It feels very special being in Samoa. On the one hand, it’s so isolated and surrounded by the vastness of the Pacific Ocean; on the other hand, many of the global invisible lines meet here. It’s remote, but it’s all about globalization here: the planes departing Samoa are full of groups of enthusiastic workers flying to Aotearoa and beyond to work in construction and agriculture. At the same time, in Samoa, many stores are run by Chinese that sell typical plastic crap that eventually land on the beaches and in the water. The new hospital is being built not only by Chinese construction companies, they brought their own workers too. In the evening, foreign television is blaring loudly in Chinese from the metal freight containers that serve as workers‘ accommodation. Also, the architecture of the new Arts & Cultural Centre has an odd Chinese touch to it. Then I spotted the tiny Chinese temple in the courtyard and a huge bronze plaque stating the support of „Chinese AID – for a shared future „. But as always, everything comes at a cost. No Samoan companies were involved. Fishing rights are in high demand, and some governments have more money than others. So, one colonizer succeeds the other. Some colonizers are history now: you can see their (British) traces in the Robert L. Stevenson Museum, in the old colonial mansions up on the lush hills above the capital Apia, or in the German names you can find on the tombstones on some of the older graveyards. The first generation of German colonizers had all their engravings in German only, the second generation in German and English, and the generations beyond that didn’t have German names only and didn’t use any German anymore. However, it was incredibly fascinating to visit the archive in the National Museum in Apia and flip through the original editions of the „Samoaner Zeitung „(Samoan Daily Newspaper) from 1901 – 1914 and read about Kaiser Wilhelm communicating with Woodrow Wilson via telegram or about German businesses hiring laborers from China. Outside archives and graveyards, there are still traces of German culture: some words refer back to German (the currency ‚tala‘, comes from the German word ‚Taler‘), and some bakery goods are very similar to German bread rolls. Now, Samoa is part of the British Commonwealth. This fact became very obvious when we noticed every village and town decorating their roads with flags of the other Commonwealth members. With this excessive decoration, the island prepares for King Charles’s visit next month (October 2024) for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Of course, he will spend most of his time in this village where we talk to locals.
Samoa. This nation of two main islands is just west of the international date line, about 3.5 hours by plane northeast of Auckland. To the east, in only (65 km) distance or a whole day away, is American Samoa. A US-American outpost, light years away from the US. But also this brings foreigners to Samoa: people who work for USAID (at least, when I was there in September 2024), Australians who run mining operations, and New Zealanders who go back and forth to ensure that the process of hiring Samoan work crews runs smoothly. Other Australians, a group of policemen, who visit their Samoan colleagues in Apia to learn more about the Samoan culture. They hope to be better equipped to deal with Samoan crime verdicts in Queensland. There are also Europeans who run hotels and guesthouses as they think they know what their folks expect. Many Samoans I met work in precarious jobs in either New Zealand or Australia; some of them proudly shared they have even been to Hamburg in Germany as they work as chefs or kitchen hands on big cruise ships that constantly float around the globe and bring wealthy Europeans and North Americans to the South Pacific to taste the dream of endless exotic summers, with their next stop in French Polynesia which fancy dinners all-inclusive on board.
Meeting people in Samoa feels like a constant flow of people: Samoan men leave to make money, and foreigners come to make money. There are tourists, too, of course: so I spent 10 days in Samoa, together with colleagues/friends from Auckland. The tourist infrastructure is good; however, we, as tourists, were very easy to please. Hiring a car good enough to shuttle us around on the islands‘ very few and mostly circular roads with a speed limit never exceeding 50 km/h was a great idea. We ignored the few fancy resorts and stayed in so-called „fales“. These are typically wooden, airy constructions at the beach, with a mosquito net, a mattress, and a rain cover to unroll if it starts to rain. The expected tropical fruit is seasonal in paradise, but there is always pineapple imported from Fiji.
Hiking would be my travel priority, but Samoa is not the place for this. It’s too hot and humid, and there are no hiking trails to enjoy other than walking from one village to the other as kids do to get to school. The villages are colorful, and exotic flowers are growing everywhere. Sometimes, we hear kids‘ voices through the glassless windows of schools. Also, everywhere you can see churches. Yet another symbol of colonization. From time to time, young Americans with, despite the heat, black pants, white shirts and a name tag, people on a mission. Every settlement has at least one church: it is always the most significant, most pompous building in town. Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, even Mormon Temples, choose your belief, but as long as you believe.
The main attraction for tourists is this massive body of water that presents itself in all shades of blue, green, and silver you can imagine. It’s always crystal clear, smooth as silk in the morning, of a glittering silver with sharp contrasts later in the day, and turquoise, warm and relaxing in the late afternoon. Where the reef touches the deep, the water is dark and bottomless, full of creatures. I spend hours bobbing in the shallow, warm water, watching the tiny, colorful fish using the currents. When it gets too dull, we take a boat to a small island to explore yet another beach. Plenty of sea turtles on the way. So much fun to see them floating peacefully through the water.
But the beauty is deceptive: like most other South Pacific islands, Samoa is threatened by rising sea levels and the more regular occurrence of severe storms. Almost all settlements are on the coast, and municipalities work hard to build concrete dams and blockades to keep out the water. More and more cyclones, also out of season, threaten the islands. Of course, the rising water levels are an issue, as flooding becomes more regular and, with this, the salinization of the ground waters, but cyclones and tropical storms are brewing much more often and damage infrastructure and agriculture and cut off the islands from the rest of the world.
Overall, it was yet another extremely educating and fascinating trip to the South Pacific.
