Malo e Lelei from Vava'u

Article appeared in Main Line Life...

“Malo e lelei,” or greetings from the “land where time begins:” the Kingdom of Tonga. Nestled just beyond the International Dateline in the South Pacific, I’m among the 100,000 Tongans and 50 Peace Corps Volunteers who are the first in the world to welcome each new day.

Fitting, because it’s a new day in my life, similar, in ways, to the transition of my first adult move: to the land of liberty, Benjamin Franklin and cheese steaks. My first month in the Philadelphia area was spent in a small apartment on Ardmore’s Cricket Lane, where a friend graciously lent me her couch until I found a more permanent residence. Working in public relations, media outlets, like this newspaper, were kind enough to hear out my story suggestions as I spoke on behalf of my clients, among those, the Main Line YMCA.

Like the cliffs of Tonga’s hilly Vava’u Islands, the learning curve is much steeper for Peace Corps Tonga Group 69. Myself and eight additional volunteers, hailing from New York to California, departed on our two-year adventure in July. After completing 10-weeks of training in language, culture and vocation, we were assigned to Tongan villages to implement a new Peace Corps Tonga initiative: small business development.

In a time when homogenization occurs on a worldwide scale, the Tongan culture remains virtually intact. The only Pacific nation never to have been occupied by a foreign power, things remain vastly similar to the way they were hundreds of years ago. Each day: women compress tapa cloth, a fabric from inner tree bark that when pressed and painted is a decorative sign of wealth; children learn to lalanga, or weave dried banana leaves into waste mats that individuals wear to formal occasions; and men gather to talk and drink kava, a pepper-root that is ground into powder and mixed with water.

Traditions live strong, but conveniences like electricity, running water and even television have reached even the most isolated of Tonga’s 30-something inhabited islands. With these conveniences comes cost, which is troublesome for the majority of Tongan families who work as sustenance farmers. Many rely on remittances from family living abroad to make ends meet.
Therein lies the goal of our Peace Corps program: to develop within Tongan youth—defined as unmarried individuals between the age of 18 and 35— the concept of self-sufficiency through the practice of business skills. Our goal is to impart knowledge, create a money-making venture, and to inspire youth to begin their own form of commerce in the future.

My youth group in Makave, a Vava’u village of 600, recognized the desire of Tongans for one of Western culture’s greatest influences in the Pacific: entertainment. To capitalize, the youth plan to open a “falefilimi,” or video rental store. A profitable business in other villages, it is a feasible venture to pursue in Makave, considering the large number of people who own televisions and VCRs, the built-in workforce of the 20-member youth group, and a vacant home from which to begin the business. Our only need is for VHS movies.

Having just left the United States, I’m aware that we’ve become a DVD Nation, and old VHS movies are more likely to be found in an attic than in a family’s home entertainment center. Though virtually useless in the States, those movies could become the foundation of successful business careers for the youth of Makave.

Our hope is that you, the worldly and civic-minded readers of Main Line Life, will aid us by donating VHS movies. We in turn offer a cultural exchange through ongoing articles about Tonga and the progress of our project.

There are many ways to say goodbye in Tongan: “nofo a,” to one who is staying from one who is leaving; and “alu a,” to one who is leaving from one who is staying. But for individuals with whom one is familiar, a light-hearted “toki sio,” means that the two will surely meet again soon. Despite our distance, over the next two years, myself and the youth of Makave hope to meet many of you often, through the power of the pen. With that said, toki sio, Main Line.