Planter tells about hard work and having a heart for family

By Ilia L Likou 21 October 2017, 12:00AM

People often say when you’re down to nothing; God is always up to something. 

But you have to keep working hard because God helps those who help themselves.

That is the opinion of Junior Tyrell of Faleula, who says faith goes together with work.

Junior works the land to take care of his family but he never stops dreaming of a bigger and brighter future. 

“When I finished school the past two years, I was looking for a job and that’s when I decided to work on the other side of our land here in our village,” he told the Village Voice team.

Junior said he’s the youngest of his siblings and they all work to provide for their families.

“But making good use of my time to help my family everyday is what I was looking at, I just don’t want to rely on others for a living and that’s why I’ve ended up as a young farmer.

“Personally, this is part of my life and feeding my family from my plantation brings happiness to me and I love it.

“As I’ve mentioned earlier, I don’t want to just sit around and dream about my future without something on my hands to make my dreams come true.

“I mean it’s really hard, so being a farmer is challenging but interesting in some ways.

“I can rest whenever I want, I’m my own boss and to be honest my family never goes hungry,” Junior said. Moreover, he said life was good in Samoa.

Aside from being a farmer at a very young age, Junior relies on God to lead and guide him.

“I always come to the plantation every day, either for my family’s food or to get coconuts to feed pigs.

“I work at my plantation and honestly I don’t want my family to depend on others for our food on a daily basis.

“We all know that plantations are Samoa’s thing but the only problem is that we don’t really get any help from the government for many of the farmers here in Samoa.

“The cost of living keeps on getting higher and higher and before we know it, there will be more things that we cannot afford anymore.

“The thing is we have food everywhere, there is a lot of unused taro rotting all over Samoa but money is always the problem.

“So, all we have to do is find ways to help our family and children survive from day to day,” Junior said. 

By Ilia L Likou 21 October 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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