Going too far

They were persistent 

nay downright insistent 

that we come up with something 

resistant to all known disease.

I was merely an assistant 

Now alone at this instant 

As all else is non existent 

We must have gone too far. 

Now should I get out of this suit 

As I need to pee?

Bad Luck

March blowing

Farmers harrowing

Rare luck

Grubs fossicking

Saw mills closing

Schoolkids crying

Marrows failing

Oaths sworn

Borrowed money

Transparent Lies

Thin soup

Either way

Wartime

I shuddered at such putrid prompt words for Three Word Wednesday to write in my blog when I crave for ones of love and kindness and hope. However let’s see what happens:

 

It was a rainy day, a muddy cold day and he was in a strange place, a foreign land, and his one wish, his craving was that he would get back safely to his family at home. It was wartime and the fighting had continued for long years and now his truck had broken down and he was on his own. They might find him if he stayed by the truck, but it might be the wrong they! As he pondered, exposed and scared he thought that sitting in a target was not a good idea. So he wandered over to a ruined building a short walk away to seek shelter.

He could keep an eye on the road from there and maybe get a little rest. There amid the tangle of debris and the creepers that made the most of the opportunity he pushed his way inside. He heard the faint sound of breathing and saw to his amazement two children squeezed up in the corner watching him. They shuddered with fear so he stood stock still, took out his water bottle and a reached out his arm offering it to them. They said not a word they were so frightened. So he loosened the cap and put it within their reach and stepped away a little and sat down on what was left of the floor. He leaned back and half closed his eyes in an attempt to relax.

After a few seconds the elder child leaned forward and stealthily reached out for the bottle, shook it and offered it to her young companion. In turn they gulped down the water and pushed the container back toward him. Their faces wore no smiles but their eyes said it all as they were the real victims of war; not the trained soldiers from both sides fighting on foreign soil but those children who would now be scarred for life.

He observed the building again and felt the first drops of rain fall in their shelter without shelter. So he got up and started to look for some protection. The children grew frightened and shook their heads as he lifted some of the debris away. His senses were knocked back by a stench so putrid that he had to cover his face and his eyes smarted. Clearly he had found the bodies of the children’s parents.

The elder child a girl looked at him fiercely and the younger one just cried. He tried to get them to go with him to another hideout away from the horror. They would not do this as this was their home and he was the enemy.

 

Today April 25^th is Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand. It is a public holiday and is the most revered day in Australia’s calendar.  We remember the fallen from all sides in war.

Waking up in Samoa

I had hardly been asleep a few minutes or so I thought when I felt a nudge on my back. My wife whispered “Wake Up! There’s someone at the door”.

My eyes opened reluctantly, I glanced at my watch. It was 9 o’clock in the morning and we were in a hotel room. The gentle tap came again and so I wrapped myself up and went to the door and opened it. There smiling happily at me was a young Samoan girl all ready to clean the room. I apologised and explained we had only arrived a few hours ago at 5am in the morning after a night flight from Sydney. “Could you come back a little later?”

She nodded reluctantly as the girls clearly worked to a routine. We were visiting Western Samoa in the Pacific and having done some research had chosen to stay at “Aggie Grey’s Hotel” on the waterfront.

In the heady days of colonisation of little nations by the world’s powers the Samoan Island’s were disputed by Britain, Germany and the USA keeping their gun ships handy to stake their claim. In this case it was decided that Germany was to be lucky superpower and the two main islands Savaii and Upolu became their colony in 1899, while the United States took over the smaller islands and much of the Pacific Ocean waters in the vicinity. Robert Louis Stevenson the author of several adventure books lived there with his extended family until his death in 1889. Western Samoa finally gained it’s independence in 1962 after having New Zealand as its colonial master following WW1.

So now we were in this warm paradise of “South Pacific” fame staying in the timber framed hotel owned by the aging Aggie Grey who had made her money trading with the occupying allied forces during WW2. She now employed the young men and women from her home village in the hotel and who were also the fia fia dancers at the evening’s entertainment. We loved the place. At the swimming pool my wife found herself swimming with the film star Robert Morley. The walkways had bunches of bananas hanging down for the staff to eat as they worked (and also tempting the guests) and there was all invading tropical perfume of exotic flowers and coconut oil. Needless to say I was entranced by the shy smile of the girls plaiting flowers to decorate the bedrooms as they sat in the walkways speaking to each other with a sound like the gentle murmuring of the ocean.

We explored the capital Apia with it German colonial timbered building and sat quietly in the numerous churches but kept clear of the children who with machetes busily cut the lawns with skilful swipes.

It was humid and the first few days the walks were short with frequent rests and long drinks and a cool off in the pool. We explored the island on day trips and discovered waterfalls and swimming holes and exotic beaches and so many churches that were told were built with building material meant to mend the roads, which clearly never were.

Mind you it could have been the pigs that dug up the road. They wandered about freely and wherever they wanted eating whatever they could find.

The bus transport was mainly converted trucks with seats and no windows. It was too humid for that. These plied their way to villages collected the locals to take them to the market and to return later in the afternoon with all their purchases in huge baskets or even building materials tied to the roof or in the aisles so access was an adventure.

On one trip we boarded the crowded tourist bus last and I had to sit next to the driver with the pretty young guide wedged in beside me. She chatted about everything under the sun and told me her surname was Schmidt which clearly came from the German colonial era. As the bus rattled along her bare leg and mine frequently touched and at one time she looked at me and said you are browner that I am, proudly placing her arm against mine to prove it.

Later we took a trip to the larger but lesser populated island of Savaii and walked over the lava fields from an old volcano eruption and shown the “Virgin’s Grave” where a young girl died in a lava flow. Later we nodded thanks at a refreshment stop when the owner proudly showed us her husband's grave in the garden outside the back door as we made to leave.

On the short flight back to Apia’s airport only we were weighed not the luggage before we boarded the light plane as there are some very big people in Samoa! The flight was delayed a little as a mother and her young child boarded late to be taken to the hospital on the main island. As she nursed her child I held the bottle of saline drip attached to his arm while my wife sat next to the pilot up front.

Another night at the hotel the staff also performed in the Fia Fia nights entertaining guests with their seductive dancing and singing and the girl that had served me in the hotel shop earlier now danced enticingly before me. The lights were turned down and the men juggled with their flaming brands.

When we returned I said I really wanted to go again but my better half shook her head and said “Wake up, the first time is magical but it would never be the same again.” Yet even she had been entranced with one of the male dancers!

It is nearly thirty years since we went there and I still remember the eyes the girl that danced before me and who looked only at me.

The Struggle

I feel so spent now

Will this struggle never end

For a promised land?

 

How great is the shock

Where can we shelter ourselves

Against fiendish plans?

 

Let’s harden ourselves

Our resilience is great

We’ll survive and thrive

 

We’re not infidels

But let our love conquer them

Not bombs and hatred

Alone again

A spring in my step

With a broad smile on my face

I went to meet her

 

The depth of her smile

Like the warm sun on my face

Would put me at ease

 

At our coffee shop

She was so late as usual

But I was relaxed

 

Always trusting her

I made a sugar pack heart

And waited for her

 

I looked at her eyes

And knew it was the last time

Could I endure it?

 

Now I was on the

The sad road to destruction

And alone again

Tangaroa, Horowai and their first child (No. 93)

Ahu and Ahuahu’s eldest son Tangaroa had married Hatiti’s first child Horowai. She was the daughter of Hatiti’s first husband Kaihautu but he had died in an accident at the Hot Springs when Horowai was but a year old. Hatiti then widowed was allowed by Ahu to stay with her to help feed Hekehoru and then to become Ahuahu’s second wife. Ahu thought that she was ill and there would be no one to look after her children if she died. She knew Hatiti had always loved Ahuahu after he had saved her life after the tidal wave when she had been swept out to sea and was thought to be drowned. She had been rescued by Ahuahu; he had found her washed up in the trees some way from the village a day or two later. Hatiti had loved him from that day on.

Horowai and Tangaroa now lived at the Hot Springs in a whare provided by Kaihutu’s father who was overjoyed that his granddaughter should live close to them. His name was Ikaroa which meant the band of stars in the sky we call the Milky Way. He liked Tangaroa. Even though the young man had been brought up as a fisherman, he said he wanted Tangaroa to become the hereditary leader of their community after him to look after the Hot Springs and conduct the rituals and welcoming ceremonies there.

Tangaroa and Horowai had been brought up together and he had always been the one to look after her and protect her and she followed him everywhere and always thought they would eventually be married. Their first baby came quickly and it was not long before Horowai went down the women’s birthing site to deliver her child. Ikaroa was especially pleased when their first child, his great grandson was born. Ikaroa had become quite old and frail and could hardly walk or speak any more. The new born baby was placed carefully in his arms and Tangaroa said to him “Ikaroa, Horowai and I have come to ask if you approve that we call this child Kaihautu after Horowai’s father.

Ikaroa nodded, “But should he not be called Ahuahu after your father Tangaroa?”

Tangaroa shook his head, “Ahuahu has three sons and two daughters; there will be many boys for his name to be passed on to in the future. You had but one son, Kaihautu and he had but one child Horowai. Where will Horowai’s history go if we do not remember it now?” 

The old man looked down and shed a tear. “There must be a wind blowing the dust, I have something in my eyes. Do what you will Tangaroa. But yes, it does please me very much. Next time Horowai” he said glancing up at her and wiping his eyes, “Bring me a girl child for your grandmother.”

Tangaroa tried not to smile at the old man’s tears. He returned the baby to Horowai, grinned at her and in doing so rubbed noses too. She placed the baby at her breast and it immediately began to suck at her greedily. Everybody laughed when the old man said “Perhaps his name should have been Takapu, the gannet, for he really dives in for his food”.

 

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