The last (or lost) kingdom


"Oh yes, our daughter will arrive Friday, before we'll go back to Auckland together mid-April", a conversation across the tables at Cafė Escape - a recently opend, self-named Sophisticated Cafė with a Tongan Twist, located in one of the two new shopping arcades in what could be called the centre of the capital Nuku'alofa - passed over my head. I ordered a cappuccino  opting finally for the passion-fruit cheese cake, though the lemon-creme tart next did look delicious too. Meanwhile another Tongan couple found their way into the air-conditioned oasis. "Oh, how are you, when did you arrive?", followed by a few local phrases in exchange. "Oh, is it? You should join our club", some English is thrown into the conversations. "Join what?", came into my mind, "The club of 200 pounds plus?" And my sarcastic thoughts were not about money but weight ... body weight. I had the impression the only person not greeted warmly was an adolescent yet missing some 25 pounds to join my imaginary club. Whatsoever, they all - obviously from the more wealthy part of Tongan society - seem to live abroad, visiting "home" during the Easter holidays. The last kingdom of the south pacific is also the most "Christian" nation in the vast pacific triangle in-between Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island.
Off course, I can't expect the Kingdom of Tonga to remain the same as I kept it in my memories: the women selling smoked octopus next the old jetty, as well as "my" old Victorian-style white wooden guesthouse along the beach road, which had to make way for the new Chinese Embassy. Nor may I blame the extended period of bad weather, turning roads and gardens in town into wetlands. 
Still, the "last" kingdom seems to struggle on its path into the new millennium  when the king decided to catapult his people from the end of the international dateline to the first nation to celebrate a new day. The first social unrest among the Tongan people in the unified kingdom's history - escalating in riots in 2006 - might have been the tipping point of the effects of ongoing changes in a time of accelerated globalization. And while Tongans have to learn how to get along with the changes, they still pay the price of the 2006 riots: a poor performing economy with limited capacity to generate income, be it for investments or maintenance. Certainly, "Cafė Escape" won't be the solution. Nor the few "sightseeing tourists" from one of the cruising boats on its way up to Hawaii.
 Oh, yes, the journey is my reward. That's the way forward. So I'll better catch the new ferry on its weekly route to the remote archipelagos of Ha'apai and Vava'u, famous for its majestic humpback whales, which come to male and calve in Vava'u's warm waters.

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