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With a Salute Afele was off.
Our capital city has one less homeless, mentally ill person in it.
For more than 12 years Afele Leute Leota lived by himself mostly under the stair case of a building at Tamaligi.
Yesterday he flew to New Zealand, where as it turned out, he is a citizen.
 There he will receive the care our own country couldn’t give him.
“The Government is not doing anything for these mentally affected people,” said Pastor Fa’afetai Mata’i.
Many know Afele as a thin man with long unkempt hair and a white beard near the John Williams Building.
About two months ago Fa’afetai, a pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist church, took Afele to his home.
It was to await the processing of another New Zealand passport and other documents.
It was under the instructions of the pastor’s uncle, Nonumalo Taufao Lurch, who lives in Mangere, Auckland.
In 1998 Afele’s family in Samoa asked Nonumalo to bring him home.
Afele by then was known to have a mental condition.
Nonumalo did this.
Afele lived with family at Vailoa, Faleata, but some unhappy circumstance drove him out.
By 1999 he was living in the streets.
Pastor Fa’afetai said Afele never wanted to go home in all the time he lived with them.
Nonumalo came to Samoa three times since 1998.
On his third visit, last Christmas, he decided to take Afele back to New Zealand.
Nonumalo paid the necessary expenses, including the airfare.
Initially Afele was reluctant to leave his home under the stairs.
He told Pastor Fa’afetai there would be no one to supervise the ships in the harbour.
Apia Harbour sits directly opposite Afele’s st
airway.
“There are times when he fantasises,” the pastor said.
“He’s a bit off (mentally).”
Otherwise Afele is mild mannered, soft spoken, alert and prone to funny and throw away remarks.
When he lived with Pastor Fa’afetai and wife Julia, there was a bit of awkwardness at the start.
Their guest smokes, something the church forbids.
A spot was allocated to him outside the house to smoke.
“I asked the congregation to accept him for what he is,” said the pastor.
Outside the terminal yesterday, Afele smoked a last cigarette before boarding his flight.
It was where Samoa Observer interviewed him.
Did he know where he was going?
“I don’t know,” said Afele.
After some thought, he said, “New Zealand.”
Did he know for long?
“I don’t know.”
Who was going with him?
“They said a woman called Filau’ia.”
This was correct.
Filaui’a Toailoa-Amituana’i, a member of the same church as Nonumalo, in New Zealand was his travelling companion.
“When I return I’ll return to Apia.”
How’s your health?
“Not bad.”
How old are you?
“Sixty-three.”
Pastor Fa’afetai confirmed this to be true.
He said Afele’s family told them all of his personal documents were lost.
They got a copy of his birth certificate and found out Afele was born on 6 July.
When he left for New Zealand and how long he stayed there is unknown.
He remembers clearly he had a wife named Shirley Hodgkin and they lived in Tokoroa, said Pastor Fa’afetai.
“We’re going to miss him very much,” he said.
Afele was respectful and humourous, he said, and kept their church compound clean of fallen leaves.
They know his favourite meal is hot buttered bread and tea, no doubt a remnant of his homeless days when near his stairway was a bakery.
He inspired affectionate laughter amongst those bidding him farewell yesterday.
A woman kissed the back of his hand in farewell.
Afele took her open palm and placed it on his cheek.
In New Zealand he receives more than $NZ300 a week in state aid, said Pastor Fa’afetai.
There are so many homeless and helpless in town.
To the pastor you can’t save the whole world.
But one person at a time will do. Back
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