Juleigh was thrown off by receiving the longest incoming telephone number she had ever seen, and the spotty quality made us constantly repeat ourselves, but I was just thankful that I could still place a call from the southern fringes of Ha'apai. I called to announce that my project had turned around.
It was premature to consider the whole project a success – Fonoi was only the first of three islands that day and one of nine remaining on our tour – but I was sanguine. My hospital team listened to my concerns about the lack of community attendance and the lack of team focus on conducting health talks. The health inspector fixed both issues. Immediately after we arrived at what might have been the smallest village on the tour, he contacted the town officer and prodded him into rounding up Fonoi denizens for our presentation. It meant waiting for at least an hour for people to trickle in, but the payoff of 15 adults was worth it. Then the health inspector emceed the presentation, during which the clinical nurse, the dental therapist, and the health promotion officer spoke. It was exactly what I wanted, and this became the model for every other village on the tour.
Thirty-six hours later, after also visiting Mango and having spent our first of two nights at our weekend base in Nomuka, I had even more to be happy about. Another 15 adults attended in Mango and I was able to read the children’s tooth brushing book. Seventy-seven people attended the Sunday afternoon Nomuka presentation due to the local health officer using her strong community contacts to call together all of the church congregations.
The dental therapist found more work to do on these outer islands, which was good for our project numbers but a bad sign for outer island oral hygiene. She would set her tool box on the sand and use fallen coconut trees for exam chairs (and the waiting area). In the following picture you can see her yanking out a tooth from locally anesthetize patient in her ocean-view dentist office. Prime real estate.
The hospital team and I were getting along much better. The horse joke from ‘Uiha was still killing and the ladies had plenty of new material after catching me talking with a girl my age in Fonoi. She asked for my number and gave me some parting Bananas, so we were one step from getting married, or so the hospital ladies made it sound. Throughout the rest of the trip they’d spontaneously ask about my moa siaine, (literally translated as “banana chicken”, but meaning “banana girlfriend”). As long as we were all joking I didn’t mind the teasing. Better than sitting in anxious silence.
We ate well and, depending on one’s personal choices, healthfully. Each village would send us off with a basket of cooked root crop, Tongan chicken, fish, and sometimes fruit. I concentrated on the fruit, enjoying what is difficult to find at the market in Pangai, and shirked the fried dough balls that the health presentations reinforced were teeming with calories. Not everyone ate so healthfully; as the health inspector pointed out, after specifically lecturing the people of Nomuka about how they should eat more papaya, not a single member of the team touched the papaya that was served to us that night for dinner. All of the ice cream and corned beef disappeared quickly.
I am usually cautious when Tongans serve me pork, chicken, or fish because one often doesn’t know how long the food had been sitting out before and after it was cooked. Since most of these outer villages didn’t expect us, however, each chicken must have been killed, skinned, and cooked during that short window we were there. Without refrigerators, all of the fish must have been caught the day before or have been salted and dried. As put by the village officer of Mango, outer islanders are usually healthier than townies because they don’t have stores to sell salty, fatty, sugary canned and bottled goods, and they rely more on locally grown or raised calories.
Things weren’t all dandy for the southern leg of the island tour, as sleep deprivation continued in earnest. I slept solo Saturday night on a hard floor in the corner near pile of smelly shoes, until the male horses returned drunk from their kava session at 3am. There was no electricity (as on Blair’s island, the generators only run from dusk until 1am) so they fumbled around noisily. I rolled over and just hoped that the urination I was hearing was aimed out the door.
I blew my chance to sleep in by assuming we were all going to morning church service, as they had told me they would the day before. But as the final church bells rang I was the only one showered and dressed. It was clear that no one else was going, but I wanted to know why they had apparently changed their collective minds or had fibbed to me the day before. Unfortunately they mistook my questions to imply I was deeply religious and feared for my soul unless I attended church that morning. The doctor volunteer to be my chaperone. I would have paid good money just to sleep for another hour on the floor so I tried turning him down. But it was too late. We went to Wesleyan mass, on communion day, the one marathon-length service of the month. Immediately after the service I fell back asleep. Monday, the longest day of the trip, demanded we once again rise before 5am.
View Ha'apai Outer Island Tour in a larger map
Fonoi
77 people. Solar electricity.
Mango
14 families. 1 church. Solar electricity. Primary School.
Nomuka
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