Hiko Veve (Rubbish Clean-up)/ OMG, I Really Am My Father’s Daughter

On Saturday Brian and Sabina held a trash pick-up event at the wharf as part of International Cleanup Day. It was an event sponsored by a group called Project AWARE, which, I think, is made up of divers who work to conserve aquatic environments. All of the Peace Corps and Japanese volunteers in town came out and we spent the morning cleaning the area from the “old wharf” to the wharf, probably about a mile long. Armed with gloves and giant trash bags we all headed out to different areas and started picking up trash.

Since it was Saturday morning, everyone was in town and at the market, which is right across from the area we were cleaning and lots of people saw us. A few made fun of us (yes, teenage boys are jerks in every culture), more thanked us (“Malo e hiko veve!”) and a couple children and women even joined in and helped us. The amount of trash we found was appalling. Since it had rained pretty heavily for the days preceding, all of the garbage was soaked, which made some of it, especially the dirty diapers, downright disgusting. It was also interesting to see what the most common pieces of rubbish were- I’d have to go ahead and guess that bags from chips, candy wrappers, and ramen noodle wrappers made up a majority of the trash we collected. Areas that were overgrown with bushes hid more trash than we could have imagined, as did crevices between rocks on the wharf. The wharf itself was filthy, and none of it was hidden- people just throw all their rubbish on the ground when getting on and off of boat, and cargo boats usually just leave their packing containers there.

It took us all about 3 and a half hours to cover all the ground, and we finally had to stop because we ran out of bags to put the trash in. Our final count was about 40 bags of rubbish, which all the trash collectors posed with outside the dive shop under a banner promoting the event. Brian handed out certificates and stickers to everyone who helped (the kids and women loved this- in Tonga it’s just not an event without a certificate) and we all relaxed for a bit before heading home.

We got to talking about how frustrating it is to see all the trash around and to have so many people oblivious and apathetic to the problems that rubbish can cause, and it made me think of my father. Tim has spent the past 10 years or so walking the lake in my home town in Massachusetts picking up trash. In America, I’d say our education system is pretty good: everyone, at the very least, knows it’s bad to throw rubbish on the ground or in the lake. Still, he always comes home having picked up buckets of trash. He’s received awards from the town and the community always thanks him, yet hardly anyone goes out and helps. And yes, in high school my brother, sister, and I were routinely mortified when several times a day students and teachers would come up to us to tell us they had seen our father, yet again, picking up trash. Now, we realize what a wonderful thing he’s doing, but it really makes me wonder how, in Tonga, where awareness is nowhere near the level it is in America, how to make people care when even Americans don’t. It just goes to show that rubbish disposal and sustainable living are really global issues.

Still, there’s a representative of a non-profit called Costal Clean-Up in Pangai right now, and she’s organizing a big island-wide trash pick-up day in October. All of the school and youth are involved, and I’m really hoping this makes an impact and the kids start to understand the importance of rubbish disposal. I’ll keep you all posted.