Black is the New Black

It's difficult to convey what's happening in Tonga this week. Did I say that nothing happened in a hurry? That’s not exactly true. Western timetables don’t always mean very much, but Tongans have a strong sense of what is conveyed by the Greek word kairos – the right time to act. And these days before the funeral of the late king, George Tupou V have a sense of urgency you rarely see here. Workers have been repairing and re-sealing roads in the town centre through the night – and depriving me of sleep. Children have been pulled out of school en masse to clean up – first the pangai malai, the great open space that contains the royal tombs, then their school grounds, then anywhere that might be on the route that will bring the king’s body back from the airport to Nuku’alofa. Stores, offices, churches, schools and even homes have been draped in the combination of black and purple cloth that has recently become the custom here. And almost everyone is wearing black clothes, with the ta’ovala – the folded mat that symbolises formal respect – round their waist. Even Winston, for the first time that I have seen, is wearing a ta’ovala. He sent me back to my room this morning suggesting that it would be better if I led my workshop wearing clerical black! Ironically, Tupou V was rarely seen in Tonga and preferred the European military and aristocratic uniforms of a previous era.

I’ve now done a couple of lectures at Sia’atoutai Theological College, where I began my ministry over 30 years ago. I spoke in the great chapel, the oldest building in Tonga and the place where Diane and I were married and Liz baptized. Yesterday I delivered my lecture on non-violence and the cross. I thought it had gone reasonably well until the college choir followed it up with a rousing rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. You win some and you lose some! There was then a wonderful lunch with the college staff: octopus baked in coconut cream, lu pulu (corned beef in taro leaves), lobster, roast suckling pig, shellfish, yam, all washed down with niu mata, the delicious juice of the green coconut.

At the end of yesterday afternoon I walked along the main road out of town, then down a dusty side street going towards the lagoon and to the home of Lopeti Taufa, Principal of Sia’atoutai when I was teaching there. Now 85 and having lost his wife (the formidable Mele) five years ago, he looked very fit and a tribute to a life combining gardening with intellectual activity. At the moment he is involved in remodelling his garden for better vegetable-growing and working on the revision of the Tongan translation of the Bible. We talked about the difficulty of translating from Greek into Tongan and he was far more forthright about Tonga’s current situation than most of those I’ve met so far. His daughter, Miki (a bridesmaid for Diane 33 years ago), was there with the two youngest of her 7 children. Tragically, her husband died soon after the youngest was born and she’s been left to care for them herself (and with some help from her extended family). I hope to meet them again on Sunday with the other daughter, Sela, currently manager of The Friendly Islands Book Shop. Lopeti was very much a father figure for us all those years ago, so it’s a gift to find him still alive and in good health.