They have the same joy!

Swimming with Sharks Chapter 1.2

Tusitala

PM Department’s filing clerk Teuila Hall formed part of a feminine triumvirate who ran Sāmoa. I would eventually name my daughter after her. Teuila, or red ginger (alpinia purpurata), is the national flower of Sāmoa.

She dropped a file on my desk, making it clear that this was to be my regular responsibility. It was a big file, going back before independence. It dealt with a matter of Scottish poetry and was surprisingly aggressive, as only grammar-fascists can be. 

Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson settled in Sāmoa in 1891 building a home in the hills, today’s Vailima. Sāmoans were never greatly enamoured and what we see now, in the sycophantic writings of reporters sponsored by Sāmoan Tourism, is marketing to attract a white audience. 

RLS would not get a visa these days. He had tuberculosis and spread it around. 

Like every other white man who arrived in Sāmoa in that era, he engaged in local politics. His Footnote to History is an account of the aggressive colonialism in which he participated.