Death and 4 Year Old drowns at Aggies pool

A four your old boy drowned at the Aggie Greys Resort at Mulifanua last Saturday. An unfortunate and heart wrenching incident, the boy was accompanied by his grandparents. He was pronounced clinically dead on site. According to a source at the Hotel, there was no one around the pool as it was raining, there were no guests swimming and no workers in that area of the Hotel. "It was raining that day and everyone steered clear of the pool." Unfortunately by the time they had realised the child was missing, it was too late. Asked if the Hotel had any first aid trained workers the source said yes, but the staff turnover was high.
Hundreds turned up to the funeral today, to mark the passing of the young boy. He was described as bright, energetic and pleasant child.
His name was Phoenix and his 5th birthday is one month away, his parents are Joachim Keil and Tasha Shuster.
Before we sleep tonight, let us spare a thought for the parents, family and friends of Phoenix.

Personal Note
What a sudden, tragic and unfortunate ending to such a young life. It certainly makes me think twice now before taking out my nieces and nephews. It also emphasises on how we take life for granted sometimes. This has been such a strange year for me, so many people I know have passed on and it has forced me to face it, the fact that one day we all die, and that this is a temporary state and that death is the one thing man has yet to avoid.
These people that have died, except for my grandmother they did not play any part in my life, they were people I see every week, they were distant relatives that I have known since I was a child, it was the guy that I talked to last week, it is people who I never sat down and had a chat with, but somehow our paths cross and only in their passing do I realise how special they were. There is a saying that 'something is valued only when it is gone for good' this is true in some respect when it comes to death.
A tribute to those who have passed on this year.

Faleasiu Liki Tiatia
Not a day goes by that I do not think of her, and every now and then I cry, remembering the things she said, her humour and her infinite patience, strong faith and the will to live so long without walking and without sight.

Dr. Vaasiliifiti Asaua
Such a gentle soul, so humble and so genuine in everything he does and say.

Hirene Tofilau
He loved life more than anyone I know, he embraced it with a passion that no one could understand. Never without a smile, always with something funny to say.

Elena
A faithful public servant with something to say about everything. She lighted up anyones day who walked into the physio ward at Motootua.

Phillip Amituanai Seti
The thing about death is, you never really see it coming. For Phillip he denied this, he fought it to the end. He was fun man who loved his family and brought people together with his charm and humour.

Reader Opinion: Military Base

By Tagata Nuu o Samoa

As a local I totally disagree and am appalled with the prospects of a US army in Savaii. I think u mustn't trash the editor as I doubt many people agree with him. One funny thought crossed my mind though what would happen to ol' American Samoa who's only connection to the US(freebies) is their harbour and militany base? hmmm American Samoans should worry about this as it mean the US has had enough of them its time to move onto the next victims. American Samoa seems to be costing more to the US then being an advantage. Back to Savaii, I believe in our PM really, he ain't stupid and he will not be bullied into agreeing to the US demands. hullo he already detained the US soldiers that came through without passports to get them cos we ain't bending backwards for anyone. He also told the Aussies to get a grip when they demanded to see our books that was supposed to be readily available to them never mind that we have no interest in theirs. So I think Mr PM will see that a US base will do alot of harm than any good in Samoa. Unbelievable... the US will just about have a base in all countries of the Pacific. And yeah they left ruin where-ever they were. Look at Tonga they never recovered economically after the US marines left their shores with their money leaving lots of half americans at the that! eeewww. And diplomatic imunity my foot, some US soldiers are committed atrocities in Iraq ( which is under world scrutiny) why would Samoans be any safer for some psychopaths that would be posted to Samoa! reading about it made my skin crawl. Samoa is doing very well economically and our culture and people being unique and still having a culture is our greatest selling point to the world. With all the terrorist attacks all over the world, soon enough travellers will realise that the Pacific especially Samoan(untouched) will be the next best thing. So our country need not worry about money handed to us, look at what it did to our brothers and sisters in Am Samoa.

Samoa shifts into authoritarian

It is all to clear now more than a ever that Samoa is heading toward a direction that we do not want to go, authoritarian, perhaps not in its official and declared status but certainly in practice. Just looke at the events of the last few months.

BAN OF THE DA VINCI CODE
A few old farts sat down watched a movie and decided that the rest of Samoa has weak faith and this would do more harm than good, so one young man, signed a piece of paper and the movie was banned from Samoa.

BURN OPPOSITIONS HOUSE
One village decided to burn down the house of one opposition leader who took their winning MP to court.

THREE MONTH BAN ON NIGHTCLUBS
The Liquor Board (old farts also) decided that Samoans were drinking too much and imposed a ban on all major nightclubs to close for three months or relocate. That is after a three week closure already. The owners of the clubs had no say in the matter.

MEDIA BAN
The media were chased away from the opening of a new prison cell at Tafaigata by the Police Commissioner, who provided no explanation except :'you are not allowed!' Meanwhile every tom, dick and harry was walking into the place.

An Awesome Day

By Cherelle Jackson

I think we spend too much time complaining instead of embracing, well at least I do, so in this entry, mock-editorial, I am going to do something out of character and praise the day. Today was awesome because even though I was tired [I worked until 2:30 in the morning,] I still woke up at 7.00am and brushed up on my work before heading off.

what to wear
The only glitch of course was what I was going to wear. I wanted to wear something bright because the day was dark, however the only appropriate clothes for my first appointment were dark, so black and white it was. I have about five black skirts to my name, I never run out of dark, boring clothes, it is to make up for my height (the lack of it) and my weight (the lack of it as well :)

smart people are fat
Let me just step out of topic for a second to explain the black skirt phenomena. When I started out in my first job as News Reporter for Samoa Observer, the biggest challenge was not in the writing, news gathering, or interviewing but rather my appearance. I am convinced that if I was tall and big, the job would have been easier. Why? Well easy, people show you more respect if you are older, bigger, taller, fatter, maybe ugly too, and generally people who have these admirable attributes are viewed as smarter. Say for instance I and a fellow Journo bigger than me approached someone at the time for an interview, they would respond to the other person, as I am the 'little shit that has no right to question her elders.'

back to the day
I got to my planned interview at about 9.00am and sat at Poloma Komitis waiting room for half an hour waiting for an appointment that was never recorded, for a person that was not there and most likely not keen to speak to me. I was hunting down some more info concerning Sunan Siriwan the Thai tiler whom Phillip Field suspiciously brought into the country for "immigration reasons." Anyway my editor was up my arse about chasing down this story, which I was not interested in as it was going way overboard. So anyway in that half an hour as I waited, I chatted with two old men and an elderly lady from Savaii. We laughed about our own peopls stupidity, naivity and of course the down right assholes. One man was complaining about a couple he took under his wing to help as they were both banned from their villages. "I took them in, fed em', clothed em' and housed them, but they did not lift a finger for a whole month, so I threw them out." He went on, he got vulgar and soon more couples were staying at his house and they wer all equally worthless, and our story teller was the hero of his own story :)

jake brown
My next appointment was with Mr Jake Brown, a young good-looking with a nice butt... sorry.. accent Brit, who is an Australian Youth Ambassador, currently teaching Broadcast Journalism at Samoa Polytech. As the Secretary of the Journalists Association of [Western] Samoa, one of my responsibilities is to arrange trainings for current Journalists to improve our outputs, in other words SOMEBODY SAVE US PLEASE, from all the shitty news thats coming out! About three weeks ago I asked Jake, who has a post grad in broadcast journalism and two years of experience with BBC if he could train our local radio journalists on basic radio news writing. He was keen, so as part of the prep to the training he wanted to see the studios in each radio station and ask the news readers some questions to get a feel of

radio journalists
I tried, unsuccessfully for two days to contact the radio stations to schedule a tour for Jake, so I decided to do what we hamos to do best, walk in. I met up with Jake at 11:21am and we arrived at the SBC studio at 11:23. We walked into the Studio and asked for Lave, one of the reporters, a kid directed us to a door where a lot of laughter was coming from. We knocked, once then twice, and finally the door was opened by Fuapepe who was, how should I say this, she was on her niece in prayer position, we opened the door, to see solitaire on one computer, solitaire on the second and third. In the small room the whole SBC news team were having a break. The News Editor, the Senior Reporter, News Presenter and News Reporter, all chatting and laughing. We got so lucky as Merita, the brains and real sweat behind SBC gave Jake a personal tour of the tv and radio studio. It was awesome.

man i gotta finish this some other time as I am tired and need my beauty sleep...

A tribute to Yvonne, my niece

This is for you on your 8th Birthday!

Yvonne in my opinion is the strongest person in our family, she gets it from her grandmother and her mother. Yvonne in her lifetime has already witnessed the death of her great grandmother and the birth of both her sister and brother. Yvonne is that light that shines on anything and anyone at anytime. She has an energy that could inspire great things. Yvonne is sharp, honest and beautiful. She is appreciative, hopeful, inquisitive and charming. Her only weaknesses are her brother and sister. She guards them with her life, sacrificing anything to ensure they smile, laugh and get what they want.

The cake!
Lately Lani and I have gotten into decorating home made cakes for the kids birthdays. She baked a flat square chocolate cake for Vettes birthday and I decorated it with wafers and marshmallows, creating a little house and garden on the cake. They loved it, so today we decided we were going to do it with the kids as part of the birthday present, which is officially tommorow. We bought a cake and decorations and sat down at their dining table, Yvonne, Yvette, myself and Barry at the head of the table. We started with the brown cream, covering the body of the cake, then we filled in the nozzeled tube with pink cream to write on the cake. Armed with the tube and ready to write, I asked Yvonne what she wanted on her cake. Initially she said: "Happy Birthday Vonne." then after some encouragement that she could say anything as it is her cake she said: "How about, I HATE MELE." Lani and I laughed out loud, Mele of course was Yvonne Mele Sapatu, her name sake, her aunty and of course her arch enemy. Mele would be at the birthday party, poor Yvonne would be strangled if the inscription was such! So in the end we settled for Happy birthday yvonne, meanwhile Barry decided to stand on the chair instead of sitting, and he was sneezing at maximum speed therefore sending, not tiny but huge specs of saliva onto the cake, it was hilarious. After some adjustments and quarter of the cake cut for tasting, and lots of eaten cream later, we came up with a nice birthday cake for vonne.

Mega and Jody, Yvonne asked last week if you were both coming for her birthday. I said unfortunately it is too expensive for you both to travel so you wont be making it. She then asked if you were sending a card for her, according to Lani, Yvonnes latest obsession has been receiving something in the mail. So we decided I was going to write letters, get it stamped and ready for postage however I will place it in my mailbox. Tommorow I can take Yvonne to my mail box, open it and low and behold letters from Aunty Jody and Aunty Mega in a mailbox, addressed to her! She never has to know :)

Her latest dumbfounding question.

Aunty Relle, when I am 18 will you be dead?

Her light bulb question.
While sun bathing at Palolo deep, looking up at the sky, she asked.

"Aunty, what is beyond the clouds?"

The wisest things she has said.
After asking why her Great Grandmother died, she said:

"Is it because her time has come."

Her latest wish

"Aunty, when I am 18 can you take me to Thailand to ride elephants?"

The question I thought she would never ask
This is after being explained the concept of ex-boyfriend and marriage.

"Why do people stop loving?"

Thai terror and missing home

It has been four days now, since arriving in Chiangmai Thailand, sorry to say but this place is a shithole. It is so polluted that spending a mere ten minutes outdoors causes one to clog up for hours. The streets are filthy, seems no one takes care of their yards or their own houses, ugh! I went to the food market and frankly if I wanted to get sick quick I would eat some chicken from there!
That being said, the people a lovely, ok im not in the mood to write, we just finished a four hour session on abortion and teenage pregnancy and frankly my thoughts are still on the matter and the different sides of this story, extreme sides! We are now off on field visits, we will be visiting the Thai family planning to see how they operate. Should be interesting. Ill update you on that later!

Corporate Crap in communication

So the long awaited GSM technology for our outdated cellphones is supposed to come into place by the end of this year. Mind you its been a long time coming, very long, like since 2002 they started saying "it will be up in two months time," that two months has brought us this far :) But what is the real story about the delay, of GSM. Well here it is, while working for Observer I did some investigation into it, I found the full story but unfortunately at the time SamoaTel was one of Observers main Advertisers and as we all know, without them newspapers will not survive, so the Editor basically said no stories about major advertisers, how about that for balanced reporting.:) THe story has developed thus far and I followed through it interesting and intrcate weavings of corruption. Here is a brief descrip.

The Government signed an agreement with Telecom Samoa Cellular when they first entered the country that they would be the sole mobile phone provider. At that time SamoaTel (Samoa Post and Telecomunications) was a pathetic discorganised Government body, with little to no substance. That being said, they were doing a good job with their small budget, but since it was established first it already had the towers and and advanced facilities and equipment ahead of Telecom. So when Samoa decided GSM was to be adopted, SamoaTel had the towers but Telecom Samoa had the rights to implement the technology on Mobile Phones. The catch was, Telecom did not have the towers or facilities to introduce GSM and SamoaTel was not willing to share its resources, so thus the gridlock. SamoaTel of course were legally prohibited from introducing GSM on Mobile Phones as the Government signed the contract with Telecom. So here we had everything to enable Samoa to use GSM (in 2002) but a piece of paper was stopping the process for four years all because some ass-fuck signed an agreement without thinking forward. So how was the Government going to get out of this one. Easy really, they create their own mobile phone provider in the form of DigiCell to take up the other half of the market. Now you might ask, but DigiCell is owned by an Irish man, indeed it is, but 50% of the local shares are owned by CSL and CSL as you may know is owned by the Government. So now DigiCell can share the use SamoaTel towers, and Telecom builds from scratch. So where is the piece of paper? I dont know, but its obvious some ammendments were made during the arguing process and the Government came out on top. So why the infatuation with communication, simple really, Samoa rates one of the highest as fastest growing mobile phone users in the world since the introduction of this technology to the country, so a lot of much money is to be sucked dry from the people thhrough a piece of metal with wiring inside and the Government is making sure they suck it not anyone else. So if this is happening, what else is happening in this beautiful Paradise of ours? Its true indeed eh' "Absolute power corrupts absofuckinglutely!"

Some truths we choose to ignore

I was born on the island of Savaii in the village of Safua and Lalomalava, I went to school in the village of Fusi, my mother takes me shopping in the village of Salelologa, and every week I associated with people from the rest of Faasaleleaga and some from other districts in Savaii. These stories I will relate below are events which I witnessed first hand or were told to me by my friends or family, others are events or situations that everyone knew about but it was the general concensus was that it was none of our business and we were not to interfere, the rest of us did not know any better. These are events which occured while I was growing up, they happened to people I knew, to people I did not know and to those I did not wish to know. These are some general statements, or straight facts on some of these incidents.

A fellow students ear was half torn by a teacher who tossed at it as a form of punishment.

The wife of an influential matai in the district was having an affair with the captain of his village rugby team. Everyone knew this, the rugby boys, the womens committee, the family of the wife, the family of the husband, the only person who did not know was the husband.

Four female relatives who have related their 'first break' to me were cases of rape. They did not know any better and to this day they still think that being forced to have sex is the proper way of losing ones virginity.

Case 1: She was taken by a man to his house, much older than herself, she was a student, and he chased her around a room until she had no energy, he then had his way with her.

Case 2: She was drunk and her boyfriend took her home, she refused the advances but he was stronger and she ended up crying after as she was bleeding and in much pain.

Case 3: The girl was 14 the guy was a family friend, he took her into a room and raped her, she thought it was his right.

Two lesbians from one village were brought forward to the village council for daring to express their sexual orientation, both committed suicide the next day. The general consensus was that was best for them.

The fallacy in transparancy

So the Government of Australia invested thousands of Aussie money so that their concepts Good Governancce, Accountability and Transparency are fully exercised and utilized in our beloved nation of Samoa. This was to be the answer to our dreams, the Journalist. Why? Because finally we are able to gain access to public documents (notice, they are public documents but really they arent). Finally we can investigate a story into Government and actually get the answers at the end of the day, you know the right answer, from the right document at the right place, but low and behold this was not so, of course our PM nodded his head, signed the right documents and said yes to all the right questions when aussie waved the aid sign, but that of ciourse was just for the money, money money and nothing towards the concept which they are trying to introduce. Poor ignorant Aussies thinking they have the stupid little island under its wing, yes of course they have a hidden agenda, but they dont know that Samoans are the greatest at feigned ignorance when it comes to complying with certain parts of agreements.
So Australia is building us millions of dollars worth of infrustructure, well God know how much thats going to cost us in the future, more Aussie officers for some missions in Samoa.. hehe..

Clueless Journalists

At the JAWS (Journalists Association of W Samoa) meeting yesterday, the last item on the agenda was a discussion of the Da Vinci Code. This was to be the highlight of the otherwise boring meeting, when the President announced that the floor was open to the discussion of the Da Vinci Code, the first expression was: “I move a motion to close this meeting, I am tired of listening to that topic.” Then others agreed and the meeting was closed without a discussion of this topic, never mind that we emphasized on our need to have a stance on the issue, as this is a breach of our right to information, freedom of expression. Ah, well, everytime we have these meetings I always have to take a step back and sing in my head so that I don’t get too frustrated from the lack of response and understanding of certain issues. Back in Journalism school we were told that the three main reasons we join the profession is to 1.be known, 2. influence 3. passion for writing. I can honestly say that only a few or in for the passion, and this begets arrogance. For instance at a Press Conference yesterday, one Journo bullied the organizer of the Press Conference with remarks such as : “You should start now, You should tell us what this is all about, we don’t know what this is about.” Instead of shouting this out maybe she should have done her research. The Journo was loud and pushy much to my disappointment as the PC organizer was very helpful and it was organized well. I do hope I never come across as that in our Conferences.
Peter Lomas, the training and development person for Samoa Observer ended his contract a couple of days ago. I didn’t read the announcement of this but I did notice the change in front page layout right the next day and wondered why. I only found out two days later that PL was gone. Personally I think this is a loss for the Samoan Media, PL was a wealth of information when it came to anything to do with the regional or even global media scene. He had a great network, was fluent in media laws and regulations and knew the ropes when something had to be done. He was very supportive of World Press Freedom Day, a professional to a T and with my dealings with him, a pleasant fella to know, many have attested to this. However many did not like him in the local media, Journos, Editors and others in the field did not appreciate his routine, his way of doing things. Others like myself prejudged him at first, some chose to remain this way but as for me after some background research, positive testimonies from local and foreign colleagues and finally personally dialoguing and working with him I came to appreciate what he has contributed to the regional media and his wealth of knowledge, he was a tremendous help and he is a great loss to us.

No im not naked

I realised after creating Savaii Times the website and declaring it as a somewhat news site, I couldnt write any of my opinions in it as I would be subject to the Code of Ethics and guidelines of the Media in Samoa, so I created this, so I could expose the stench of truth in various things, in here I could talk freely without fearing a defamation suit slapped on my face or a ban from my profession, in here I am naked my thoughts (cheesy yeah, but hey, my site!), so I'll talk, banter on, get pissed off and just generally be me! So here we go!