Trip to Vava’u (Va VA ‘u)

On Saturday, December 2, we traveled to the Vava’u Group – 70 islands, an hour and a half by plane, north east of Tongatapu. Seventeen of the islands are inhabited. We are staying for a week, and working at the clinic on Tuesday- Friday.  We have scheduled similar week-long trips to return to Vava’u, to Ha ‘apai, and also to Eua, (different outer islands), each month that we are here. There are Vaiola Hospital satellite clinics on each of these islands, where we will work. We have a great relationship with Dr. Amanaki, who is the head of the Dental Division of the Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Tonga.

Our boarding passes, check in counter, and the flight schedule board that was regularly updated with a dry-erase marker. (As you can see, there weren’t too many flights out on Saturday.)

 

The parking lot at the “terminal” was empty, and getting on our plane was easy. There was no security.

The first Europeans to visit were the Spanish in 1781. James Cook knew about the islands a decade earlier, but the locals had told him there was no anchorage there. They probably didn’t want him eating all of the delicious Vava’u pineapples, that today are touted as the “best in the world!” Mangoes are also coming into season!

Leaving Tongatapu.

On the flight over, we never got above 8,000 feet. We didn’t see any boats, but did spot a few whales.

 

We saw dozens of islands from the air. (None of them inhabited).

 

Vava’u’s Port of Refuge, a haven for yachtsmen and yachtswomen. 🙂

 

Typical homes on Vava’u. They are neat and “clean” by Tongan standards.

 

However, cars here die a slow and painful death.

 

Pigs are a renewable source of protein.  Many of these will eventually end up in an Umu.

 

This is a vanilla bean plantation.

 

We have been hosted by the Elder & Sister Makai, who are in the Mission Presidency, (she is Pulangi, and he is Tongan), and by the Lauritzens, who are Information Technology missionaries who hail from Arizona.

 

Vava’u’s Port of Refuge is one of the safest and best sheltered yachting harbors in the Pacific. Many sailors go there when there is a cyclone brewing. It is visited by about 500 yachts a year- but now (cyclone season from November to April) is the low season and it’s pretty quiet.

 

Typical roads on the island. Tonga is at the heart of the South Pacific, and remains largely untouched by outside influences. It is far enough south of the equator that it isn’t insufferably hot. It is just west of the International Date Line, and is the first nation in the Pacific (and the world) to greet the new day. We are about 21 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time. But I have to admit, with no geographical frame of reference, I still get north and south, and east and west, confused. My internal gyro-compass hasn’t clicked in, yet.

 

The travel guides will describe Tonga as 150 islands or so – but there is no way to make an accurate count. It depends upon the tide, and what your definition of an island is. Vava’u is one of 4 groups: Vava’u, Tongatapu, Ha’apai, and Ni ua. On the way here, we stopped at Ha ‘Apai, but only to take on passengers. We are going there next month for a week, though.

 

In the south is Tongatapu. Eua to its south-east, a 7 minute flight away. One hundred and sixty kilometers north is the Ha’apai Group, and 100 kilometers further north is the Vava’u Group. In the far north, 300 kilometres from Vava’u, (toward Samoa) lie the remote Niuas, where traditional life still thrives. We hope to go there next year. But the airline schedules to the Niuas are very shaky, and one can get stuck there for a week or more before another plane arrives.

 

Most of the Tonga’s islands are raised coral limestone, with some volcanic islands. To the east, the Lifuka and Nomuka groups have many small coral islands and reefs, while the islands to the west (Tofua and Kao) and north (Vava’u group and the Niuas) are volcanic in origin. There is a lot of “red dirt” on Vava’u. There are active volcanoes on four of the islands, including Tofua island, where the crater is filled with steaming hot water. Falcon, an active volcano under the sea, spouts up lava and ash from time to time. We haven’t seen any of these volcanoes yet. It’s amazing to think that the islands even exist, because the depth of the ocean is greater than 35,000 feet in the nearby Tonga Trench.

 

This is the campus of the church high school. (Saineha High School). It is situated on the side of a gentle hill. When he visited here, President Hinckley spent some quiet time alone, on the summit. Many think that he envisioned that a temple would be there someday.

 

About 400 students attend the school, but they have gone home for summer vacation, and it is very quiet now.

 

All over the islands, cisterns gather rain water from the roofs of houses. Rain water is NOT in short supply in Tonga, and we are only now headed into the rainy season. We have a metal roof on our house, and last night it poured. It sounded like we were trying to sleep inside a drum.

 

There are a lot more cows on Vava’u than there are on Tongatapu. The beef here, though, is not what we are used to. Let’s just say we don’t eat steak a lot. We really can’t go wrong with fresh tuna, swordfish, snapper, or mahi mahi.

 

Vava’u is more lush than Tongatapu, and is a lot more varied in its topography. The pace of life is even slower than Tongatapu.

 

This is our accommodation at the campus. We have been given a van to get around the island, and to and from the clinic, which is about a half a mile away.

 

To visit the missionaries (about 50) who serve on about 10 of the islands in the Vava’u Group, there is a mission boat. It currently doesn’t work, (welcome to Tonga) so the missionaries on the outer islands have been on their own for a few weeks. They are normally accustomed to spending part of each day fishing (for their dinner). There are no stores on some of these islands, and the people live off the land and the sea. A few months ago, one of the missionaries had acute appendicitis. It burst before he could get to the clinic on Vava’u, but after emergency surgery, he was (almost) as good as new!

 

Everything has shut down (on Monday) in celebration of the King’s birthday. We’ll go to the hospital clinic tomorrow, for four days. There is one part-time dentist, who comes from Tongatapu, and two full-time therapists, to serve the needs of about 17,000 people. (That’s actually better than the dentist to population ratio in Tonga as a whole, which is 1:19,000.) There are four chairs in the clinic. We brought a lot of our own supplies in our suitcases, as well as scrubs, that we are going to leave at the clinic.

We have experienced more “small coincidences” in Vava’u. (The Lord working behind the scenes). We explored the island on Sunday morning for a couple of hours before Church. (Almost all the meetings in the chapels scattered around the island start at 9:00 a.m.). Toward 9, we found one, and walked in to sit down. There were the Makais, who had decided to go to the same meeting house. During the service, they translated for us (all the wards speak Tongan on Vava’u).

We found out through them, that 80 of the ward members are visiting Tongatapu next week for a temple outing. They are going to stay in church accommodations next to the Liahona Campus. We asked President Makai to have the Bishop make an announcement that we would open up the dental clinic to them. They were ecstatic (the way people normally are, when then find out they are going to be visiting the dentist)!

They are traveling to Tongatapu by boat. It will take the better part of a day to get there. It all depends upon how rough the ocean is. We will pray for good weather, light wind, and a following sea!

 

Flip flops are the norm, but one of the members passing the Sacrament had no shoes, as did one of the members who stood to bear his testimony. As is typical on Vava’u, there was no microphone at the podium, and no piano/organ. But the congregation sang acapella, and sounded wonderful during the songs. They added a bit of delightful variety to familiar hymns. Luckily it wasn’t too hot or humid during the meeting, and there was a pleasant cross-breeze.  (Vava’u has a reputation! You pay a price for lush, tropical jungle.)

The island absolutely shut down on Sunday, and it looked like its entire population was in one church or another. There are Free Wesleyan, Seventh-Day Adventist, and L.D.S. congregations (in every village), as well as an eclectic mix of other denominations. In a couple of hours of driving, we encountered only a few cars on the road. No stores or restaurants were open. (Fortunately, the Makais had invited us dinner, and we joined them at 4:00 p.m.!)