Not all changes are bad.

Times have changed and some of the changes they have brought are good for Samoa.

So says Vaiao To’o, 69, from Matatufu. According to Mr. To’o, things are easier now than it was back then.

“It’s true, I mean those days for me, it was hard,” he said to Village Voice.

“If I had to go to somebody because I needed help with money, I had to collect, maybe 60 coconuts to get just $1-00.”

Mr.To’o went on to say that things may be hard back then, but from his view now, the cost of living was actually cheaper compared to now. 

“If I look at how things were back then, it was cheap. 

“For example, the corned beef (12 oz) was sold at $0.30 sene. The (4 lb) corned beef was sold at $0.40 sene, even the Steinlarger was sold at $0.40 back in our days.

“That was before the Vailima beer and the Ropati beer came to exist.”

Mr. To’o said that the cost of living could be expensive now but then it could also be not.

“It’s true the cost of living is really expensive but to me, how expensive it is depends on the person themselves.

“If you don’t work, if you don’t like to live life where you work, then you’re the one making it hard for yourself to afford certain things from the shops.

“A hardworking person, who always works at the plantation, will always feel that everything is easy.”

Moreover, Mr. To’o added that another change is how there’s an increase in the number of children especially the youth of today.

“Nowadays, the workload seems easy because there are so many young people in the family but back then there was only a few. In fact, I’m the only one left from my generation because my brother has passed on. 

“If you look around, there are so many children in our family.

“In my time, we only had a few kids and that can’t even make up the required number for a rugby team and now, look at the many rugby teams that we have.

“These may seem like not a big deal to a lot of people, but to me Samoa has changed and I’m glad that it has.”