Back to Samoa and Pre-School

WITH JOY, EXCITEMENT AND A WHOLE LOT OF GRATITUDE I returned to Samoa in December 2005. I was to present a paper on ‘19th Century Scottish Missionary Women to Samoa’ at the Measina Samoa Conference held at the National University. This I duly did with my dear friend Ruta Sinclair – a Samoan Bahá’í. Ruta’s story is linked to the paper we were presenting as her parents were Samoan missionaries to Papua New Guinea and Ruta has unique perspectives on the impact of missionary women on traditional societies.

I was also planning to visit the Bahá’í pre-schools in Samoa so that I could send a report to BASED-UK in the hope that they might assist in their development. One of the pre-schools, ‘The Nightingale of Wisdom’, was greatly assisted by the Bahá’í Community of Scotland. I was particularly looking forward to meeting up with Arona and Alefa Mailo to see how things had progressed there – and I wasn’t disappointed. The first Sunday after my arrival I was invited to dine with the Mailo family and friends in the newly built Bahá’í pre-school. Based right in the heart of Fagali’i village it is the only pre-school in the area. The school is simple, clean, colourful and is buzzing with 40 children five mornings a week. Below is an extract from a beautiful letter written by the pre-school to the Bahá’ís of Scotland to say thank you for the money contributed.

Visiting the other pre-schools was challenging. On the island of Savaii two Bahá’í preschools have been running for about 4 years – one in the south of the island and one in the north. Both schools are well attended by the village children but are extremely underresourced. The Bahá’í teachers receive no wages for their work; the school buildings are inadequate and there are no children’s play equipment or toys. Yet despite this the children are happy – they sing songs, play games, listen to stories. The teachers are struggling and I learnt that the Government of Samoa has insisted that all pre-school teachers undergo a 9 month training programme on the main island of Upolu. For the dear Bahá’í teachers in Savaii this is an impossibility as they cannot leave their families and villages for 9 months and they cannot afford the cost of the training.

After consultation with the National Assembly it was decided that £500 that BASEDUK had given for the Samoan pre-school project should be used to develop a Bahá’í preschool curriculum and training programme that could be approved by the National Government Pre-School Committee. So part of the next five weeks was spent designing the curriculum and finding someone to translate it into Samoan. The training programme is to consist of 14 days training broken up over the year, regular in-service training (where Bahá’ís from Upolu who are teachers would visit the two villages in Savaii), and there would be regular inspection of the schools by representatives of the NSA. We are all praying that the Government accepts both the curriculum and the training package. If any of the Bahá’í community of Scotland want to assist with development of these pre-schools please contact me on 0141 7722319. There has now been a fund established with the National Assembly for the development of the Samoan Bahá’í preschools.

Another exciting thing happened while in Samoa – I was invited to present a paper at the first ‘Pacific Regional Inter-religious Colloquium on Indigenous Cultural and Religious Concepts of Peace and Good Governance’ - sounds a bit of a mouthful but it was a great honour to be present at this conference. The paper I presented was not particularly academic as I only had two days to prepare but hopefully it contained some insights from a Bahá’í perspective. This has led to being asked to extend the paper for publication throughout the Pacific. At this conference papers were presented by or on behalf of First Nation Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, Tongans, Samoans, Fijians, Hawaiins, Solomon Islanders, and Papua New Guineans. One of the most moving papers was presented by a woman from the Solomon Islands called Alice who spoke about the women’s movement for peace during the civil war there and about the bravery of hundreds of Solomon Island women who went to the front line of fighting and encouraged the men to lay down their weapons and return home – a really powerful demonstration of the Bahá’í perspective that ‘women are inflexibly opposed to war and are lovers of peace’. (‘Abdu’l- Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p.284)

One of the most blessed things that developed from being part of this Colloquium was a friendship with Tui Atua Tapua Tamasese Taisi Tupuola Tufuga Efi and his wife Filia. Tapua is the Deputy Head of State for Samoa and is also a practising Catholic. On the final day of my stay in Samoa I had the privilege of sharing with Tapua the four minute video of Carrie Varjavandi’s ‘time for reflection’ in the Scottish Parliament. Tapua was moved by the words of Carrie and hopefully on his next visit to Scotland (he supports Manu Samoa rugby team when they play against Scotland) he will be in touch and can enjoy some good Scottish Bahá’í hospitality.

These are just some glimpses into my too-short time in Samoa – it’s hard to put into words the beauty of Samoa and the Samoan people – and even harder to express what its like to sit in the Samoan Bahá’í Temple at dawn in prayer and meditation – to emerge from its peaceful interior to the sun rising over lush tropical vegetation and to feel your heart sing to the sound of tropical bird song – what a bounty and gift from Bahá’u’lláh.

For those who are into pop music, a final aside – on my way home between Los Angeles and London I spent four hours blethering about the Faith to a John Beddingfield; he told me his kids were (the famous) Natasha and Daniel Beddingfield – I had no idea they were mega famous and simply said, “Great! My kids are Ben, Sonya, Zoe and Tom!”