Friendly Islander Hotel - Robbed at Knifepoint!

I am participating in Peace Corps "In Service Training", IST. After 3 days at our usual humble guesthouse we battle logistics to all move to the The Friendly Islander Hotel. Guests stay in individual small huts (fales). The married couples each get a romantic little house of their own. The singles are barracked like sardines. I am assigned to a six bed man-hut with five hard-drinking fun-loving Peace Corps Volunteers. Next door is a four man hut and a four girl hut.

I join a group who walk to the only Korean Restaurant in The Kingdom. I order cheap and it is a darn good meal. We walk back to the isolated "hotel" in the darkness.

A few minutes after returning to my hut at The Friendly Islander Hotel one of the men from the next hut walks in. "Can someone help me? I think I am going insane. I can't find my backpack." Although his sanity can often be questioned, it is not in this case today. Their hut has been robbed. Passports, high end laptops used in the training, cell-phones and irreplaceable (here) backpacks are now the property of a HCN. HCN is Peace Corps speak for Host Country National. The Peace Corps, like Big Brother, uses it's own 'speak' as often as possible.

I am the island security coordinator, so I hang around as we bring in the Peace Corps Security Officer. He is a totally competent and squared away Tongan. While serving in the Tongan military he trained with the US Marines. He is one of the staff that I trust.

The influential owner of the The Friendly Islander Hotel keeps saying something to the effect that this is the first time this has happened! I believe that she is in charge of the National Censorship Committee that censors the Government TV and Radio, so I do not believe her.

He calls the police. They are on a first name basis. Out comes two CSI investigators. I recognize them from a break-in at a married couple's house a couple of months ago. In that case they were able to recover almost everything.

They look like a couple of guys you'd see hanging around the at the corner, but they are 100% squared away.

They start with "this is the third time we've been to this hut." This confirms my opinion of the censor's credibility. The Friendly Islander Hotel is a smorgasbord for robbers.

The perps came through the bathroom window and left via a bush road directly behind our huts. Very low risk theft.

The near feral PCVs are agitated. One of them accidentally uses his hut's key on the wrong hut. It works. In fact all our keys work in all the other huts. Security is really looking up!

We fight to move to a secure place. No beans. The security officer is able to move the people from the burglarized hut, but we are to stay. I can hear him pleading our case in Tongan. I guess the Peace Crops manager he is asking. He talks for ten seconds and listens for two minutes. This manager (an assumption on my part) is known for using her lips to listen.

I hit the bed about 12:30. I leave the light on in the hut and cover my head with a towel. I am out.

I wake to a drunk PCV rummaging through his stuff. A hut with six guys in it is noisy. The noise continues so I sit up, ready to slap somebody. Some moron has turned off the lights. There is a huge man with a twelve inch knife going through my stuff. He is NOT a drunk PCV. He has my watch in his hand.

The huge bear turns, drops the knife, and dives head first out the now open window. He is big. The window is small, but he quickly wiggles through and crashes to the ground. His weight breaks the water line to the house and it starts to spray. He is gone.

I am shouting to wake the others. Something like "There is a man in here with a knife!" They are PCVs. Only a few wake.

I call the Security officer. My mobile tells me it is about 05:15. My watch will not be helping me ever again. Then I trot over to the girls hut.

They sliding glass door is wide open. I wake them and make sure they are OK. They are. They just left their door open. Unwise in Tonga.

By now we find that someone, probably a DIFFERENT robber has robbed outside our hut too. Our shorts/swimsuits are gone. Even a pair of old flip-flops have been stolen.

Our security officer arrives so fast I know he has smashed the speed laws. Heavy rain starts. Our friends the police are still on duty. I send out volunteers to check all our huts.

The police arrive. They are concerned about the knife. Usually burglars don't have one. They take it for prints.

I've lost most of my meager possessions including my passport, spare glasses, and most of my clothes and underwear. Plus my irreplaceable backpack etc.

This time we inform the Peace Corps that we are leaving. When it is time for breakfast we take all our possessions with us. No one will leave anything in a hut, or leave one person unattended. The nickname for The Friendly Islander Hotel is now Rape Village.

We find out from the police that one of the cars we identified in the area last night has just been involved in an armed robber near my house. So now there is a potential gun connection. Hmmmmm....

One of the PCVs in my tiny hut is still asleep. He slept through the robbery, through the police investigation and as far as I know is still asleep. We will have a hell of a story for him when he awakes.