Bingo so'o

When my parents upped and moved to the kuabacks in 2005, BINGO was and still is a very popular form of fundraising aka gambling hehehe. It’s not limited to churches but families hold BINGOs as well. When you see a lot of women (and men) gathering and bowing in a fale, they’re not praying, they’re playing Bingo.

My father’s older sister retired from being a Primary School principal early last year and has taken up this very expensive hobby called BINGO. My mother, after 9 years of Lefaga-living decided to accompany my aunty one night on one of her BINGO trips and is now a convert from shopaholic to bingoholic.

According to them “It’s a great stress-reliever” eerrrrrmmmmm…okay!

When we returned from Samoa last month, we brought along my mom, who came for a break (2months) and the said Bingo Addict aunty, who also came for a break (1month) and it was her first time in the US of A.

2 days before we got on the Fijiairways back to Hawaii, my Aunty asked me if there were any BINGOs in Hawaii. I think my reply put a damper on her spirits right away. “No Aunty, e leai gi Bingo i Hawaii”

The thing is, gambling is taboo in Hawaii and Bingo, is considered gambling. That’s why every tom dick and harry saves their pennies for that yearly trip to the city of gambling, Las Vegas!

After the first week in Hawaii, I could see my mom and aunty were itching to go Bingo. I called a Samoan lady I met through one of the chamber networking meetings to ask if she knew of a Samoan auloku that holds Bingos. Sure enough, she knew someone who knew someone who knew someone and 2 hours later, I got the address of the place where a Bingo would be held that afternoon. Needless to say, the place was an hour and some away. Blardy heck what did I get myself into?

Being the dutiful daughter, I sucked it all up and drove these two bingo addicts across the island.

We got there and saw Samoan women, men and faafafines who all took their places in the packed hall, chatting, eating etc while waiting for the game to start.

I gave my mom and aunty $50 each for their Bingo….which they gladly took and bolted away to the front to buy their Bingo Cards. In Samoa – 1 stack of cards for maybe 10 games is $10SAT or $4.50USD. In Hawaii – 2 stack of Bingo Cards was….wait for it…..$60USD…..WTF? ua pa’u ai le panty.

However, the prizes were pretty good -$500 and up. Jackpot was $1500USD.

4 hours later, I was crippled in my car. The 2 bingoholics got in the car with disappointing faces. They both didn’t win anything.

Telling stories of “Almost winning etc etc”

In my head, I was telling myself, I just wasted a half a day of my life, we just threw away $120 that could’ve been used to pay our electric this month and just wasted half a tank of gas driving across the island. #losingbad.

When we got home that night, mother and aunty dearest wanted to go again the following Saturday.

“FORGET IT!”

First and last time I’m taking anyone to Bingo in Hawaii everrrrrrr.