Living in a Tropical Paradise

June 2005 - Samoan Buses

So it’s the little things that make you smile in Samoa…

Like the cool, colourful, clunky old buses that run to all corners
of the island from Apia… windows are open to catch the breeze (when
it rains you can put up the plastic panes). The timetable is pretty
erractic, though our bus seems to be on approximately a 50 minute
frequency most of the time… luckily being on time is not really an
important concept over here.

Our bus has a pumping (and I mean loud) stereo and even the most
innocuous songs had a heaving bass line turned up full that you
could feel in your chest…. very cool – except when you have a
hangover! We can hear the bus coming up the street and be ready to
meet it each morning! Much better than standing at the stop for half
an hour…

Once on the bus there is an intricate, yet unspoken, system of
seating arrangements that unfolds as people get on and the bus gets
full. Well actually it never gets full as when the seats are filled,
people then sit on top of each other! Not everyone mind you,
important elders tend to be left a seat to themselves and usually
palagi (us – foreigners) do too though we will often sit on each
other’s laps to ease the crush a bit. What a way to get to know
someone!

The younger men almost always head straight to the back and I have
seem them stacked up 3 high when it is busy – and these are not
small guys. Small is not a word you would often use to describe
Samoans… but they have no qualms about size or fat at all, it just
doesn’t bother them.

Bus drivers are some of the hardest working people over here –
driving 9 or 10 hours a day 6 days a week! They all decorate their
buses too – I guess if you’re stuck sitting in one all day all week
you’d want to… you can tell plenty of palagi have traveled on Tony’s
bus as he has various gifts from overseas adorning his dash and rear
view mirrors (yes that’s plural rearview mirrors) such as koalas,
stickers, flags etc… the photos of our bus are on the way so stay
tuned…

now as for the taxi drivers... thats a whole other story…

posted by N-Lo @ 3:39 pm