This last week has been spent in ‘Eua. I didn’t go in to the week with great expectations, hoping only to have a relaxing week away from irritations and to do some work. I was anticipating this post to be quite short as I didn’t want to cover old ground from my earlier visit to ‘Eua. It won’t be, the week was eventful both for me and Tonga. There are also plenty of accompanying photos now up on my flickr page.
This, my second, trip to ‘Eua was to support my newly-adopted counterpart, Winston, and two UN technical assistants prepare a strategic development plan for ‘Eua. This could have been a really dull week, with me just tagging along setting up computers and projectors, etc. As it turned out I was very much involved in the job of developing the plan and this job was a huge amount of fun, though a little exhausting, because the UN technical assistant who made it to ‘Eua succeeded at involving the people of ‘Eua as much as possible.
There are about 5000 people living on ‘Eua, working mainly as farmers, in forestry or as part of the small, but expanding tourism industry. The people live what is described on the sign at the airport a “friendly village life” in 14 villages spread out along the main road and the eastern coast. ‘Eua is also home to perhaps the only national park in the Kingdom worthy of such a name. Our job for the week was to work with people from all across the island and start to capture what they want for the future. The whole exercise could lend itself to pretension, however thanks to good planning on the part of the UN guys, the current popular enthusiasm for change in Tonga and the friendliness of our hosts the whole week was very uplifting.
From our arrival on Friday until the workshop on Wednesday, the days, Sunday aside, were filled meeting the various associations, collectives, chambers and other interest groups in ‘Eua. These ranged from rather dull affairs to more lively sessions, but all were interesting because they were mostly conducted in Tongan (which has inspired me to work harder on the language) and thanks to some quick translations and some participants talking in English, I finally had a chance to get a feel for how real Tongans, rather than just public servants, regard their lives and the good humour with which they approach everything.
In the evenings, we were entertained either at our guesthouse or the home of Winston’s uncle. Getting to go to Va’inga’s house was a real treat. The hospitality was superb with plentiful food and alcohol put on for us. It was also nice to talk at length with Va’inga and whoever else would drop by.
The youngest in the family, a girl of a bit less then two, also thought that these palangis who kept visiting her house were the scariest thing in the world. At the start of the week our arrival would be greeted with a terrified expression before she burst into tears. With each night the little thing became less and less afraid, to the point that she would wave at us from a distance or another room. If we were in the same room, however, she would quickly attach herself to the nearest Tongan adult and stare out at us from within their protective embrace, apprehensive about these strange pale people.
Nights at The Hideway can be great. There is little to do apart from chat with the other guests and the place attracts interesting guests. Our first night involved some generous guests who kept the beers and talk about the current climate of change, including rumours of a possible strike brewing, coming for a few hours.
I didn’t want to go into too much detail now about the current tensions in Tonga, as that will surely be the topic of another blog when the strikes take place in a fortnight. But it is hard to avoid the topic of the moment.
As I think I have mentioned, the Tongan public servants went on strike last year in protest at the disparity in pay between the Ministers and public servants. This dispute quickly escalated into a dispute about democratic and political reform, the escalation being supported at the time in no small part by our fellow and generous guests at The Hideaway. This escalation was momentous for Tonga, as it represented the first time that the Tongan people in large numbers openly criticised their government and sections of the royal family. The strike ended with public servants being awarded 60, 70 and 80 per cent pay rises, however this was later qualified by the need to make a quarter of the public service redundant to pay for the increases.
Also, the then PM, a member of the royal family, resigned earlier this year and was replaced by a new PM who was appointed by the King from members of parliament elected by the people – the first popularly elected, commoner PM in a round about kind of way. (This new PM bears an eerie resemblance to Bob Hawke). In the last week, this PM has announced a cabinet reshuffle that included appointing three additional. Their appointment and the government’s seeming agreement to buy back the power company it had earlier sold to the crown prince, occurring against the background of mass redundancies and a major fiscal crisis has resulted in the public service, supported by business and the democracy movement, to threaten to go on strike again unless the government resign and fresh, wholly-democratic elections are called.
That is, another dispute about equity has quickly become a push for greater democracy. Interesting and historic times in Tonga then.
This enthusiasm for change really affected our final day in ‘Eua, when we conducted a workshop and had the people of ‘Eua choose words for key parts of the plan. Not only was the whole day kept reasonably lively by the current climate of popular empowerment (if I can call it that), but also people were genuinely happy to be working together, rather than at loggerheads and with the exclusion of some groups, such as women and youth. The end result was some genuinely good ideas and all round good feeling.
I can’t wait to go back to ‘Eua in August/September to finish the plans and I haven’t even mentioned the whales that should be migrating through the area at the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment