TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

TONGA 2

It was 2002 before I made my first flight in a plane or anything really. I had always avoided the large metal objects which seemed to me to defy the laws of nature and actually lift off the ground. But now, on my Pacific journey, I seemed to be flying every week and that was certainly true for the four weeks I spent in Tonga. I’ve realised that those of you who haven’t been following these blogs daily will sometimes not know what I’m going on about, but then I can honestly say that has been a problem most of my life. In any case, as these were primarily intended for my children and grandchildren, genetically, they may stand a better chance. Tomasi, well go back a day or two, had arranged our flight to Ha’apai and also our accommodation. Ha’apai is the central group of Tongan islands, round about 50 of them, and some 17 being populated. The main one is called Lifuka and, as that is where the main airport is, luckily that is where we landed. It was an hour or so flight from Tongatapu in a modern 56 seat plane, well modern when I was born.

Our new host, who may have been called Lindsay, was there to meet us at the airport, another good reason for landing there, and drove us to his home. It was a beautiful house, rather unTongan, but we were staying in some tourist accommodation in the grounds. During our first chat, while we explained what we were doing, he told us that later that night he would be entertaining a friend who happened to be the deputy principal of the local, and only, high school. He asked if we would like to join them and yes was our reply. After a good meal, and some wine, we talked long into the night and the end result was that the deputy invited us to the school two days later and said his pupils would entertain us and show us aspects of Tongan life.

This was exactly as I had dreamed my project would be; kids around the world, although my dream was still in Europe, using our journey as a fulcrum around which they could tell others their way of life. If you have been with me since the start, and aren’t related to me, thanks but you may also remember my feelings when we were given the story about the aboriginal elder in Australia. We had also been sent numerous projects by schools but, sadly, we had, I think, run before we had walked, and possibly, to quote John Denver, in two different directions. Nevertheless, the idea of going into a school and being shown life by the pupils was exactly what I wanted and I wasn’t to be disappointed.

The first thing that happened on our arrival at the school was that one girl had brought in a traditional Tongan costume and she proceeded to show us various movements in Tongan dance. We videoed the whole thing but sadly I no longer have this video. In fact, there is so much that I lost, or had stolen, and, as you may have seen, even the videos I have were of lower quality intended for easy and quick upload to our website. People say you never stop learning and, rest assured, I will never again allow anyone to take possession of, or take over, any project that I run. Once the dance lesson was over we were taken across some of the fields where the school was built and told that one class was going to cook us a traditional Tongan meal in an umu, which is an underground oven. When we arrived the girls were preparing the food by wrapping it in coconut leaves.

Below this paragraph I have put four photos which show the various stages that took place. After the girls had wrapped the food in leaves and then, slightly untraditionally in foil, it was taken across to where the boys had started the oven. Again there was a little poetic licence here, as it wasn’t underground but was a square container which was burning well. The boys lowered the foil packages into the oven and then covered it with cloth. We then spent some time with other pupils and teachers, were asked if we could deliver a letter to the education department explaining that the school had been videoed by us for our website but unless someone came and mended their computers they would never see themselves. This really amazed me; the kids were doing all this not for show, not, as some Australian kids had said, to become famous, but to show others their culture, their life. I should point out that the Australian kids I refer to had actually told us that they wanted another project to do because their mum had seen their work on our site and told them they were famous. When we returned to the oven, it was time for the boys to uncover the food and then to remove the parcels, which the girls collected and took back to their area. It was interesting to watch this segregation, so typical of Pacific Island life. Remember my kava drinking in Fiji, where I was left with the women as the men drank elsewhere; men and woman are different here, neither better than the other, just different.

Then we all sat down and enjoyed the meal, a perfect end to a fantastic experience. If you look closely at the final photograph of the four above you will notice that there is a rather tasty bit of a lobster sitting on my plate. There are some perks to my job as the kids just had the food they had parcelled up; corned beef, taro and a bit of fish. During my meeting a week or so later with the King’s personal assistant or equerry or whatever the regal term is, he promised to do something about their lack of computers. I never heard if he did but I loved what I saw and what they did.

We walked back from the school and came across this little gathering in the garden of one of the houses. There were lots of people, very traditionally dressed with the tapa cloth I talked about earlier over their normal clothes and many of them were carrying gifts of tapa too. It turned out that there had been a death in this family and their neighbours were arriving with gifts and to pay their respects. Interestingly, across the road, the men, notice all women in the picture, were beginning a celebration that would go on well into the night. Death is not as sombre an event here nor is it a time to exclude children.

These young guys we photographed another day, and I can tell you it was certainly a Sunday, as they made their way to church. Even on the islands, just as in Nuku’alofa, Sunday was a day of rest. It may surprise those of you who were born more recently than I, father would love me for that piece of grammar, that no shops ever opened on Sunday when I was young and my father, despite being a high-ranking civil servant worked a five and half day week, going to work Saturday morning as well as all week. Guess that’s really the reason he got his OBE; nothing to do with being an Old Bald Englishman as I told him at the time.

I’ve talked a bit in these Pacific Island blogs about shops. Thought you might like to see one on the main road in Lifuka. It is another world to those of us brought up in Europe. I suppose there was, at the time, some logic to our decision to go global and not just concentrate on Europe but the more I reflect on things, it was wrong. When I first had this idea way back in 1997 I had met with, and received great support from Sir Edward Heath, ex Prime Minister and very much in favour of a united Europe. He had told me that when he was younger he had travelled to Europe and seen, at first hand, the attitude and behaviour of the leaders in Germany. He believed that the project I had planned would help the younger generation to form closer links and that the devastation he had witnessed would never happen again.

I’ll get there, believe me. My mother always told me there was no such word as ‘can’t’ and I am a stubborn, and sometimes grumpy, old man; as well as totally crazy as the grand-kids know. Stand up all other grandfathers who have tobogganed down a steep slope, carrying a video camera just to get a good clip for the yearly family movie. Well done, did you hit the trees too? It’s so difficult to steer and film isn’t it? I even did a commentary and you can distinctly hear my calm BBC voice announcing ‘Oh, I’m in the trees’. Oh alright, you asked nicely, here it is. But back to Tonga and my new friend Lindsay, if that was his name. The reason I keep saying this is that his accommodation was called Lindsay’s so I am applying a small piece of logic while my notes fail me. He took us around his house and explained that in the hottest weather he would sleep out on his verandah and this was his pillow. I can’t honestly say it was very comfortable but he told me he used it every night, unless in his bed.

Don’t you just love those ‘I don’t believe it moments’. Something happens that you would never imagine, never think about, and the other party treats it as total normality. After we had toured the house and garden and he promised they would bring us breakfast outside our little hut in the morning, we stood in his living room, chatting about the school, the funeral and all we had seen so far. If you look you will see the pile of tapa cloth in the middle of the picture and he told us that they always had a supply, ready for weddings, funerals etc. Please note the contrasting styles of dress although I do seem to be adding enough colour for both of us. He left me for a moment, possibly blinded by my shirt, and came back carrying an object that I certainly didn’t recognise.

‘This is my Olympic torch’, he said. Now at that stage in my life, six years before London 2012, I had never seen an Olympic torch in person. And here, in the remote Ha’apai islands in Tonga, where only about 7,000 people live, some guy was nonchalantly giving me his Olympic torch to hold. It turns out that the torch run for the 2000 Sydney Olympics had been carried across the Pacific and he had run a leg through Ha’apai. He still had his torch and, unlike some more recent bearers, had absolutely no intention of getting rid of it. To say I was impressed was a fine example of Litotes, and I suggest you look it up.

We left our idyllic stay on Likufa the next day, after a lovely breakfast in the sun, and headed across a causeway to another island called Foa. For the first time since we had started out in Fiji we almost had a break. This place was so remote that, apart from the 20 or so huts, there was no other sign of life. The beach was incredible, the sea warm and blue and the two days went far too quickly. It was one of those places where you could photograph the sunrise over the sea in the morning and, even travelling at Tongan speed, photograph the sunset over another beach on the other side of the island, that night. They were about 50 yards apart. We did go for a good 3 kilometre walk to nowhere, so my notes say, and we found it.

I know I have been going on about my idea of a desert island from my schoolboy days of reading Robinson Crusoe and even Coral Island but this find was a bit spooky. We walked back along the beach one day and suddenly came across this in the trees at the edge of the sand. I’ve given you a long shot and close up. We had a good look around and there was no real sign of life but also there was no sign of any life nearby. I can’t imagine it was kids building it as a playhouse, as no one lived there. We mentioned it to the resort owners but they’d never seen it and by then it was time for us to leave.

I have to admit that of all the places we visited on that trip, Ha’apai was my favourite. I loved Fiji, overall, as a country, but Ha’apai had something magical about it. I’m not sure I could live in such seclusion but it might be fun trying. The other thing this blog has made me do is realise how close to running a fantastic educational resource I came. Writing again about the time at the High School in Pangia, on Lifuka, and remembering the work done by other schools are just two of the reasons why I will never, ever, give up on my dream of using the internet, a journey, reality, to improve the learning opportunities, resources and motivation of young people. So, if there are any out there who want to stop me, you have been warned. You can upload your lies, blame your failings on someone else, but I know what is good, bloody good, and it was my mistake, my lack of strength that allowed it, on this occasion, to fail. Next time, it won’t and if I get just one letter like those below, or one project like my aboriginal one, the experience in Ha’apai school or this, I will be a very happy, less grumpy, old man; though still completely crazy. Now, who wants to help this time?

Another airport, another flight, another guess at when, or if, it would leave. The problem with Tongans is that they are such nice people, and so laid back, that you can’t be angry when things don’t happen on time. They knew it wouldn’t, why did you think it would? By now we had reached the same stage as them so no surprise that we left Ha’apai earlier than told. We actually met a couple at the airport who had arrived for the mid-morning flight to Nuku’alofa and discovered it had left at 9.00 am. Apparently they needed the plane back in Tongatapu, so it left early. Vava’u, so we were told, is the more touristy group of islands, more to do, more to see, although, as you will discover, we managed to be totally isolated with a goat and two Spaniards.

Our first stay was with a delightful New Zealand family who had moved there a few years ago and ran a small resort overlooking the sea. Thinking about it, everywhere in Tonga seems to be overlooking the sea and that’s fine by me. I suppose my three coastline journeys may give a bit of a clue as to how much I love the coast and the surprises, and beauty, it brings. Just looking at this picture fills me with nostalgia for that time in Tonga, the scenery and the friendliness of all the people. The family we stayed with had two young children although the elder, who I think was about 7 or 8, wasn’t feeling too good during our stay.

However, the younger one, blondie in my picture, offered to walk me to school one day and introduce me to his teacher. It wasn’t a long walk but he was delightfully chatty, explaining that at school he mostly spoke in Tongan and how much he enjoyed it. When we arrived, I watched as the traditional start to the day took place. A bit like we witnessed on Koh Tao in Thailand, all the kids stood in line, the national flag was raised and they sung the national anthem. My new little friend seemed to know all the words and joined in the clapping when it finished. I spent about two hours at the school before returning to our hut and my girlfriend, who had by then woken. One thing I wasn’t too happy about was that, just before the flag was raised, an older child was misbehaving so the principal called him forward and cuffed him round the head. I am quite old-fashioned in my view on discipline. A smack never hurt any child but a smack is not aggressive, it is controlled and it is only on the leg, the arm or the bum. It is a deterrent, not a sign of anger. My children didn’t need a smack very often and maybe that is also because they knew if I said something they had to do it. My current pet hate is any parent, or grandparent, who says to a child something along the lines of, ‘Do you want to go to your bedroom’ or ‘Do you want to go on the naughty step’. The answer is ‘no’, and when they tell you it, what do you say next. I will tell a child once, I will give them the benefit of the doubt a second time and then I either administer a smack or, far more likely, I raise my voice, say their name, marginally louder than a jumbo jet taking off, and it has an instant response. There is no negotiation and as I do not usually shout at all, this has the desired effect.

I am going to digress here because it is something I truly believe we have got wrong with the bringing up of children. I spent a year teaching, and working with, children who had emotional and behavioural problems, or at least were told they did. I fully accept that if your single mother doesn’t want you, and you have been adopted 3 times in 2 years, you will have a problem. But the little boy, well nine actually, I worked with was, basically, a little boy. He needed love and affection, and discipline. One day I was teaching him and a few others Maths. He was trying to do as little as possible and be a 9-year-old boy. I was his teacher and told him off and, as above, on the third time, I shouted once at him. He jumped and started work again. That should have been it. But that day a child psychiatrist, psychologist, whatever, was sitting in. She interrupted and asked him why he was misbehaving and why he had so much inner anger. At that point, I can tell you, he had a lot less than I did. He sat looking innocent. “Is something frightening you”, she said, “is there something here you don’t like”? His little eyes wandered round the room, we were teaching in a real house to make them feel more at home, and as they flicked past the telephone, I saw a little smirk on his face. I knew what was coming next. “The phone”’ he said meekly. “OK”, said our caring lady, “I’ll have it removed”, and left the room. I swear, that as she did so, he winked at me but I couldn’t react as I was just so impressed with his performance. He and I got on really well because he accepted me as his boss and I accepted him as a little boy trying to push the boundaries as far as he could. When crunch time came, and I shouted, he stopped pushing. A few months later he had to go on a visit to see someone and they asked who he wanted to go with and it wasn’t the gentle psychodoodah, it was tough old me but I think he knew I really liked him. As a further anecdote, we had an older boy there, about 13 or so, who had ADHD. His father always came along in case the boy ran off. One day I took him out to do a geography experiment without telling his dad, only the secretary who knew where we were. When we got back everyone was in panic mode and the first thing they said was ‘didn’t he try to run away’. The answer was no because I never thought he would and he knew I didn’t. Nor had I even suggested it to him. It was natural, we went out and I treated him as normal.

Okay, enough of that, back to Vava’u. Our New Zealand hosts told us about a friend they knew who had a cottage that you could stay in, on an island just a few miles off Vava’u. Off we went in a taxi, stood on a beach for half an hour or so until an inflatable boat came into sight and we were transported to our new home. The island was home to a couple, in their fifties I guess but I’m not great with ages, who had built the accommodation on the island themselves. They had one cottage to rent, and we used that, while they also had a resident handyman Tongan, who had his own accommodation. They made money (?) by selling paellas and breakfasts to passing boats, along with the odd party in their bar/restaurant. The guy had carved our cottage out of the natural rock and used it as a part of the walls. As such, we were perched rather precariously, I felt, on the edge of a fairly steep cliff. I didn’t sleep that well.

My sleep wasn’t helped by the friendly goat who loved to come round and paw at the window. At this stage you are probably wondering what I’m on, unless you know my abhorrence of any drugs and total refusal to ever take anything, except once and I will tell you about that later. We did, seriously, stay on an island with two Spaniards and a goat, with a stray Tongan, and the people made their money by selling paellas, and other food, to passing boats. At first, I didn’t believe it either, but at our first evening meal, the radio crackled, mobile phones didn’t work out there, and someone was trying to order something, and it may have been croissants, for breakfast the next day. Really.

I learnt a few other things while there, as we had nothing else to do for two whole days. Firstly, pineapples don’t grow on trees. They grow on bushes, or at least these did. Now maybe you knew that, clever clogs, but I didn’t. I saw these, and lots more, when we went out one day on a long walk through the bush and around the island. It didn’t really matter that we had no idea, for most of the time, where we were. At some stage, you would find a beach and then just follow that and you would be home again.

And the other thing is how clever the coconut is. If you were in Fiji with me, you will remember my little friend who climbed a tree and opened the coconut for me to drink the milk. But, not only is it a good drink, the ‘meat’ inside is a source of food and the husks, apparently, burn extremely well. However, should you fail to collect all the coconuts after they have fallen, or after you have knocked them off the tree, the clever little thing lies there for a while and then begins to reproduce all on its own, thereby, making sure there is always, wait for it, a bountiful supply.

After our few days of isolation, peace, tranquility and a goat, we returned to the main island and stayed at the largest hotel there and met a man who had a vanilla plantation. Oh, so you knew that too, did you? I didn’t. I think he was from New Zealand, but he took us to his plantation, where he spent a month or so every six, and showed us round. Vanilla pods are a bit like grapes, growing on vine like plants. The pods, when collected, look like a bunch of twigs, about seven or eight inches long. He was leaving the next day, only he didn’t because the flight was full so he couldn’t, although he had booked. Don’t ask?. We had another Tongan experience that night in the hotel for the evening meal. They’d run out of wine and ice cream. Some friendly Australians gave us a glass of theirs, wine stupid, you don’t serve ice cream in glasses, as they had not completely finished the three bottles they had but, what can you say? It’s Tonga.

Tardy though they may be with their sense of time and, to a degree, forward planning, Tongans take great care in their appearance for special occasions and, of course, Sundays. These ladies were all dressed up for a special service for, I think, Ladies Day, when we were in Vava’u. Talking of ladies, it was also in Vava’u that we came across the fakaleiti. Careful how you say that. Basically these are men who behave, and dress, like women. There are two distinct ways you come across this. One is in everyday life, while the other is as a show, entertainment, Danny la Rue (if you’re old enough), even Dame Edna. Vava’u has a bar which held these shows every Tuesday and Friday and we went along. I told you about Kookie, in Fiji, and my feelings that he seemed more female but, in Polynesia, as opposed to Melanesia, it is far more apparent and, indeed, far more common. But wait for Samoa!

Talking of shows, moves me on to the older generation and how, particularly in Vava’u, they are treated. One of our contacts while there was the head of local tourism and he arranged two specific visits for us. The first was an annual concert and meal he put on for the elderly on the island. We first went to a church service and then were taken, by bus, back to the grounds of the hotel we were actually staying in. The bus journey itself was quite fun as everyone was singing, possibly dirty rugby songs, but as they were in Tongan, I had no idea.

Once back at the hotel, there was food and entertainment. I suppose there were about 80 or so elders in attendance and, for once on this trip, I wasn’t the oldest person around. Like me, hahaha, the old people were pretty sprightly and this ‘young’ lady was not averse to joining the young male dancers on stage. In fact, she joined in with everything. We met up again with our paella-selling Spaniards who came over and gave a flamenco and Spanish guitar performance. I hope their paella was better, but dancing doesn’t usually impress me as you know.

I had noticed at various Tongan events the young people would perform a type of break-dance, I know all the terms, performance, usually to some sort of religious, gospel song. It felt a bit contrived to me and you already know my problem with missionaries and their manipulation of the people they come to convert. Whatever, Tonga’s answer to Ginger Rogers was at it again. I earned my money by becoming the official photographer/videoer of the event, as the one booked didn’t turn up. It’s possible he was flying in and his plane may well have left late/early/never. We also witnessed the Tongan view of death, as our tourism friend made a speech while the elders sat for the photo and advised them to look at who was sitting next to them as they might not be there next year. I didn’t like the way they all looked at me, until I remembered I was the photographer and had told them to look at the camera. Eight years later, and I’m still here so, look at me all you want.

We spent the rest of our time in Vava’u on various exploits. We were taken out for a boat trip around the islands. Our boat was also being used as a ferry to pick up, and drop off, passengers at the various island resorts. In this case our boat was unable to get close enough to the jetty. The tourists, and their luggage, were put on a raft and three hefty Tongans hauled on a rope which somehow pulled the raft out toward us. Eventually they arrived, we had been drifting about a little, and they, and their bags, were duly lifted on board.

It looks, although I don’t remember it, that we also spent some time snorkeling on this trip. If you remember, I can’t swim, or at that time, I thought I couldn’t, so despite the assurances that I could have buoyancy aids, sounds like a new pandemic to me, I stayed on board. I say ‘couldn’t swim’ because during my long stay on Waiheke Island, I did achieve something of a record of sorts. I manged, breast-stroke wise, to swim up and down, or to be more precise along and back, the beach and did 2,500 strokes without touching the bottom, which I kept within standing distance. Sadly, however hard I tried, progress using these strokes was minimal; 200 strokes usually meant about 50 yards.

Let’s finish my time in Tonga by telling you of two more traditions that we saw. Firstly, our tourism host in Vava’u organised for us to attend a kava evening. It was so much a men’s club, a bit like a monosexual bridge evening and I think my girlfriend was the only female there. We did play cards, or the men did, although I doubt that I won as I don’t remember what we played. She, however, was relegated to chief kava dispenser and it was not a role she liked. I don’t think we stayed that long.

The second tradition we saw all over Tonga and that was the practice of dancers, male but mostly female, oiling their exposed limbs so that the audience could stick money on them. Having just re-read that last sentence, apart from the fakaleiti, we didn’t come across any one dancer who was slightly male but mostly female. I was referring to the overall numbers of dancers who we had seen over our time there. I think in some of the resorts it was a way that the staff, who also became the dancers, could earn a little extra money or, looked at cynically (who me?), it was a way the owners could pay the staff less.

My final Tongan picture shows a family collecting their lunch. Sitting fully clothed in six or seven inches of water, looking for shellfish. Wonderful. I loved Tonga. It was, I think, more beautiful than Fiji overall, but Fiji had more vibrancy, more energy, more things going on. However, nothing had prepared us for what would happen in Samoa. Robert Louis Stephenson loved Samoa and he wrote kidnapped. I say no more, for the moment.

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