Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Mosquitoes, they have tons of
them here, oh, joy, and how they love me…I ward them off with bug spray on top
of the sunblock in hopes I don’t get to be too much of a meal for them…it
hasn’t worked all that well because I keep accumulating little bites all over
me.
Tupenu is the Tonga name for the
lava lava worn in Samoa. The ta’ovala is
what they put around their waist sometimes and is considered more formal wear
and has even more significance to them.
They picked us up at 9 AM to get
to the boat that would take us over to another island--Atala. Because it is used for tourists they have a
lunch deal in with the price of the transport.
They have some smaller boats than the one we took—ours had a cover on it
so that if the seas were rough we wouldn’t get wet, but then the seas were calm
all day. The boat looked to be ancient
and reminded me of a wooden boat I made while in elementary school, but then it
worked just fine. We had booked the boat
without anyone else going with us, but a Hollander cruise ship was sitting at
the harbor, meaning there might be someone that wanted our boat—sure enough
there was. A Tongan family—a father and
three sons that got off the ship and wanted to go over and swim in the salt
water pool and then go snorkeling. We
had planned on being back by 2 PM, but with this group going too, they wanted
to stay later than lunch so we got back closer to 5 PM. It occurred to me what torture might be—you
are stuck in paradise without a bathing suit, and that’s what happened this
afternoon. I told those guys that I
would give anything for a bathing suit (and my snorkel too).
This is the Tongan
family climbing down to the boat. When
it was my turn, I must have had 3 hands helping me—it was a bit of a drop. The boat here looks kind of nice but it
wasn’t nearly as nice as the pictures I took of it, but who cares when it gets
you where you want to go. The Tongan
family were so big and so many that we had to put some in front so that the
boat could plane upon the water.
We came to the island because of
a project request. Japan has already
agreed to drill the borehole on this island so flat that they had to find the
highest point, which we hiked up to—they guessed the highest spot was about 32
feet and it wasn’t much of a hike. A
geologist has already been there to verify that they would get clean
water. What they want us to do is to
provide the tower, tank, diesel engine and pump. That leaves the piping, so the church wants
to see if someone will partner with them.
Apparently they are too poor on this island to provide it, although they
would dig the trenching. I think however
if they are not willing to do something more, the church won’t buy into it.
We walked up to the
resort while listening to Polynesian music and were given pineapple
drinks. We were in heaven but without
bathing suits.
The church members have a special
problem on this island—the people here don’t accept them and ran them off. The Free Wesleyan Church is the most popular here
in Tonga because a missionary named Wesleyan was the first to come here and
introduced Christianity to them. The LDS
members have made attempts to come back, so they especially want us to fulfill
this need so that the church members will be more welcome on this island, plus
they need it. It was for this purpose
that the Stake President went with us on our journey because it is in his Stake
area.
While looking up things on the
Internet about Tonga I realized that Ana’s last name means ‘fish’ (Ika). The Stake President gave me his name and said
it meant tree and road and something else--way too long to remember--a very
nice man. While going over to the island
the men with us were big enough that we had to get some to move forward so that
the boat could get out of its own way and plane over the water. Still, it only took 30 minutes to get there.
The water is so clear there that
we could see the little fishes that come close to the shore. The water at the edge was like a
bathtub. There is so much coral that the
boat had to maneuver around the reefs, but one time bumped it with his
engine. When the men went out snorkeling
they said that there was a ‘clam farm’ out there by the reef. Everyone says how beautiful the reefs are
here. So while they did what we all wanted to do, we took naps, visited, had
smoothies, went walking on the beach, collected shells and took lots of
pictures of the paradise we found ourselves in.
This is a salt water
pool since they use what little water they have for drinking. At low tide we collected shells by the
bathtub water at the shore. We so wanted
to go in the water!
Japan has donated a lot of
humanitarian aid here on the islands. We
see solar panels everywhere, but unfortunately they are the kind that only work
when the sun shines and do not store power. And even in the dry season the clouds, which
might not produce a drop of rain, cloud the skies the solar panels don’t
work. Electricity here is so high that they would
rather use diesel and generators to pump the wells. Even in places where they do have power, they
rarely use it because of the extreme expense.
They use diesel fuel to bring the power so the bill to customers is
ridiculous, even by American standards.
After we returned to the main
island we checked out one project request to replace an engine and pump and saw
two old projects that were still working from 2006—not too bad. We went out for pizza that tasted like what
we’d get at home from an Italian man who started a new life in Tonga of all
places—we always wonder how someone decides to live a different life somewhere
completely different than what they used to consider home. He’s a nice man and makes good pizza and he
used to be in construction. But he came
here and married a local woman and had children and started anew.
The Stake President,
Murdock’s and Ana Ika.
We went to bed exhausted once
again, and also too late. There is not
enough time to get it all in. We are
leaving at 5:30 AM for the airport to go to another island.
Till tomorrow…
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