For those of you who aren’t facebook geeks – I have put up enough photos for you to be thoroughly sick of.
You can find the public links for them here:
Fiji (general)
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150326314601420.390850.619276419&l=0842b70da6&type=1
I know what you are all thinking but this is not a blog about drunken sailors (we are all teetotalers of course!)
Instead of poor quality booze, ‘grog’ in Fiji is what the locals call kava.
Kava is a mild narcotic brewed from the root of a type of pepper plant. It looks like dirty dishwater, tastes like slightly peppery mud and makes your lips and tongue go numb. It also has huge cultural significance for Fijians and is central to a practice called sevusevu – a way of asking for permission to enter a village.
The first time I tried kava was actually on a tramping trip in the West Coast of New Zealand. A friend had bought some back from a trip to Fiji, along with a ceremonial bowl. When we reached the DOC hut we were staying at we had our own kava session – sitting in a circle, clapping our hands and trying not to gag on the stuff.
After a few rounds I was utterly convinced it was having no effect on me. I was still convinced it was doing nothing when I dropped a torch down the long drop and then spent 20 minutes staring at the light shining up from the darkness. I spent about another 20 minutes trying to make my way back to the hut (which was only a few meters away from the longdrop) before admitting to myself that perhaps my brain may have in fact gone on a wee holiday. I woke up with a stinking headache and swore I would never touch the stuff again.
Luckily so far participation in kava ceremonies has been voluntary. I will drink it if it would be insulting not to, but I have no intention of taking part in any extended sessions!
The process of giving sevusevu is a really good way to get a bit of an insight into Fijian village life. Basically, if you are a visitor then you present kava to the village chief. This in turn gives you free reign of the village, beach, snorkeling and diving spots. I must admit we probably didn’t really appreciate the significance of this at first until we had it explained to us in Savusavu by a local girl called Leiwa (we were really impressed by her. She was a representative of the junior sailing club and was also pretty much running the show at the marina where we were moored. She was a really great help when Paddy had a few issues with customs over some packages.) She told us that Fijian villagers saw the ocean and beaches as their backyard – so parking a yacht nearby and clambering around on the beach is the equivalent of pitching a tent in someone’s garden. So in that way, offering kava is not much different from buying someone a beer for letting you stay in their backyard. We thought that was kind of cool and were happy to take part.
Sevusevu can be very ceremonial, with the ‘head man’ of the village speaking on behalf of the chief (Fijians love their hierarchies) and the chief accepting the kava. If possible visitors should elect their own chief and head man to speak on their behalf too. The formalities aside, everyone grins, shakes hands and has a bit of a gossip before (if they want to) settling in for a grog session.
We have been here for a while but the terminology still cracks us up. When we were in Eakau village they very earnestly told us they wouldn’t be able to have a grog session until after church ( I had a few issues keeping a straight face over that one!) They have ‘grog shops’ in the towns too which always make me smile.
A history lesson from Captain Paddy:
The term ‘grog’ actually came about when a senior member of the British admiralty decided that sailors should only be allowed watered down rum. Funnily enough the sailors didn’t take too kindly to this and referred to the offending official as ‘old grog’. Since then ‘grog’ has been synonymous with booze of questionable quality. Goodness knows how it transferred to kava!
We have definitely seen two sides of sevusevu though. In the smaller villages it is a great way to get to know the locals and show that you appreciate them letting you into their home, but when you enter a full blown tourist operation where you are expected to pay for everything anyway it does seem a little cynical. We were a little dubious when we were expected to do sevusevu at Sawa-I-Lau island, where we were also charged $10 a head to swim in a cave that they keep locked up. It was a fresh water pool like the one we swam in in Tonga but not half as nice. There were so many tourists and teenyboppers in bikinis that it felt more like a public swimming pool with rock walls – so they would have made a packet. Don’t get me wrong – I think it is great that they are making the most of their natural resources, but in my mind sevusevu and chasing the tourist dollar don’t really sit well together.
Where it seemed to clash completely was at Blue Lagoon. Blue Lagoon was the set of the tacky 1980s movie/soft core porno that shot Brook Shields to stardom. Ironically the ‘isolated paradise’ where the film was set is now swarming with tourists, plastic deck chairs and cruise ships. It is also full of ‘no tresspassing’ signs telling you where you can’t go unless you are staying at a resort or are part of a Blue Lagoon cruise. Blue Lagoon Cruises appear to have the monopoly over a good chunk of the island, and most of the ‘no trespassing’ signs belong to them. The rest is carved up between the resorts and private owners. In a way it is a bit like the McDonalds of the Yasawas where you can go for a McHoliday, hang out with other tourists on white sandy beaches and sit in McDeckchairs – but only if you buy a McCruise happy meal. We didn’t give sevusevu to the resorts or the cruise company but to a woman who owned a patch of beach where we had a bonfire on to get rid of some of our rubbish, so in that way it wasn’t commercial. I guess it was also a strike for women’s rights because normally only men can accept sevusevu – but you certainly didn’t get that nice vibe you do from a village.
Just around the corner from Blue Lagoon though is a lovely slice of the real Fiji – Naviti Island. Naviti Island’s claim to fame is the wreck of a WWII plane that you can snorkel on. It takes a bit of bush bashing to get there and the wreck has certainly seen better days (though there are lots of pretty fish living on it) but the real beauty of it is the location which is idyllic and so peaceful. A woman named Clara and her husband (whose name was something like Tobias but not quite) own the land where the wreck is. They are a lovely elderly couple, full of stories and happy to share their slice of paradise. They won’t accept money for tramping all over their property but those of us that came with gifts (like t shirts and fruit drink) were rewarded with fruit and beautiful nautilus shells. Paddy and I both agree it is definitely a place we would like to come back to and spend more time. Across the bay from Clara’s is Samosamo village where we had a similar reception to Kia Island. There were kids lined up along the beach to help us pull our dinghy in – we presented our kava and were given the grand tour of the village. We then had the option of having afternoon tea (a cuppa and roti cooked in coconut cream) for a small donation to the island’s kindergarten. Those who arrived before us (the walk to the plane wreck took quite a bit longer than Paddy and I had anticipated) were also shown how the roti were made from scratch. Afternoon tea was a great chance to chat with the locals and find out about the village, which is much bigger than Eakau village (about 300 people). They have a kindergarten, a primary school with 100 students and a secondary school with 200. As soon as people found out we were from New Zealand they started on about the All Blacks (which of course I know stuff all about, but managed to bluff – I hope – convincingly). Interestingly about every Fijian we have talked to about rugby supports the All Blacks over the Fijian team (though of course the All Blacks is full of Fijians!) The villagers were lovely and friendly and the kids super excited to be gifted with balloons. It just felt really genuine.
We have visited so many lovely places but have only been able to spend a day or two in each (we have a deadline because we are meeting friends of mine at Musket Cove very soon). But we are already putting together a list of places in the Yasawas that we would like to come back to and spend a decent amount of time.
PS – we haven’t had internet access for the last few days but should have it back again soon. When we do I will put up more photos on Facebook and send out a blog with the links.
Sorry for the blog double up – I have a bit of a backlog and am sending them all now that we have a bit of downtime.
Our jump off point to the Yasawas was Kia Island – a little place where I learned a lot. The island is broken up into three villages, the largest boasting just over 100 people and the second largest, Eakau village, 80. We spent just over a day in Eakau village and I was really struck by the people there. They have so little materially, but they are happy and healthy, grow and catch all their own food, collect rainwater and make the most of the resources all around them.
A local boy called Valance, who wants to be a teacher when he grows up, told Paddy and I all about the island’s resources – the ocean, the land, the weather. He asked us for a ‘blue pen’ (a ballpoint) and was absolutely rapt when we said we would bring him one the next day.
A group of us visited the school in Eakau and donated some books we picked up from the Opua yacht club, courtesy of Opua primary school. We mentioned to Valance the night before that we had books and he rushed straight up to meet me as soon as we arrived, hopping from foot to foot in excitement. I divvied up the books I had among he and his friends and we made a group presentation of the rest to his teacher. I have never seen kids so enthusiastic about books. They were just old school journals with short stories and poems (mostly from the 80s and 90s) but they pored over them like teenage girls with a Dolly magazine. The few ballpoint pens I gave Valance drew still more excited cooing, which gave a stark realization of how much we take for granted.
At the school we were treated like celebrities with all the kids wanting to shake our hands. It was a very strange feeling. A little sad because we have so much and they so little and amazing that we could give them so much pleasure just by turning up in their village. There was no feeling of jealousy or bitterness over the ‘rich’ foreigners – their pleasure at having us there and their interest in who we were and where we came from felt absolutely genuine.
They were also so proud of their village – constantly asking us what we thought of it and beaming when we told them how lovely it was. They have a lot to be proud of too. It is one of the nicest villages we have seen so far. It is beautiful and clean and really tidy. There is not a scrap of litter anywhere, which is a far cry from any of the places in the islands we have visited so far. They don’t have much, but they really take pride in what they do have.
I also have a new best friend – a 20 year old girl also called Anna. She was so taken with the fact that there was another Anna on the island that she pretty much latched herself to me, calling me her ‘nameshake.’ She went to secondary school in Labasa but decided to come back to the village after three years because she didn’t like it. She told me she didn’t want anything other than to stay on the island and that she was really happy there, which I thought was quite amazing. We wondered how the village managed to keep its young people once they were sent away to secondary school, but Anna tells me quite a few come back. It does make you think really. We westerners have so many options, so many things to do and places to go, yet there is so much discontent. We have so much but we always want more, we get bored and unhappy so easily. I guess our lives are much more complicated in a lot of ways, but here you have a group of people who have land, food, a beach, a school and not much else and they seem so damned happy. I am actually a little bit jealous in a way – I wish I could be like that.
The villagers showed Diane and I where they grew their food and a local girl clambered up some trees with a big stick to knock us down some fresh papaya which we bought from them. Each family has their own garden plot for food and the trees – like papaya and bananas – are communal.
Our guide to the gardens gave us a sad example of what we have that they don’t though. The very matter-of-factly pointed to a grave and told us her youngest son was buried there. He was born with a cleft palate and died of complications when he was two years old. In many other countries surgery could have fixed that and in all probability that little boy would still be alive. She just seemed to accept it though and wasn’t fishing for sympathy – she even pointed out that he had a lovely view where he was buried. I’m afraid I was a little lost for what to say to that.
A western influence is definitely apparent in other ways though – particularly in their education system. At the primary school, written up on the blackboard along with ‘strive to learn’ and ‘live a clean life’, is ‘always speak in English’. The kids’ grasp of English is amazing – even the tiny ones – but a Labasa local told us that because of this the Fijian language is going into decline. You still hear people speaking it and there are posters in Fijian on the walls at the school but English is definitely the main focus. In a way it is good because it gives the kids more options and opportunities, but there are definitely shades of the way speaking Maori was discouraged in New Zealand schools back in the day and it would be a real shame for them to lose that part of their culture.
On a brighter note our fishing drought has been broken. On its first outing the mighty Speights lure came up with the goods – a 15kg Waloo (Spanish mackerel) which tasted absolutely delicious. We’ll keep you posted on progress but so far the score for Fiji is; Speights can: 1
Fancy expensive lures: nil
PS – I have lots of photos of Eakau village and me and my nameshake which I will post when we have better internet connectivity xx
(Sorry that the blogs are a little out of order here. I still have another Tonga one to go but I’m going to cheat and jump ahead to Fiji)
We have been in Fiji for a couple of weeks now and have had quite an interesting time. Our first stop was a lovely little town called Savusavu where we met some amazing kids from the local yacht club. It’s a town that has tried to centre itself around sailing and has made it so any child who wants to learn to sail can, free of charge. As a result of this, Fiji’s four entrants into this year’s South Pacific Games all come from the Savusavu Junior Yacht Club. In an area of the world where there are often few opportunities for young people, we think this is really brilliant. I won’t write about this in any more detail though because I am writing an article on them for Cruising Helmsman magazine (everyone rush out and buy it!) and they don’t like publishing anything that’s already online.
From Savusavu we have traveled around a number of lovely bays (photos to come), done a bit of diving, met some awesome locals and failed miserably to catch any more fish. Though Paddy has created a couple of lures out of an empty Speights can (apparently fish go for blue) so we’ll see how we go with that.
For the past couple of days we have been anchored by a resort near a town called Labasa (pronounced Lambasa) and yesterday we hit the town in search of supplies. Labasa is a busy, dusty little town with Bollywood music blaring out from most of the shops. Like Savusavu there is a big Indo-Fijian influence with bright coloured clothes, saris and general tackiness aplenty (so of course I was right at home!) But by the end of the day we were sweaty, dusty and a little over it all – even I was tackyed out.
Our transport to and from Palmlea resort was a bit of a comedy of errors too. What was meant to be a bus was replaced by a minivan that had to take us all in several trips. This was all well and good in theory, but in practice a little challenging. Labasa township is an extremely bumpy half hour drive from the resort. An enhanced rainy season meant repair works on the roads weren’t able to be done so a big chunk of the road is rutted muddy track. There were eight people per trip, which was fine on the way there, but each of those people hadn’t seen a town for a while and were provisioning their boats so the return trip – loaded up with people, groceries, diesel and everything but chickens and goats – was a little cosy. Add to that the fact that we had to wait for an hour when we were done for our driver to pick up supplies for the resort and the whole thing was rather character building.
Our driver was amazing though, nothing seemed to phase him – he went back and forth, filling jerry cans with diesel and petrol and getting the money from us after, and all on a flat rate.
Unfortunately, after being left in a hot van for an hour, some of our groceries were a little worse for wear and our margarine had turned into soup. It also didn’t help that I, while trying to prevent a queue backing up behind us at the supermarket, helped our rather slow grocery packers by stuffing the margarine into a string bag instead of putting it in plastic. This of course was a recipe for a margarine explosion – which happened quite spectacularly pretty much as soon as we got it on the boat. We had margarine coating the mainsail sheet (actually a rope -don’t ask me why they call it that. sailors are weird), all over the cockpit floor, down the stairs leading into the boat and – unbeknownst to me – all over my bum. I couldn’t work out why every time I sat down to clean up a patch more of it got spread around!
Then the police turned up. Diane kindly pointed out that my rear was covered in dairy product, but by then it was too late – they were already on the boat. We have seen a lot of police in Fiji. At pretty much every little bay we have stopped at the local constabulary has turned up to check us out, get our details and find out where we are going. We now have printouts of our crew list and details that we can just hand out to them, which makes the whole process much easier. John and Lynn from the Island Cruising Association say this it the first time in all the years they have done this that there has been such a heavy police presence. The police told them it was to ‘keep us safe’ but we haven’t felt unwelcome or unsafe for a second since we have been in Fiji – the people have been absolutely lovely. We suspect it is more of a way of letting us know they are keeping an eye on us and since we have absolutely no intention of causing any trouble I am pretty sure we will be fine (though in the interest of harmony I shall refrain from tackling Fijian politics in here). The police that have visited us have been polite and friendly and the guys that boarded after the margepocalypse looked quietly embarrassed to be standing their while we were scraping the stuff of the boat. I myself was trapped – I couldn’t go downstairs because everywhere I went I spread yellow goo, I couldn’t sit down for obvious reasons and I certainly wasn’t going to down-trow in front of the police! So I was left hovering around the cockpit like an idiot, trying not to turn my back on the police, while Paddy sorted out the paperwork.
It was rather embarrassing but we had a laugh afterwards and we managed to get the marg off everything (including myself) so no harm done.
The next leg of our travels will be around the Yasawa island chain, which hosts a series of volcanic islands, beaches and lagoons. It is a bit off the tourist beaten track and, though it is more accessible now through a catarmaran/ferry service, it is still a part of the world that many people never get to see, so we are really looking forward to checking it out.
Hi all,
Photos from Tonga are now up on facebook. The public link is here:
Hi all,
Just a quick note to let you know we have arrived safe and sound in Fiji. We’re waiting for customs and a health inspector to come prowl around the boat (I hope we are healthy enough!) It’s 30 degrees with 73% humidity and we are pretty much melting at the moment but I’m not complaining since I am guessing it is pretty chilly back in NZ! I’m really looking forward to having a good look around here. It sounds like the dive and snorkeling spots are pretty amazing! There is a blog on Vava’u and lots of pictures on the way once we find a decent internet connection.
Hope you are all doing well back home,
Lots of love,
Anna and Paddy xx
(photographic evidence to come)
Last week I got excited about a new laundry bucket. A couple of days ago I baked bread. Yesterday I actually asked a neighbour if I could borrow a cup of sugar (okay, it was baking soda, but it was still just as scary!)
Anyone who knows me well will see what is wrong with this picture.
I am not a domestic goddess in the way a fish is not a mountain climber. When I first moved out of home I had to call my mother to find out how to boil potatoes. When I was working as a journalist and living alone with my cat my weekly groceries consisted of microwave dinners, cheap wine and Whiskas. I only do my laundry when I run out of socks and undies and I don’t separate my whites from my colours.
Living on a boat however has forced me to learn a whole new raft of skills. My descent into domestication started slowly with cooking on passage (when I stopped being too queasy to eat). Then, on discovering that getting laundry done in Tongatapu cost $8 a kilo, I decided it would be prudent to give washing in a bucket a go. When I became excited about a plastic tub with an inbuilt washing board that we discovered in a junk shop, I knew something was seriously wrong! The prohibitive cost of laundry meant that most of the fleet chose to DIY, making most of the boats resemble floating washing lines. One of our fellow stragglers even coveted my washtub and got one for herself.
Another thing about boats is that, because of the confined space, they can get quite messy quite quickly – especially when there are more than two people on board. It has been a bit of a challenge for me to remember to pick up after myself (anyone who has seen my room or my desk at work can attest to this) and I still find myself putting things down, getting distracted, and forgetting to pick them up again, but (with the help of a little nagging form the skipper) I’m getting there.
My culinary skills usually consist of sauces that come in packets and things with the word ‘instant’ written on them. Ready to eat meals are great when you are on passage and don’t fancy spending much time in the galley while the boat is rocking around, but it is a waste of food when you have 50kgs of tuna on board and ready access to markets that sell lovely fresh produce at reasonable prices. This means you need to be a little creative and actually do some ‘real’ cooking. Fresh bread is also a little scare in the island, with most places having only one bakery that opens sporadically – so baking bread is another thing it is best to do yourself. Those of you who were unfortunate enough to try my chocolate pudding with salt instead of sugar (neither of them had a label okay?!) are probably shaking in their shoes at the thought of me baking but – to my intense surprise) it was actually quite edible.
The recipe came from Diane – the wife of Fergus who came with us from Wellington to Auckland and Auckland to Opua. Both she and Fergus are crewing with us now and will be heading round Fiji with us, which should be good fun. Diane is great. She’s like the Yoda of cookery and is full of little practical tips to make life on the boat easier. She and Fergus have been sailing around the world for years and live on a boat of their own in Auckland. I am taking notes and hopefully some of it will stick!
We even made a banana cake the other day. The cheapest way to buy bananas around here is in gigantic bunches which you hang on the back of your boat. The only drawback of this is that they tend to all ripen at the same time, so I have a feeling there will be a few more cakes in our future! We were three-quarters of the way through making said cake when we realised we either didn’t have or couldn’t find any baking soda (this was a little irritating because I had put together a stowage plan so we knew where everything was. This meant I had to get on the radio and ask if there was anyone nearby who had any. Summer Soul (one of the rally boats moored near to us) came to the rescue and we sent Paddy over to pick it up and back again later with some cake for their troubles. Yachty neighbours are great – you can pretty much always find someone willing to help you because they know that next time it could be them!
Paddy thinks my new-found domesticity is fantastic but I have warned him not to expect me to morph into the perfect housewife when we get back home (thought I might be a slightly better cook!) We don these things on the boat out of necessity and because of that it is kind of rewarding to be able to do something practical to help. I am also picking up more sailing skills and (though not 100% comfortable) I do feel like I can be more of a participant and less in the way – which hopefully means I can stave off being made to work the plank just yet!
It’s hosing down with rain today – serious tropical rain. The type that floods the dinghy, fills the water tanks in half an hour and soaks you to the bone if you so much as stick your head outside the cockpit. Unlike Wellington though, the rain here has the decency to fall downwards instead of diagonally and it’s not exactly cold (26.5 degrees) so we can’t really complain. Internet connectivity is still a little iffy out here but I am making slow progress with the facebook album. I will let you guys know when that is all finished and captioned before I start on the pictures of Tonga itself. I am able to email blog entries from the boat via the radio though (I will write about that sometime because it’s a pretty cool set-up all run by volunteers) but can only send text.
I decided to break the Tonga blog into two parts because there is so much to say and I didn’t want to bombard you all with a giant chunk of words.
DISCLAIMER: I am also pinching quite a bit of this from the observations Paddy has made in his email updates to friends. (There – now no-one can accuse me of plagiarism!)
In so many ways Tonga is a great, glorious contradiction. It is deeply conservative (women have to have their shoulders covered, men can be arrested for not wearing a shirt in public) and also deeply religious (you can pretty much walk past three churches in a single block) – it is also vibrant and tolerant in ways which can be surprising. One that particularly tickles my fancy is Tongans’ acceptance, and even celebration of, homosexuality and cross-dressing (which is I guess the closest Western term) as part of their culture. The fakaleiti are the Tongan version of Samoa’s fa’a fafini – men (sometimes gay, sometimes straight) who choose to dress as women. Traditionally the practice came about when Tongan families had too many sons. The mother would choose a son to be raised as a girl to help with the ‘women’s work’ – thought I doubt this is still the case now. Before the feminists jump down my throat, I am not saying raising a boy as a girl is a good thing or that there is such a thing as ‘women’s work’ – but I believe what stemmed out of it (a relatively open and tolerant attitude towards gender and sexuality) is definitely a good thing. (In saying that, public displays of affection are a no-no whatever your gender or sexuality.) We have seen fakaleiti around town, working in shops and they even have their own beauty pageants. Too often people use the bible as a tool for persecuting those who are different and don’t fit a particular mold – yet here we have a very conservative, very religious culture celebrating those differences (although it is very male-centric – I am unsure whether there is a similar attitude towards homosexual women. If it is it is very much underground.) I also particularly like the Tongans’ attitude towards death. Graveyards are not grey and sombre places. They are bright and vibrant and festooned with artificial flowers and fairy lights in all the colours of the rainbow. There are pigs and dogs running through them (and also sadly quite a bit of litter in some). Overall though, it seems to be a celebration of who the people were and many of them even have a lovely ocean view! I have been inspired by this and have decided that when I die I want orange plastic flowers and fairy lights, good luck trolls, a couple of pink flamingos and a garden gnome. In other words, I want to completely lower the tone of the cemetery!
Sadly though, some of the contradictions in Tonga aren’t so colourful and the other side of the religion coin is one of them. The churches have huge power in Tonga. There are only two government run schools in the country, the rest are owned by churches – you name the denomination and it has a school here. This is not necessarily a bad thing in that they bring resources and opportunities to the community – but it’s where those resources come from that is the problem. When we did our tour of Nuku’alofa our guide Wesley spoke to us about the huge number of churches. One village alone houses seven of them. That would be fine but the level of poverty in these villages and the comparative affluence of the churches, speaks volumes.
Tonga is an incredibly poor country and things here are mostly priced out of the reach of locals. Petrol is $3 a litre and diesel $3.13. Any form of food with protein in it is an unbelievable price (ie $18 for five chicken drumsticks) and even basic books in the local book shop are $40. The interest rate at banks is 14% and if you qualify you can get a “special” rate of 12% from the development bank. Given the low incomes and high interest rates most people are condemned to a kind of subsistence living. Tongan citizens each receive a family block of land to farm and much of this produce is sold in the local markets. The markets are definitely the place to shop for fresh food with everything from eggplant and fresh beans to watermelon and pineapples at about $3. I would also like to add that I have been doing my bit to support the local economy by purchasing lots lovely shell jewellery!
Paddy also bought me a beautiful necklace (a bone carving of a stingray) from a local chap who rowed out to the boat for ‘a cup of coffee’ – we reckon that it’s good to support people who are going out and making an effort. Tonga’s food, crafts and tourism keep things alive here – but a large amount of the country’s income also comes from relatives overseas sending money back to their families. Despite that people don’t seem unhappy – they just seem to get on with life and try to be as enterprising as they can. You can definitely spot sales pitches designed to lure money out of unsuspecting tourists but there doesn’t appear to be any real malice or bitterness in it. In our experience so far theft doesn’t seem to be too big of a problem here either.
People here seem to focus on the stuff that matters to them. Family is a hugely important part of the culture and this is very apparent. People also seem to concentrate on just living life – which can be a bit of a shake up to Western priorities.
Another thing that is taking a bit of getting used to is island time – which is a pretty fluid concept around here. Opening hours for places are pretty much just a guideline and things take a lot longer to happen. A classic example of this was when we went to fill up with diesel and water in Tongatapu. It took from 8am to 2pm and involved waiting for water to dribble from a tiny hose into our tanks. It was an old garden hose with about 20 joins in it where leaks had been fixed. This, combined with the already low water pressure made it a pretty slow affair. You can’t get impatient though. What we have discovered is that, while Tongans take their time with things (ie serving a person in a shop) when they do deal with them you get their full attention and they will bend over backwards to help you – so you get a much more enriching experience than a quick five seconds of a busy person’s time. The flip side of this is that many projects start off with a hiss and a roar and then never get finished, which is a shame.
We too have been affected by island time and have found ourselves starting to do things like going in to town to do the shopping and forgetting both the shopping list and guide book to find the ‘supermarkets’ – and the other day we went geocaching (a geeky pastime I picked up from my Dad – google it if you want to know more) without the gps. We are starting to find the balance between being uptight and being too laid back now though!
Politically Tonga is a rather alien place. It still bears some of the scars of the pro-democracy riots (buildings and shops that haven’t been rebuilt or are a shadow of their former selves) and – despite the fact their new king seems to spend more time in the UK than in Tonga – there are plenty of ‘long live the king’ slogans about. Most people don’t seem to be overtly political and I think sadly this may be because many are too busy concentrating on living from day to day. When crowned king George Tupou V voluntarily surrendered his powers “to meet the democratic aspirations of many of his people” – whether that happens will remain to be seen. While an estimated 40% of Tongans live below the poverty line, the equivalent of a third of Tonga’s yearly aid budget was spent on the king’s coronation – which may give a bit of a hint as to priorities. Relations between Tonga and Fiji are also strained to say the least. Both countries are in the process of squabbling over who owns Minerva Reef (officially it is part of Tonga) and at one point some Fijian gun ships turned up there in a bid to scare the tourists off (that happened before our lot arrived there.) Local sentiment appears to be just as fractious – Wesley was adamant that, despite the Fijian army being 10 times the size of Tonga’s – the Tongans could kick Fijian butt whenever they wanted to – according to him, “The Fijians might be big, but they are not smart”. There is also immense pride in the Tongan “navy” which recently sailed to Fiji in little more than a dinghy to pick up a Fijian military defector. It will be very interesting to see the other side of the coin when we get to Fiji.
Anyway – I broke the blog into two so wouldn’t hit you guys with a huge slab of text, and I turn around and do exactly that. The next one will be shorter, I promise!
These are just my thoughts on what we have seen the short time we have been here though so please don’t take it as gospel. On a trip like this you really only get to dip you toes into a culture before you are off to the next destination – I think we’d need a couple of years here to get an idea of what was really going on!
Bye for now xxx
Have discovered it’s much quicker (when the wifi behaves) to put photos up on facebook than WordPress right now so here’s the public link to the album – am working on getting more up soon xxx
