A simple village life

By Vatapuia Maiava 28 August 2016, 12:00AM

34 years old, Salome Mulipola, wants Samoa to know that there is nothing wrong with living a simple life.

Hailing from the village of Nuusuatia, Safata, with her husband and children, Salome is happy with the peaceful life she has in the village.

“Life here in the villages is great,” she tells the Sunday Samoan.

“The truth is, there is no one in this village causing trouble and I know we have the village council to thank for that.

“Our village morals are very strong here in Nuusuatia.”

People always feel like fancy cars and big houses will make them happy but Salome’s joy for the simple things shows you don’t need to live and extravagant life to be happy.

 “Our way of life here in the rural areas is very simple,” she says.

“We don’t rely too much on things like those in Apia do and that helps us to appreciate what we have no matter how little it may be.

“Those in the town area rely heavily on people who have jobs but over here we rely on the land; our plantation is our source of money as well as our source of food.”

And when it comes to the ongoing debate of whether Samoa has poverty or not, Salome says that poverty is only there when people are lazy.

“There is no poverty in Samoa,” she says.

“People are only poor because they are very lazy, they don’t want to work to live and that causes a lot of problems. Sitting around will not get anyone anywhere.

“My family is a big on and no one works; I have to tend to my plantation every day to be able to provide for them all.

“With the little money we get at times, we use it for village and church activities and nothing goes.”

Salome also feels that people are also poor because they do not know how to manage their money properly.

“Even though we make little with our plantation we still manage to put our children through school,” she says.

“We also have a plantation for Nonu where we supply Skyline with the fruit and that gets us a bit of extra money.

“Life is only hard if you make it hard. But if you want to live a simple life then always be grateful with what you have.”

By Vatapuia Maiava 28 August 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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