Paradise

If I were to find a paradise in my trip, it would most possibly be Manono. But there are no paradise or, at the end, Manono is not more of a paradise than many other places and there are many types of paradise.

However, I doubt I'll find somewhere else the intense feeling of truly being in Polynesia I feel here. Truly, Polynesian bliss. 

This small island is very beautiful. It has all those things you would expect: small white sand beaches, volcanic rocks, a turquoise lagoon, big waves breaking on the off shore reef, the trade winds blowing gently on the trees (palm, breadfruit, frangipani, banana, starfruit). Lovely people, apparently going along happily with their daily lifes (fishing, weaving, cooking, tending their patches of land). Lovely people with smiles as luminous and bright as the tropical sun.

I don't fool myself, there are problems: very little health care, too much alcohol, drugs, domestic violence, teenage suicide, a very rigid and unequal social structure, plastic a bit everywhere on the ground alongside the fallen frangipani flowers and the crabs' holes. They are exposed to the modern world in ways not always apparent, especially when you see them leading a life so close to the traditional customs.

All of them have relatives in New Zealand and Australia, they have phone and radios and TV, tourist visit the island, and development cooperation experts and researches too.

There's another island a few kilometres to the west. It's called Apolima. It's a partially sunken volcano, the crater forming a internal lagoon and a village on its shore. It's hard to get there: the only way in is a narrow passage and you need an invitation. They might be more sheltered from the outside world. The local chief dominates the life of the island. There are no schools, not a resident doctor.

I stayed at some sort of a guesthouse. The rooms are small Fales perched a few metres up on the hill of the island. The meals are at a communal Fale, by the shore. The village -one of five in the island- is all around the place and there are always people around. I went to the village Congregational church (one of seven) on Sunday to here them singing -Samoans sing all the time.

Yesterday, as part of my walk around the island, the caretaker (a 88 years old Kiwi, a retired seaman that spends 7 months a year in Manono -the owners are in Melbourne visiting their daughter and newest grandchild) showed me the local school -the kids called Papalo, as Pablo is as hard to say as a riddle- and the first church, a rather cute Catholic church about to fall down in pieces -only one of its French windows still in one piece. 

Afterwards, I leisurely continue my walk by myself following the only path of the place (there are no cars). In all, it took me one hour and forty minutes. Most of the people I passed, after saying hello, asked me where I was going. They seemed to have a genuine interest on that. 

I swam to the offshore reef yesterday too. I wanted to see the break of the waves. It's about 1 kilometres away. I hadn't swum that much in a long time. The first third of the way back was hard, as it took me a while to figure out the current.

On Tuesday, the swim was shorter. I went to a small volcanic islet about 400 metres from the shore. This time, I had the current in my favour on the way back -I'm learning. It was still hard work, though. 

The rest of my time here, I didn't do much. There's time to watch the change of the tides at the dock in front the communal Fale, or the people walking by on the path, or to look at the waves breaking at the reef and the evolution of the clouds, or to chat with whomever is around at that moment. And there's time to watch the sunset every night, just around the time we have dinner. It's then when it is so easy to feel in paradise.

I'm going to Fiji in the early hours of Wednesday 19th. I have now less than a month of travel left.