Lola & Toni in the Tonga

One of the first things you read about when you think about joining the Peace Corps is all the different ways you can get sick..  There are intestinal issues, malaria, dengue fever, and a whole host of other things that can get you sick depending on what country you get posted to.  Fortunately for us, Tonga doesn’t have many of the diseases that countries in Central America or Africa may have, but you do expect to get sick from something.  Lara and I have made it thus far with no problems where other volunteers have had problems.  We can eat almost anything with no problem, and one of our Tongan friends said one time that we had veve kete (garbage stomachs), meaning we can eat just about anything.  So far so good.  Besides a few earaches early on, and a couple of bouts of minor strep throat for Lara, we have been happy and healthy.

There has also been quite severe outbreaks of Dengue fever here in Tonga, which isn’t life threatening, but can make your life hell for a couple of weeks.  About 7-8 of the volunteers in our group of the 29 who are left have contracted Dengue fever whether it be a severe or a mild case.  That seems like a huge percentage to me, but once again (knock on wood) we have escaped Dengue as well.

So, we are notified recently by our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) that everyone is required to have a flu shot.  It is mandatory unless you have had a severe reaction to it in the past.  I myself have never had one, and didn’t particularly want one, but it was mandatory and I didn’t want to give our PCMO any more grief than she already gets.  So, here I am, the first one to show up for this wonderful shot that the government has been so generous to force us to  have.  I get the shot, complain a little about how they are giving me influenza (in a joking way of course) and go on my happy way.  This was on a Thursday afternoon, or maybe it was Friday, it is all kind of hazy now.  Come Sunday, I have a fever, headache, bodyaches, and just plain felt crappy.  For the next 5-7 days, I lay around whining ( I am not good at being sick), cancel all of my classes and try to recover from the sickness that the PC so happily gave me.

All in all I am a little pissed that I didn’t have the option to take this shot like I would in the states, and keep thinking whether this flu shot is even effective in Tonga.  I guess it is effective in getting you sick, but does it actually fight any influenza viruses here?  I also have had time to think about how ironic it is that I have gone eight months in a different country without a problem until now.   Oh well, life goes on and I am pretty healthy again, but my sickness has deterred many other volunteers from going to get their shot because they don’t want to get sick.  The problem is, that it won’t be some grand story I can tell my nephews and friends about later in life how I fought some Tongan sickness, and isn’t it really all about the story?

I forgot to mention one thing in the last post.   Recently, a large International telecommunications company named Digicel purchased one of the existing companies in Tonga.  For a while now, Tonga has been preparing for Digicel’s arrival in the country.  They had been preparing for quite some time to enter the market, and we had a feeling it would be with a bang.  On the week of the opening and entrance into the market, Digical announced they would be bringing in Shaggy for a free concert.  I don’t know if it is my age, or musical taste, but I really didn’t know who Shaggy was until someone pointed out one of his songs on the radio.  I am not incredibly big on people who take older songs and put some funky mix to them and call it their song, but this was to be a huge event in Tonga.  The Thursday of the show, Nuku’alofa was just buzzing.  Businesses were closing due the evening concert, new Digicel stores were unveiled and opened, advertisements were up everywhere, and new digicel buses were driving up and down the street blaring music from Shaggy.  The concert was to start at 4:30 at the harbour, but like everything else in Tonga, it didn’t.  We went and positioned ourselves at a restaurant nearby to hear the music and check out the scene.  It was pretty amazing, to see the crowds.  Of the approximately 60,000 residents of Tongatapu, I think they estimated that about 25,000 attended the concert.  Traffic was blocked by the hordes of people walking down the road to and from the show, and the police and military were stationed all over the place to contain any problems.  Besides some technical problems (which is common in Tonga) and a very large downpour of rain, which is also common here, the show went on without a problem.

Digicel has continued to try and saturate the market here by offering huge promotions on phones and giveaways, and seems to be succeeding.  I even got into the spirit and bought a new phone for 40 pa’anga.  Now I am just waiting for their network to be reliable, but it is still odd to think that I even have a cell phone in the Peace Corps.  I guess times are a changing….