Plagued by roads problems

By Sarafina Sanerivi 22 January 2017, 12:00AM

Everyone loves a nice and smooth road. 

Yet for many people residing in the village of Faleasi’u-Uta, that’s something they can only dream of.

Their struggles and hardship come in the form of a dirt road. 

When it rains, it’s bad. In the middle of the day, the dust from the road is unbearable. 

And Sia Fa’ala’a and her family along with other families residing in this area have been living with this problem for a while now.

Aged 62, Sia explains that they are tired of living with this problem. 

“Everything has been going smooth since the beginning of this year for us,” said Sia.

“But I wish our roads were just as smooth as how things are for us.” 

“The truth is, we have been living here for more than ten years now. And I can tell you that we’ve been living with this problem for a long time.” 

“I know the people who have been living here have been facing this problem for far too long as well.”

“It’s such a bad thing for us because it’s difficult when it rains as it reveals all the potholes and its worse when the sun shines, our lungs exposed to prolonged dust from the road.”

Sia went on to say that something should be done to fix the roads because it is also affecting the health of families living in this area.

“As you can see, more and more people are moving to live in this part of the village. And most of them are old people also children as well.”

“The health of the people living here are at risk because of the poor condition of the roads.”

“I believe that if we continue with the conditions of roads we have now, our children will be the ones to suffer.”

With school starting soon as well, Sia said that the roads does nothing but discourage children to go to school.

“Most of our children walk to school every day. And if this is the condition of roads we have, it will be hard for them to go to school.

“It will just discourage them to go to school. That is why I really think we should do something about these roads.

“The truth is, most of the taxi drivers are avoiding coming to drop off people back here because of the conditions of the road.

“Most of them just drop their passengers at the main road and then the people will walk all the way back to their houses.

“And it’s difficult when it rains.”

Said Sia, they made a lot of request to fix their roads and Road maintenance have been trying to fill in the potholes as well.

“But the thing is, they only come and fill in the holes and once the rain falls, it will wash away whatever they used to fill in the holes.

“It’s such a waste of time.”

By Sarafina Sanerivi 22 January 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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