Power Down

A tiny island in the middle of nowhere still has its sustainability issues.

The unsustainable island

She’s as cute as a button.

Smile to die for. She lives on an island it would take you maybe 10 minutes to walk the length of. She has 11 siblings, but her father’s keen for the Baker’s Dozen.

We are guests of her parents on a Sunday outing to their church on a nearby island, then to a feast in honour of their retiring minister. There are 11 people on the boat. The skipper is 13 years old, tops.

The stem of this boat, to which all the planks attach, is visibly rotten. Put your finger into it and it’s like cardboard. How it holds together is an interesting question. How much longer it will hold together is even more of one. Planks are cracked, frames broken.

The outboard motor is modern enough, but there are no lifejackets, flotation, radios, lights, back-up outboard, bailers, oars or paddles. In New Zealand you’d be facing a stiff fine, at least.

We’re using this boat because the father’s one isn’t here. Two 40hp outboard engines are leaning against a tree, dead. I suspect lack of maintenance. The engineless hull has been loaned to someone else.

They’ve rowed out to us every day for the last few days – using our dinghy – to charge their phones and laptop. Their portable generator is lying not far from the outboard, also dead.

Using our dinghy, they have approached visiting yachts to invite them to their twice-weekly feasts. A French

catamaran moored nearby was press-ganged into running the girls to school on an island several miles away. We’ve watched other folk loaning dinghies and charging time too, even taking them out fishing.

All of which is just fine. We are on a budget that puts us well below the poverty line in NZ, but here we’re unattainably rich.

Or are we? I’ve never owned outboards as big or as expensive as the two dead ones on their lawn. We are running our fridge, charging our laptop (and theirs) and our phones, and running our lights and stereo on 150 watts of solar PV panel.

We love these people to pieces. I wouldn’t have missed meeting them for the world. But what is the best ‘help’ you can give them?

Money doesn’t do it. It’s instantly spent on crappy imitations. None of the shops in Tonga – indeed across the Pacific – seem to be owned by locals. All stock western fossil-fueled products, which seem to die early. If the rotting metallic carcasses lying around indicates anything, they’re also unfixable.

Where does the money from the feasts go? The best buildings, everywhere, are churches. I ask how much the church asks (demands?) of them, wondering whether the question might provoke some introspection.

“30 pa’anga (NZ$20) a week for the family.” Not too bad, extortion-wise. Then the catch.

“But it’s the missionaries, $4000 here, $3000 there…”

These folks are being milked, and there wasn’t much in the udder to start with. I totted up how much it would cost for them to be more self-sufficient: NZ$1000 for a good surf-ski or kayak (no dead motor, no fuel bill); $300 for solar panels; NZ$200 for a controller; NZ$200 more for second-hand deep-cycle batteries; NZ$300 for a second-hand Engel fridge.

Briefly, I wonder if I can set them up myself, scrounging the $2000 total from friends and acquaintances.

Then you look around and notice the glaring difference between here and home. Nobody maintains anything. It’s bought, often with borrowed money at that, then used until it dies. There’s so much dead stuff lying around: vehicles (there’s about 10km of ‘road’ on this island), motors, boats, houses, buildings, wharves, loaders.

Yet these people were once sustainable, or at least close to it for extended periods. Their lifestyle was a lot less impactful and much more maintainable than ours. Yet ours is what they aspire to.

The dugout outrigger canoes from here – sustainable to a T – have one of the most beautifully-styled outrigger-joints I’ve ever seen, a remnant legacy of the greatest mariners from an ocean-full of great mariners. I’ve offered to help the family build one. Dad will probably want to mount an outboard. I’ll keep you posted.

Our day finishes with a storm of a cappella singing. I get kava’d out. We feast on pig. We all get home safely.

What is the best help? Money doesn’t do it.