Forty three year old Semi Ah Sam is from Falelauniu and Saleimoa.

He was working in his vegetable garden when Village Voice caught up with him in front of his residence at Falelauniu.

The father of six tells his story of selling his pumpkins  and developing his family with the money he earns.

“It is more than enough to help my family out,” he said yesterday

“Four of my kids are in school while the other two stay home working in the vegetable garden. It is not just for one person to do, everyone is responsible in my family.

“I sell vegetables at the market just to get some money. I earn more than one hundred tala in a week and it is enough for my family because we don’t depend too much on others but we also have vegetables for food every day.

“We all know the cost of living is high that we are facing right now and as a parent, we do not just sit around and do nothing, but we work the land.

“If we do not have a plantation to grow vegetables whatever you do you need to earn money, no matter what.

 “But we try every day to manage for the sake of our family especially our children and their future.

“We work hard in developing our vegetable garden because this is our only income for our family.

“Our family works very hard even though we see that the weather conditions are not good  but we work things out and especially with Mothers’ Day around the corner.”

Mr Ah Lam spoke of some of the challenges he faces while working in his vegetable garden.

“The insects,” he said

“And I know I am not the only person facing these kind of difficulties. Every vegetable farmer faces them as well. 

“I try my best to get rid of them because if this keeps happening all my vegetable garden will be wasted.

“The other thing is, the chemicals we use, they are very expensive but we cannot let that one thing destroy our hard work we have done every day.

“Because our vegetable garden earns money, we can pay our water and electricity bills as well as family obligations these days.

“We know it’s expensive but we cannot be moved away from it; we have been used to it from the beginning.” 

As Mothers’ Day is coming up, Semi will be selling his fruit at the market to earn money for his wife’s new-dress.

“To me personally, we fathers have to make our wives feel special by buying them new things. 

“That’s why I am working hard for these three days left before Mothers’ Day making sure that the mother of our kids will wear something new from the money we make from our vegetable garden.”