Good Morning Tonga!

I strap on my sandals and take the first step of my morning journey. I splash through pig shit riddled potholes made invisible by puddles that fill them in the predawn darkness. Past the sleeping police barracks and national rugby stadium I hike. Not unlike the Appalachian Trail, just flatter?

Eventually I leave the nondescript suburbs behind and the aromas of the big city - Nuku'alofa, greet me like an old friend.

I stop at a particularly clean puddle to wash an unidentified goo from my toes. Better... I continue the hike from my campsite to the imagined scenic overlook that is the capitol of the Kingdom.

Empty slabs remind me where shops once stood. Burned by rioters in last years 'event' they leave few traces of their prior life. A few little blue tiles stubbornly stick to the slab of this one, large white tiles pattern the next.

Some were shops, there must have been some variety before... I've heard that there was a movie theater in town, somewhere... I would love to be able to go to the movies.

Not the slightest inkling of an effort to rebuild. Not even the optimistic billboard of a developer. I think that perhaps I can write a grant application for basketball hoops, two per abandoned slab. We could be known all over the world as the city with the most basketball courts per capita.

I wait for the only coffee shop to open. It rains again. Harder this time. Still a couple of hours before I can invest in a cup of coffee.

Hmmm... I'll suggest the basketball hoop idea to one of the volunteers working on youth athletics. For now I'll stick with my efforts to introduce Tonga to advanced cultivars of citrus available through grafting.