Planet Tonga

Hi everyone…I’ve been back for a week and am still trying to recollect my thoughts from this Tonga trip and organizing the 7.0 Gigs of photos I took!! So, I’ll be putting up more blogs later…in the meantime, enjoy the blogs already posted below.

Here are some upcoming blogs in the works:

• Behind the scenes at the Miss Heilala pageant.
• Did the right girl win Miss Heilala? (The answer is YES)
• The freaks come out at night…for the Block Party!
• Can I hang in Tonga? (My cousin thinks I can’t!..haha!)
• Chinese stores vs. Tongan stores.
• Tourism in Tonga..it’s everyone’s business.
• Predictions for the future of remittances.
• Final reflections on Tonga and Tongan people.

‘ofa atu,
Rich

The local media in Tonga gets treated, like, well……it starts with sh and ends with it. Allow me to elaborate.

At the final night of the Miss Heilala pageant, I had set up my camera position at the front of the right corner of the stage, only because other cameramen were already there.

Soon after, the rest of the local media came and joined me. This included the reporter from the Matangi Tonga, the Talaki and I think the other was the Kele’a or the Tau’ataina. There were also the television stations and foreign press.

At all these events, I knew that it wouldn’t be proper for me to criss cross across the front of the stage in all my fabulousness to get some good shots, when the even more fabulous Guest of Honor, usually a member of the Royal Family, was present. That’s the first rule of Tongan etiquette. You might think you are HOT, but if the Guest of Honor is present, and in this case, it was the Honorable Fanetupouvava’u (who I might add is really beautiful) then you just have to accept that you aren’t that HOT and move on.

We were told by a particular woman (who shall go unnamed but was part of the Heilala committee) that this was our designated press area. (Well, NO DUH!)

HOWEVER, later that evening, this woman took one of the photographers straight to the front of the stage and allowed her take pictures. At this time, Hon. Fanetupouvava’u was already on the stage to announce the winners.

In the meantime, we were completely ignored, like we were a collective pile of dog crap, while this woman pampered and doted on this photographer, giving her all the access she needed.

I asked some of the other press “Who is this photographer and why does she have access and we don’t?” They replied, “Oh, she’s from the New Zealand Herald.” I asked “Does this happen all the time?” They said, “YES, all the time.” I asked “Why?” They said, “I guess because they feel the Herald is more important than us.”

Really, who in the hell in NZ really cares for the Miss Heilala pageant other than the Tongan population there? And how many of them actually read the NZ Herald? I would imagine that the Tongan population in NZ would rather prefer the Taimi Tonga or one of the other Tongan papers.

Give me a damn break.

This was a severe lack of insight of an individual that really needs to learn to be fair to all media, especially the local Tongan media. How can you treat local media like that?

Oh, after the NZ Herald got all her shots, we were “invited” to come up to the stage and fight over the leftovers.

Thanks for nothing.

This whole “who you know” mentality in Tonga is so archaic and needs to banished to the 19th century.

Prior to this, I was on this competitive trip with the local media. At every event, we would run into each other, size each other up, jockey for the best positions and shoot away. I had a camera capable of 12X zoom and I was taller than all of them, so it was no sweat for me.

Some of the local papers were even blatantly ripping off the pictures I took for Planet Tonga and cropped and printed them!

At first, I was pissed.

But if this is the way they normally treat local, independent media in Tonga, then it was more important to me to drop my cutthroat attitude and support the local media and the hard work they do.

So, to my friends that I met from the Matangi Tonga (Linny) and the Talaki (Hola), keep fighting the good fight and doing the great work you do! Never settle for less!

Me, chillin’ in Tau’olunga Komipiuta. I really need to do something about my man boobs.

This trip to Tonga was mostly to work on our TYA project and also for Planet Tonga.

So, most of my time was spent either looking at the beige, brick walls of my hotel room (and watching the spider the size of my open hand, crawl in and out of the AC) or staring at the yellow walls at Tau’olunga Komipiuta.

What is Tau’olunga Komipiuta, you ask? It’s the only Apple reseller in Tonga and the preferred internet cafe of Tonga’s most intelligent people, yes, I’m talking about Mac users. (Shut up Anapesi!)

There goes Anapesi, giving us orders again….she’s so bossy.

If you want the best service, hassle free and reliable computers, or you want to buy and iPod or the newest Mac, go to Tau’olunga Komipiuta. This is where my cousin Sione works, along with Trish and owner of the store, Kik Velt, who was so generous to let us come and do our work and tie up their lines uploading photos for our PT readers.

When Elsie isn’t doing the robot with me on Taufa’ahau Road, she’s practicing with our other cousin Teresa

Another cool thing at TK is the sun dial on the outside wall, facing the road. It actually works!

No, it’s not graffiti! It’s the sun dial at TK…

If you are ever in Tonga and need the internet, graphic design services, large format ink jet printing, movie editing, Tau’olunga Komipiuta can do it all.

Tau’olunga Komipiuta’s store sign..thanks Anapesi for the pic!

A deep, heartfelt thank you goes out to Kik Velt, Trish and to Sione for your help and allowing us to use TK as our work center and giving us the edge over the local media…(yup, our stories and pics were always up first, even though they they were always butting in front of me at all the events……woo hoo

We love you!!

Check out their website HERE

PS…thank you Sione for my Tongan fonts!!

(Sione and I at the blowholes)

My cousin Sione took Anapesi and I to Houma to look at the blowholes. It was such a beautiful day and it was towards the evening…so the sun was setting, it had just finished raining and the clouds had just began to disburse, allowing the rays of the evening sun to pierce through the clouds. It was truly breathtaking.

I told Sione, “You know, if I wanted to end my life today, it would be right here…just jump into the blowholes and let it blow me up in the air and slam me on the rocks. It would be the most beautiful way to go.” Knowing my luck, I would probably clog up the hole and and get pummelled by the ocean into bits and pieces.

But alas, it wasn’t my time to go, just a twisted thought, and I have many of those.

(I stole this from Anapesi’s blog…tee hee hee)

So, when Anapesi and I got out of the car, we started screaming things like:

“Dang, that’s so AWESOME!”
“OH-MY-GOSH……..this ROOOOOOOOOOOOCKS!”

(OOOhhhh, I felt that one up my back!)

And then, when one of the waves crashed upon the rocks, spraying water upwards, we started screaming:

“Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude, that was SOOOOOO FREAKIN’ AWESOME!!!!” while jumping up and down and screaming in amazement.

We noticed our cousin Sione was very very quiet. He waited until we were done screaming and then he said:

“YOU TWO ARE SO DAMN AMERICAN! You are driving me nuts! Get in the car!”

hahahaha!

We love you Sione!

(Thanks for the pictures Anapesi)

So, we are sitting at waterfront, close to the Queen Salote Wharf. With me were my cousins Sione, Anapesi and Elsie, enjoying another beautiful Saturday evening.

We had gone shopping just a few minutes before at one of the local bread stores because on Sunday, everything is closed. I had forgotten about this Sunday law, so I wanted to be prepared so that I won’t starve on Sunday..yeah right! Me? Starve? Well, guess what people, I may not look like I don’t starve, but I do! haha!

So, I bought two loaves of bread and a stick of butter. We also bought some chicken from Country Fried Chicken, which I affectionately call “KFC but with only two spices…salt and pepper”, and we picked our spot at the waterfront to chill, which was directly across the street from the Emerald Chinese Restaurant. We ate some bread, some chicken, drank some soda, talked and laughed.

We had just got done eating, we put the rest of the food in the bag for Sunday, and we sat there and enjoyed the night.

During this short span of time, we saw a fight with drunkards across the street and then the Mataele Family Reunion was bumping the latest music (not that damn “Laffy Taffy” mix, thank goodness!) on the Pulupaki, which sailed around the waterfront while the Mataele’s were dancing the night away. (How F-U-N is that?)

And while we were sitting there talking and laughing the night away, I hear the sound of a rustling plastic bag…and the sound begins to taper off in the distance…I looked over and a freakin’ dog ran off with my bag of food!

(Rough police sketch of dog that stole my bread)

I started to give chase and my cousin Sione stopped me, saying “Hey Rich, you won’t catch that dog.”

You know, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have listened to him because I rarely wore my Nikes in Tonga, but on this day I did, and there was a purpose! And that purpose was to chase after a wild dog in Tonga and CATCH IT, and then kick the *%&#! out of it for stealing!

I have a rough police sketch of the dog posted above…okay, it looks like a hyenna, and actually, it is…..but hey, I didn’t see one cute dog in Tonga, except for Sione’s cute pet dog in Fua’amotu, but the dogs in Tonga are so mixed….like you’ll see a dog with the face of a golden retriever but the ears of a german sherpherd and a tail of a collie. NOT CUTE.

So, to the dog that stole my bread, butter and chicken…..I hope you got diarrhea from the butter, diabetes from the bread and high cholestrol from the fried chicken!

HAH!