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.

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.

Oh my... God

It has been an awesome Christmas and New Year's here in Tonga. I've had Tommy O'Hara, who perfected the art of doing nothing during his three weeks here, Dave Michael, who went through a truck-load of SPF +30 and Stevie Trik who could not keep still for longer than 10 minutes here in Tonga. During the time the boys were here we pretty much ate, drank, went for a daily swim and managed to fit in a couple of trips to Sunday Club Island.

Tommy

Dave

Stelio in the middle

We had a great Christmas Day as myself, Tom, David and my housemate Tomasi had a Bachelor's Christmas. Waking up at 11am after a few too many beers the night before we (except Tom of course) started preparing an afternoon feast consisting of tuna sashimi, pan fried tuna, roast vegetables, octopus, salad, wine, beers, rum, loads of chips and lollies and of course the PIG. At about 2pm we sat down on the balcony of 'The Palace', complete with an ocean view, and pretty much sat there drinking beers and eating food for the rest of the day, was a good way to spend my Tongan Christmas!

The pig being devoured

Christmas Drinks

I really appreciated the boys coming over here, it is easily the most expensive time of year to fly from Australia to Tonga and it was great to spend some time with three good mates from home. Hopefully one day I'll be in the position to visit them when they are living and working overseas.

The Pig

Now that the boys have gone I have started focusing all my efforts into getting the Tongan Under 17 team ready for their World Cup Qualifiers next week, which are supposed to start with a game against Tahiti on Sunday, 9th January.

I say supposed to be starting on the 9th as the Executive Committee of the Tongan Football Association have only just realised that the 9th, is a Sunday and they want us to forfeit the game against Tahiti. Sunday is a holy day here in Tonga, it is illegal for anyone to exercise, for shops to be open or to do anything at all really except to eat, sleep and go to church. There has also, apparently, been a precedent set as no Tongan national team has ever played on a Sunday. I think that is a load of rubbish and the Executive Committee are just making up excuses so people can't accuse them of being impious by allowing a bunch of teenagers to play a game of football on a Sunday.


While I can understand their stance if the game was supposed to be played here in Tonga, it's not. So it's not a legal issue, it's a 'moral' issue. It's an easy decision for a bunch of old Tongans to sit in a room and decide a team shouldn't play but the boys want to play, the other coaches (who are all Tongan) want them to play and all of the staff here (except one) want them to play.

The reality is, we will more than likely get slaughtered by Tahiti who have had over 12 months to prepare and have been playing in their national second division for a year. We've had five weeks and four friendly games against teams of varying skill and Tahiti will probably vie with New Zealand for the OFC's spot at the 2011 Under 17 World Cup. But it's not about winning, it's about the boys who have worked hard over the past five to six weeks being denied a chance to play in a FIFA World Cup Qualifying competition by a bunch of old men who think they know better. It is also about common sense, which is in short supply here in Tonga. What is the point of paying all the money to send a team to NZ and then just forfeiting the first game?


I met with a few members from the Committee today and tried to explain this to them. In as many words they said "we have no chance of winning anyway and it will be good for the boys to play the other three games regardless". It was not really the response I was looking for so I decided to try a different tact, I explained to them that if 'God' really is all powerful and has a hand in everything here on Earth then he must have had a hand in selecting all 18 boys in the squad, to which they agreed. I then said that 'God' must have played a hand in scheduling the match against Tahiti on Sunday so 'God' must have a good reason for wanting the boys to play that game on a Sunday.

Clutching at straws I know but they listened and will let me know of their decision at Midday tomorrow.

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!