Paradise Defended

 A few people, who thought I was going to be taking a few weeks off, a vacation between Andronico's shutting down and the opening of Safeway Community Market at 100 Center Boulevard the former site of the actual last community owned Market, Guasco's. Yes a few people asked me if I planned to have a vacation. I needed one.

 I said might cruise out to some tropical isles. Idle dreaming, fantasy, humor I didn't really mean it but
when my landlord Phil gave me a book to read called 'The Happy Isles of Oceania -- Paddling the Pacific' by Paul Theroux, in some little coincidence a few days later .. I figured I would have to dig in.

.... somewhere in the Pacific..

 'I paddled back to Taunga to ask a fisherman. All of them were out this lovely day, but I found Lini and she inquired among the women of Taunga. None of them had the slightest idea about the currents. This was not surprising-- woman did not paddle or sail in Tonga.
  "The beach at the tip of the island is very beautiful," I said.
  "Yes. We swim there."
  "Do tourists visit you?"
  "Sometimes in boats. A cruise ship came once. There were many people. They loved our village. They admired our houses and the flowers we planted."
  "What did the cruise ship look like?"
  "I don't remember," Lini said. "But they loved our beach."
  "Where did the people come from -- what country?"
  "I don't know," she said impatiently, as though it was a silly question.
   Just like a Tongan: he remembered only what the strangers had said about her village. She had taken no interest at all in the strangers. {lini is 17 years old, strangers are tourists}
   "There is no one swimming on the beach today," I said.
   "It is too far to go" it was about a ten-minute walk. She smiled and added  "A man from overseas told the king that he wanted to build a hotel on the beach. A very big hotel so that tourists will come".
   "What did the king say?"
   "He could not say anything to the man till he asked us."
   "So the king asked the village about building a hotel?"
   "Yes."
   "What did the village say?"
   "We don't want it," she said, and turned away.
   "Why not?"
   "We don't want those people."
   By those people she meant strangers.
   Tongan snobbery, offensiveness, incivility and rampant xenophobia has kept the glorious archipelago
of Vava'u one of the least spoiled places in the Pacific.
 
   
   Maybe we don't have to be incivil and offensive but just have to clearly defend our communities. Taking refugees infinitum is no solution. Time to rebuild and stop tearing down the world.