We're a little slow CLAN. But the photos are coming through slowly, God helping Tonfon!

God favour us as he has favoured Loiloi

We took the kids to the local Fa'onelua Park today and the place was a little 'fuller' than normal as today we had the hectic clean-up in preparation for the Forum Leaders Meeting that is officially kicking off on Monday.

The park is usually a little desolate ? but way cool during hot summers as we had today. There were a whole lot more people today and there were cars all around the inside of the children's area. But what really peaked 'Ofa's interest, was the Sima Vai that seemed to be gracing the corner to the main road.

Asked if I had any idea what the Sima Vai was doing in the middle of the park, I had no idea. Although of course one can make some irrational guesses considering that there is no roof anywhere near the place that can bring rainwater into the tanks?

In the meantime, Ma'atas found this wonderful new game she has been enjoying the past couple of days, it is some variant of Matching Pairs but using playing cards ? Reminds me of a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon-strip where the family computer had broken and Calvin was discovering how to play Solitaire/Patience using real cards. The depiction in the cartoon-strip was of Calvin asking his mum "what do I do now?" to which mum responded, (something like this) "use your hands, pick up the card, turn-it-over" to which the next frame shows the process, and then another frame with the question "what do I do now?"

Hmmm, I guess it's near time to be dusting off those deck of cards to help her with playing Pita 'Uli (some of you were probably champions in that game) and other variations of Last Card etc.

Google Earth

If you're a Google Earth fan, I've just found out that they've got satellite photos over Tongatapu, Vava'u, 'Eua, Ha'apai, Niua's. I've marked a few of the clan houses, but I guess I'll have to take that camera for a walk and take some more shots of the more interesting places so we can get updated photos of the Ha'amonga etc.

Maybe the photos have always been there, but I don't recall seeing it 3 or so months ago when I last checked, but I may have been wrong.

The arial photos look like they were taken on a Sunny Sunday noon sometime around Christmas 2005 or Christmas 2004. The deduction is from the lack of parked vehicles around business areas and a whole lot around a number of churches (leading to the presumption of a Sunday photo shoot) and what looks like a Faire up and running at Fa'onelua Park.) Of course, the fact that downtown is not burnt indicates pre-November 16th.

Law/Justice, without force, is impotent
Blaise Pascal

"It is easier to fight for principles than live up to them." - Alfred Adler

Two quotes jumped at me as I listened and read about another round of Anti-Corruption Campaign - Still a Priority for Customs. It seems that the department had to come out with some sort of statement to appease the growing frustration from citizens on the seeming arbitrariness of their increased rates together with the continuing suspicion with the public of continued levels of corruptions.

On one account, the French Philosopher accounts that continuing to add new laws to the national archives isn't going to do any good until people breaking these laws really get spend some time in prison. One good example is last week's news report that someone got fined TOP$1,000 for not paying for imported goods hidden in a container. Geezz, TOP$1,000 ? I mean, you wouldn't be hiding stock in a container (that's a 20" foot, huge box) if it wasn't going to make you more money than freekin' TOP$1,000.

Looks like the system invites corruption, and if those who think it doesn't invite corruption or have plans to circumvent the supposed potential for corruption: Please show me where you are not inviting corruption or illegal behaviour with the above kind of rewards!

Great deal for pirates

Let's see, at this rate, it would be cheaper for all importers to just tell government, hey I'll give you TOP$1,000 EXTRA if you just don't look at the contents of my container. Man, I'd get into the import business myself with that kind of deal. I'd declare a container full of ... diapers, bring in 1/3 diapers and 2/3 alcohol. Man, my tongue salivates at the amount of profits you could make on 1/3 container of tax-free alcohol, let alone 2/3.

If I were really generous, I mean liquor has a serious high price of import tax, I'd probably offer TOP$1,000 to the Government and offer some smuck TOP$1,000 for an hours work! Come-on, where can you get a deal like that! Be good to me, and I make some bigger profits, and I can probably turn around a container a week. Wow!! Think of the poor smuck who can put away TOP$1,000 a week for an hours work, no sweat.

And don't even go into how hard it would be difficult to carry TOP$1,000 around in Tonga. Officers have kids that have to go to school, and New Zealand looks like a safe haven for ill-gotten gains. I'll send the money directly to your wife and kids in New Zealand ? No one locally will ever see it!

When the law falters

We need these laws updated, we also need these laws to have some real teeth/enforcement. Otherwise, we're looking good in the world community for having all this legislation that is blithely ignored.

In the meantime, it would be nice for all those unprincipled people who visit synagogues and hymn singing houses each Sunday to bring some of those principles into the work place with them. Maybe those laws read on Sundays may be a beginning for us.

We've obviously been having a few problems with http://www.nomoa.com, which was good enough an excuse into really trying out some of the other public sites for spelunking on the World Wide Web.

We've wandered through a few sites, and are actually contemplating paying for access, except connectivity from Tonga over the past couple of weeks has been so horrible that we can't really do any useful evaluation.

http://gallery.sf.net Gallery2 is what we're using at http://www.nomoa.com but we can't get onto it at the moment. This nonetheless is the baseline, or what I have used and variously expect in a minimal service.

Key features I use a lot: Captions, Sub-Albums (Albums within Albums), Remote Client.

Features I would like: Tagging/Keywords (It would be nice to have an artificial connection between different images apart from their static folder/album layouts. For example, I have separate wedding photo-albums, but it would be good that if I label/tag all the photos of my father, that I can just click the tag for my father and have a virtual album of all the photos which is tagged as such.

I currently do most of any caption work using the Gallery Remote client (on my desktop before loading) and what i would prefer is that desktop tool.

http://tonga.spaces.live.com is a Live/Spaces account with its supported gallery/photo upload. Some nice features, but limited if you want to put more than a few photos. Does not support sub-albums.

http://samtaufa.fotki.com is a start for using the http://fotki.com service, the paid service looks promising, and I do like the fact they support using FTP (but again, we're having serious connectivity problems from Tonga.)

I really like the way that you can set up sub-folders etc. Once a collection grows, it is useful (in my mind) to be able to pre-empt some categorisation and folders have a nice history.

Great: Various Offline Tools, FTP upload, suck down from other websites etc.

Poor: Captioning and Tagging are possible but only web page/per photo.

http://flickr.com The big player in the market, and owned by Yahoo! but unfortunately the free/trial version is so limited I put a few pictures up there and then never really looked at it much further.

http://www.zooomr.com/photos/17804@Z01/ is my lifeline at zooomr (note the use of THREE "o" s) but I haven't really put up much there.

I'm just trying this out but I already like their upload page (although I haven't found the Desktop/Offline app yet. On my set up, selecting multiple files goes through the mechanics of uploading, but seems to result in only one of those files getting accepted. Although, you can manually upload the files and upload separately and successfully.

Love their "People" button which lets you select people and tag them within the photo. Looks like a great way to tell/spam(?) people that you've put their photos online.

The recent news and road trip have shown what a wonderful job the Mormon church achieved in cleaning up the Fa'onelua Park where the kids go to play, as well as cleaning up part of the grounds where the PM Meetings are going to be held soon.

Congratulations to the Mormon church members and their continuing high profile cleanup work.

Kind of sad that with all this interest in looking clean, there are still places in town that have their drapes blown in the wind outside such as in the photo above?

Come on guys/gals ? If the things are supposed to be up as a sign of respect, how about taking it down because they sure aren't too respectful ?

Something else that needs cleanup is the Public Servants still with their 60, 70, 80 mentality. Dare we not say that it is no longer acceptable to have clients come in the door and be greeted with such as:

Public Servant: Kai keke sio ki he tapuni 'a e sign ?

Client: Kataki, ka ko ee 'oku kei 'asi mai 'oku mou kei OPEN.

Public Servant: Iuee, ko e me'a ko 'emau taimi kai ho'ataa eni ia 'omautolu.

Some people with attitude adjustment problems just need to go home and fafanga the pigs if that's the only social skills they can bring to the table.

'Erika Siliva turned five sometime in the past 10 years (because she sure let's everyone know that she's a lot more knowledgeable than other little girls) but we eventually celebrated her 5th Birthday last night with the traditional Faifekau over at the house to give the traditional advise and blessings

A big shout-out to mum Siliva who is away from home on work duties, but is obviously missed by Erika and the siblings who were having a great time with the food and company.

More Photos of the Party (hey mum) @ the Gallery

From Samiuela Sisitoutai 'i Tahi Moana, Ma'ata Ngalo'afe Fe'aomoelotu, and Soana Sesilia.

It's a cold morning in Tonga (relatively)

Unfortunately for Uncle John, he'll not be having his party in Tonga, so he isn't likely to be getting a pig eat out. Too bad for the rest of us 8<

Which leads us into other areas of our site, with recently updated birthdays for many of the family @ http://www.nomoa.com/family/ whilst we dig around some more. For those interested in Genealogy there's some great tools to help you archive your family history such as Legacy 6 and Family Show (both Windows applications) as well as what we're using here PHPGedView to share your family tree with family members online.

There have been a number of press advertisements regarding the proposed sale of shares in Tonga's larger Telecommunications business, TCC http://www.tcc.to. There are of course a lot of unanswered or untendered questions about the validity of holding shares in Tongan companies, as there is no liquid market for disposing of these shares and therefore brings to question whether one can really put a valuation of any shares.

This liquid market problem is the major problem banks have been having for years when people want to take out loans with their properties as security. Great, now the bank secures a $20,000 loan on a huge plot of land when only two or three people are likely to be interested in land that size, leading to banks having on their books sizeable amounts of property which they eventually have to let go to some enterprising person who snaps it up at less than the bank wants, but more than they've been getting.

The TCC expressions of interest lead us to a little experiment(?) last week, when driving through Houmakelikao you get a face full of telephone cabling that's just hanging across the middle of the road.

I'm about to pick up my TCC activated mobile phone to call TCC to report the problem when I thought this would be a good time to gauge a few things about this TCC Expressions of Interest.

How interested have TCC made their domestic customers, to report problems with their phone lines. How interested is the TCC infrastructure in resolving bleeding problems.

Monday morning and the cable has snapped, leaving one cable strewn across the road. Which, presumably means that either a TCC customer no longer has phone service, or they've been previously disconnected anyway, so no-one is interested in reporting the problem to TCC.

So, the cable that's supposed to be up high on the pole is now low enough that an enterprising 'hacker' can just take a machete to the whole thing and totally disconnect a lot more people. But I wonder if anyone will notice ?

Monday the 2nd week of the line being down, and the cable is still down. I guess, at least at Houmakelikao, there's less interest in TCC or is it the other way around ? TCC has less interest in Houmakelikao ?

'Ikani Taliai jetted in yesterday

Yeah, he took a second look at the plane when he got off his commercial Air New Zealand flight. But one can dream.

The strange thing, I never caught a glimpse on the local news of who can afford a private jet for a jaunt into and out of Tonga ? As I keep telling 'Ofa, we're definitely doing something wrong because 1. we don't have a four-wheel drive, and everyone else seems to be riding in one, 2. we don't have a fancy mobile phone, like only having the basic ringtones, 3. and now we don't even have a jet plane.

Tohi ki he 'Etita

Tali Falealea Noo Faingofua (soft loan) ma'ae Fanau Ako

I he to'u Falealea o e 2003, na'e tali ai e he Falealea ha fokotu'u a Etuate Lavulavu, fakafofonga malolo mei he Vahe Fonua Vava'u ke oange e he Pule'anga ha (student Soft Loan) ma'ae fanau ako oku nau fieako pe hoko atu enau ako i ha fa'ahinga 'apiako i Tonga ni pe ko Tu'apule'anga i he ki'itotongi ma'ama'a pea toki taa fakafoki a e noo hili a ene feinga ako. Na'e uhinga foki a Lavulavu ke ngaue'aki e he Pule'anga enau Pangike (TDB) pe ko ha Pangike Fakakomesiale pe tene tali a e fokotu'u ni, koe'uhi foki ko e founga lolotonga a e ngaahi pangike fakakomesiale, kuopau pe ke i ai ha koloa malu'i fe'unga a e tokotaha noo pea toki tali ene noo.

Ka na'e pehe e Lavulavu ia, ko e fanau ako kotoa pe oku te'eki i ai ha'ane koloa malu'i fe'unga ana ia. Ka koe founga pe ko e hanga e he Pule'anga Tonga o fa'u ha fo'i Lao kenau malava o Kalenitii e he Pule'anga ki he ngaahi pangike komesiale a e noo kotoa pe a e fanau ako. A ia ko e uhinga ia a Lavulavu kae lava ke hoko. Na'e ne toe pehe i he lolotonga a e ta'u 2 pe 4 ene ako, oku ne tui ko e founga pe ia e taha e malava ai ke oange ha faingamalie ako oku tatau ki he tokotaha kotoa pe oku ne fieako ka oku ikai si'a pa'anga fe'unga. Oku ikai ko ia pe, ka koe tokoni lahi mo'oni eni ki he tu'unga faka'ekonomika 'o e fonua ki he kaha'u

Ne toe pehe foki e Lavulavu ko e ngaahi sikolasipi oku foaki atu i he lolotonga ni oku fakangatangata pe ia ki he ni'ihi pe oku nau ako i he ngaahi ako a e Pule'anga i Tonga High pe ako kehe. Oku tui a Lavulavu ko e fokotu'u fakafalealea eni na'a ne osi fai pea na'e paloti'i pea tali i he 2003 oku totonu ke fai mo fai e he Pule'anga ha ngaue ki ai ke fakafua mai ke mo'oni, he oku malava pe ke tau ilo'i i he too Folofola huufi tapuni o e Falealea i he 2004 na'e too folofola ai a Tupou IV he me'a tatau mo ia kuo toe too folofola huufi'aki e Tupou V a e to'u Fale Alea o e 2007 ke malava ke oange a e faingamalie ako ke inasi tatau ai e kakai o e fonua. I he 2007, ko e mokoi ia a Siaosi Tupou V ki he ako ke fakaako'i mei he ta'u 5-18, pea ke fakaako'i a e peseti e 90 o e kakai o e fonua. Pea oku tau fiefia ai, ka koe fehu'i leva pe'e malava nai e he kau taki o e Pule'anga o 'ai eni ke hoko i he 2008 o hange ko ene too folofola?

Faka'apa'apa atu,

Etuate Lavulavu
Vahefonua Vava'u.

Someone very enterprising has decided they are going to work with a Tongan language edition of wikipedia (as my son says, wiping his forehead after pushing the pram around for 1 second, weeehuiii)

Ko e kotoa ʻo ha'a tangata ʻoku fānauʻi mai ʻoku tauʻatāina pea tatau ʻi he ngeia mo e ngaahi totonu. Naʻe fakanāunauʻi kinautolu ʻaki ʻa e ʻatamai mo e konisenisi pea ʻoku totonu ke nau feohi ʻi he laumālie ʻo e nofo fakatautehina.

• This is the wikipedia for the language of TONGA, Polynesia, South Pacific.
• Ceci est la wikipedia en langue TONGA, Polynésie, Pacifique Sud.
• Ko e wikipedia ʻeni maʻa lea fakatonga ʻi TONGA ni, ʻi Polinisia, mo e muli.

FIEMAʻU

Kau ʻetita fie liliu ʻa e ngaahi kupu ʻi he lea fakapilitānia ki he lea fakatonga, vakai ki he hokohoko ʻi he Fale fakataha.

Well, some fool thought that I would find it an honour to participate in this week-ends church service, so I've been handed the third scripture reading for the day, and it aint English. Sweat, sweat.

Some people actually get real upset if they aren't regular participants at community events, like the church service. Me and my 'people' we like being in the background and being part of the general 'white noise' that permuates the service.

So, now that I have a photocopy of the page that I'm reading its time to vocalize and make sure I don't make more of a fool of myself than normal, or worse yet swear by mis-pronouncing.

Reminds me of the scene in Disney's "Other side of Heaven" where the young preacher mis-pronounces the word for Minister / Faifekau and pronouces Falekaukau. Which was humourous rather than something worse.

So, dust off your Bible and help me read my verses for the weekend and happy Father's Day to us.

Over at Tonga-Now we have some 'have-to-comment' statements from Government.  

Source: Looming fiscal crisis for Tonga' s fragile economy

This means that in order to balance the budget there needs to be a cutback of $22m at this stage.  This is certainly a huge ask because the demands on public services is climbing so many of the core agencies will feel the pinch from the cutback. 

Which means Ministers will have to travel less, as there is less per-dium to hand out and you'll have to entertain guests in a less ravishing way?

The Minister also said that " the problem with a budget deficit is that it can bring about other harmful effects such as a major deterioration in the strength of the Pa' anga, capital outflows, rising inflation and negative economic growth.

Of course, being as how the Tonga Pa'anga isn't worth many pesos that isn't really saying much. As the Minister of Money Making (as opposed to the Minister handling what money there is) has been cavorting with New Zealand fruit growers as the major export 'squash' is becoming a white-elephant.

Which economic growth had we projected that was going to direct us away from where we ended up anyway (even with 16/11 ?)

" In short, we are facing a potential fiscal crisis after 16/11 and all Government agencies must take heed of this.  I have instructed Treasury to take a focused approach when considering the budget proposals of all departments.  I intend to do everything possible to avoid a fiscal crisis by making appropriate adjustments to proposed Government expenditure.   

" This is not an ideal situation because reducing Government expenditure often hurts the poor. 

Of course that explains why all the Ministers and a few others have to get Four-Wheel drives. God forbid they have to drive of pot-holed roads like the rest of us, wait their roads are well paved, unlike the rest of us.

Go Tonga !! 

It was kinda looking absurd so I thought I'd take a snap for all the unfortunate Australians in their continual suffrage of high banana prices. The boys have worked some magic, and although there's a few in the boat house, the mango tree is sprouting out spoiling bananas this week.

They were all hardcore green last week, but the warm weather and their own ripening schedule have the bananas turning a golden yellow.

I thought I'd do a taste test between the different lot if you can really tell the difference between bananas, and I must say I have no idea, or they're all from the same genus or whatever you call their hybrids.

In the next couple of days we're going to have to suffer vai-siaine and keke-siaine or they're all going to the pigs. The only problem with vai-siaine is the lolo'i niu that goes along with it, and the only problem with Banana Cakes is the amount of sugar/butter that goes with it. I'm not too sure that those alternatives are healthy for me (being the inline for diabetes, heart-problem, hereditary ailments compounded by the laissez faire, not enough exercise regime.)

The elections for local town officers and district officers were held on Wednesday, so people basically went around their normal days work while booking in some time to fall over to the designated election booths.

Tonga-Now have posted the election results @ Election Results - District Officers 2007 tonga-now.to

Update: Town Officers Election 2007 @ tonga-now.to

We're all glad that Ma'ufanga re-elected their town-office, because although we think he's lost the plot a couple of times, he's definitely got a few more up there than the other hopefuls.

Visit bTonga

With the cruise ships in yesterday I thought there'd be plenty of open places for lunch, and there were, but they didn't quite grab my attention so a short walk to get lunch became a huge hike.

Pizza Pazza (49-095) is what we usually get with the kids, unless we're doing Yummy Treats submarines, and I wasn't keen on having pizza yesterday so I keep walking.

They are operating at the La Terraza Restaurant, with a waterfront view. The building is the Catholic Women's League Center which is the Catholic Church of Ma'ufanga premises. Since it was Ash Wednesday there was a lot of people going in and out for mass.

 Sia ko Mo'ui 'Aonga Ex-Students Association

 Siua Fonua(?) just recently posted on Tasilisili-he-Ngaluope that they've put together a new discussion/distribution network for Tupou High School and Tupou Tertiary ex-students.

So, go over and visit with friends of your 'better' (?) years.

http://groups.google.com/group/siakomouiaonga

So, I post a picture of tapu and cemeteries and then decide to look around the web to see if anyone has anything definitive on the subject.

In September 2006, I worked closely with the Tonga Traditions Committee, whose employees were recording the best they could all the events pertaining to the funeral of King Tupou IV. King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga, the fourth king in the modern dynasty of Tongan rulers died after forty-one years of reign on 10 September in a New Zealand hospital.

Follow the jump, and read another perspective of our funeral rites. Of course your and my funeral aren't going to be as elaborate as the King's, but they sure sound just like a bunch of other ones I've been hooking into recently.

This descriptive piece of writing is preliminary to a more analytical article focusing on the materiality of the 2006 funeral, and linking it with past funerary practices.

Hopefully we can quickly find the link of any online published works when they are made available.

Likewise, hopefully we can get a jump onto any published 'analytical' work on what just happened November 16?

Well, it wasn't a very good nights sleep after coming down with one of those regular ailments for Tonga (euthemistically called food poisoning) and Sisitoutai deciding that he wanted to chat in the middle of the night.

With the breaking of the son, and Sisitoutai back to sleep I thought I'd stretch a little and grabbed the keys, the camera and wandered a little of downtown to see what I could find.

http://www.nomoa.com/?module=gallery2&g2_itemId=29901

I've been avoiding taking photos since it does get a little depressing thinking of all the people who have lost their livelihoods, let alone the businesses that have been backbones of the economy and Tonga ecosystem who have been closed down for good.

Nonetheless I'm sure there's quite a few people out there who may be interested in how things might look (physically)

Follow the jump above and see the morning rise in the Kingdom.

Visited with the clan over at Tatakamotonga (Takataka mo e Tonga ?) again last night. Although you might think it cool to sit under a coconut tree during the heat of the day, you'd best make sure that the fruits aren't going to fall off and break your noggin/head.)

One of the staple items of the 'modern' funeral wakes, vigils etc. is the "bun-tray" which although has very little flavour when consumed in such large quantities, is nonetheless a space filler for those warm afternoons getting to and from the 'putu.'

Solo and the boys were holding fort with the Kumete, faikava, while I made the mercy dash to grab something to eat. Remember, we always EAT at Tongan stuff.

Toli'a and Peni are busy entertaining and feeding the masses. Hopefully Toli'a can keep a smile with the clan as they are.

Anyhow, drop on in and visit with us.