The Road Less Traveled : A Unique Place

Living the slow island life leaves me with a lot of time to think, to grapple with the age old questions that have plagued man for thousands of years. Luckily for all of you, I won’t be talking about any such thing today, but will instead once again dust off my anthropology cap and give my two cents on an issue that I find interesting.

Tonga is unlike most developing countries. Developing countries are usually plagued by similar issues – poor infrastructure, water scarcity, lack of food security, little access to health care, sprawling cities of unequal economic distribution, villages lacking even the most basic utilities, and much more.

Admit it. When you hear the term developing country, you probably think of Africa. It is ok; I know that I often do. Developing countries face comparable issues that billions of dollars of foreign aid attempt to address, and it is easy to often think of them in similar terms. I have by no means traveled to every developing country, but I believe that in my experience both in travel and study, I can attest that Tonga, while also facing many of these challenges, is a unique – at least in my mind – developing country.

Thanks to their tropical location, Tongans rarely have to worry about their access to food and clean drinking water. The rainy season dumps liquid onto the islands, with rain stored in massive sima vai (water tanks) that are attached to pretty much every structure in Tonga in order to collect the water off their roofs. Tonga, while possessing little land, has some of the most fertile land on Earth, allowing for easy growth in its nutrient rich soil. Almost all Tongans grow a significant amount of the food they either eat or sell; justifying what my home stay mother once said to me, “Nobody starves in Tonga.”

There are also no cities in Tonga. Usually, though developing countries will have significant populations living in extremely rural villages, without running water or electricity, these countries also often possess cities with millions of people living in them. With a population of only 100,000, Tonga has no cities – with the possible exception of the capital Nuku’alofa, which is really more of a town or a collection of several villages – and even the villages which are considered “rural” are less than a 30 minute drive from the regional capitals. These rural villages almost all have running water and electricity, and even the villages on outer islands are beginning to gain electricity thanks to solar panels.

Further, while Tongan hospitals are not equipped with all the medical devices one would see in an American hospital, the Tongan people have free universal health care that is paid for by the government. When Tongans get sick, they are able to simply go to the hospital without worrying if they will be unable to pay their medical bills.

Of course Tonga shares many similar traits to developing countries – i.e. roads in need of improvement, a yet to bet to be fully formed economy, etc – however, I believe that Tonga is many ways a unique place due to its small size, fertile land, and seasonal rains. Tonga is a fascinating place to live and every day I live here I learn something new about Tonga, about foreign aid, about international development, and about a life different from what I knew back home.

Thanks for reading. Please enjoy the random samplings of my photos below.