. We prefer to forget their teachings. We’re not even recording the uses of important medicinal plants – their valuable knowledge, handed down from one generation to the next, is rapidly disappearing.

Plants only had names in the olden days if they had a use.

Legends were only recited if they had a purpose.

Stories were only told to record our oral history.

Songs were only sung to put melody to meaning.

Decorations were only made to impress and entice.

Customs were enshrined to mould and reinforce our behaviours for generations.

Protocols were followed by all to maintain uniformity, conformity.

Out of all this rose our culture.

With the fanua as our foundation, our land today remains our land. (But we are about to lose it.)

We’ve got a proven traditional diet that may be unbeatable, certainly one that does not produce diseases like the palagi diet.

We’ve got a proven traditional architecture.

So.’s record it all, concisely, then prepare the Implementation Plan. Wish us luck.

But sadly, no one is calling for such action to take place, only us Kids.

Story 110 – Counter-Colonialism – 27-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T17:33:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids need to be able to at first be able to just define this neo-colonialism, convince ourselves it is real, and then monitor its negative impacts. Once this is done, then we Kids need to be able to come up with some form of counter-colonialism. And that’s the real challenge for us Kids today. We need to develop a real survival strategy against incredible odds, all at odds with our traditional culture.

Counter-colonialism

There are various forms of colonialism, all bold and brash. There is today a new version, neo-colonialism, equally bold and brash to the observant, albeit deliberate with devastating consequences, with numerous invisible impacts for some, especially Pacific Islanders.

Wait for it, counter-colonialism, a term never conjured-up before. It’s insidious, it’s also deliberate, but to be colonized by the deliberate actions of your own colony? That’s not ‘colonialism’ unless these native modern-day pro-colonialists are a front for some foreign invaders, foreign investors, foreign speculators or are our unethical leaders, disguised as ethically-correct Christians, elected by their villages because of their ability to serve us Kids. We Kids may be really onto something here.

You guessed it right.

But, wait for it, there are two forms of counter-colonialism that we Kids know about (the Professors of Pacific Island Thought are about to strike again). This is exciting, and adventurous, even just to ponder for a few moments as you try to get your head wrapped around what the hell is going on out there.

Just what are our forefathers doing?

I say forefathers because we have momentarily stepped down off the family tree, walked away for just a moment, we needed time to reflect, to be intro-spective, to look from the outside in. We Kids need to momentarily move ahead in time, a few generations possibly just to more accurately guage the results of various decisions we made as Kids a few generations prior. Sound complicated? Not really, so just bear with us for a moment.

Nuutele Island was our laboratory of cultural enquiry.

We not only were searching for the meaning of life, we weren’t happy with what our own culture really meant to us. And no one could tell us.

It’s a little shameful for us to admit this as Kids, but our Elders are losing their sight, losing that vision handed down to them with meaning, a meaning today that has been lost in the translation.

Our language told us all. It’s now about to be replaced. English must be spoken.

Our legends told it all as well, augmenting our oral society (we had no written language before the Europeans came). Today, our legends are in bookform only, rarely told, rarely used in modern day speech. You may hear one or two at the Village Council Meetings, told by one of our less respected elderly Elders – our forgotten race (STORY 111).

Today, these legends are being replaced by the new legeneers, hard at work justifying universal sufferage for Kids, tobacco for Kids, alcohol for Kids, hard and soft drugs for Kids, pornography for Kids, TV and Black Boxes for Kids, violent videos for Kids, a new hip hop wrap music culture for Kids that should all be wrapped-up and disposed of.

Where are our songs, and dances, and choirs, and harmonizing? Our guitars, our wooden drums, our rolled-up mats beaten with a stick, our coconut shell symbols, our hand-clapping and thigh-clapping that would put modern day musicians to shame. We’d clap two black rocks together, hollowed-out coconut shells filled with course coral, two seashells, ankles plastered with clanking tifa seeds, just the sound of the teuila ginger branches slapping the floor of the fales as the dancers gyrated rythmically, sensually, erotically. Top all this off with a heavy coating of scented coconut oil all over your body, interspersed with dry banana leaves wrapped around your biceps. PHOTO

STOP IT.

And the missionaries did. We were told that this was sinful.

We were even told not to hold hands while walking down the street in town. You were no allowed to show your love in public? Hello!!!

And yet we Kids, back in the village, would walk thru the village arm in arm, hand in hand, same sex. Tolerated. Part of our traditional culture. No more. Its sinful, well, so we were told.

We were allowed to watch violent sex movies on TV, all our cousin brothers had MAN magazines that they shared with the faifeaus, all the faifeaus made love to the altar girls, housegirls, cooks, even the Catholic Bishop did. Catholic priests were not allowed to marry, so they developed two adaptations (called themselves catechists or just looked after their housegirls).

Which reminds me of a story, a true legend from our village. We had 2 churches, a Methodist Minister who drank (who we tried to help by pocketing our Sunday Church offerings so He wasn’t tempted to invest in more spirits, our Spiritual Priest – STORY 112) and a Catholic Priest who was married, nice example for us Kids. Anyway, there was the M Church at one end of the village, but the Minister lived at the opposite end of the village, next to the Catholic Church. And the Priest lived next to the Methodist Church – I think the Elders did this for a reason, just to keep these marauders away from their flocks’ frocks (well, that’s as the story went ask Sia Fiegel, Where We Once Belonged, a beautiful account of one of these clergy at work, caressing and caring for his flock).

To get to church, these two clergy needed to cycle each Sunday morning, passing each other in the centre of the village, “Morning Minister”, “Morning Father”.

“Hey Father, I see you have lost your bike?”

“Oh, these youth these days, there I was at choir practice last night, came outside to find my bike was stolen” “

Chinese Counter-Colonialism

Political Counter-Colonialism

Tourism Investor Counter-Colonialism

Aid Donor Counter-Colonialism

Whaling Counter-Colonialism

Story 107 – Gender-Benders – 27-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T17:24:00.000-08:00

NB: In the Pacific, there is something happening to our male adults, even us male Kids. Some males just want to be females, even dress like females. But what is most important here is that these faafafine are fantastic choreographers, singers, performers, dressmakers, even comedians. We Kids have chosen this medium, comedy, to get our thoughts across to you adults, so bear with us whilst we rearrange our thoughts, rearrange our genders even. Be prepared to laugh, a lot, as we prepare for you a faleaitu/traditional comedy performed by transvestites.

GENDER-BENDERS

My sister, he’s got a pink dress that she wears to the dances, even enters the ladies toilets. Mind you, no one else minds, not even the women.

She joins all the women for their committee meetings, she even weaves mats and plays bingo with them. And laughs like a women, walks like a woman, loves being a woman, but prefers men dressed like women.

So, I’m as confused as you are.

I know, it all began when those palagi told us to pee in private, no more communal toilets out over the sea. Then they stuck logos on the toilet doors, some logos without lavalava, some logos with a lavalava on. So we all entered in our lavalavas, the door with the lavalavered logo much to the chagrin of the local priests. "Let's get one thing straight", he said. And with all our priests, especially the Catholic ones, we'd always talk about 'the first thing that came up'. Honestly, the way some of these priests behave these days, especially with us Kids, is simply deplorable.

And everyone asks my married cousin brothers how their husbands are?
They just reply, “Oh, she’s fine.” “Gone to Bingo to play with his friends.”

See, they bend the truth a little, they even bend the genders a lot. We call them all ‘gender-benders’.

Story 60 - The Professors of Pacific Island Thought – 24-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T17:17:00.000-08:00

NB: Some serious issues are discussed, mentioned, alerted to and hopefully addressed in this faleaitu, composed by Kids and dedicated to the next generation of Kids.

The Professors of Pacific Island Thought

SEE STORY 148 - POEM – Thanks Palagi

ADD ALL THE INSIGHTS, DEEP THOUGHTS such as non-sustainable tourism, non-sustainable trade, new economics, cultural erosion, neo-colonialism, slavery, human trafficking

Thank you palagi for all the tobacco, alcohol and now hard drugs
Thanks for your lavalava
Thanks for your new God
Thanks for hunting our whales
Thanks for your fair trade practices
WTO’s been a real blow
First you traffic in Islanders
Then you profit from Colonialism, but only until it suits you,
Now you have us on Lay-Buy
Buy and sell us when you need our vote,
Politically-correct I am sure you are not
Pacific Islanders caught out unaware,
You giveth us the Internet
You taketh our freedom, our culture, our purpose for living,
You use us as your dumping ground
You use us as your playground (tourism),
Profits all leak
Future bleak,
You use us as your testing ground
But go underground when the debate gets hot.
You try and rule the waves
Same time you waive the rules,
You tried to rule our Ancestors
But our Ancestors had all the rules,
They are still your Professors of Sustainability
But you refuse to accept your lack of ability,
Noah was right “No No, not this time”
Thank God for the palagi
Or can we?

Story 101 – Operations Manual for more Thrills, Spills and Ills – 27-12-007 – 3 - T

2008-01-12T16:58:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids today are getting exposed to too much too early. Quite often, we’re exposed to it before we have learnt whether it is good for us or it is simply too bad for us. If it’s bad for us, often it is too late to prevent the consequences. So, our education paradigm has to change, and it has to keep-up with the times.

We not only need ESD (Education for Sustainable Development), but we need an Operations Manual for Kids, telling us in advance where we need to head and where we need to tread carefully. And we little POPITs are going to put a lot of thought into this. And we are going to get a message out there to tourists that an Operations Manual exists, telling them ‘where to go’ for their best holidays (see our new travel blog for Kids willing to visit Samoa, Fiji and other Pacific Island Countries).

THRILLS, SPILLS AND ILLS

Disease and pandemics are plaguing the Pacific, it’s a time-bomb.

For some, it’s simply too many thrills with too many partners, the perfect environment for AIDS to spread. No one can afford the prophylactics, they are not readily available, and there is too much social stigma existing for those taking precautions.

SPILLS, well, we are spilling dangerous pesticides on our feet, our soils, our Ancestors’ graves, on our own graves.

ILLS – well, it was STDs, influenza and now NCDs – topped-off with AIDS and Bird Flu. Before this book/faleaitu is published, your global awareness will change, a lesson will be taught for the astute only.

Story 61 – Village 2020 – 24-12-007 - 3

2008-01-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

NB: A lot of thought has to be put into designing the best possible village for us Kids to live in, and to live there harmoniously with adults. Just how this can be achieved is not quite yet known, but it will take more than an architect to design such a village.

We'll need some psychologists, psychiatrists, even some draconian atheists, etc. if we are to avoid the trappings in the past. A village designed on traditional grounds with traditional Gods with traditional beliefs with traditional principles of sustainability isn't too much to ask. Or is it?

We POPITs will need the best epistemologists and hopefully we can rely on our Chiefs. Or can we? Our first answer is "Probably not."

Village 2020

A Fantasy Village to talk about, dream about, bring about

Story 158 – Golly Golly Gosh – Who cares – 2-1-008 – 3 – T

2008-01-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids are prone to asking some tough questions in this faleaitu that require some easy answers. Whilst we Kids think we have the answers, do you? We need Tui Vui, our Kids' Judge, to help us and he does - read on. Basically, we Kids are seeking some sustainable livelihoods for our Kids, nothing more, nothing less. We Kids are concerned. Aren't you?

Golly Golly Gosh – Who cares?

“What goes around, comes around” as the saying goes.

Little do we know that the jet planes are bleaching our corals.
The more jet planes in the Pacific, the more death to our ‘golly golly’ (qoliqoli, Fijian word for fishing grounds).

Please explain more because I am interested in the connection between jet planes and coral reefs, between tourism and quality of life. Our Prime Minister wants to see tourism double. Oh, does he now?

Jet fuel causes greenhouse gases.
Greenhouse gases cause global warming.
Global warming causes corals to die (go white, as if bleached).
Our qoliqoli weakens, fish stocks decline, no colour and less marinelife on affected reefs.
Tourism assets damaged. But who cares?

What do the Pacific tourism organizations say?
What does the Ministry of Tourism say?
What do the travel agents say?

They all say the same thing: “More planes please, and quickly”. We need 3 million visitors annually – close on 40,000 flights in and out of the Pacific, annually.

Multiply 40,000 flights by the fuel bill and you can work out just how much pollution.
Our jet planes are jettisoning justice to all PIs.
We will all get our just desserts very shortly. Sad thing is, we don’t even want to know it’s coming. Excuse me, it’s already here.

More coral bleaching, less fish, more fragile corals, less protection of our shorelines, more beach erosion, more tropical storms, more cyclones, sea level rising, longer summers, hotter summers, more severe cyclones, sea temperatures already rising in the Pacific in past 10 years (just ask USP) and it seems that no one cares.

Our Prime Ministers asks us to Live Together, as One Pacific Nation, and yet there are things that they can do if they are interested in the people of this Nation, hopefully Living Together for a lot longer, even more happily.

Why is the Pacific looking to China and Korea for more tourists?
China is building 108 new airports (2003-2009) with an expected increase in tourism to the South Pacific. Do we Pacific Islanders want this impact on our islands, be it from China, Korea, Australia or USA? A tough question requiring an easy answer.

And will the qoliqoli legislation help us protect our qoliqoli from jet plane pollution? If the answer to this question is YES, send me a copy of the Qoliqoli Legislation, and show me what the Prime Minister is already doing to help enforce this part of the legislation to help prevent damage to our beautiful corals, to help protect our corals from jet plane impacts.

Are our Prime Ministers going to halve the number of planes arriving in the Pacific or double them over the next 3 years? What if these jets jettison justice within the Pacific Islands as well?

Another question. The Great Council of Chiefs: do they care about their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Where is their public outcry? May be we Kids are deaf. All we know is that our Ancestors would be unhappy with us for what we have done to these islands. Look up www.HappyPlanetIndex.org and see for yourself. Why is Fiji sliding down the scale, losing the sustainable living skills of our fathers, well, grandfathers at least?

Why is Fiji (36th) worse than Tonga (24th), worse than the Solomon Islands (20th), worse than Samoa (14th), worse than Vanuatu (the best, the happiest islands in the world)? Fiji is losing its attraction, not only to visitors, but also to we Pacific Kids.

Who cares?

Story 152 – Oxymorons – 30-12-007 – 3

2008-01-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

NB: Life is full of oxymorons, especially from our PI perspective, our Kids’ perspective. Just that we wonder if they are designed by accident or whether a little serendipity plays a key role? We Kids have a different take on this subject, suspicious that our Elders are being treated like fools, like noble savages, like retardees as if we PIs are genetically inferior. And this may be true, well, at least for the most recent generations of PIs.

We Kids are out to show all the adult PIs that we Kids are now genetically superior, one generation of hybrid vigor more than any adult – a fact that cannot be disputed by the world’s best geneticists (as much as they’ll try – see David Suzuki’s book, Inventing the Future with Hitler’s efforts as one of these latest inventions – sad, but true, the world’s best geneticists at their worst moments. Congratulations palagi, bet you never even realized this, or, if you did, you want to dismiss this as much as you dismiss the fact that eating coconut oil may prevent your macular degeneration, may even prevent your diabetes. Anyway guys, eating a little humble pie, cooked or uncooked, will not affect your health one way or the other. Or will it?

Oxymorons

‘adult thinking’ - Did you ever think that this would become an oxymoron?

We Kids need to be taught more about how adults think and how adults should think and even whether adults should be allowed to think.

‘foreign intelligence’ - Did you ever think that this would become an oxymoron?

We Pacific Islanders don’t really believe that foreigners are at all intelligent – you cannot even stop your wrongdoings in the Pacific Islands despite our numerous warnings. And we Kids are about to unleash a few more warnings, some of them you may be inclined to warmly accept, especially if you have a curable incurable disease. Our medicinal healers, all women, will be happy to fix you up.

‘200 Mile Economic Exclusion Zone’ - Did you ever think that this would become an oxymoron?

We had a sustainable economy within this 200 mile boundary for 3000 years, and you, our ADCs, have excluded us from retaining such an economy that you only now dream about at your G8 WTO and UNWTO World Summits. Come on guys, do you really think that we Pacific Islanders (PIs) are that stupid (PI Poem)? Why did you cancel our coconut exports, our kava exports, our cocoa exports? Were we affecting your economies? The answer is “Yes” isn’t it? And when are you going to put a stop to our largest and latest agricultural export crop, nonu (Morinda citrifolia)? Sure, it’s a cure-all, but it’s also an aphrodisiac, competing well with those little blue tablets.

And the Pacific is our traditional fishing ground. So what gives you, our ADCs, the right to impose your international boundaries on us? Where’s this Treaty written-up and signed by all Pacific Islanders, this time translated correctly without the deceits of yesterday, based on consultations with all the Pacific Chiefs? There is none. Thanks palagi.

Story 150 – Raw Deal – 30-12-007 – 3 – T

2008-01-12T16:31:00.000-08:00

NB: Organic Samoa for 3000 years, disease-free. Today, a challenge for us all as we are being served another raw deal. Thanks palagi. So, one raw deal deserves another, and raw foods are being served in true Samoan tradition, this time served by Samoans to palagi who not only still look pale and sickly and anaemic, but who are actually suffering from some of the world’s most insidious auto-immune diseases, some diseases that the modern medical world have created deliberately and refuse to treat, playing into the hands of the pharmaceutical giants that are undermining traditional Samoan medicine and traditional Samoan living.

Join our ‘fat farms’ and ‘health clinics’, the best one run by us Kids. When did you last live-off the land for one entire day, for one entire week? An experience not to be forgotten. And we can cure your diseases from heart attacks to strokes to high blood pressure to diabetes to obesity to headaches to poor vision to a wide range of auto-immune diseases. Samoa in the Raw.

Raw Foods
(See POEM 336???)

Raw foods all day. We were out to test just how fit our genes were for surviving on raw foods all day, all weekend, all our lives. Our Ancestors did this so well with no history of diabetes and gout and auto-immune diseases.

Well, our Ancestors’ Ancestors did, way back before they invented fire and cooking and processing and preservatives and colouring agents and genetic engineering. We had just read www.genefitnutrition.com – fascinating.

We needed to talk to our Ancestors. Roman and Anje were going to teach us. Or were we going to teach them. For 20 years, they had been on a raw food diet while we’re now into cows’ milk (a real NO NO apparently - just Google cow's milk and ear problems, skin problems, digestive problems), imported fast-tracked chicken flavoured with antibiotics and growth hormones, imported sugars as more palagi sweeteners, imported animal fats whilst the exporters went onto diets of olive oil, and we were instructed on how to flavour our foods and our reefs and our plantations and our fishies with pesticides and weedicides and fungicides and fertilizers.

Geez, thanks Palagi. We hear you have now banned many of these food additives but you are still exporting them to our Pacific Islands. Palagi, we worry about you sometimes.

Raw Deal, Raw Foods (POEM)

They’d try to send us Kids home, but we were there providing the nuts (coconuts) as refreshments to the workers, we’d cut open the wild esi (pawpaws), ripe jackfruits (ulu initia), even scavaging for ufatu, big thick juicy Coconut Beetle larvae hiding in the old fallen coconut trunks – “Out with the sapelus guys. First one to find the ‘living peanut butters’ is the winner”

That’s what we called them, so tasty, just like peanut butter, our ‘bush peanut butter’. We just loved these forest foods tickling our fancy, tickling our throats, tickling our taste buds.

CHAPTER 3 - POPITS

2008-01-12T16:15:00.000-08:00

OK, we Kids have given you our best description of our lives today, albeit too explicit in parts (Chapter 1). Sorry.

But there's also a beauuutiful side to our lives as well (Chapter 2).

Chapter 3, all about we Little Professors of Pacific Island Thoughts (POPITs)takes the reader to another level, testing your mettle a little more, possibly beyond all reasonable doubt (well, hopefully).

We Kids want to be able to convince you, the adult by-standers,that loitering 'without intent' is a punishable crime in today's world, as is 'loitering with intent'. We Kids are about to give you adult by-standers something to think about (e.g. what if your Kids tried to divorce their parents? Could you honestly accept their arguments? If you think you would have some difficulty accepting the fact that you, as parents, were being divorced by your Kids, then read the next few chapters - you'll find the divorce proceedings a lot more palatable and justified).

Of course, to prevent being divorced by your Kids, we also recommend you read the next few chapters.

Story 145 – Birdlore – 29-12-007 – 2

2008-01-12T16:12:00.000-08:00

NB: Just listening to our grandfather telling us all his stories about our birds. We loved those evenings together, one of our most cherrished and 'most beauuutiful past-times' in Samoa.

Birdlore

Check Nelson Library for Book on Samoan Birdlore.

Story 114 – Go Terry – 28-12-007 – 2 - T

2008-01-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

NB: Our islands are so beautiful, but the biggest pollutant is carbon. As blatant and yet as insidious as it is, we Kids need to get our messages across: we polluters will pay.

So, we Kids are picking-up our act a few notches and we are taking to the streets to humour you even more. We are going to follow your footsteps (we didn’t say that “we would follow IN your footsteps”). And if you want to pollute our Antarctic waters with whale blood and Japanese flags, then just go right ahead. We Kids just love these kinds of stories to write about because you Japanese epitomize adulthood behaviours of the modern world. All we Kids can say is “Thank you Japan”.

And we Kids can’t resist saying this, but international tourists are now turning their backs on the Pacific because of this dessicration of those beautiful oceanic resources.

Go Terry

We got it fair and square, we Kids already know the costs associated with polluting our nest. We Kids have got our fair share of advices for the polluters. That ‘Green Gospel’ of ours is never too far away. Mind you, we are re-writing it and re-writing it and we will soon have a boring Operations Manual on "How to Raise Kids" proper-like.

We were walking along the beach one day, watching the crabbies playing with each other. Have you ever watched closely? They are shoveling food into their mouths like it’s going out of fashion, faster, faster and faster than you can imagine. What a life. Eat, sleep and swim, may be burying yourself in the sand sometimes – We like to do that too. Preferably wrapped in a sandcastle racing car, fishing canoe, turtle kayak, etc.

Suddenly, we came across this lovely discarded coconut leaf basket, all beautifully woven, now unwanted, floating in the lagoon, full of rubbish, thrown into the sea, on top of the crabs favourite domain.

“Oh no, look at that” we heard. “Someone has thrown all that rubbish into the sea. Fishies don’t eat rubbish.” Our Dad was always sending us his subtle messages, but we agreed with him, we never argued.

We all thought about his concerns for the crabbies for a while before Steevie replied. “No Dad, only doggies do”.

Our Dad was lying there rolling with laughter. We didn’t realize that what Steevie had said was so funny. This was no laughing matter though. Our islands are getting polluted, even more so these days.

We thought a little longer, somewhat perplexed still. We all needed a reply, and quickly. Then it came to us.

“If it wasn’t for adults Dad, there’d be no such rubbish and there’d be no pollution.” We just couldn’t resist making a statement along the lines that we Kids are simply not to blame.

And adults are still polluting our planet. Read this sentence again.

Adults are polluting this planet.

And

Adults are polluting this planet.

See the difference? Very subtle ha?

Adults are ‘doing’ the polluting or these same adults are the pollution on the planet?

Got it now? If adults are the pollutants on this beautiful planet, then we had just better clean up our planet and clean up our act. We need a Law against Polluting Parents.

Seriously, sure, parents are there to set an example, but can someone please remind them to set a ‘good’ example. Surely we Kids don’t have to keep reminding them all the time.

Every time my parents tell me to clean my room, I always remind them that I will do this as soon as they have cleaned-up their acts first, and cleaned-up the planet in the process. And if adults can not learn by example, and it’s no wonder that they are having trouble when they are learning from each other, then we Kids had better accept this responsibility first.

For example, I like this one.

The adults in the so-called more advanced developed nations have banned some dangerous chemicals that kill weeds and pest insects, but these same adults in these same countries now export these banned chemicals to our Pacific islands, killing our children.

Shamelessly. And shamefully. Funny language this.

Are we Kids being too hard on adults? Sorry Dad, but you deserve it. We can debate this later.

Time to take our Aid Donor Countries (ADCs) to task. Time to take our ADCs fishing.

Yep, that’s what we do here in the South Pathetic when things get this pathetic. We take ‘em fishing. And no one is saying that we would bring them home. And remember, when we go fishing, we go for 3 or 4 days, we often go out of sight of land (accompanied by our traditional feathered navigators), we know the best currents and we know the best currents for our ADCs. Yep, you are right: those long wide seasonal currents are so ideal for drift voyaging long distances, especially for ADCs.

And there is a certain under-current amongst our ADCs, a certain oblivious, nonchalant neo-colonialistic attitude, somewhat exploitative, pre-meditated even, but dressed-up as our Pacific saviours, the modern-day do-gooders here to help we natives, to help create markets for our beautiful fishies, our beautiful rainforests, our beautiful cultures, our gold that they exchange for cyanide in our nearby food chains so vital for all future generations of Kids.

And ADCs refuse to find a market for their rubbish, filling our Pacific islands with spent batteries. Oh well, we can always use the black cadmium and mercuric powders to dye our Pandanus leaves black, weaving these black coloured fala strips into a mosaic pattern on our sleeping mats. Then we can let our babies crawl all over these colourations for the first 12 months of their lives. Thank you ADCs. Time you let us Kids run your Aid Agencies (right out of our Pacific Islands).

You are polluting the Kids of the Pacific and you don’t even realize it, even polluting our minds.

“Oh yes you do.”

The fact that you do realize this fact, and choose to do nothing about it, tells us something even more sinister about your so-called ‘good intentions’ with ‘strings attached’.

You choose, FrenchAid, to radiate our skies, our islands, our lagoons, and now our tectonic plates. No wonder we are getting more earthquakes, more tsunamis, more cancers, more tourists.

Yes, even your Embassy colleagues, holidaying here in the Islands after your first waves of tourism consultants have tamed the natives with promises of ongoing profitable bed-making and even more profitable cocktail mixing. You remind us Pacific Kids of the black-birders who tried the same dirty trinket tricks, enticing our grandfathers down into their ship holds with promises of mirrors and steel knives and colourful mats.

What do you now expect us to swallow, now that you have taken all our tuna out of the Pacific and all our whales and all our Ancestors and all our traditional knowledge?

Do you expect us to eat your processed foods polluted with your genetic engineerings and preservatives and non-disposable packagings?

Did you ever think that Type 2 Diabetes would become a Pacific pandemic caused by your ADCs’ naïve generosities, spreading sugar over Oceania in lethal doses?

We need a Law against Aid Donor Countries’ negative impacts on the Pacific Islands.

Just Kidding.

We need all your (ADC) foreign intelligence (now that’s an oxymoron) that we can get – cos we haven’t got anything intelligent from you yet. Your reluctance to re-assess your impacts is staggering to us Kids. Even we understand EIAs (let’s spell that out for you – Environmental Impact Assessment). Easy to do an EIA, but more difficult to request one, especially if it is self-incriminating.

You’ve taken away our sustainability without you even knowing it. We know it. Now we are telling you. We are waiting for your reply, your apology, your strategy, your compensation. And money won’t compensate us for the loss of our whales, the loss of our Ancestors, our belief systems, our traditional knowledge, our rainforests, our spirituality, our adventures, our mysteries, our magic, our fun and zest for living.

We now need a Law against Japanese (whalers). This Law extends to all Japanese interests. And if Terri Irwin is going to showcase your affinity for whales to the world, then so be it.

“Go Terry.”

Story 113 – Sticks and Stones – 27-12-007 – 2

2008-01-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids find Samoa so beautiful, and the thing more beautiful than ever is the depth of knowledge stored in just a few 'near-senile warehouses', all ageing, nearly forgotten. This information is deliberately hard to access, there is a reluctance to hand it on to us Kids as knowledge is seen to be power, status, an ego trip for some.

But Kramer had the right idea, masquerading as a geriatrics specialist, keep all the most pre-identified knowledgeable ‘sufferers’ in the 'acute ward' for as long as possible, well, at least until they have little more to talk about. Pumped for information, they’re discharged with a new lease of life, so appreciative of all the bedside manners, long chats with the 'doctor' and totally unaware that they had just played one of their most important roles in life - the passing down of highly cherished cultural information, the basis of any epistemological study.

And that’s exactly what we Kids are going to do as well, we just hope that our bedside manners are as perfect as Dr. Kramer’s. Kramer may have been the very first Professor of Pacific Island Thought, albeit plagiarized, stolen through deceit from our Elders, but he at least did it and recorded it and passed it on freely to all us Kids today if we dare read it. However, the Samoan Encyclopedia remains the epistemological bible of Samoa, still used in our courts of law some 100 years later.

STICKS AND STONES

In Samoa, everything revolves around fire from cooking food to BBQing chocolate seeds, even lighting firedance knives.

But, making a fire requires good weather, dry wood, even matches that work. However, if there’s no matches, it’s no disaster. You can wait for a volcanic flow or even a lightning strike, and to most Samoans, that wait is no obstacle.

However, for the more industrious and the most traditional, just 2 sticks or 2 stones are ample to get a little warmth in your life. To see those muscles at work was orgasmic, the rhythm was amazing, the smoke appeared, the shavings a bright red. Thing is, few realize the science behind all this: you need to know your trees, know your strength and know your limits when it comes to having the necessary traditional knowledge.

However, if you are from Savaii Island, and a little more primitive, then two perfect rocks are all you need: an arrowhead ‘striker’ and a smooth-faced ‘strikee’. One flick of the wrist, stones angled 45 degrees to each other, in line with the soft dry coconut penu as kindling, and you have warmth enough.

We Kids tried both the traditional firelighting techniques, under professorial supervision, and failed.

Story 105 – Sandcastles – 27-12-007 – 2

2008-01-12T15:57:00.000-08:00

NB: Everywhere we Kids went, we’d build a new sandcastle with a new theme out of new materials using new tools. Could be white sand, black sand, lava ash or just broken coral pieces. We loved building castles, decorating them, watching the waves trying to wash them down, at the same time observing nature at its best for hours on end.

SANDCASTLES

Building racing cars in the sand, even racing horses, we are creationists.

Saanapu Racing Car sandcastles ...............

Story 92 – Horses for Courses – 27-12-007 – 2

2008-01-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

NB: Samoa is so beautiful, just ask our horseback riders, aloft and aloof. Hardly a word spoken, fully-laiden, food-filled saddle-bags, enough to feed a village.

HORSES FOR COURSES

We had horse rides along our beaches, even through the rainforests, up trails all the way to the volcanic lakes and ancient fortresses.

Laiden with taro and coconuts, we all made our way home safely at the end of the day to a warm welcoming: food, glorious food. A cup of tea, a shower and, wait for it, a big meal. A celebration. We were able to serve the Chiefs, the village, with their preferred ancient foods.

We were so blessed – abundant food every day in Samoa. Samoa must be in the top 5 countries in the world for horseriding.

As Kids, our favourite horse rides were with Solo, our Magic Pony (STORY 53). We just can’t believe what joy he brought into our lives, taking us to such heights never before reached. Remember, he enjoyed showing-off in front of the cameras, in front of visitors, in front of us as much as we did.

We’ll never forget the diving horse, fearless, a true swimmer, with purpose.

Story 86 – Lost in Paradise – Police – 26-12-007 – 2 - T

2008-01-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

NB: No armed police, no military, a democracy, tropical verdant foliage, Utopia. Justice? Well, that’s another story.

And tourists often ask “Do you have crime in Samoa?” or “Do you have gaols in Samoa?” Now really, exactly what Planet are these visitors off?

But we Kids just love the police stories here – they are such real classics that we need to spread the ‘Gospel according to the Police Commissioner’.

Lost in Paradise – Police

Story 85 – The Bat Mobil – 26-12-007 – 2 - T

2008-01-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids had a huge local wooden bus converted into a mobile home, it was our recreation vehicle (RV), and wherever it went, we went. We always considered ourselves part of the tour.

We saw the 'most beauuutiful locations' in Samoa, we only overnighted in the 'most beauuutiful villages', we only met the 'most beautiful villagers', and we loved this type of community tourism, and so do all our visitors to Samoa.

Why stay in a luxury hotel when, for the same price, you get a guide, you get to tour 7 islands over 10-14 days, you meet the locals and you get to experience Samoa the way Samoans do (but this time with all the comforts and excitement and adventure, appreciating Samoa more than most visitors).

This is the secret.

'most beauuutiful locations', 'most beauuutiful villages', 'most beautiful villagers'

THE BAT MOBILE

...............

Story 81 – Paia Cave Dwarfs – 25-12-007 – 2

2008-01-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

NB: Samoa has so many beautiful legends and even today, you can visit these legendary sites and begin to understand why such a legend exists. And what is the moral of this story? There are some of the 'most beauuutiful legends' entrenched within the faaSamoa. Just like a speleologist, you need to explore this cave legend to its innermost depths - afterall, these legendary figures are indeed our Ancestors, as capable then of living in caves as we are today (well, some of us at least). Our Dad would take us into the deepest depths of some caves, overnighting of all things. We would emerge days later not having any sense of time (we'd deliberately leave our watches at home on such occasions). The adventure was fantastic: times for the lights to be on, times for the lights to be off.

PAIA CAVE DWARFS

Samoan legend has it …