A carpenter by trade, Tony is our resident baby-sitter, handiman, contractor, sub-contractor, consultant and general good-guy.

He says, “No speak da English” but that doesn’t matter, his wife Tara translates. Oh so N-O-W you know how he got onto the team! Again, it’s who you know in Samoa – not what you know eh? Well done Tony – you’re onto it!

UPDATE: Masetoni left the employ of SWAP under a cloud and has been jointly charged with her wife by Samoa Police with “Theft as a servant; $39,000.00 equipment”.

UPDATE: On 20October 2011, Masetoni pleaded guilty in the High Court of Samoa to Theft As A Servant, $5,230.00 (WST).

Tara’s our resident boss. She’s not quite the boss but she’s heading that way fast according to the real boss! Need something done? Tara’s your girl. Want to know what’s really going down? Tara’s got it. A Wellington Samoan girl, she slipped into Samoa a couple of years ago to catch up with her long-lost love from school days, and well you know how things go – she’s now married with baby. Everyone together now: “Awwwwwwwww!” You can find her at The Airport Lounge organising everything for the team; getting information, rental cars, tours and so on organised for our visitors.

UPDATE: Tara left the employ of SWAP under a cloud and has been jointly charged with her husband by Samoa Police with “Theft as a servant; $39,000.00 equipment”.

UPDATE: On 20October 2011, Tara pleaded guilty in the High Court of Samoa to Theft As A Servant, $5,230.00 (WST).

Tasi is a farmer from the Aleipata region. He’s the SWAP team’s constant companion teaching tourists how to climb a coconut tree and then doing it himself when they fail to learn. (And they always fail!) He’s tried teaching them how to husk a coconut but he seems to fail at that teaching job too! No matter, he knows the south coast like the back of his hand and is great value laughing away all day telling us and showing us things we never knew. Our guests love him! We do too, but don’t tell him that in case he gets a big head. Tasi means "Number 1". We thought he was pointing in all the photos we took of him but in fact his ego was just getting in the way – big smile for the camera; one finger pointing at something; oh so he thinks he’s number one then eh, does he?

Force is a force to be reckoned with. The largest baby to be born in Samoa at the time (don’t ask or tell, but he was over a dozen pounds they say), he’s played rugby, boxing and other sports. He’s our resident bodyguard and the bosses constant companion. While he can look the scariest thing under the sun, he’s actually a gentle giant when you get to know him. He translates for us on our various travels and journeys. He’s more like a brother actually! He doesn’t actually DO anything but then he doesn’t actually have a JOB either, nor does he want anything or get paid, so all’s fair, he thinks well we all think! Force loves being part of the SWAP team and shares the vision. He calls it "lifting his people up" and in some ways that’s exactly right. That’s what we do end up doing.

Keen photographer, blogger and experienced traveller Kylie is on her way to paradise through no fault of her own! Her mate Matt swung the deal and scored her ticket from the SWAP team because word has it she’s so keen to blog and snap and get to see the place she will say WONDERFUL things about us all until her dying days! Well, something like that!

They say that it’s not WHAT you know but WHO you know that gets you ahead around the world but in Samoa this is really important. Kylie’s trip to fun in the sun is proof of that. We look forward to Kylie’s pix and blogs in due course!

Matt is our PHP Developer and has an IT skills list as long as your arm (probably more like Pinochio’s nose but all geeks talk about how clever they are eh?). Systems are very important for us Internet webby type people and Matt’s your man in that department.

Matt has travelled a bit and has always wanted to visit Samoa so . . . Bob’s your uncle.

Yo Ben! Ben’s a dab hand at anything video – production, cameraman, producer, whatever and those that have worked with him count him the best. Go Ben! Ben’s kinda stoked to get selected to be SWAP Ambassador No 4. and can’t wait to get on up here and do his bloodhound thing. Go, Go Ben! He’ll be filming the Paramount Chief’s daughters second cousin playing with coconuts in the far reaches of the Amazon Safata on his first day in the country. Ho Ho Ben! He’ll be running over chickens, and pigs and wildlife and anything else that gets in his way of getting the scoop on the latest gossip in Samoa. Oh No Ben! If he gets his way he’ll be knocking out marketing videos and docos by the truckload before the sun sets over the coral lagoon for the last time and he’s returned with a thump to reality home. Go Home Ben! Take out shares in the Samoa Postal Service as Ben ramps up to send a gazillion postcards to his son back home. Ben shouts about himself at his YouTube channel – search for Redstar309Z

Watch out for Helena – she’s got energy to burn and tops the class where ever she goes (which is anywhere from South America to the Pacific from all accounts). You wanna hear her referrals talk about her – she’s a cross between Mother Teresa, Shakespeare and Christopher Columbus; she speaks 43 different languages fluently including Swahili; her uncle was a big chief somewhere up north; she fits in naturally to every social circle from the Queen’s inner circle to the Otara fleamarkets and is friends with them all even before they meet her – if you believe it all. She was the first to apply for the Journo/Blogging job (inside an hour would you believe!); the first to really get into The Samoa Story thing and the first journo to get on a plane and hike it up here. She’s really got into it and is having a great time up here. Go Helena!

Dennis says that Scott is a mate of his going back a dozen years or so and does all his tech drawings. When approached directly, Scott always goes quiet about this friendship thing and mumbles something about the 5th amendment under his breath. He seems to agree on the dozen or so years thing with Dennis though. He’s a real whizz – well according to him that is. We keep trying to work out what he’s a whizz at but haven’t quite nailed it. Sometimes it seems to be engineering things. Other times he’s an architect extraordinaire. Then he’s all on about good design or proper construction methods, surveying land or going on about aesthetics, or music or the leaky building thing, or whatever. We think he’s just good at drinking Steinlager and all the rest just seems to happen around him somehow. He’s got no idea what being a SWAP Ambassador means but reckons that all expenses paid trips to Samoa for regular "site visits" are absolutely, totally, very important and so is he. We absolutely concur about the trips part.

Until we exported him back to Aussie, Trevor was our resident sage and an Aussie chippie up with SWAP to do a recon for later construction projects and to help setup SWAP HQ. Trevor’s good value and loves the place. He’s got a fair bit of life experience under his belt has our Trevor and we think he’ll be a pretty nice sort of catch for one of the locals here. We all reckon that he’s going to end up in paradise with a lovely Samoan girl on his arm pretty soon, but we’ll keep that one a secret until the locals have hooked him up rather more "arranged things to happen" or should we say "nature has taken its course"! He’s got a real thing about George’s Jungle and the Aleipata Region so we reckon that if the boss does a Honeycomb Resort down there, Trev will climb over nails to be the Project Manager. The nails are being prepared for you as we speak Trevor!

He’s a dab hand with the computer our Trevor (considering he’s a hunt-n-peck grandad typist with mild dyslexia a few little spelling challenges!) even to the point of sending a daily email news to all his kids and grandkids. Go for it Trevor! Don’t worry Trevor – Debbie’s not allowed to read your blogs so you’re safe from the school teacher!

Dennis’ wife. She’s not allowed to be a SWAP Ambassador because Dennis said so because there may be conflict because there may be a perceived conflict of interest – you know, like employees from the marketing company can’t participate in the promo sort of thing?

Apparently she’s actually the real brainy one – she’s got Uni degrees and all that stuff coming out her ears. She pops in from time to time when she can get away from her teaching job in Auckland. Word is it she’s relocating to Samoa too later in the year. Wonder why? Probably something to do with the boss! Watch out for her. She’ll find your speeling mistaykes and down-upside grammar errors inside forty three nano seconds – whew!

Debbie responds to debbie@debbie.co.nz

I’m under strict instructions to make this short, really short . . .

In 2009 I got caught up in the September 2009, Tsunami aftermath. [Read more...]