Samoa gears up to rebuild

The tsunami clean-up is well underway and very visible in the in the worst hit villages in the 10 kilometre strip between Lepa and Lalomanu.

Each day there is a procession of large diggers, graders, power line restoration crews, trucks removing rubbish, trucks carrying reusable timber and tin to new settlement sites.

The sniffer dogs, several TV crews are now gone.

However in the areas in the South west including Tafitoala, Siumu, Poutasi, Sapunaoa, Vavu and in other villages the clean-up appears to be more manual and many ruined buildings remain untouched.

In the tourist area such as Coconut Beach, the resort reconstruction is beginning already, I assume the speed of commercial rebuilding is possible due to insurance monies or further shareholder advances in anticipation of insurance settlements.

Tourist resort restoration needs to be quick as the flow of tourists may have slowed but has not stopped.

The luxury liner season is beginning, one luxury liner several stories high and carrying thousands of passengers berthed in Apia just three days ago, and even a devastated south east coast is a major day trip attraction.

Apart from the "professional crews", families also pitch in by harvesting usable material such as window frames, restoring what scant furniture is left, deconstructing roof trusses, and denailing wood and so on.

We even saw a seven or eight year old boy cheerfully dragging a window frame that appeared twice his size to stack beside the families' stack of re-usable material.

The majority of families have not yet returned some still with relatives in neighboring villages.

Up to 90% of those who have returned choose not to re-establish themselves at the beach village sites, and have moved further inland or in the high country/cliff areas above the beach.

Those who have decided to resettle in the beachfront sites have defiantly pitched their tarpaulins held together on simple wooden supports often pitched on the original concrete pad.

Several even fly a Samoan, or American flag or even homemade flags, as if making a statement that they refuse to let the tsunami continue to cause damage through fear that it will strike again.

Some villagers rationalise if there is another tsunami maybe it will be in a hundred or two hundred years, and it won't strike in the same place.

There may be some truth to the theory, for example the Vanuatu earthquake in recent days generated another tsunami warning for several pacific nations, and if it was to hit Samoa would have hit the northern side where the capital Apia lies.

We drove into the bush area above Lepa and Saleapaga where 50 to 60 families had established a new community (at that stage these were all tarpaulin shelters, one on the ground and one for the roof).

There is no supply of water or electricity; aid agencies had distributed water, food, tarpaulins.

As we did not have a four wheel drive we decided to turn back.

We still needed to record one of the families' stories as part of our research, and randomly selected the family who was nearest to the point where we had turned to go back to the main road.

We came across Ruta living in rough conditions, at the edge of the settlement where the metal road turns into a muddy track, with her two lively children Masi a delightful young girl and Alesana her son.

When we arrived Ruta was preparing a simple meal of rice and tinned fish, the two children were happily playing together, the husband was away at the time working further along the road at the families' small taro plantation.

We asked Ruta's permission to record her story, to which she agreed.

Coincidentally it turns out Ruta, was previously interviewed and made famous in one of the big breaking and heart tearing stories of the tsunami, you see Ruta lost four young children to the tsunami.

Tears fell freely and streamed down her face as she said she thanked God for the little time she had spent with the (deceased) children and she lifted up her hands to Jesus in love and thanked him for sparing her life and those of her two remaining children.

I can't imagine the pain Ruta is suffering, but life goes on she understands that, Ruta cares deeply for her children, her husband continues to work to support his family as best he can.

Sure there is a bounty of food and water in the short term, but Ruta and her husband aren't sitting around relying on handouts.

So it does annoy me to read headlines like "Paradise Lost" or hear talk that Samoans are feeling sorry for themselves, or are lazy or they are sitting around waiting for handouts.

If we could be half as humble and have half the faith Ruta has this would be a much better place.

However in my personal opinion we are in danger of inadvertently creating a "welfare" mentality in Samoa.

Aid agencies with the best of intentions and flush with donated money, operate giveaway programs, and sometimes that is necessary when the villagers livelihood is taken away from them.

Tourism is a big employer, and local people employed here, now have no incomes and therefore no way to buy food or water.

Farmers are subsistent farmers i.e. they grow food for their table and may sell some produce to tourist hotels, so as to supplement diets by buying milk and meat, not a rich living but still a living.

The first wave of aid must necessarily be on a giveaway basis.

But as the old Chinese proverb goes "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

Despite the best of intentions Aid giveaway programs may continue too long and there is the danger of creating a dependency or "welfare state" mentality.

Equally we cannot underestimate the need of a safe, decent and affordable home which is a necessary building block for the health and well being of any family especially the tsunami affected families who were left with very little.

Families are cutting down trees and building shelters in anticipation of the coming rains.

I suspect the traditional fales (houses) being constructed or repaired are not up to "code" and that type of cowboy construction is just another tragedy waiting to happen.

Habitat For Humanity NZ are eager to work with the Government in a support role and is working closing with Samoan architects in Samoa, to design cyclone resistant homes suitable to Samoan conditions and subject to Government approval want to share its expertise and be a major player is housing reconstruction (Habitat built 60,000 homes throughout the world last year).

Habitat is not a giveaway program; the model internationally is a "hand up not a handout".

A house is sold to the partner family. Not that I am suggesting this should be the case in Samoa but repayment of some kind encourages ownership and maintains dignity for the family.

Collectively repayments create a revolving fund that is used in the local community for various projects.

There will also be a transfer of skills between the 300 NZ volunteer builders, electricians and plumbers working in partnership with the Samoan community.

The Habitat model will of course need to take into account and be adapted to the Samoan unique culture and environment, but in general it is a long term community investment model, not just aid for a day but ongoing aid for a lifetime through the creation of the revolving fund.

It is also a fact Habitat For Humanity NZ is not flush with money for this project, so if you can help with a donation or want to know more please go to our website.