My family left Samoa when I was 8, and for one reason or another, I didn't see my birthplace again for more than 30 years.
In my family's first decade here, when New Zealand seemed alien and inhospitable, Samoa was the haven we thought we would one day return to. It was the place where my parents had stood tall, where my extended family had lived side by side, where we had mana and history and meaning. Life wasn't perfect there, but we understood the rules.
We never returned of course, at least not as a family. That would have been an admission of defeat. In any case, life got easier over the years. As New Zealand became home, the pull of Samoa weakened, at least for my siblings and me. As more and more family members emigrated here, there seemed fewer reasons to go back - though both my parents continued to visit regularly.
Now my elderly father is determined that he will never return, fearful he may die there and put his children to the trouble and expense of bringing his body back home.
For many years I was content to stay away, too, knowing in my heart that the idyllic image I had built of Samoa could never match the reality. New Zealand had changed us; perhaps too much to ever fit comfortably back into Samoa.
But a few years ago, I found myself back in Samoa, falling in love with a country more beautiful and vibrant than my childhood memories had prepared me for. It felt like home. It felt as if I'd found a piece of the puzzle that made sense of who I was.
Since then, I've hankered for a closer connection - a common feeling among even New Zealand-born Samoans like my youngest sister and her husband, who took their young family to Samoa for a working stint last year. Our family had planned a reunion there next year; it would have been the first time back for three of my siblings.
The first time back for me was in 2002, to hear Helen Clark's apology for the wrongdoings of New Zealand officials during the country's 48-year administration of Samoa.
Whatever one thought of the apology, it served to highlight a history of which most New Zealanders (and many younger Samoans) remain ignorant.
New Zealand and Samoa have been intimately acquainted since 1914, when, at the start of World War I, Kiwi forces landed unopposed in Apia and seized the German colony in a bloodless takeover.
New Zealand's occupation continued until the end of the war, and after that it governed the territory until 1962, when Samoa finally regained its independence.
Whatever New Zealand achieved during those years, it was overshadowed by the disastrous mistakes of its more inept and arrogant administrators.
Their actions led, in 1918, to 22 per cent of Samoa's population being wiped out by the influenza epidemic (in contrast to neighbouring American Samoa, where the official response ensured that no lives were lost), and in 1929, to the events of "Black Saturday", when New Zealand police fired on a peaceful independence demonstration, killing 11 people - including a high chief, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III - and wounding many others.
There have been other black spots in the relationship. The immigration dawn raids of the 1970s. The 1982 Privy Council decision - hastily overturned by an Act of Parliament - which found that all Western Samoans born between 1924 and 1948, and their children, were entitled to New Zealand citizenship.
It's all history now, of course. Samoans have turned the apology into a cultural art form (the ifoga), so holding grudges isn't part of their psyche. I mention this only as the context for a relationship that isn't always well understood on this side of the Pacific.
However fraught the relationship has been at times, our ties run deep. The tsunami that struck Samoa (and Tonga) nearly two weeks ago showed just how deep those connections run.
We're family, connected by history and geography, an emerging Pacific culture that combines the best of all of us, and some 130,000 New Zealanders of Samoan descent. Many, like me, carry dual citizenship, identities and loyalties. Many of us have a foot in each country, and a deep love of both.
Many more New Zealanders have Samoan connections of one kind or another.
Like any family, there are times when we bicker and disagree, when politics and culture divide us. But it was heartening to see the unity that emerged after the tsunami, not just among Samoans here but other New Zealanders, whose compassionate and generous response to the crisis has, I think, brought us closer.
My family was lucky, but like all Samoans we grieved for those who lost loved ones. It was heartbreaking to read of the loss of so many lives, to see familiar names among the dead, to see the pictures of ravaged villages in "our beloved Samoa", as a cousin put it.
But amid the sadness, we have felt a sense of pride, too, as stories of courage and sacrifice emerged from the devastation.
I think of the dignity of the Samoan lecturer who lost 11 members of his family but could still see "a happy ending" after finding his 98-year-old father's body and being able to bury him. And I think of the resilience and spirit shown by so many in the face of unbearable loss.
How to donate to tsunami relief operations:
Pacific Cooperation Foundation
Deposits can be made at at any Westpac branch. All the money raised will go to the Samoan Government
Red Cross
- Make a secure online donation at redcross.org.nz
- Send cheques to the Samoan Red Cross Fund, PO Box 12140, Thorndon, Wellington 6144
- Call 0900 31 100 to make an automatic $20 donation
- Make a donation at any NZ Red Cross office
ANZ bank
Make a donation at any ANZ bank branch, or donate directly to the ANZ appeal account: 01 1839 0143546 00
Oxfam
- Make a secure online donation at Oxfam.org.nz
- Phone 0800 400 666 or make an automatic $20 donation by calling 0900 600 20
Caritas
- Make a secure online donation at Caritas.org.nz
- Phone 0800 22 10 22 or make an automatic $20 donation by calling 0900 4 11 11
TEAR fund
- Make a secure online donation at tearfund.co.nz
- Phone 0800 800 777 to specify Samoa the Philippines or Indonesia. You can also donate at CD and DVD stores.
Mercury Energy
- Donate at mercury.co.nz
or text the word Samoa followed by the amount you wish to pledge and your Mercury account number to 515 or by calling 0800 10 18 10.
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity is asking for help with the clean-up habitat.org.nz
Unicef
Make a secure online donation unicef.org.nz
or phone on 0800 800 194
