Words: Jane Hodges Photography: Maree Azzopardi The pace is deliciously slow on the islands of Samoa. From the moment you step off the plane at Apia airport you know it. Even if you arrive in the middle of the night like we did, you’re greeted at the baggage carousel by smiling, guitar playing crooners festooned in garlands of tropical flowers and you begin to feel different. Relieved. Relaxed. Lighter. It’s the island idyll of your mind’s eye – palm trees, squeaky white sand, crystal seas and waterfalls amid lush rainforest; but for all her adornment, Mother Nature has been harsh here too. Two cyclones, Ofa and Val, hit Samoa in the early nineties and an earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated much of the coast in 2009. Irrepressible, the locals simply cleaned up, rebuilt and got on with life. Some beachside buildings – traditional fale houses and the most amazing…