Arriving in Tonga I was taken on a short tour of the capital city, Nuku'alofa where I would be living. I was struck by the number of new buildings which were under construction and asked the school principal who was driving, about these. He said something non-committal about a fire and I thought no more about it.
Well, it turns out that in November 2006 there was rioting in the downtown section due to political discontent and possibly other causes. There were a few buildings targeted for arson and there were some which caught fire accidentally. Some people think that one of the reasons for the burning was because of the Tongans dislike of the Chinese who own most of the smaller shops here but the other interesting thing is that most of the targeted businesses were not Chinese but were owned by an umbrella company called The Shoreline Group, the major shareholders of which are the royals and the P.M. Also, there were many government buildings burnt. I can't really comment on the political situation except to say that democratic elections had been planned before this and had been put off many times and parliament had just recessed for the season without doing whatever was supposed to have been done to further the election process. If you go to Google and enter "Tonga Riots YouTube" it will bring up "YouTube" videos of the rioting and looting that happened. They're fascinating to watch as you can see the buildings burning and men kicking in store windows and leaving with all kinds of items while the police stand watching!
Also, and I remember hearing about this back home; there was a 23 year old American Peace Corps volunteer, Deborah Gardner, murdered by a male Peace Corps Volunteer, Dennis Priven, back in 1976. A book was published about this in 2005 and that's probably where I heard of it. Anyway, it seems that Deborah was teaching here at a school in Nuku'alofa and the other volunteer became obsessed with her but she rejected him. At a Peace Corps gathering one night she left with someone else and Dennis Priven followed her and the next day attacked and stabbed her 22 times. You can also look up this info on Wikipedia. She lived long enough to identify her murderer. Priven was tried for murder here in Tonga but released to return to the States because he was found to be "situationally insane". After returning to the States he was released and not committed to an institution as had been planned but apparently he held a job with some government organization until he retired a few years ago.
For such a tiny place Tonga has a very interesting history. I recall listening to the radio or TV back home before I had ever heard of Tonga and hearing about some South Pacific nation where the King had agreed to give up his power in favour of democracy. Only after arriving here did I realize that this was the place.
When I first applied to volunteer and was told they were requesting a librarian in Tonga my first thought was "where in Africa is that?", and in fact there is an area/city in Africa which is called Tonga. There is also a Togo. Anyway, as we know now, Tonga is not Africa. It is a very interesting country with a lot of national pride and a quasi feudal government system. There are more Tongans outside the country than in it. Many immigrate to Australia, New Zealand, California and there are Tongan communities in Britain and even in Alaska. Money transfers, called remittances, from overseas relatives are a very important source of income here and make up large portion of the country's wealth. Exports are limited to root crop vegetables and other agricultural and aquacultural products. Most consumer goods are imported and most of these come from China. Financial aid is significant from Australia/New Zealand/USA/China. There seems to me to be so much opportunity for development but very little occurs. Perhaps with the next election, which is taking place in November of this year, some further development and positive changes will happen.
On a completely different and lighter note, at the top of this post are a few pictures of my indoor/outdoor friends and the inside of a Tongan city bus I was on last week.
Happy Mothers' Day...love to all, Penny
It must have been a very sad time Penny in Nukualofa when the riots were going on for the people. How the landscape has changed now for the better. I notice that Dixie has her new red collar on. I miss her and also her mate, those two dogs have been through so much together - good friends......The pretend nurse xxxx
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