11 March 2010

The Departed

Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Gangale
@ThomasGangale

The island of Tongatapu is a triangular coral atoll with a central lagoon that opens to the sea through a channel on the north side of the island, east of the capital city of Nuku’alofa. There are trees everywhere, especially palms, of course. This is one of the poorest places on Earth, and the outer neighbourhoods can be terribly squalid; however, here and there one sees new and well-maintained homes. Some are veritable palaces by comparison, although they would be unremarkable in an American middle-class neighbourhood. The streets are in very good shape, better than in Pothole-uma for the most part. The word is that the roads are the beneficiaries of an infusion of Japanese money; they probably figured they could sell more cars if people didn’t have to ride on shitty roads. There are no sidewalks except downtown, and these can be rather narrow. There is quite a bit of ongoing construction downtown; a riot here in November 2006 destroyed about half of downtown. So, humidity, poverty, political instability… this could pass for a lot places in Latin America, except for the language, which I would understand better. The climate and the state of economic development, together with ubiquity of metal roofs, suggests the eventual rise of a Tongan Tennessee Williams, although I have yet to see even one cat on this island.

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When Melelini and I returned to the house, the evening sky was clear enough for me to identify the constellation of Orion. Off to the right, almost in line with Orion's belt, was a bright white object, which I first took to be Jupiter. But when I looked to the left of Orion, Sirius was not there. Immediately I realized that I was looking at Orion upside down, and that Sirius was on the right, not the left. Thus I was able to confirm by observation that we are indeed in the southern hemisphere.

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When Melelini and I returned to the house, the evening sky was clear enough for me to identify the constellation of Orion. Off to the right, almost in line with Orion's belt, was a bright white object, which I first took to be Jupiter. But when I looked to the left of Orion, Sirius was not there. Immediately I realized that I was looking at Orion upside down, and that Sirius was on the right, not the left. Thus I was able to confirm by observation that we are indeed in the southern hemisphere.

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On early Thursday afternoon we took a taxi to the Customs Office on the wharf, only to find that it was closed for lunch. No staggered lunches, everyone leaves at the same time, and everything shuts down. So we went to a nearby place on business that would not be shut down for lunch, but rather would be serving lunch, the Reef Café on Vuna Road; it had three or four tables inside and as many outside. Serendipitously, the cafe had a wi-fi router, and it was from there that I sent Tonga Dispatch #1. Melelini and I ordered a couple of drinks. We happened to overhear a palangi at the counter explain that he was in the Kingdom to give testimony at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Sinking of the MV Princess Ashika in Tonga. As he passed, I explained him that I was a doctoral student at 'Atenisi, and that I was studying the cultural response to the accident. He offered me some advice about Tonga, "Don't believe anything that you hear, and only half of what you see."

Meleini and I had already seen how the arrangements for Futa Helu's funeral had changed several times a day. "It’s interesting that you say that. We've only been in Tonga a week, and I said to Marilyn the other day, 'Don't believe anything you hear until it actually happens, and then check with someone else who was there to make sure it really happened the way you think it did.'"

"You learn very quickly."

"That's why I'm a doctoral student."

Another gentleman sitting at what was probably the cafe's computer, resembling Mister Allnut in The African Queen in dress and demeanour, right down to the same uncouth, toothy grin, decided to join us at our table just as Meleini and I had packed up our computers and were about to leave for the Customs Office. But he was an engaging character, so we spent 20 minutes or so with him; that just seems to be life in the South Pacific. Hans-Dieter offered to buy a round of Victoria Bitter, but we declined, explaining that we had to get to the Customs Office. He told us of how he had been a transport skipper on boats out of Jakarta for 40 years, and that he had just come in from the Seychelles. He pointed out his boat. Across the Indian Ocean in... that? I was duly impressed. "If Ernst Hemingvay ver alive today, he vould kiss my ahss!" Because you live the sort of life that he only wrote about. "Exactly!"

We squared matters with the Customs Office regarding our crate that had arrived by ship from Oakland. Melelini and I were hoping to get our crate delivered to the house on Friday afternoon, after Futa's funeral, but a series of miscommunications foiled that, so now it will be Monday at the earliest. Taimi Tonga. On Saturday, Melelini and I took ‘Uta to the Tu’imatamoana Market near the wharf (the one with suspicious American goods). We had planned an Internet stop at the nearby Reef Café, and maybe run into Hans-Dieter again, but ‘Uta advised that we get downtown before stores closed, as some will close early on Saturday. So, no Internet stop on account of our lack of familiarity with the pattern of the trade winds. Maybe Tuesday. There are times that I feel that I'm on the bridge of NCC-1701-B: "It'll be here on Tuesday."

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All the walking we do between taxi rides is killing my knees. I’m hoping I’ll acclimate over time, but I need anti-inflammatory meds in the afternoon and evenings. I stay away from the vicodin, but that means I don’t sleep well. Losing weight will make walking easier, of course. My knees just have to grunt and grind under the strain until then. A radical departure from the American consumer culture, every place of business is closed on Sunday, which means a forced respite from walking all over hell and gone.

I should write something about Futa Helu’s funeral; there is little that I can say about the man himself, as I wasn’t fortunate enough to know him. There was much singing of hymns in Tongan, and it was very beautiful. There were a number of eulogies, some in Tongan, some in English. The King’s sister, Princess Pilolevu, attended both the Thursday evening and Friday morning services; King George Tupou V himself was out of the country. Melelini and I were in traditional Tongan mourning dress, graciously provided by ‘Uta: black shirt, black tupenu (wrap skirt), and ta’ovala (a waist wrap woven from the leaf of the pandanus). The Police Band led the Friday morning procession from the Centenary Chapel to the cemetery on Albert Street. Now, it seems odd to me that a reputed atheist would have a church funeral (different churches for the evening and morning services) and be buried in hallowed ground. When I read of his Wesleyan roots and his cultural sensitivity, I find it impossible to believe that he was an “in your face atheist;” indeed, in the privacy of his own thoughts, he may have contemplated the nature of the gods, while publicly showing no devotion to any particular religious tradition, thereby perhaps endeavouring to appear unbiased to all, possibly appearing secular to many, and apparently being mistaken for an atheist by some. I am reminded of an epigram by the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, with which, as a scholar of the classics, Futa Helu was undoubtedly familiar:


Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.


The evidence available to my eyes is that Futa lived according to this wisdom.

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Someone is always burning their rubbish somewhere in our neighbourhood of Longolongo. Rubbish pickup was supposed to be on Wednesday, but it didn’t happen… just another day on the event horizon, which is what the International Date Line may really be. So, the rubbish gets burned. No one is concerned about the air quality, because it’s excellent. It does smell like dope smoke sometimes, however. Good thing I downloaded a couple of hundred Grateful Dead concerts last month before we left the States. But so far, in the afternoons, as we’re unwinding for the day and having dinner, I’ve been playing selections from “Atomic Platters,” a collection of songs from the first two decades of the Cold War about the threat of godless communism and nuclear war, and I realize that for the first time in my life, I’m living somewhere that was never on a target list. If a nuclear war happened, Melelini and I would be the last to know; we have neither a television nor a radio receiver. If I saw a US submarine come into the port, I’d start worrying about the rubbish that got burned in the northern hemisphere falling out through our atmosphere.

Melelini seethed throughout the weekend about the FUBAR with our crate not getting delivered on Friday. There are many items in it that we could use and it’s an inconvenience to be without them, but Melelini really, really wanted our printer for reproducing syllabi for her classes on Tuesday. It may turn out to be a blessing that we didn’t get the crate delivered. About 1700 on Sunday, 14 February, Maikolo stopped by with the pleasing intelligence of a Category 4 cyclone bearing down on us. The weather map that Maikolo brought on his flash drive was a few hours old, and showed a nearly direct hit around sunset the following evening. No tropical experience would have been complete without a cyclonic storm, and it looks like we’re getting the four-star package. Maikolo told us to expect the campus to be flooded, but on his recommendation we had bought knee boots before leaving the States. The crate is better off at the shipping company’s warehouse than sitting outside our house. Meanwhile, many topics of discussion end with the phrase, “It’s in the box.”

We can expect the power and the cell phone services to be down for a week, give or take. The major concern will be the roof blowing off, but if the roof holds, we’re pretty set. The stove runs on propane tanks, which we filled a week ago. The first thing we’ll cook and eat is the two kilos of swordfish we bought on Saturday, then the chicken, then the lamb. Then we have some canned goods, as well as an ample supply of rice, pasta, and dried beans, the hydrating of which will be no great feat… just put a bucket out in the driving rain.

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As I write, the wind is picking up and darkness is descending. We’re drinking martinis until the dry vermouth runs out, which is more than can be said for guests at the International Dateline Hotel.

Thomas Gangale's Tales of Tonga

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