A walk through the village

By Lumepa Hald 08 June 2017, 12:00AM

You know you have met your soul mate when you are a poet at heart and he is not that but a comedian. Where you love to hear about the sway of birds in the sky and the hail of butterflies, he ends a conversation with you with originally designed poetry like, 

“ Wifty  wifty, bye bye, love love, der der.” 

My soul mate, is a sudden upset to the seriousness of my soft eloquence. It is an outside of the body experience having a soul mate because, I am often thrown from my chest as I laugh out loud, for the very man/soul mate, I chose to love me back is wild and free thinking. Thank you, Venus, for taking your time to heal and prepare me. Mr Soul mate was not ready earlier, I know.

So here I am writing from the beach of Lalomanu, and smiling. Oh Lalomanu, in the mood of my writing pen today, is with sandy soft white pavements, lining one long narrow road on each side. 

Early in the morning, I join a walk of villagers waking up to mundane things, chickens included. I notice the flowers blooming in their bright orange and yellow as if the sun spent a lot of time kissing them. I notice the white clouds, hanging like wedding bells over the hills, as if the sky never rained and quickly flooded us before.

I can taste the sound of birds chirping from the high up trees. All of this beauty and the sound of my red squeaky sandals because they are Chinese made and cheap. 

The children in their red and also yellow tunic uniform, walk down the same road alongside me. They smile curiously at me, my red tapa printed dress just above the knees, my squeaky red cheap Chinese made sandals and my island proud to be female figure.

The little girl with the biggest smile says that I will be run over by the cars first. Then she drops a bomb on me. She says with her back towards me, as if to hide a smirk, that I am fat. 

If I was not laughing I was crying openly. The children are so honest in the village, it pains to hear their beautiful wretched minds sometimes. But saved by the school bell, we arrive at the school together. I hear them telling each other that they have one tala each for lunch, never mind the bubble gum they shared for breakfast.

Their box like school building is a block of cement, wooded with long unpainted timber. The big green mowed lawn before it, used for district rugby games on Saturdays is silenced now except for the high pitched voices of the children.

The children are teasing each other as they pull one’s shirt and slap another one’s back to force themselves, to brave yet another day in the public prison. I meant school. Or did I mean prison? But I digress. I wave good bye to the children and the little girl with the biggest smile remembers my name, unfortunately. 

As I pass the village church, I think about the whiteness of its large posts, and the air-conditioners, all ten of them, that is never used. I think of the pastor(s) and the way they carry on with the Biblical mysteries, as if we have never learned to read. I think of what holds up the church besides money. 

Further along, I find I am losing myself again in the quietness of the village until five pigs, of different sizes, walking a straight line in slow and melancholic like motion, with one pig’s nose to the other pig’s behind.

The sudden change of view, not only stuns me, but now, the whole half lived carcass tickles me. The elegant parade of the four legged edible mammals, tells me that the world I am surrounded by, is simple and is not as chaotic as the muck inside my head. 

My thoughts, taking a breath of their own life with present views and past experiences leads to the scrawny backs of children anywhere on the island, quietly sitting by their mothers who are frying cocoa beans and making coconut rice for dinner. I think about children a lot, because I have always loved them. I do not always know why I am a true fan of children, just as I do not really know why I wish I had a giraffe for a pet. But I love children and giraffes should be kept as pets to us short people who need the feeling of being elevated from time to time. Giraffes are tall long legged squishy lipped vegetarians too. Back to my village walk; 

As I walk, I feel the laziness of mundane life hanging over the village.  The pig’s parade, at the sound of my feet closing by, crosses the road to ambush a shrub of weeds. I imagine there are plenty lost coconuts feeling useless because the missing hands of the youth whose job it is to feed the animals, are handling other businesses. 

The business of loafing the roads aimlessly in the evenings, and the business of not cooking for their parents, and oh in case I forget, there is also the thriving business of drinking heaps and fighting for nothing.

Blood is shed wastefully, sometimes running easy from the noses of the youth because, well, there is also the business of nothing better to do. The youth are plentiful in paradise did you know? 

My walk through the village ends when I arrive on the beach that hurt and heals me. The cure of the pain is in the pain, says a poet. 

But of all the poetry in the world that soothes me, I long for a certain child’s voice saying something simple like, “ Mummy.” 

But, I understand the world is still moving on and sometimes I wonder, why do I have to come with it? For now, in my village walk mood, I want to take my time, slow motioning the moments of defeat rising to conquer the mountains again. I want to feel what is yet to be felt, for after this, I believe, there is really nothing else but heaven. 

This is my village walk. This is my peace from the busy world within me. 

What does a soul mate have to do with this rag? Well, everything really because a soul mate inspires one to see the magnificence in mundane things. I hope for our country that it too has a soul mate so that when times are hard, we can all see the pretty side of life no matter what.

By Lumepa Hald 08 June 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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