10:20 AM |
Climate Change: Digging Up Family Graves To Move Away From The Sea
By Vienna Richards
As a child growing up in Samoa, I was told that the graves of my father's parents, my grandparents, had to be dug up several years after they died because the salt water, the sea we loved, was getting closer to the fales. It happened long before I was born.
Even so, each time my mother told me the story and the circumstances, I didn't get it as a child. I never told her though. Instead, this child's mind thought: how could anyone in their right mind dig up their parents graves and disturb their resting place? Reality is, they had no choice. Now, as a fully fledged adult, I understand. I know now what Mother was trying to tell me as a child. She was talking about the effects of rising sea levels encroaching little by little on the village of Matatufu.
Back then, I didn't quite get it, when Mother was reciting those experiences in the village. Because the ocean and the sea were our playground in Samoa. Those were my fondest childhood memories: swimming in the lagoon, going diving with Grandma, her mother, and the Peace Corp toilets out at sea that I continued to dream about, long after we left Samoa. On bristly days, the sea would throw up itself through the toilet hole we sat on. Very funny.
So Mother's recollection of the sea getting close, and our family moving away from the sea confused me as a child. Because in my child's mind, I thought the sea would obey our will and simply stop encroaching further onto crops and living areas. Yeah right. The villagers could no more control the sea patterns than I could control which way the wind would blow.
Fast forward to the present, and at some stage, I found out there was a term called climate change. It roughly meant the same things my Mother spoke to me about. Climate change wasn't a term coined in my ancestors' time. But they certainly recognised what was going on with the sea and the seasons. They saw the sea levels rising and rising over the years…and they took action.
Last year, I visited my grandparents' relocated grave in Matatufu. It was my first time back home to Samoa in 38 years. Their graves, once buried on the beach where the village originally stood before rising sea levels forced Matatufu further inland, are now covered in concrete slab.
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pacific islands media association
pima.nius@gmail.com
aotearoa, new zealand
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