Part 1: Honouring Samoa: A Survivor Retells The Day The Tsunami Hit The South Coast

This story is dedicated to Kenape the boy who held onto me.

My mother, my son and myself all travelled to Western Samoa on the 19th September 2009. We were heading to a village in Saanapu Tai on Upolu Island, where most of my mother’s family lived.

On the Tuesday 29^th September 2009, between  6:30 to 7:30 in the morning, the earthquake struck.  As the earth continued to tremble, my mother, my aunties, and all the elderly ladies were trying to get us kids out of bed, and out of the house, using those held samoan- made brooms, known as salu lima.

Photo frames were falling off the walls, flower necklaces, pictures, stereo and TV, all falling off.  The computer fell off its table. Our suitcases fell off the tables it was on. Chairs were falling over backwards.

Us elder kids grabbed the little ones and tried to run out of the house. It was difficult as the ground was shaking so bad  that you could not even walk straight. Everything was smashing all around us. The little ones were crying. The elders were screaming from outside to get out. The older boys were carrying the elderly up behind the houses and huts towards the hills and mountains. The little kids who were all dressed for school, were running up the hill, laughing, happy thinking, this is a game.

I grabbed my mother’s bag, and our passports, that were in our suitcases. I looked around and everyone was just standing around talking about what just happened. My mother and her sisters, were just telling us to run for the hills and to get away from the houses.

To read the rest of Part I, click here

Part 2  The Samoan Village Boy Who Held Me

A boy, named Kenape,  from the village, manages to get close to me and says:

Suga, aumai lou lima kago e fusi mau a’u ae o lea o le a ou kaupe i le laau.

Girl, Give me your hand, try and hold me tight and i will hold onto a tree.

So I held his hand tightly as he pulled me up the hill. I quickly look behind me and I can see the waves coming towards the hill. All I felt after that was Kenape pulling me into his chest, slamming my back into what felt like a tree bark.  The waves pushes him into me and takes all the air out.

I try to breathe but the water washes over us in what felt like ages. I drank in seawater, salty, it got into my eyes, my ears, covering us both, and it eased …. but it only came up to our waist. I looked at Kenape and breathed in deeply and kept on crying.

He says to me:
Ku’u ia lou kagivale se, eke mamafa! Stop your crying, your heavy!  I think he was trying to cheer me up but it didnt work, i just cried more and held on to him tighter.

All of a sudden the boy pushes me in the opposite side of the tree. And I complained and we then argued. I think I said something stupid like what are you doing. He must have replied with something sensible because I dont remember objecting. We were now facing the ocean, my chest against the tree, and his chest against my back.  The water was making it so hard to move and so hard to breathe properly.

Then it happened.

The waves going back into the ocean. I silently prayed and prayed. I held on tightly to the boy’s arms and tightly around the tree. When the waves were going back, I lost my footing and so did the boy who was wrapped around me. We were plunged under the water and I couldn’t breathe but  I held it. The rushing of water in my ears were killing me. The boy’s weight was making it worse. And the pressure from the water going back into the ocean, pressing on to  his back and adding pressure to me, made it slippery to hold on to anything.

I held on more tightly as I felt that i could not hold my breath any longer.

Slowly the water left ( it felt like forever) and I sat there, soaked, heaving in breaths like I had just done a marathon.  The boy breathing the same as well. I cried and fell backwards and the boy fell backwards as well. Both of us lay there crying. I couldnt stand up. I was so weak,. He couldn’t move because he had cuts all on his back like someone had given him lashings (we didnt know this until my uncle came to get us).

I burst into tears because I was scared. And I held on to the boy as the waves took all my energy. The boy released his grip and I can hear crying, shouting. Screaming from the people up the hill. Splashing. People who are on the hill are coming back into the water to get others out. I mainly heard children wailing. I hear my Mum’s voice. I hear my cousins voice. I hear children crying and then I remembered my son.

An arm pulls the boy off and away. I look out and I see the ocean slowly going back into the sea. I see the houses that did stand and what was left. I look to the sky … it was a beautiful sunny blue sky … almost like as if nothing happened. Then my uncle’s face comes into view and he holds me and hugs me. I try to speak but it was so hard. I just cried even more. My tears stung my cheeks. My eyes were burning. My uncle and another man lifts me upwards towards the hill. I hear my mothers voice and I cry even more.

Final part of Steph’s story: From this village is one very special miracle that stands out of all the rest, a father held his two daughters as the waves came.