Ole uo mo aso uma, a o le uso mo aso vale xx

I imagine back in the 70's .... leaving Samoa in your early 20s, having never been overseas, let alone another island would be a mammoth undertaking. I can only guess at the feelings that would have swept over my father as he heard his parents' decision to send him abroad.

Having given up school at age 8 to cultivate and care for his family's plantation, so his ailing father wouldn't have to-: wake up at dawn, walk at least 5kms inland (many times without shoes) and then labour at length as the sun reached its peak with blunt tools and cracked palms, clearing land, pruning, grafting, weeding and labouring with all his might to produce a crop worthy of consumption. Then making the long trek back but this time with a load of coconuts, or taros, or bananas or whatever was to make the meal for that day… sometimes all of those things together… and not sometimes but every day.

His family and village recognised he was a hardworker (and continues to be). His family’s plantation doubled, then tripled. He was content with his life. He was proud of his labour. He loved his home, his village but especially his family.


He had reconciled that his future was as the family plantation farmer. He planned to meet a nice girl and eventually settle down there but to be ripped from everything you know and arrive in a foreign land (NZ) so unfamiliar, so innocent and so unacquainted with the way of the palagi, could not have been easy to say the least.

Stories of my father’s life in NZ are a little sketchy. They mainly consist of:

• hard work to send money home to his parents,
• attending dances (which were very popular in the early days of NZ settlement by Samoan migrants),
• partying hard and usually getting into fights
• meeting Mum
• and of course Elvis Presley

Not dissimilar to other young Samoan men and women who had made the same sacrifice and were trying to numb the ache of missing home.


Here in this foreign land as a young adult he experienced for the first time racism, sexism and working for ‘the man’. He realised that the happy carefree days of his youth were over… he quickly learnt that he couldn’t trust anybody and those lessons were etched deep into his soul.



So much so that as his children grew, he instilled those lessons in us. “No friends!” he would say while we were of school age … all those years ago as a young girl I thought it was to be mean. Now I realise it was to protect me, to protect us…. Until we were old enough to understand our own decisions and choices.


As we left school and went out into the world he encouraged us to stick together, he told us ‘Trust noone’. He taught us “o le uo mo aso uma, ae o le uso mo aso vale” – friends are good for normal days but a brother (or sister) will stand by you during your trying/challenging times/days. He knew whilst teaching us these things that we would make friends and would learn who to trust….but knowing that he taught us to be there for one another no matter what … even if our friends would let us down - in our siblings we would have an eternal and loyal support network always.


We now look back and giggle (especially at the start of every school year when we now tell our children “No friends!”) But we understand the value of this teaching and the preciousness of siblings. The special relationships we hold (although at times not perfect) should always be treasured. He understood that we would get married and have children and that life would get in the way but no matter how busy or how occupied we become that still - when needed, our siblings should be there.


All these years later my father has lost more than half his siblings. But he keeps their memories alive as he tells his stories of their youth… their happy days… their days uninterrupted by life….


And we will do the same.