Fresh off da boat
by Cedric Mamoe
Verse One
The strangers came knocking, saying
trick-a-tree
My little brother went to the kitchen
Dished out two bowls of cocoa-rice
Came back and gave it to them
Their eyes wide open – surprised? Overwhelmed?
Trick-or-treat? This is definitely a f.o.b. trick
The next year we knew it is call Halloween
We asked our parents for money to buy lollies
My mum said, “Why buy lollies for strangers?”
I can’t remember what my dad said
At the end we couldn’t afford lollies
So my little sister made a neat sign
Stuck it up the front door
Saying,
We come from Samoa, we don’t do Halloween
The next year we got lollies
We bought them ourselves
My parents didn’t mind
If we gave them away to strangers
We bought chocolate lollies
We thought we’d taste some first
In case a stranger gets poisoned
We did intend to leave some for the strangers, but
…So my sister made another neat sign
Stuck it up the front door
From Samoa, we don’t do Halloween
Wished we’d had cocoa-rice for a back-up
Verse One
Mum bought grandma a cell-phone
Mum kept ringing her for weeks
Grandma wouldn’t answer
Until uncle called and said
“Grandma turns it off to save power”
It must’ve been a good two minutes
We haven’t crashed or collided yet…
Until someone had the guts to tell dad
“Dad, this is New Zealand…
We’re on the wrong side of the road”
We anticipated our first human winter
We’ve seen it in the movies
And we always like cold ice-cream
But winter…that was different
We were cuddling hot water-bottles in our sleep
We didn’t go walkabouts on Saturdays
Uncle did that once and it wasn’t funny
He went one morning to buy milk
Came back late afternoon – tired and confuse
He said, “Got lost, all the houses and roads look the same”