Creative Response - Samoan from foreign soil

Hey guys,

This is my creative response of 'Samoan from foreign soil' written by Rev Mua Strickson-Pua.

Call home.

Do not call me, I am busy.

I work every day and sleep every night

I don’t have time to stop and rest with you under the starry lights.

You brought me here, you raised me here

Chasing the money,

The dream and that perfect future for your children.

I do not blame you.

I have never blamed you.

It is not your fault that there is no life in the traditions of our culture,

It is not your fault that our culture does not fit in this society.

But I beg you not to call me back to a home that was never mine.

You call me home, and which I know I never really belonged.

I will set foot on your foreign soil,

I may feel the blood ties to what use to walk this tropical paradise,

I may feel the yearning of belonging

And I may get lost in the heat of the blistering sun and its many whispers.

But this is not my home,

This is the treasures of my elders

This is the distant memories of my parents

And the battle fields of my ancestors.

It may be essential for me to make the return

But I will avoid it at this time,

I will reject the calls of the kingdom

And decline the all of its Tonganess

Until my dreams become tainted with its European ways.

I will get all my pieces of papers.

I will be recognized for my trials and successes

And only then will I return.

To the home of my parents,

To the land filled with blood, sweat, tears, love, humor, betrayal, gossip, prayers and the hopes of my ancestors.