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O’ua
22 homes. Solar electricity. 4 churches. 3 stores.
WELCOME TO O’UA. Enjoy your visit. Let O’ua’s youth show you the true Ha’apai. Join us for: kava night, dancing, weaving, church on Sundays or any day (we ask that you please dress modestly and respect our culture). For Salle Food & Crafts! LAUNDRY SERVICE AVAILABLE.
Having read the welcome sign posted above the wharf, I first mistook O’ua for a Tongan amusement park. Kava night sounded exciting. What type of dancing do they do? Can I weave a mat? Having just crested the halfway hump of the trip, some quick laundry service would be wonderful. Even the walking across floating barge at their wharf, a necessity because O’ua is a high island without surrounding shallow sand or reefs, felt like one of those inflatable bouncy houses to walk across. This place could be awesome!
My gut told me otherwise. The AusAID logo in the bottom corner warned me that this conspicuous attempt to draw tourism to Ha’apai’s isolated middle was someone else’s idea and perhaps not very reflective of the mood or capabilities of the inhabitants. Over the three hours I spent there I did not enquire about any of these features, and I might just be cynical, but I suspect kava men and weaving women would be utterly shocked to find a tourist wanting to join them. They would probably give you food and crafts and do your laundry without asking for any money.
I could very well be wrong. The Wesleyan minister, the highest ranking denizen since the village officer was away, came across as astute, well-spoken, and capable. Like so many of the other islands, O’ua did not expect us – someone there told me they heard on the radio that we were supposed to have been there the week before—so we needed to round up the community. Without the town officer around, I hoped for support from the minister, but he was a bit intransigent.
In a slow, contemplative tone from a comfortably recline chair, he said, “I think what has happened is a failure of communication.” He was certainly right. One of our team members was supposed to have contacted each village officer and have sent a radio broadcast, but it seems that either didn’t happen or it wasn’t done thoroughly. I apologized and tried moving past the mistake by enlisting him to collect villagers, but he wanted no responsibility in our activity. I couldn’t really blame him – how would you feel if a team of people showed up suddenly outside your house and told you to gather in the town hall to listed to a health presentation? – but if not only for the pharmacy, the doctor, the dental therapist, the diabetes testing, and the family planning, this was a great opportunity for health promotion.
Thankfully the health inspector took charge and helped gather 44 people into the church hall. The talks went smoothly. Afterwards, I distributed brushes and read the tooth brushing children’s book as the dental therapist prepared her station for exams. Once the syringe appeared, cute and smiley kids suddenly became crying terrors. Their teeth were awful and many needed pulling. One kid transformed into a bawling knight, defending himself with his new toothbrush-sword, though the dental dragon eventually overcame him. One aching boy ran away, meaning he’ll be living with a painful cavity for at least another year when the next tour arrives (or he’ll have to pull it himself without anesthesia).
Tungua
Scientists recently predicted sea level increases of 1 meter over the course of this century. Tungua will be the first island in Tonga to disappear. It is very flat, and at least where its people live, already barren. The topography seems to dip past the crest of upper beach so that the town is barely above water level. Without many trees, it seemed desolate. I felt instantly glad I was not stationed there.
Tungua was also the most difficult health talk to manage. We set up in a dreary hall near the beach, and while we waited for the now routine slow gathering of villagers, I went for a walk down the beach. After only two hundred yards I began hearing the high frequency noise of Tongan koneseti (or “concert”) music. Trotting through a row of hedges and coconut trees, I emerged on the other side to find sixty villagers barbecuing, playing volleyball, dancing, and relaxing on the grass. It was a national holiday, so the village threw a party.
Expectedly, my presence stopped the volleyball game. Unexpectedly, their first words were, “His Sione! Where’s Juleigh?” An extremely rare Tongan-speaking white person had just appeared literally out of nowhere on one of the most isolated inhabited islands in all of Tonga, and all they wanted to know was where Juleigh was. I was flabbergasted.
Apparently the young man speaking to me was a student at Ha’apai High School, which explained how he knew us, but did not explain why he wasn’t in school, it being a testing week. A mid-thirties man then approached me with the familiarity of a close friend and started asking me how certain students were in my science class. I didn’t recognize him at all.
As we conversed and I calmed down, I began thinking about how to play my health talk. There were two ways to react to the scene: (1) oh my God this is perfect! They’re already in one place! If we just bring over the hospital team we’ll have a great turnout! (2) Oh well. There’s no way a health talk will beat out volleyball for entertainment so we’ll just take whoever shows up at the hall by the beach. You can’t win ‘em all.
I returned to our beach hall to champion option number 1 but found a team of number 2’s. The difference between 1 and 2 was a 4 minute walk, but they were tired. I understood that, I was too, and none of us had slept well in days, but this was our golden opportunity.
The eventual compromise, brought only by promises of free sunblock, bug spray, and ibuprofen, was to return to the picnic only with the family planning nurse, who all along had been delivering the healthy eating and diabetes prevention portion of the presentation. The rest of the team would also conduct a presentation at the hall for whoever arrived.
At the picnic we easily herded children under a shady tarp for the talk, but the young adults playing volleyball were less interested. That’s when I emphatically interrupted their game, declared free toothbrushes for whoever came, and won over another dozen people. We gathered 49 in total. The doctors said they had 35 people at the hall. Splitting up the thereby reached 84 people.
Matuku
132 people. 38 families. 22 solar-powered homes. 3 churches.
If Ha’apai held an island pride competition then Matuku would win in a landslide. The dirt paths are clean, raked, lined with colorful flags, and adorned with welcoming banners. As in every Tongan village reached on our tour, the people were overwhelmingly friendly. Matuku was unique, however, in being the only village to make our health talk contingent us taking a tour of the town before we leave. After a decent community turnout in the hall, our group of nine happily paraded the short distance up and down the village, posing at each banner for photos.
The village officer asked that I use my camera and English skills to make Matuku famous. This post is the best I can do.
Completing the longest day of my life, our troop continued on to nearby Ha’afeva Island. There we slept for our final two nights…
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