I first went to the fathers of Saulo, Milo and Neueli and asked if they would be willing to make some of their famous carvings. Their village is one of the few in Samoa that makes the traditional wooden bowls, plates and weapons. I told the fathers that we were having a Trivia Night and would love to raffle off their carvings to help raise money. They were very willing to help and had no trouble providing us with some of their best work which was a huge success for the Trivia Night!
However, I still wanted to ask more of the families and get everyone involved, not just the fathers. That’s when I decided we should send up a street vending stand to sell some favorite Samoan “fast foods” such as vaisalo, which is a tapioca like soup that uses the coconut cream and can be made in a huge pot! I also wanted to sell kokoa araisa, which is rice cooked with cocoa and also uses the coconut cream. I took my ideas to the families and they were excited to help once again. We also decided we would sell fresh coconuts.
As with most things thus far on this program, things began to fall into place. We needed a vehicle to pick up all the coconuts from along the road in the village and then transport them and the big pots of food in to town so I went to Funway Rentals in Apia and asked the owner if he would donate a rental for our use. He was very willing to help and seemed very interested in our program. He gave us a huge pickup truck to use for Friday evening and then return it on Saturday morning.
I had gone to Chan Mow shopping center in town and asked the manager there if we could set up in front of their business on October 13th, which was the Saturday before White Sunday and is typically the busiest shopping day of the year. White Sunday is a day to celebrate the kids of Samoa and families flock to town to buy ice cream, candies and clothes to make the day special. Having our stand in front of Chan Mow would be a sure win situation.
On Friday evening I headed to the village in the rental truck and met the students out on the road to start collecting the coconuts. It wasn’t just the three boys though, but their brothers and cousins who had also come out to help; it had become a whole family event as I was hoping it would. Night soon fell upon the village and we stopped to eat dinner. By 10:30p.m. we were back out in the bush, with one of the boys’ dad climbing coconut trees and the boys and I gathering them to load into the truck.
At 12a.m. we were back at the house but there was no time to sleep. Since we had to leave for town at 5:30a.m. it was time to start husking the coconuts and preparing the fire for the two Samoan foods. Even though we were tired, you could see the fun everyone was having working together through the night. The families had helped by the foods for the vaisalo and kokoa araisa. With everyone working together it all started to come together. Before we knew it, 5:30 had rolled around and it was time to head to town. After loading the trucks and changing out of our smoky clothes, we were on our way to Apia.
The morning foot traffic started off kind of slow but quickly picked up. Everyone became familiar with their sales pitch line they would use when people walked by. The boys’ moms worked at serving the soups and the dads opening the coconuts. We also had a 100 tala gift voucher to a hardware store in town which we were selling raffle tickets for and the boys enjoyed selling tickets for that as well. As long as we kept busy were able to forget the fact that we hadn’t slept all night.
We kept busy all morning as people walked by. Even those who didn’t buy anything took a moment to glance at the signs we had hung briefly describing the program. Some people bought several coconuts, or several raffle tickets. We had plenty of food but ran out of coconuts before the morning was over. We had gone through over 100 coconuts in just a few hours!
The busier we got, the more excited the families became and the fathers came up to me and said that they wanted to do this again and that next time we would make sure we had more coconuts. As we all worked together, you could see that they all felt they had a stake in the program—they all felt as though they were helping to reach our goal.
At 12:30p.m. Chan Mow closed its store for the day and most foot traffic had slowed down since stores clothes early on Saturday. After counting the money, we found we had made $425 tala, about $200 U.S. dollars. However, I realized that what we had accomplished was much more than that dollar amount; we had just found a way to involve the families in a real and meaningful way in a program they will all benefit from in the end.
Collecting coconuts at 11p.m. and loading them into the truck.
Milo's Dad climbs the coconut tree in the dark.
Things getting started at around 12a.m. The palm frond was used to make a basket.
A basket done in 5 minutes and ready to load coconuts into.
Saulo and Neueli's brother husking the coconuts.
Making the vaisalo.
Neueli and Saulo hard at work and Saulo and Milo's moms wait for customers.
They all did a great job.
Peace Corps Volunteer, Nancy Magsig has been a huge help in the fundraising efforts. She assisted us the whole morning with selling food and raffle tickets. Here she is during the drawing.
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