Today is the 18th October, in New Zealand, 17th in Samoa, ..thus making it the day I was born 25 years ago, in Tuasivi Hospital, on my pretty island of Savaii.
Now there's a good starter.
I am the fourth child to Moelagi Tiatia and Edward Barry Jackson.
I wasn't supposed to happen. At least not in their set plans. haha, their most gorgeous mistake in their lives heh...(i usually state that the older ones were the 'obligated, standard monkey chidren the parents weren't too keen about!!!).
Anyhow, my dad was basically after a small cosy family unit, of mom, and three children, one boy (Simon) and the two girlie girls (Lani and Omega).

Now, do note the one older than me is called 'OMEGA', also understood to mean, 'THE LAST'

I'm just grateful they didn't name me 'ACCIDENT', now that would be worrying.

We all grew up in Savaii, my mom was a teacher, then a gardener/high chief/mother of 8 + cousins we grew up with,.
My parents later started the Safua Hotel in 1978 because they had many random palagis(travellers) stopping in to stay with us.

Our upbringing was rather colourful, my earliest memories was with my baby sister Cherelle, following our older sibling around the plantation and the village. We basically crammed their style by wanting to hang with them.
So we had to make our own crowd, fortunately, our cousins were also our best buddies, like Diana and Saofai.
During the lopa season, we would pick the red beads off the ground and attempt to fry them on a hot iron.
Children playing with fire, duh, we even smoked leaves to have a go!
I learnt to swim at the age of maybe 6 or 7??? anyhow, i was so excited, i had teach Cherelle how to do it, at high tide in the Safua Pool.
I remember she was half drowning but we were both determined to learn.
But much to our dissapointment, our nanny, Tufue came yelling out of nowhere, ready to give us a hiding.
She would come to one end of the pool, and we'd (attempt to) swim to the other.
Mind you, she was about 65 at the time. Poor lady.

OKay, enough blabbering, the boss is back soon, hehe

I shall continue to yada later on...