I nearly ran over a Tongan Kid

I nearly ran over a kid this morning. I've been driving the TFA's truck - which is a huge white industrial ute about three metres long - home every night after training. It has been awesome to have as it gives me a bit more freedom to go around the island quicker and get off the bike. The one catch is that I have been acting as the team bus after training. All the boys get here by 3pm every afternoon (until next week when we go into camp for five weeks), however the buses stop at 530pm so we need to drive them home after training.

I have been zigzagging across the island (this is for Aidan - swerving to miss the potholes here has been a little like driving round Delfino Square while inhaling mint slices) with ten 14-16 year old kids in the back of the truck who think it is hilarious that a palangi is driving them home. I haven't really known what the speed limits are as the roads aren't clearly marked so I have been hovering around the 50-60km per hour mark and sometimes a touch faster when I am overtaking a slow car, most people don't go faster than 40km here and now I understand why.

I was driving to the fish markets before work this morning and going about 40km per hour as I had been told the night before that 40km per hour was the official speed limit for most roads here in Tonga. I was lucky I was only going 40km per hour as from pretty much out of nowhere a young kid (he couldn't have been older than about four years old) decided to leave his brother on the other side and run across the road approximately 15m in front of me. My heart was quite literally in my mouth as I slammed on the brakes, fishtailed to one side of the road and just missed him. I actually had to look over the front of the bonnet to see if I had hit the kid, that is how close it was. I cannot imagine what would have happened if I had hit him but it was pretty scary. The kid didn't seem to appreciate how close he was to potential death as he simply looked up at us in the car and walked away. All this while I was close to having a heart attack. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had hit the kid as:

1. I am a Palangi and unlikely to get much sympathy for hitting a young Tongan kid despite it being no fault of my own.
2. The only other person in the car with me was a Palangi and no one would have listened to him.
3. I don't actually have a Tongan driver's license yet. Stupid I know, work have said they will get one for me but I am just going to go and get it myself now.

So one small Tongan kid and I were pretty lucky this morning and as the first tropical storm pours down from the sky since I've been here (it took a total of 30 minutes for every road that I drove on this morning to be flooded. I have also just been told this is the largest storm of the year so far) I am counting my blessings that I am not holed up in a Tongan jail cell for hitting a small kid who needs to learn how to cross the road!

The other part of my job here is to supervise the local U10s comp. on Saturday mornings

In other news we have had a frequent visitor to our house in the past couple of weeks. One of our neighbours came round a couple of weeks ago to ask if he could borrow some money. At first this didn't appear to be his purpose for coming over as he was blabbering on about being single, living down the road with his parents and his job as a teacher. We thought he was just introducing himself to us when he asked to borrow 20 Pa'anga to 'buy some bread for his family'. Fair enough, we gave it to him and he said he would return it in a week.

A week passed and nothing, however last night he popped round again and proceeded to dribble on about the election, his family and how is house had been burned down. Again I thought he was just going to give us the money back when he asked for more money. Now Tom, Jess (my two housemates) and I get paid an OK salary as far as Tongan standards go (despite the fact I'll be eating Dorito sandwiches for the next month as I have spent most of my money at Billfish on Steinlagers) but this seemed like taking the piss. I actually ended up giving him 5 Pa'anga (about $3 Australian dollars) and said I will be down to pick it up today if he doesnt show up with the money.

I doubt very highly he will show up but as far as I am concerned we need to give him the benefit of the doubt. We had a conversation last night about what we should do next time he 'pops over'. My thoughts are if he actually returns the money I don't mind helping out a little here and there occasionally. But if he doesn't then he will be told to go back home and not bother coming round again. It's hard to read Tongans sometimes as they are mostly genuine, honest, lovely people. However I am getting the sense that some just see us Palangi as a walking Pa'anga. I don't actually mind that if I am a tourist on a short trip to Bali or Bangkok as we are there on holiday and to essentially spend money, but when I am living in the community I don't want to be taken for a ride.

That will do for now, however I am off to Eua (a huge eight minute flight from Nuku 'Alofa) this weekend and apart from the spectacular scuba diving and trekking on offer there I am most looking forward to going to the Mormon Disco on Saturday night. Apparently they hold the disco each Saturday but if a bloke gets a little too close to a female (not sure what happens when blokes get too close to each other) one of the minders flashes a torch at you and warns you to get away from the girl. Think myself and Tom will try and see how many times we can be 'flashed' before being asked to leave! Also, depending on how many likely gazelles are there I will keep this Mormon disco in mind for when Tommy O'Hara is here in a couple of weeks. We all know he has a terrific track record with Mormons, just ask him!

King of Beers makes it's way to Tonga last Saturday night - the night ended with a tent being pitched in the girl's living room

The girls after King of Beers, Tonia as usual is struggling to keep her eyes open after a few drinks

Fishing for Piggy Chan on Sunday morning

Election Day

Today is election day here in Tonga. For Tongans it's a genuinely exciting time as there has never been a democratic election, that in effect, actually means something.

Tonga has traditionally been a constitutional monarchy ruled by a King who has delegated land rights to a group of "elite" nobles who have also had a massive say in how the country was run. This is about to come to an end as, while Tongans have actually voted in elections before, this time round the constitution has changed and it is now feasible for popularly elected representatives to run the country.

Up until this election the structure of the Tongan parliament was:

• 34 members of parliament - nine elected by the people and the rest elected by The King and the Nobles.
• The Prime Minister was elected by the King and would, mostly, be in the job for life.

This effectively meant the "politicians" elected by the nobles and the King could form a 25-9 majority in Parliament. So even if the "common" politicians wanted to make legislative change, they didn't have a hope in the world.

Now the structure of the Tongan parliament will look like this:

• 26 members of parliament - 17 elected by the people and nine elected by the Nobles (10 reps from Tongatapu, two from Ha'apai, three from Vava'u, one from Eua and one from the Niuas).
• The Prime Minister will now be elected by the 26 representatives and form a minority Government of 11 ministers plus him/herself (there will more than likely not be a Tongan Julia Gillard). This however presents challenges as to pass any legislation the ministers would have to get support from "Opposition" politicians. Something that will no doubt not be easy and could lead to a few stalemates.

While all this seems positive, it has taken some time and Tongans generally don't know what to expect. Four years ago there were riots here in Tonga where close to half of the capital Nuku 'Alofa was burnt down. When you ask Tongans why this happened, you tend to get the stock standard response to questions in general of shrugged shoulders and a mumbled "I don't know".

However, some people say it was a response to rising unemployment and rising Chinese migration (who the Tongans thought were taking all the jobs) or, a frustrated, violent call for democracy. I asked some work colleagues if that was the case, and, if there could be more riots again after the elections, "maybe", said one of the coaches here from Fiji, "but it would only happen if one guy in particular didn't get in, so we'll see".

For the month or so I have been here you couldn't go five minutes down the street without seeing banners and posters for candidates. The local newspapers have been full of interviews with candidates and the local TV channel devoted all night (from about 6pm onwards) to monologues from candidates. Candidates would get in front of the camera and talk for about 30 minutes about their policies and history, I assume.

I also think every Australian volunteer here knows someone who is a candidate for the election. Here at the TFA, the former Secretary-General (who has been banned from footballing duties for three years by FIFA on corruption/ethic charges regarding the World Cup voting scandal), the current Secretary-General and also the Vice President are all running for election.

The above appeared to be the level of campaigning until about four days ago when during training we heard loud music, people screaming, clapping and singing and car horns going off. It turned out to be supporters of our Secretary-General (the current one) parading down the street in a sequence of six or seven trucks trying to drum up support for their candidate.


I thought this might be a one-off, but that night half asleep in my hammock I heard the same thing again, this time the candidate himself (the candidate for our local area) was on top of the truck with R&B music booming, people screaming and shouting around him and the candidate himself shouting down a megaphone (I assume he was shouting out his policies but who knows). This has repeated itself throughout the island and reminds me less of political campaigning but more of what Danish school students do to celebrate finishing school - hire a truck, play some music, pack the back of the truck full of eskies and beer and drive round town screaming and shouting at everyone - or the Mardi Gras in Sydney.

This shot and the one above was taken at about 8pm at night, I could hear the music a few blocks away.

It is pretty bizarre, but also quite cool at the same time. I think it would be good to see Julia on the back of a ute with a bunch of people singing and dancing around her (maybe with "I like Big Butts and I cannot lie" playing in the background), while she shouted down a megaphone.

This went on until literally 9am yesterday morning - there was a 24hr blackout period here where all campaigning had to stop one full day before the election. We were woken up by a procession of people going down our street at 645am yesterday morning with someone shouting down a megaphone and the Billfish anthem "Let's go to Africa" booming in the background. If I was Tongan that candidate would have lost my vote there and then!

It will be interesting to see what happens but the sense here is that everyone is happy their democratic time has finally come and after voting (it seems everyone here is using having to vote as an excuse to have most of the day off) that everyone can just get on with life.

The Amaaaaazing Race from last weekend - Team orange, clearly best dressed

Dinner - Lobsters going for AU$4 each!

Life lesson

Today marks one month here in Tonga and over the weekend I got my first life lesson of note - don't be a tool.

After a few beers on Friday night - I have also found Tongan women becoming slightly, slightly more attractive after a month here and a few beers - I got up on Saturday morning and started to ride to work for Saturday's Under 12 competition. The ride is about 30 minutes each way and needless to say is tougher after having a few beers the night before.

Maybe not that attractive

As I started to ride one of the boys I coach went past in his family's car and opened the car's sliding door on the side of the car. This was an invitation for me to grab a hold of the door frame and get a 'free ride' all the way to work - a great idea! I did this the night before on the way home from the Billfish, the personal advisor to the current Tongan PM was driving two kiwi girls we had met home after having a few beers himself so I grabbed hold of the window frame while I was on my bike and got a free ride down the road. I clearly didn't realise then that this was a stupid thing to do.

Approximately half way from my house to the TFA playing fields the road turns to follow the in-land lagoon - this is just about the only bend in the entire trip. I was happily clinging to the car with my right hand and steadying my increasingly wobbly handle bars with my left hand when I thought it was time to let go and not push my luck. I also thought that as the car turned the corner my bike would continue going straight and I would get hit, so I let go. I was quite happy with myself getting over half way to work in five minutes but as the car I had been clinging to turned the corner an oncoming car had turned too wide and sneaked into the opposite lane. The car that I had, until a few seconds earlier, been holding onto had to swerve to the side of the road to miss the oncoming car and in the process, hit me.

I didn't last long on the bike and went over the front of the handle bars into the dirt. I was pretty lucky, the worst that happened was a couple of pretty annoying grazes across the palms of my hand (the grazes mean I cant really use my right hand for much and this shown me how useful hands really are for things like: holding a knife and fork, opening bottles, washing myself and general everyday activities). As I have been reminded it could have been a lot worse. At first I didn't really think about it as I was just annoyed that I looked like a bit of an idiot and that I had potentially broken my watch ( I have since fixed it!), but really anything could have happened and I am quite lucky.

So the life lesson learnt here is - don't be a tool. I will also be riding the entire 30 minutes to work from now on too.

My job

So I am a football (soccer for some of you) coach. My office is four football fields set amongst farms, about a two minute bike ride to the beach and bordered by tall palm trees swaying to the South Pacific breeze, it's not a bad place to work.




My official title here is Youth Development Officer, but in actual fact I seem to be helping out the Technical Department (the national team coach and his assistant) with every aspect of Men's, Women's and Youth football here in Tonga. I have been in the job now for about two and a half weeks and during that time I have helped out with the local Under 12's competition and have started coaching the national Under 17 Boys team ahead of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) Under 17 Championships in Auckland during January next year. Suffice to say, it's close and I dont actually have a team yet!

I started writing this blog two days ago, at the end of that day I went home and wrote a couple of notes while laying in my hammock (was close to my best pre-departure decision to bring a hammock and my deck chair) to the affect of "I am absolutely loving life at the moment, work is going well, my team is coming together and I am enjoying training", today has been much different. The scale of the task has just hit me and today in general has been a little frustrating.

Let me explain, the Tonga Football Association (TFA) had wanted to cancel all national youth representation in order to focus on grassroots development and essentially begin again with their under 10 squad. The reason being, their national youth teams have been routinely smashed, even by smaller countries such as The Cook Islands, in all regional championships and by focusing on the under 10s and grassroots they could become more competitive in the next five-seven years.

This sounded like a pretty good plan so the TFA adopted this position but it appears they failed to let the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) know of their decision. This was a bit of a mistake as the OFC funds all of TFA's activities. After being in the office two days the TFA received an email from the OFC stating they needed to enter a team in January's OFC Under 17 Championship or risk a $NZ 50,000 fine. The TFA does not have $NZ 50,000 so they decided to enter a team instead and leave it to their new Palangi (meaning white foreigner, and a phrase you hear at least a few times every day here) to organise the team.

I am still excited at this prospect but after receiving the draw and chatting to colleagues we have an uphill battle. It's close to six weeks out from the competition and I will not know my final squad until Friday week, that will pretty much leave me one month to coach a team for a regional championships. To put this in perspective, Tahiti (in Tonga's group) have been training their under 17 team now for ONE YEAR!!! We also have the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and The Cook Islands in our group, all teams that routinely beat Tonga.


As I mentioned we are still going through the trial process, it appears the way in which this was communicated to potential squad members has not been great and maybe stopped a few turning up. Basically, the recruitment drive has consisted of employees here driving to the boys' schools, telling their teachers and hoping they turn up.

Today, the national team coach told me today that he believed there was up to five good players who have not turned up yet. So it was decided to drive to their school and tell them in person, what we didn't know (while waiting for an hour for someone to speak to) is that the boys in question were not at school anymore as they finished their exams. Not only that but, I would find out later, they were actually over-age. The national team coach then realised, after (as I mentioned) an hour of waiting in a ramshackle wooden office infested with mozzies who were attacking my legs continuously for 60 minutes, that we could have simply checked a record in our office to see if they were the correct age or not and even call them on their mobiles, also kept in this same record.

I was pretty frustrated at this stage as there seems to be a long-drawn out way of doing things here in Tonga which I think is pretty annoying (there are also a few people who have jobs here but I haven't seen them do much except read the paper and eat!). There is not much I can do considering I have come from a pretty face-paced PR office except to go along with the Tongan way of things, and if I get annoyed, just go for a ride to the beach for a swim and relax!

I have my final trial tomorrow night in which we'll pick 22 players to train for one week (five sessions) before picking a final squad of 18. To be honest I don't really know where to start considering we are up against teams that have technically better players and have been training for a year. But it's a challenge and I'm looking forward to it and with a bit of luck we won't get trounced in every game and maybe even pick up a win or two along the way... with a bit of luck!

This weekend the Aussie volunteer community has organised a Tongan style Amazing Race so am looking forward to that, but I am also looking forward to having one or ten beers at the Billfish, heading to Sunday Club Island and then getting stuck into coaching next week!

A short history of me and a bit about Tonga

A Short History of Me

My name is Chris Williams, I'm twenty-something, originally from Manly in Sydney, Australia and I am currently living in Nuku'Alofa, Tonga.

I am here coaching football (or soccer if you like) for the Tonga Football Association. My official job title is Football Development Officer however within two weeks ( I have now been here three weeks), I was given the job of coaching the national Under 17 team at the Oceania Football Confederation in Auckland on January 8th, 2011. Not a bad gig at all, but more on that later.

I guess you could call this year a bit of a gap year, I have come to Tonga thanks to the AusAid program. Essentially I am volunteering here with close to 25-30 other young Aussies, the majority of whom are working in various ministries and Government agencies. In my opinion I have done quite OK to have a job in which most of my time will be spent in the tropical sunshine, to be in an office that is a two minute bike ride from the beach and I now also have the chance to coach at an international competition.

Before coming here I had been working in a PR agency in Sydney, Res Publica, for a little over two and a half years. Before doing that I studied Sport Management and International Communications at University. I really enjoyed my job and worked with some great people on some of Australia's biggest brands. However while I was studying at University and while working I was also coaching part-time for a semi-professional club in Australia, Manly United. While I enjoy PR, I have always wanted to coach football for a living and this is an opportunity to try and work towards that goal, and "make a difference" too ;) 'Worst case' scenario, in 12 months I'll be back in the PR world, however who knows what will happen in a year!

Tonga

My first impression of Tonga was staring out of a plane window into the dark Pacific before out of nowhere, dull flickering street lights came into view. It was a pretty cool sight, a tiny Pacific Island under a full moon which cast shadows onto the Pacific. We then landed and were introduced to the Tongan way of things. It took about two hours to get out of the shed-like airport and when we did, all our gear was loaded into the back of a truck and Tom (working for the Ministry of Environment) and I jumped in the back of the ute too! No cops seemed to care and it is pretty standard here for people to ride in the back of utes, it's how we got around for the first week!

Tonga (meaning South in Polynesian) is a grueling four hour flight from Sydney and lies on the same latitude as Rio De Janeiro. It is made up of three main island groups - Tongatapu (about 65% of the 100,000 population and where I am based), Ha'apai and northernmost Vava'u. It was the only South Pacific Island not to be colonised (even though the Church now effectively rules Tonga) and at one stage the Tongans ruled over an Empire that stretched for most of the South Pacific. Nowadays the country is a developing economy with a growing unemployment rate and is about to hold the first general elections on November 25 when the King will cede most of his power to a generally elected Parliament.

Our first couple of weeks were spent getting to know Nuku' Alofa, learning the language and going on a home-stay. We also became familiar with The Billfish, about the only pub worth going to in Tonga. On the first night there I met the CEO of the TFA there, the town's lady-boy and a few other volunteers. Nuku' Alofa is a small place and everyone ends up at The Billfish - they also have Black Sambucca so it gets a big tick from me!

I then went on home-stay with my boss, the national team coach of Tonga, Kilifi Uele. Kilifi lives in a small two bedroom house which he built on the opposite side of the inland lagoon to Nuku' Alofa. I spent most of my time there resting, eating and sleeping. Tongan lifestyle is very slow, and relaxed, but is dominated by family-life and church. Kilifi had his father and, during the week, would have a nephew and a niece stay in the small two bedroom house with him and his wife. The family unions are pretty tight and Kilifi refers to his nephews and nieces as his 'daughters and sons'. They also had a pig pen (we caught and roasted one during the weekend there!), cows and cropping area so they are almost entirely self sufficient.

The other major institution here is the church. It is illegal for anyone to exercise, for shops to be open, in fact it is pretty much illegal for anyone (except for foreigners) to do anything but go to church, sleep and eat. Even the pubs shut at 1130pm on Saturday night, which on the first Saturday we were here seemed like an absolute disaster. There are as many as six services on a Sunday, starting at 430am and finishing at approx 9pm. Thankfully I only went to one at 10am with Kilifi, was 25 minutes late and spent most of the time mucking around with a couple of kids in the rows in front of me.

After the homestay we started to meet all the other volunteers here which was good, and celebrated Melbourne Cup Day at the Nuku 'Alofa Club. The Club is Tonga's version of a Country Club and is reportedly very exclusive. It is really just an old Federation style house with a bar in it, but that seems to pass as 'exclusive' here in Tonga. We paid 50 Pa'anga (about AU$25) for our ticket which included free drinks and food for the day and night. I dont really remember much else except I won 250 Pa'anga in a sweepstake, which was very quickly spent as we ended up at The Billfish, grinding away with a few Tongans!

In general Nuku' Alofa is not exactly what you would call picturesque, the town is full of rubbish, pot-holed roads, half burned-down buildings (remnants from the riots of 2006) and plenty of pigs, dogs and chickens roaming the streets. But you dont have to go too far to find crystal clear water and beautiful beaches. We started swimming in the main harbour with all the locals, Tom and I would try and knock the locals from the jetty into the water, we could only beat the young kids though! Local Rugby teams would go to the Jetty after training and I never stood a chance of knocking them off! We left a couple of times bruised and bloodied but it was always a good laugh and people would often give us a ride back to our hostel in the back of their trucks.

I'll leave it there for now but overall I am slowly starting to fall in love with the place and work is getting better and better too. Despite the pigs eating my clothes at home, being attacked by mozzies, woken up by either church bells, roosters, dogs or people at the crack of dawn every morning, there is something about the lifestyle, the fact that I am coaching soccer full-time and the South Pacific that I like.