The Navy Arrives: Part I

(Yes, to begin with, I have been meaning to write this post for over a month...now almost two months...) In the middle of July the navy came to Ha’apai. A U.S. naval ship, the Richard E. Byrd, carrying a couple hundred military and civilian volunteers arrived in Tonga as part of a humanitarian mission. Officially titled the “Pacific Partnership”, it was comprised of people from the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore who came as part of their tour through the Pacific, visiting and working in Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, and Tonga. The official mission statement for, well, the mission, is to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and disaster relief planning. Here, the projects focused on health services and improving the government primary schools (technically, I think they called it ‘civil engineering’), and although most of the projects took place on the main two islands of Lifuka and Foa, a few medical teams were sent out (via helicopter!) to three of the larger outer islands in the group. On the main island, Lifuka, the navy completely took over our hospital, and had general doctors, dentists, and optometrists available for almost two weeks to whomever came for free, which was pretty amazing. Usually, our hospital is understaffed (by that I mean, there’s only one doctor) and empty (all he and the nurses can do is administer children’s tylenol and antibiotics; there are no x-ray machines (been broken for as long as I’ve been here), never mind MRIs, and if anything serious happens you either go to Tongatapu or, in most cases, do nothing and apply Tongan ‘medicine’/ traditional remedies), and it was such a change to see the place overrun, with people waiting throughout the building and outside. At the hospital they brought literally thousands of eye glasses, tooth brushes, and ran clinics on CPR, First Aid, and nutrition. There was also a team of veterinarians that traveled around checking up on the pigs, cows, horses, and goats of the two main islands, and spaying and neutering dogs that were brought in. But, I’m getting ahead of myself...