Our guide named Raha took us to see his farm in the jungle on Hunga
Heading out...
Raha grows and makes what he needs. Here he's weaving a basket to carry papayas he picked for us
The almost finished basket. We kept it and used it to go to market a few days later
Heading back after a nice day. Very serene and peaceful in the jungle
Sometimes you get lucky. Or maybe you make your luck. Either way today was a lucky day. As you’ll note from this blog, it also marks exactly one year that we’ve been cruising, having left Berkeley, California a year ago.
The lucky part was sitting at coffee this morning when we noticed a dugout canoe approach Orcinius who is the only other boat in this bay and who is anchored next to us. John was talking with him for quite a while and then the canoe paddled away. A few minutes later Lisa called on the radio and said that the man in the canoe offered to give us a tour of his town as well as his “plantation”. Would we like to go? You Bet!
1030 was the agreed upon hour to meet at the small wharf. We jumped in the dinghy and motored in and were warmly greeted by Raha. He’s lived here all his sixty-six years. A delightful man who speaks good English; he proceeded to head off through the small village toward his plantation. Now, a plantation on the island of Hunga and indeed in all of Tonga consists of the 8 acres that you, as a male are deeded when you turn 18. Raha has his 8 acres and helps tend his grown son’s 8 acres even though he is in Australia working on a container ship. His brother also has some land nearby.
Part of the delight of the day was the simplicity with which he and his community live. On the whole island, there are somewhat over 300 people, yet they only have one television. It is set up in the town hall and the only channel they watch shows rugby! No politics, no commercials, no soap operas, no sitcoms- just rugby.
It was also a delight to watch him gracefully and with bare feet, guide us through the country toward his plantation. There is only one paved road here and it only goes a couple hundred yards up very steeply from the wharf up to the center of the village. It stops abruptly (probably where they ran out of cement) and turns into a red clay path that they continues through the island with many offshoots to other family plantations.
After walking a mile or so, we came to Raha’s plantation. It had a single strand of barbed wire around it “to keep the horses out”. He has developed a series of crops that give him some money as well as feed him and his family. Vanilla beans are his commercial crop. Highly labor intensive, but a good market provides him with some cash. The rest of his crop includes bananas, coconuts, taro, tobacco (of a Tongan variety), sweet potato, and tapioca (some of this he also sells). Anyway, a well-tended 8 acres that he has owned since turning 18. He had promised that he would trade us for some fruit, so while on his plantation, he brought half a dozen papayas and a large banana stalk. How to carry these back the mile or so we walked? That was the other fun part. He just sat down in the middle of the jungle and started to weave two baskets out of coconut palms that we used to carry the fruit back. The bananas were too heavy? OK, he cut down a sapling tree and stripped off the bark to make handles for one of the baskets and then cut the sapling further to put over his shoulder to carry the basket. We almost couldn’t believe our eyes, how right there sitting on the ground, he made the implements he needed to complete his task.
We couldn’t have had a nicer day spent with a more congenial host than our day today with Raha. We ended up trading some items we had that he needed including some rope, rice, powdered milk, reading glasses and a couple other things in exchange for all the fruit and his half day spent as tour guide taking us through the jungles and plantations of Hunga. What a delight!
After getting back to the boats and doing some miscellaneous work (Ann did the “by the numbers” blog, I inspected the hammock on the foredeck while John on Orcinius donned diving gear and spent more time cleaning the bottom of his boat), Lisa called and asked if we wanted to dinghy down to the little resort across the bay. There’s a spot we’ve seen that as it turns out has about four bungalows for guests. It’s best known for deep sea fishing. In fact, the co- owner (with his wife) is named Steve Gamble and he seems to be fairly well known in fishing circles. He is a speaker at the Miami Boat Show, which is the largest in the USA. Anyway, he also tends bar, so we had a good time chatting with him while enjoying a couple of sundowners.
We finished well past sundown and ended up dinghying back to the boats-upwind-in the dark about 2000. Ah, one year out and still having exciting adventures. Made it back without getting too wet and then whipped up some tortellini and a salad for dinner.
I could get used to this!