The trouble with Tonga....

The trouble with Tonga is that you just can’t trust the majority of Tongans. I have been back in Tonga now for a week after a very quick visit to Sydney for a series of meetings (i.e. going to the pub with mates) and for the birthday of a “special friend”. I returned with 13 pairs of football boots that my two brothers (one aged 12) decided would be better off on the feet of Tongan children as opposed to sitting at the bottom of a cupboard.

On my first day back I decided to leave the bag of boots under my desk rather than cycle them the 11km back home. I returned the next day and a pair of boots had been stolen. This is an unfortunate common aspect of life in Tonga - lying and petty crime is endemic.

Kids who need boots... looks like one kid has footy boots

A month previously I was chatting to a colleague of mine, a Fijian, who has lived in Tonga for 18 years. He is married to a Tongan and his job is community orientated, where ever we go in Tonga people are shouting out to him and he is well liked. We were discussing the recent theft of a my housemate’s bike while driving my National team back home after training and he said,

“Man… Tongans are the biggest hypocrites in the world. All week they steal and lie but think if they go to church on Sunday, say sorry and put some Pa’anga in the collection plate it is all OK.”

At first I didn’t give his comment too much credence as I assumed it was simply a frustrated comment from a frustrated man who has had to deal with Tongans in his professional, private and community life for the past 18 years. And believe me; I can see how that may lead you to be frustrated!

However, after the latest in what is becoming a long line of incidents involving theft, deception and flat out lying that I and my housemates have experienced, I fundamentally think he is correct. I want to make clear that I am no angel and I, like everyone else have lied before. However there is something about the endemic nature of petty crime and deception here in Tonga that means it is hard to swallow. Collectively we have had bikes, bags, clothes, underwear and speedos stolen from our house. Other friends here have had the same and more stolen from their houses and the suspicion is that my Fijian colleague is correct. A number of Tongans really do believe that if they repent their sins on Sunday, what they have done during the week is fundamentally ‘forgiven’.

Dear Father, please forgive me as I have sinned... these Speedos are way too tight for a Tongan

The more people I talk to the more I realise that Tongans have no problem in lying outright, continuously to your face. The problem with this is that from the stories I have heard and experienced myself you just don’t want to question the honesty of that person. For example, a mate of mine recently told me a Tongan work colleague said he couldn’t attend anymore afternoon work meetings as his wife was in hospital sick and he needed to be with her. Of course she felt sorry for him and actually took him to the hospital more than once. It turned out, unsurprisingly now, that he just couldn’t be bothered working in the afternoon and his wife was in perfectly good health at home. The problem I have with this is that a number of Tongans have no problem ‘pulling a few heart strings’ to ensure their lies go unquestioned.

Maybe I am naïve, but in my professional and personal life back home I could never imagine anyone I know pulling a ‘sicky’ on the false basis that a relative of theirs was in hospital. You just wouldn’t ‘cry wolf’ like that. While I know people may throw ‘sickies’ as they are too hungover to stomach work or have a severe case of Man Flu, I just see it as disgusting to pretend one of your loved ones is sick or at death’s door in hospital to get an afternoon off work. I have experienced the same thing with people at work saying they need to visit the hospital to see a relative for long periods of time and even one, now ex-national player, saying he couldn’t come to training as his son was sick in hospital. This turned out to be a lie and I dropped from the team.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I love Tongans and they are genuinely friendly, lovely people. However when you have to question if people are telling you the truth everyday and you feel that your underwear would be much safer on a Hills Hoist back at home then it can leave a sour taste in your mouth sometimes.

The problem, as I see it, is that Tongans believe they have a ‘get out of jail free card’ in the church. If my Fijian colleague is correct, and I think that in most cases he is, what would Tongan communities look like if there wasn’t such an overbearing influence exuded by the church? I know the church does do some good here in Tonga, however would people be happy to steal and lie if they didn’t think that by going to church on a Sunday and giving a few Pa’anga they were given a clean slate for the coming week? I personally don’t think they would.

A Day in the Life of a Football Coach

This blog is dedicated to those who think that being a full-time football coach in Tonga, is in some way, shape or form a bit of a bludge. While I admit that, at times, in fact on many occasions over the past six months here in Tonga, I have had little to do apart from sit at Keleti Beach with a beer, read my book and go for a few swims, now that the Tongan Major League has finished preparation for the National Team’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers at the South Pacific Games in August/September has stepped up. We have been training for three weeks now and the below is an example of a typical day which I will experience 4-5 times per week over the next four months as National Team Coach of Tonga.

The view from 'my spot' at Keleti

6:30am – Wake-up and get ready for the day. I usually wake up naturally at this time now due to the cacophony of farm-yard noises created by various roosters, pigs and dogs outside my window every morning. I have breakfast and a bucket shower - our indoor showers don’t work that well so instead, we fill up a bucket outside and throw it over our heads every morning much to the delight of our neighbours.

6:55am – After a five minute bike ride I arrive at the national gym to meet our Strength Coach ahead of the morning’s session.

7:00am – Group one arrives at the gym and warm-up (we currently have a squad of 32 players so divide the team into two groups for the hour long gym sessions). We dedicate two gym sessions per week to building strength and one/two sessions to core strength and agility.

9:15am – Group two finish their gym session and are transported back home in the Tonga Football Association (TFA) bus.

9:30am – After chatting with our Strength Coach and reviewing the morning’s session I usually spend 30-45 minutes in the gym doing/pretending to do my own work.

10:00am – It’s either off to Friends Café for Bombay Eggs or to Café Escape for breakfast and the luxury of air-conditioning. I use the internet here to respond to/delete the various banter emails I get from home (which can total 70+ in a day) and check the latest football news.

11:30am – Arrive at work after a 30 minute (11km) bike ride from Nuku ‘Alofa to the TFA. If it is raining or has just rained, this journey is a pain in the arse as I don’t have a mud guard on my one-gear bike and my back can be covered in mud (as it was this morning) when I arrive at work. While there are supposed to be 15 full-time workers at TFA I usually arrive to a near deserted office. Tongans are clearly not fans of work in general and we are lucky if the majority of employees turn up for more than an hour or two of work each day.

1:00pm – After a couple of hours mucking about on Facebook, email, Skype and SMH.com.au, I map out the coming week’s training sessions.

2:00pm – Sit down with my support coaches (I currently have three Tongan Assistants, including my “boss”, a Fijian Assistant, an American Strength Coach and a Swedish Physio…. Unfortunately the Swedish Physio is not a female) and explain the afternoon’s training session, their roles and the drills we will be running.

This can take some time as even if Tongans don’t understand something they will say they do anyway. It can usually take a verbal explanation accompanied with diagrams and giving a physical example out on the pitch for my Assistants to understand these drills. It does feel good however that the guys are learning and that I am building their capacity to run future training sessions by themselves. I would love to get to a point here in Tonga where I can allocate the training drills to different coaches and then ‘manage’ the session and only step in at key points… I doubt this can or will happen though.

2:45pm – Head outside into the consistently humid 25-30 degree heat to set-up the fields. I quite like this part of the day as it’s quiet and our fields are surrounded by palm trees so I find it relaxing to be wandering about my ‘office’ and when I compare my office to that of most of my friends and family back home, I realise, that for the next four-five months I am very lucky to be working in this environment.

The Office

3:15pm – Try and have a late lunch, chill out and muck about on the internet before training starts.

4:00pm – All the boys should have arrived if they have slight injuries now is the time to speak to our Swedish physio. It is much to the disappointment of the boys as well that the physio is not a Swedish female. This opinion was formed after our physio’s girlfriends, also Swedish, turned up at training last week.

4:15pm – Head out to the training fields, make sure all the boys have arrived and begin training. Training here is slightly different to anything that I have experience in the past as:

• Before and after each training session it is customary to pray.

• The boys, even the most experienced players, have never really been trained properly and each drill we do, even the most basic, is new to them. So it takes time to explain and give demonstrations of each drill and requires a bit of patience to wait for the boys to understand exactly what they should be doing before correcting technical aspects of their play.

• I don’t speak fluent Tongan but try to speak as much of it as possible. I feel I have learned the important words so far – leilei Oma (lay-lay oma) = sprint; ngaue malohi (na-u-he ma-lo-he) = work hard; fakacau’cau’ (Fa-ka-Cow-Cow – my favourite) = think; faka piko’piko (as spelt and another favourite) = lazy. I have learnt more football-specific words but those, especially the last two are my favourites.

6:15pm – As it does take a little bit of time to explain each drill and wait for translations we normally finish after close to 120 minutes. Being honest, the boys are technically not great but you would come to expect that from a bunch of amateurs who have never been trained before. However, they work incredibly hard, have a great team spirit and, most importantly, are doing their best.

6:30pm - After letting the boys cool down I usually summarise the training back in the office and take note of who has performed well and who has not. It is then my job to drive half the team back home. My job description really should be – National Team Coach/Bus Driver. Most of the boys don’t work let alone own cars so after making their way to training through a combination of running, hitch-hiking or jumping on one of the infrequent public buses, I make sure they get home as quickly as possible.

7:30-8:30pm-ish – Tonga is bigger than I expected. It takes ages to drop everyone home and I only cover half the island, my Fijian Assistant takes the boys who live out east back home and I cover the west and central parts of the island. I get home and if it’s Thursday or a Friday it is time for a beer or two and dinner in Nuku ‘Alofa and potentially some grinding at The Billfish, if not then hopefully one of my housemates has cooked dinner!

The Billy

As you can see days can be quite long; however this is balanced by the one or two days each week where we only have the afternoon session or the boys play an inter-team trial in the afternoon. On these days I generally sit at Keleti Beach with a beer, some of the freshest fish ‘n’ chips for lunch, snooze in the sun, read my book and swim in the balmy South Pacific until it is time to get back on the bike for a five minute ride back to work for training.

Not a bad way to spend a year!!

Keleti Beach

N.B. - Its Friday here which invariably means the internet is rubbish so I have only been able to upload two photos. I will try and upload more as the afternoon goes on.

Five Months In Tonga

After a hard earned 10 day break I have returned to life as a football coach and realised I am now sitting a few days short of five months in The Kingdom of Tonga. I thought I’d do a quick ‘state of play’ blog on the frustrations, and all of the good things, to do with living in Tonga.

The Frustrations

The People – I want to be quick to point out that The People also make my ‘Good things’ list however ‘frustrating’ is certainly the word to describe dealing with some Tongans. Tongans have a carefree, stress-free outlook on life, which I adore, however if you want to get something done at work, are in a hurry (for whatever reason, usually you are not in a hurry here) then Tongans are not who you want to be dealing with. It recently took my accountant here four months to pay one invoice to a supplier I sourced in Australia, you can spend most of your day (as I can never be bothered to do it myself I rely on friends’ stories here) trying to get a driver’s licence at the Ministry of Transport or trying to pay a power/water bill. Efficiency is not what Tongans do best.

It is also hard to get a definitive answer out of Tongans, especially if they have not done as you have requested at work, don’t want to do any work or don’t know the answer to a question. If Tongans don’t know the answer to something, do not understand something or just can’t be bothered to do any work they will often just lie and say they have done what has been requested, or do understand your point in order to get out of having to answer that question or to get out of having to do work associated with your request/question. Tongans are lazy, and if you want something done or you don’t want to spoon feed answers to Tongans at work, i.e. promote free thinking, then it can be quite frustrating having to continually repeat yourself or ask questions over and over again.

What they are good at is looking after and caring for their family and friends. However this can become blatant nepotism in the workplace. It almost must be stated that Tongans, in general, HATE change. Recently, 150 police men and women signed a petition calling for the sacking of the New Zealand Police Commissioner here in Tonga. The reason behind the petition? The Kiwi had the gall to introduce reforms in promotion procedures which seek to reward those that perform well and have the merit and experience to justify higher levels of authority. The 150 officers who signed the petition want to return to the ‘old ways’ (circa 1968) wherein the Chief of Police could simply promote people how he wished, which normally relied upon family connections, if they were friends of family, or if they went to the same church as him.

Tonga is good at sunsets - credit Alice Bowen for this shot from Eua

Hierarchical Society – Tonga is very much a hierarchical society. On top of the societal pyramid you have The King, followed by The Nobles (who tend to hold most positions of power within institutions here in Tonga) and then the plebs. This hierarchical society can most obviously manifest itself in work situations. I am quite lucky to work in an open workplace where everyone can speak freely, however my mate Tom has told stories of going into meetings for the Ministry of Environment where workers refuse to offer opinions in case they may differ from the opinion of the Minister, a Noble. This phenomenon also manifests itself in other situations here in Tonga, and I hate it, mainly because I think people should be able to say what they want whether they are speaking to a noble, princess or pleb.

Mosquitos and wasps – Every day I am attacked by one or the other. I cannot sit at home in my hammock without being assaulted by mozzies and even now as I sit at my desk here at work there are what seems like hundreds of wasps circling me like sharks ready to pounce and sting me. My fear of wasps in now well founded after being attacked by a swarm (of four) wasps in ‘Eua.

Tongan Drivers – Tongan drivers are without doubt the worst I have come across in the world. To put this into context, there are pretty much only three or four main roads here in Tonga and you can only go up to 40km per hour on 95% of the roads here yet Tongans still drive like it is their first time behind the wheel every time they get in a car. The only time people here are ever in a rush is when they are trying to merge into traffic after stopping at an intersection. Either people have no sense of depth perception in judging gaps in traffic or it simply doesn’t register that one car could potentially hit another. Tongan drivers always seemed shocked when they have to stop at an intersection before merging into traffic and will do all they can to ensure their car does not stop. More often than not this involves accelerating into traffic so, when I have been driving, I quite literally have to stop in the middle of the road to make sure there isn’t a collision.

I am sure that if you spoke to other people who have lived here for five months they would have different frustrations such as: petty crime (the latest robbery of one of Tomasi’s bikes is worth a mention here but when we get to the bottom of what happened I will report it in a blog), the food, the police, their work, the church etc. But I have been quite lucky in that I have not been directly affected by most of these aspects of society, or can get on fine for example, without have a $10 steak every week from my local pub. So I will now move onto the things I love about living in Tonga.

An overly friendly local, he/she was getting a bit too close!

The Good things in life

The Lifestyle – My lifestyle here is amazing. I have come from sitting in an office for 9+hours each day and having to sit on a bus for an hour or more each day in peak hour traffic, to spending most of my time at work outdoors, riding my bike to and from work each day and, on most days, being able to spend my lunch breaks at the beach rather than in an air conditioned office. Tonga is not the place to live if you don’t like being active or being outdoors or if you are so desperately ambitious you cannot take a ‘gap year’. I am lucky in that my work place is effectively a football field, each morning my housemates and I are either in the harbour swimming, going for a jog, or if you really can’t be bothered with strenuous exercise you can simply take a snorkel down to the harbour and snorkel for an hour before going to work.

Weekends are also consumed with activities (Erin hope you enjoyed that!) as on Saturday if I am not playing or coaching football I will soon be playing cricket in the local Twenty20 competition or take part in the weekly bi/triathlon (I made my debut last week and was beaten by Tomasi by 66 seconds…. I’ll beat him one week!). Sundays are then filled with getting out on a boat to Sunday Club Island or getting a mate’s boat out to go fishing, snorkelling, wakeboarding around the harbour. I am about as fit and healthy as I have been in quite a few years.

If you like the sun, being outdoors and exercising then Tonga is the perfect place to live for a year.

Snorkelling at the shipwreck off Sunday Club Island

On the boat before a few beers and wakeboarding

My job – As I have touched on this in previous blogs I won’t go into it in too much detail here but for as long as I can remember I have wanted to coach football full-time. I have now been given the chance and plan on enjoying it! Every day we are at a school or in a community coaching young kids and as of Monday I will officially be the national team coach here when training for our World Cup Qualifiers in August/September kicks off.

The Food – If you like fresh, cheap seafood (and you would be made not to), then Tonga is your heaven. Last week I bought two kilos of fresh tuna from the fish market for 18 Pa’anga, or 10 Australian Dollars. Ten Dollars for two kilos of the freshest tuna you can get anywhere! We also bought seven crayfish for 40 Pa’anga, about 25 Aussie! The quality is amazing and it’s just too cheap not to buy it! There are plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables about too and if you can deal with a few vegetarian meals each week among a mainly seafood-based diet, like I can, then you will love the food in Tonga.

Underwater at a shipwreck

The People – In general Tongans are relaxed, easy-going, super-friendly people. As with any country on this Earth there are the bad eggs that can tarnish a country’s reputation (look at a lot of Aussie backpackers or Kiwis in general ;)) but there are not many places I have been where people will wave to you as you walk or ride your bike down the street. This became apparent when I went to New Zealand and started smiling and lifting my head (as people here do to say hi) at people and no-one was returning my gesture, and in fact most people looked the other way and quickened their pace away from me. People here are genuinely friendly and once you get to know a Tongan they will be loyal and welcome you into their home as they would an old friend or a family member.

There is also a lot to learn from Tongans in relation to the ‘important things in life’. People here are not rich, most houses are home to more than one family and people do not have a lot of commercial possessions, but they are happy. They are happy because there is not enough time in life to stress or to worry about the little things in life that can get you down and as long as they are in good health, have their family and friends around them, a Tongan is content. There is a lot Western societies could learn from this approach to life.