'All my experiences in life is rooted in fa’a Samoa': An 81-year-old's journey & More News Here

Simatavai Alefaio is a proud Samoan man, who’s made a life for himself in New Zealand.

The 81-year-old man was among the many batch of Pacific Islanders that got here to New Zealand between the Nineteen Thirties and Nineteen Seventies in banana boats, after the world wars.

Back then, the New Zealand authorities seemed to its Pacific neighbours to assist enhance the nation’s economic system, and positioned advertisements for manufacturing facility jobs all through the islands.

Alefaio was 25 when he braved the journey to New Zealand. It was 1965, and he left behind his household and a three-year profession in the Samoan police, the place he labored in felony investigations.

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As New Zealand celebrates Samoa Language Week, Alefaio displays on his journey from Samoa to New Zealand, and the life he is constructed for himself since.

This yr’s theme: ‘Fa’aāuāu le Folauga i le Va’a o Tautai, interprets to: Continue the Voyage with Competent Wayfinders of the Ocean.

Alefaio, who has hyperlinks to Matavai and Sapunaoa in Savai’i, Samoa, stated the journey has been lengthy, difficult, however value it.

He received married to Pepe Matautu Alefaio in New Zealand a number of years after he arrived, they usually had three kids.

“I actually wanted to join the New Zealand Police,” he stated.

“I was going to work in the factories, but my dream was to be back in the police. When I went for an interview, they told me I wasn’t qualified and to go back to school.”

While working two manufacturing facility jobs, he attended night time faculty at Ōtāhuhu School, studying English to try to make it to the pressure.

“We were reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and I didn’t quite understand it. I was usually tired from work, so I fell asleep a lot in class.

“I finally realised that my dreams to become a policeman in New Zealand would not happen. I was devastated, I was very down.”

He threw his life behind the church, which led him to review at Auckland University and later Westminster Institute of Education, in Oxford, United Kingdom.

“My life was constantly changing, and it changed the way I saw things. Whatever opportunity came my way, I made sure to take advantage of it.”

Samoa isn’t removed from his coronary heart, he says. He is nonetheless deeply linked to his motherland, via his household and the church.

Speaking the language is vital to him, and at present he’s proud to listen to his personal kids and grandchildren communicate it.

“All my experiences in life is rooted in fa’a Samoa. In my father’s time, if you spoke English, you were considered glamorous. There was that drive back then to learn the palagi way and how they spoke.

“But our own Pacific language, it’s unique, and it’s ours. You connect with it through your culture, aiga and community.

“I’d like to think that even if you can’t speak Samoan, or speak it well, being Samoan is in your blood and no-one can take that away from you.”

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