The Road Less Traveled : 3 in a row

This past weekend marked a rare anniversary for me – 3 busy weekends in a row! This may not seem like much of an achievement, and in truth it really isn’t, but in the slow moving world of Tonga having something to do on the weekends makes a huge difference and allows me to get out of the house and the village. The first busy weekend was traveling to ‘Ofu. The second was seeing the King at the agricultural show last week. The third and most recent weekend involved a service project with the Baha’i youth of Vava’u.

As I mentioned several months ago, though I completely forgive any of you who have forgotten, I attend a Baha’i Study Circle every Sunday night in town. The sessions are lead by an American Baha’i couple who have lived in Tonga for over 30 years and are attended by local Baha’i youth, aged 13 to 30, and several other volunteers. The nights are less a prayer meeting and more an opportunity to talk with friends, meet new people, and form a tighter bond with a small minority group in the mostly homogeneous Vava’u community.

For the past few months we had discussed running a service project. Volunteering is a significant element of the Baha’i faith, so we spent several weeks trying to pinpoint a worthwhile project. After much deliberation, we decided on trash pickup in a suburb of Neiafu, the main town. While Vava’u may not be as dirty or litter-filled as other developing countries, on an island where there is no true recycling or trash disposal available, litter is fairly evident wherever you are. Further, the litter causes a painful juxtaposition with the indescribable beauty of this tropical island and we all wanted to do our part to help maintain this paradise a little longer.

Last week, during the study circle, we painted signs that read “Please, Don’t Litter,” and other such phrases in Tongan that we planned to post by the side of the road. Then on Saturday, two other Peace Corps volunteers, 20 or so Baha’i junior youth aged 10 to 18, and I met in Makave to start picking up trash. The road, which leads right to the only dump, was absolutely devastated by trash, even with the awareness campaigns run by the government imploring people to “Keep Vava’u Clean,” by properly disposing of their trash. Ironically, this phrase – one of the few English sentences every Tongan child can say – is often sarcastically mimicked as kids throw candy wrappers and soda bottles out of the windows of their schools buses while joyously announcing, “Keep Vava’u Clean.”

Equipped with dozens of sturdy bags, we went to work picking up trash as varied as candy wrappers, noodles, alcohol bottles, bras, shoes, ketchup bottles, and much more. Covering maybe a mile of the road, we had to make 5 trips to the dump, totaling approximately a hundred bags and hundreds of pounds of trash.

It was tiring work, but it felt good to do something and then immediately see the tangible benefits of what I just did. It may be seem odd for a “professional” volunteer, as I suppose I kind of am as a Peace Corps Volunteer, to want to do even more volunteering on his day off, but in truth it was very much needed. Teaching a foreign language, or teaching in general for that matter, while absolutely having its perks, does have one problem. It can often be difficult to see any results. Though I have certainly seen some improvement in my students’ English, the successes are subtle and are evident when remembering where they were when I first arrived rather than how they were last week or even their overall abilities at this time. It was therefore encouraging to achieve our goal in a few hours, even if the road is likely to be filled with litter again in several weeks.

To return to Saturday, after we picked up the trash, we drove over to Baha’i Center – basically their version of a church – and the kids washed the chairs while some of the older youth and I built a fire and grilled hot dogs (chicken franks that is) for the group. 30 minutes of good cooking and fast washing later we devoured the food, rested, and were soon on our way back to our homes. The weekend may not have been quite as exciting as visiting an island or seeing a monarch, but it felt good to get out of the house and do something productive. I can now only hope for a new personal Tongan record of 4 busy weekends in a row this coming weekend.

Thank you for reading and enjoy the photos.