Tonga's People

Press, 17 June 1988, Page 13

Tonga's People

through the camera

of

ANTHONY M c KEE

When Anthony McKee travelled to Tonga recently, he took the essentials — three cameras and a bicycle. The 23-year-old Christchurch resident has been taking photographs seriously for six years and "wanted to see a place that isn’t totally ritzed up” for his holiday. Going round Tonga with his sister and a friend of hers, he managed to capture the islands’ people, especially the children. The young New Zealanders were met at the airport on Tongatapu by Sisters of Mercy nuns and taken to the village of Lapaha, where the nuns — in association with the Canterbury-Westland members of the order — have their convent. Mr McKee’s family have done work for the Tongan nuns, including the sending of such things as clothing, educational books and sewing machines. His father, an engineering draughtsman, once fixed the belltower clock in the church across the road from the convent. Anthony McKee’s bicycle gave him an unexpected opportunity to get acquainted with some of the local children his second day there. It had been raining, and he hit a water-filled pothole. It took about half a day to fix the damaged wheel. Neighbourhood children came round to watch him. “I spent the other half of the day photographing them.” Mr McKee says that many Tongans live without electricity in houses made of sticks, flax and corrugated iron. Because most Tongan islands lack sources of running water, rainwater storage tanks are essential. He says you can’t spend too long in the shower, if you are one of the few who can afford one in the first place. Cooking is often done on open fires in huts separate from houses. Cycling round Tongatapu, Anthony McKee was struck by the prevalence of videos in a place with very limited television transmission. Videos were playing everywhere, he says, a new habit that "has sad overtones.” He says the Tongans are "encountering a new media which shows them a world many will never see." Many video programmes New Zealanders would consider too violent and offensive are often seen being used as babysitting devices. One day, he watched children on the island of Vava’u entranced by a science-fiction battle shown on a video inside a corrugated iron shed. Some watchers sat inside, others outside in the bright sunshine. After a week on Tongatapu, the travellers went north to the Vava’u group of islands on a 20-hour trip aboard the Olovaha, a passenger and freight vessel that does a weekly round trip among the strung-out Tongan islands. Mr McKee became one of the deck class passengers on the crowded vessel, keeping an eye on the bicycles, and was drenched during the night by a torrential downpour. His bicycle still shows signs of the rain. At about 1 a.m., after a 5 p.m. start from the Tongan capital, Nukualofa, the vessel lowered its loading ramp offshore from a small island group while small boats came alongside. The lowered ramp acted as a jetty while passengers and goods were transferred to runabouts, often the main form of transportation in the islands. At 6 a.m., .the Olovaha berthed in the Ha’apai group, where the settlement, Mr McKee says, "looked like a 1950 s town after the military had left it to the civilians.” After another 112 kilometres and eight more hours, the vessel entered the Port of Refuge, a harbour whose fiord-like approaches reminded him of Picton. The port town, Neiafu, is built on a hillside. Anthony McKee set out on his bike to take photos straight away, and came across a young boy watering down his mother with a garden hose. The mother was holding a young daughter, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the wash. There was little fencing round huts he saw on the island. He says that much Tongan fencing seems designed not to keep things in, but to keep out the pigs wandering everywhere. Further down the road, he came across a group of men playing pool inside a shelter built especially to house the table, a prized possession worn and torn as it was. They played by the light of a kerosene lantern. Such neighbourhood pool halls are found everywhere round the islands — “sort of a domain for the village men.” Anthony McKee says Tonga has a charm that can “only be found some place poor. Where else do you see families travelling in a horsedrawn cart, or villagers using machetes to mow the lawn in front of the house?” Beaches are beautiful, if deceptive. Coral lies just beneath many of the waves. In dealing with children and others he wanted to photograph, Mr McKee learned Tongan words like “please,” “thank you,” and “don’t move.” He says the teaching standards are high in Tonga, even though the pay is low. Many teachers are from the Churches, such as nuns, who have made it their vocation to help the poor. Some students attain 98 per cent marks in fifth-form English School Certificate examinations. In a country where the average income is $2O a week, “mo§t students know that if they are to be spared a lifetime working in plantations, they must do well at school.” The character of some children was brought out as they relaxed sometimes after looking through a viewfinder. But it was frustrating work when he tried to take a shot of one child alone and everyone nearby wanted to join in. Or when he was getting something set up in front of the camera and turned to see a small child, enchanted by the glass, running a finger over a carefullycleaned lens. His most expensive camera had a part shaken loose by cycling vibrations. Of the three cameras he took, one came back in good working order. —STAN DARLING £