Originally posted on November 1, 2014, by cruisingrunner
After weeks in the remote islands of Ha’apai, we’re now in the capital city of Nuku’alofa enjoying our reunion with internet, restaurants, and fresh fruits and vegetables. I had visions of proper runs along a waterfront trail, but unfortunately, that just isn’t to be. There’s an option to stern tie to the wharf in the inner harbor, which would have been good for my running options, but it’s dirty and loud and practically every cruiser that’s come before us and written anything down about it has strongly advised against it. So, we are anchored with about 20 other cruising boats off of a small island called Pangaimotu, about a mile away from the inner harbor. It’s great out here, there’s a restaurant and yacht club on shore, and we’ve been enjoying burgers and happy hours and even a big halloween/yacht club anniversary/Big Mama’s birthday bash. It’s called “Big Mama’s” Yacht Club after all, so why shouldn’t her birthday be a reason to celebrate. Sadly, there are no roads or decent trails on the small island. Yesterday, I did manage to run around the island at low tide, and the island is so small it took me 5 times around to get in 5 miles.
Our first full day here, we dinghied over to the inner harbor, walked to the customs office to do our domestic check-in, and then walked about a mile to the “city center” where there are restaurants, a big market, a few grocery stores, and of course, the royal palace. We had to make a stop at the Digicell store. Think AT&T store but the wait is even longer, and no one seems to care. While the boys and I were waiting for Tim to complete a purchase for wifi hotspot data, a lady started chatting up Alex. I guess it was pretty obvious that we weren’t from around here. Turns out that she’s Tongan, but she moved to the U.S. when she was 6 years old, and this is the first time she’s been back here. She’s from Hawthorne, right near where we were from, so of course we knew all the same landmarks and shopped at some of the same stores.
Talking to her was interesting for about 1 minute and then I started getting a bit embarrassed. She said more than once that she may be Tongan, but since she grew up in America, she’s more American. OK, fair enough, but it was the way she kept emphasizing it to me, as if she wanted to make sure I didn’t consider her, you know, Tongan, like there would be something bad about that. Then she started going on and on about how different it is here, and, “Oh my god! The men wear skirts!” Keep in mind that we are in a packed store and it’s not like we were in our own insulated bubble, I’m sure everyone could hear. She told me how she had to text here son when she got here to let him know that, “Oh my god! The men wear skirts!” I tried to change the subject and talked a bit about how we’d been in more remote locations and it was so nice to go to the market and buy some fresh produce, but that only got her started about what they DON’T have here. “They don’t even have strawberries and grapes, I really wanted strawberries and grapes, and I asked, but no, they don’t have those here, only apples and oranges.” As far as fruit goes, I guess she didn’t notice the papaya, coconuts, bananas, and mangoes.
Americans get a bad rap for being self-centered, arrogant, and loud, and so far in my cruising experience it’s totally unjustified. Americans don’t stand out at all to me amongst all of the other western cruisers, but this lady had me floored. Perhaps all of the American cruisers we know are simply less American than this Tongan.
-D.
Gresham Family Exodus 