Re: Numbers don’t lie 

I’m not sure why you’d expect remittances from China. 

Are there many Samoans living in China? Are the Sino-Samoans who have relatives in China able to send money or isn’t it more likely that the former send money to the latter?

As papalagi, we have no family in Samoa but continually send money to a family in Aleipata who need assistance.

Your point about English proficiency is a no-brainer. 

Yet Samoa continues to enforce religious indoctrination rather than literacy and numeracy, sentencing their young ones to a life deprived of opportunity and knowledge.

The most shameful aspect of it all is that most of the remittances funds end up in over decorated, plush churches while the schools are in a ruinous condition. 

Yet you ask people and they still believe their Invisible Friend will come again to save them. That’s enough to make one despair.

Bronnie