Dentists and Translations, Nutrition Classes, and Veterinarians: Part III

After the welcome ceremony was officially over, I stayed around to help clean up and pack away mats. The assistant governor asked me to come help translate at the hospital, so I went to a meeting at the governor’s office first, and then down to the hospital for about 4 hours that afternoon with one of the teachers from my school and helped some dentists explain things in Tongan. I now know all sorts of handy words like cavity (literally, 'little hole'), decay, brush your teeth, important, filling, drill, and dentures- pretty cool, I know.

I went back to help translate for a few hours after school for the rest of the week, and it was really shocking to see the state of teeth in Tonga. Most of the problems people came in with were as a result of rotting teeth, everyone from older men and women to little children. Some of the elder women didn’t even know what a toothbrush was, which was a bit disheartening, but all of the kids did- Tonga has a tooth brushing program at all of the primary schools, and it seems to be doing a good job at installing basic dental hygiene. Since the navy wasn’t able to bring all of its’ equipment for any of the projects (they had to downsize to a smaller ship because the one they were planning on bringing had a case of swine flu and public relations issues arose) and there were only a few dentists for the entire population of Ha’apai most teeth were simply pulled if the cavity was too large or they needed a root canal. They also did special fluoride treatments for the children, which terrified them for some reason (I think it may have been because they were told they couldn’t eat sugar for the rest of the day after: no lollies, no soda, no ice cream…scary stuff).

I biked to the hospital every day after school for the first week the navy was here to help with translation, but by the second week there were enough people in the community coming to see the doctors who knew basic English and could help out, which was good because I was able to go and sit in on some basic nutrition and food sanitation classes that were run in the MAFFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Forestry, and Fisheries) office that Kate works in. Those sessions were really interesting because they had some good information and statistics, especially concerning food and the major health problems in Tonga, heart disease and diabetes, and because some women from local women’s groups attended and it was really helpful to watch their reactions to information and hear their questions. Kate and I really enjoyed the information they gave out, but we did realize that a lot of the basic health solutions which are taken for granted in America aren’t as easy in Tonga for economic and cultural reasons. For example, most families here on the main island do not have refrigerators, and those who do just have deep freezers, so saving leftovers in the refrigerator to prevent bacteria growth isn’t feasible most of the time. And, our island has electricity most of the time. Many of the outer islands in Ha’apai don’t have electricity at all, or only for a few hours at night when they turn on a generator so the men at kava can watch rugby. Also, when cooking for a kai pola (feast) most of the food preparation is done the night before, as there is no way you can cook for 30 people (at minimum) the day of an event- everyone is up all night the night before as it is. Still, it gave us a lot to think about, and gave me some great facts that I’m trying to use for my nutrition classes at school, and the soldiers who ran the session were so nice and really fun. They even snuck us American food off the ship in their backpacks: bagels, cream cheese, and cereal!

There were also two teams of veterinarians at MAFFF, one who made visits to different villages to look at sick pigs, horses, cows, and goats (most had parasites), and one who stayed at the office and spayed and neutered dogs. Apparently on other pacific islands, especially Samoa, Fiji, and Kiribati, they have a huge problem with the number of stray dogs, and their neutering services were very much in demand. Here in Tonga, we don’t really have a problem with dogs- they all “belong” to someone and tend to stay around their turf. Some are definitely underfed and malnourished, but they still are a certain family’s dog. Tongans also love puppies (as had been made abundantly clear by the frequent theft of puppies) and like their dogs to breed, so they weren’t all that interested in these services. Us palangais were though, and almost all of the foreigners living on Lifuka brought their dog or cat to be fixed. Since my neighbor had already taken a bush knife to my dog, I just stopped in to watch and get some heartworm pills for Muimui.

Kate and Brett brought their dog, Lucky (who is my dog’s sister), to be spayed, since they didn’t want her ending up like most of the female dogs here- constantly pregnant. We didn’t realize what an invasive operation it would be, and poor Lucky was pretty pitiful for the days following during her recovery. She was terrified of the needles, and, as a result, of white people in fatigues, and defecated all over one of the vets a couple times while they were here, which was sad since she was so terrified, but also a little funny, as was watching the dogs come in and out of the sedative they gave them. Kate and Brett also brought their neighbor’s dog, Simba (also from the same litter), and were told the procedure would be much simpler: all they did was inject a shot into his balls to sterilize him. All seemed well until the site of the injection became infected, and Simba had to be brought back several times, which he did not like, and somehow built up a resistance to the sedative shot, which means he was given larger and larger doses. Since he kept licking the infection, one of the navy vets made him a cone out of a pink plastic trash can which was duct-taped around his neck, much to Simba’s dismay and consternation. As a result of their medical mishaps, Lucky and Simba had to stay inside for a few days, and Kate and Brett’s house was like a sick bay. They couldn’t turn on the lights or have loud noises near the dogs because, combined with the anesthesia, it made the dogs hallucinate. If there’s anything more pathetic than a scared and hallucinating dog, I’ve yet to see it, and I don’t think I’d want to. Still, in the end, both dogs recovered, although they both continued to run with their tails between their legs and hide every time they saw someone in the navy.