I grew up in Vailoa, Faleata, Samoa. Of course, my life was not easy as those millionaire legacies that never see how their food is been cooked everyday; but, it was something between being a princess and being a servant girl. My parents, Andy and Lucinda, were the best I could ever beg the Lord for.
Our house was the hugest in the village. But since all the houses were three rooms at most, ours consisted of six rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a wash room; of course, wash rooms are something my father just made up that consists of only a pipe for washing clothes and showering in when we finished swimming at the village spring.
In front of our house was our garden. It was as beautiful as the Garden of Eden as described in Genesis by Moses. There were roses, peppers of any colors, lilies, sour sops, cabbages of sorts, lemon, lime, starch of many sorts, oranges, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, squash of many sorts and flowers I could never remember. With the garden, I could never go hungry since all was well and most fruits were mellow to the core.
With a big house and a blooming garden, I had brothers and sisters: ten to be exact, including me. All of us got along because my parents always taught us to respect people and ourselves. My parents: a gift from God I could never hate nor disrespect. My parents did everything they could so my siblings and I would live a luxurious life. Indeed, there is never a free life, but the feeling would just be perfect. My mother worked for the Vanderbilt, a very rich family from Poland. The family was very generous, perhaps more, in paying my mother. In fact, all of my siblings graduated twelfth year in college; and, throughout all those years, the Vanderbilt paid for everything. My father was a landscaper; he loved to work our gardens and tend to the animals, such as pigs, sheep, cows and horse; and therefore, we could never go hungry.
My life was also hard, to say the least. Every school day, I would walk to my school. This started since I was a seventh grade in primary school. I would walk back from school to the house. In my college year, I always shifted schools. The most I spent at a school was nine months, and that was when I was in year thirteen. I always got into trouble at school, but I stood up for myself. My parents never knew, only my older sister, Anna. I would transfer and register myself at schools and I would ask my sister to buy my uniform and pay my school fees. She did all of it.
After school, I would come home and do all the chores. I would pull the weeds growing on the garden, scrape all the animal wastes, mostly by pigs, on our lawn, rid the lawn of trashes and cook the food. I wanted to do it because my siblings were too hard working – which means I would get money for doing their chores for them. My father treated me differently from all my brothers and sisters. He would always give and teach me more. Whenever he finishes fishing, he would give me the products to sell on the side of the road. After selling, I would get huge sums of money. I would hand over the amount to my dad and got paid a hefty sum. That will be the only time my mother ever treat me nicely.
“Stella, darling, come here. How are you? How much did your father give you,” inquired mother.
“Twenty dollars,” I replied.
“Well, give it to me so I can divide it day by day to you.”
I only saw less than two dollars of the money after most days that would happen. My mother always spoiled my younger sister, Pam, with money. Pam was the only one who went by bus to school, between the two of us. She was also bright and very pretty.
My life was a repetition of events: school, chores, Emily, sleep, fun. Oh, I forgot to talk about Emily. Emily is my mother’s sister. She was the richest of all her siblings. Every Friday, she would come to our house in Vailoa and ask for my mother to “lend” us over for the weekend to help her with the business. My father always hated her, never agreeing. But my mother is the boss, and we would end up going. One day, I got home from school around four in the afternoon. My father warned me: “Stella, Emily’s coming today!” I ran for my youngest sister, Agnes, and told her to hide with me. My older sisters Valerie and Fanny and younger sister Pam followed us. We went to our neighbor, Tina’s, house. We hid under her bed. Emily’s car came. We heard my mom and Emily call out our names: “STELLA! PAM! FANNY! AGGIE! VALERIE! WHERE ARE YOU?! GO WITH EMILY!”
After twenty minutes, my father stood by the window in the room we were hiding.
“Children, come along now,” he said, “Just pray to the Lord to help you.”
I said, “But, we’re tired! We don’t even get money!”
My father is always positive. “The Lord will bless those who are pure of heart. Be pure, my children.” My father always spoke with kindness and integrity.
With that, we stopped hiding and hurried to Emily. At Emily’s we readied all the meals for her business, cook the food, wash the clothing and clean the trailers for selling the goods. Our work would take all Friday night. All my siblings along with Emily’s children would be there. I was always alone, washing the clothes. My aunt Emily said she loves how I am so thorough with cleaning. Our work would end together at three in the Saturday morning. We nap for only two hours. At five, the boys would push the trailers to Apia Park. We girls would carry the food to be served. We would stand in the trailers and go about selling the food; our work ended at four in the afternoon. Our payment would be the leftovers that were not sold.
The fun side of my life was because of father and grandmother, Valerie. My father always teaches us the way of the bible and would tell us stories. I always loved listening to the stories. It made me wonder about how my father would be the greatest author that ever lived. My grandmother, the mother of my mom, was awesome. She would tell my siblings and me to clip her nails, pull the white hair from her head, sing songs for her and read her scriptures from the bible. Every weekday, except Friday, she would do this. Then, at six in the evening, she would hurry us to the bath: “Shower children, we have things to do,” she would say.
My siblings were always happy when she said this at six. It meant we were either going to watch the games at Apia Park, go shopping at Apia or to the movies! The movies were a great success, especially when any new western, mystery or musical shows. In fact, my grandmother took us to The Sound of Music all more than ten times! She loved that film.
