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Glories. Clock Tower and Chinese Glory Bower, Clerodendrum chinense, Apia, 'Upolu, Samoa

The First World War did not leave Samoa untouched. It had been under German colonial jurisdiction until a New Zealand Expeditionary Force drove out the Germans and occupied Samoa in 1914. During German times, there'd been a fledgling Samoan movement for independence in which a wealthy Swedish-Samoan, Ta'isi Olof Frederick Nelson (1883-1944) played a prominent role. The New Zealanders suppressed this movement for independence for Western Samoa until 1962, when the island became sovereign. Nelson was given a rough time and even exiled for a while.

Nelson's family raised this Clock Tower in central Apia in the 1920s to remind of the glorious deeds of Samoans in that First World War,

On my walk up Mount Vaea yesterday to visit the grave of Robert Louis Stevenson, I made my way along great stands of delightfully light pink Chinese Glory Bower, Clerodendrum chinense (see the inset).

 

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Uploaded on February 21, 2018
Taken on February 21, 2018