1/ Who wants to hear a fantastic story?
Fantastic as in magical, and also beautiful and happy and sad, there’s friendship and found family, and a lot of emotion, with an element of origin story and all absolutely true?

Buckle up. You’re coming to Tonga by way of New Caledonia.

2/ It’s the 18th of January 2013. My plane arrived 40 minutes early from Suva, Fiji, and I expect my pick up to be proportionally late.
It’s fine, it gives me time to sit down outside the airport and breathe in the hot humid air, and take in what I see.

3/ From my bench I mostly see the landscape is flat, and a large group of Catholic nuns who were welcoming a nun who was on my flight are now farewelling a lady (I am told she is a doctor) who is leaving on the same plane back to Fiji.
I have time, I enjoy observing.

4/ Soon enough the nuns turn to me, the sole pālangi (white person) still waiting, and turning down taxi drivers offers. I tell them my pick up is just late, and I have time. At this remark, they laugh and say I already fit in. I laugh and say that’s good because I’m here to work

5/ They’re lovely, and press me with questions and caring attention, and as the conversation goes we quickly figure out I’ll be working literally right next to the school were most of them work and the convent where some of them live.
So they want to give me a lift.

6/ I turn their offer down because I am going to stay not near work, but at someone’s place, and I don’t know where they live. I’ve only been in contact with the wife, H, who told me her husband, JP, would be coming.
They don’t know their names, and agree to wait here.

7/ so that’s how, after about 15 minutes filled with chatter and laughter with a group of catholic nuns who wouldn’t leave me to wait alone, a small bush truck arrives and parks in front of us, in the drop-off lane.
A skinny white man around 60 year old drives it.

8/ “C’est toi, ma chérie ?”

Take the best part of my dad’s father, his popular Parisian accent & argot, and slightly tilt it and that’s JP’s New Caledonian bush Caldoche accent & lingo.
I almost cried because I knew this man would be family.

“Is that you, darling?”

9/ “Jean-Pierre ?” I ask, smiling.
“Allez viens” (“hop on”) he answers, beaming.

I take my leave from the nuns, promising to see them soon, and hop on with my bags.

On the way, I get my first look at Tonga proper and have a fantastic guide. “See that? It’s a church”. [laughter]

10/ After many, many churches and more happy chatter, we arrive at their house.

Good thing I didn’t accept a lift to town: the family live in a village, on the way there.

“Now be serious: Do you play tarot*?”
And that’s how I came to spend my first night in Tonga in Ha’ateiho.

11/ *tarot is a French card game that has nothing to do with the divination tarot de Marseille but also requires a special deck.
Minimum 3 players, great at 4 but really exciting at 5 as you get to “call a king”
I learnt from my grand-father, a former (illegally) semi-pro player

12/ I meet the son, am shown my room and go shower.
There I reflect on how much JP reminds me of my grand-father, but without the creepy things about him, and feel incredibly grateful for this unexpected gift from fortune.

When Helen comes home from work, the family grows

13/ JP is very proud of his Caldoche heritage (white born in New Caledonia), regales me with tales from home & introduces me to the local comic book “hero” Tonton Marcel, who basically, is him.
He’s kind enough not to make fun of me for being from Paris, and that’s beautiful. Lol

14/ He helps me set things up at work where he can, as does H. They’re my rock. H is a Tongan Maori lady born in New Zealand who mostly grew up there, before moving to Tahiti where she married him, then New Caledonia where they raised their family for 22 years, before coming back

15/ I’m one of two French people living in Tonga at the time, and they barely are in touch with the other, so a bit also special to them as we have the language, a lot of the culture and the tarot in common.
And my work, setting up the new Alliance française binds us also.

16/ This story is already horribly long for you dear reader, so to be short: they were always here for me, I wouldn’t have made it without them in my work, and I wouldn’t have learnt all I know about how Tonga works without them (and Fono, but that’s another story)

17/ When things were hard and I nearly lost my mind after two months in Tonga due to... certain people... it was to them I went crying and spent the night.
After that they made their son stay in my spare room once per week so he could attend his school easier
(And check on me)

18/ When things were happy it was with them I wanted to celebrate.

When I heard Helen’s father had passed in New Zealand, I rode my (then terrible) bicycle to the village to be with them.

I saw them a lot, and I loved them even more.

19/ One year after I arrived, a volunteer arrived to work with me from New Caledonia: Valentine. She taught me all the rest of what I know about New Caledonia, and I love her dearly.
She’s a Kanak (Indigenous New Caledonian) from Maré, a Nengone.

20/JP the Caldoche, the settler, and V the Nengone.
Against all odds, a beautiful, rich, powerful friendship

I finished my time at AF the following year, and took up work at the min of ed. V went back to NC soon after.

That September, I cried the most when I wrote her an email.

21/ His health wasn’t great but also not bad, but he caught a cold that gave him death
Each time he coughed his lungs out he’d say something amusing so H wouldn’t cry
10 days later he was gone

I got a call at work, cried, went to change into blacks, cried more in my boss’ office

22/ I went to Ha’ateiho everyday after work & until late.
I met the 2nd son when he came from NZ, and JP’s siblings when they came from Nouméa.
They didn’t speak English. I tried to help them understand all that was going on, the Tongan funeral process. They found it beautiful.

23/ JP wanted to be buried on H’s family land in ‘Eua. We took the ferry there, as a group. About 20 of us.
We went straight to the cemetery, where his grave was dug already.
A catholic priest made a short, very untongan service there.
He was laid to rest with his dear ukulele.

We all watched and cried silently while his tomb was sealed.
Then we turned around to see what he’d face for eternity:
Behind a light hedge, the beach.
The sun was mirroring gold on the sea.
Three humpback whales waved on their way south.

We all stood on the shore and laughed.

In nearly 5 years, I’ve never made it back to ‘Eua.
Always something in the way.

It’s the only item on my “must make time for” before I leave to Europe in July: go hang out with JP, sing him the song his eternal vacation on the beach reminds me of, and promise I’ll be back.

I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately.
Must be because I’m soon to leave. It brings back the memories of the beginning.
H has lived in Tahiti for long already, I miss her dearly.

But today something happened. Something... magical.

27/ Friends just moved to ‘Eua. They got married and decided it’s time for new beginnings. He’s Tongan, she’s South African.
On Facebook today she posts about their new life. They’ve had just enough time to finally feel settled.
For the first time, she mentions a village: Tufuvai

28/ I comment I’ll visit before I leave: I have to pay my respects to someone dear “busy watching whales for eternity”.
She asks his name.
I tell her.
Shock: she’d seen his grave often, and that day took a picture to research about him.
I told her all Google couldn’t.
And cried.

This was the story of my first Tongan family & how my Caldoche uncle (Tonton) let me know he loves me: through my Afrikaner friend who moved next door to him.
She’s now tasked to tell him I’ll sing him the Brassens song “Supplique pour être enterré sur la plage de Sète” soon
Fin.

RIP JP et à bientôt

Update: I wrote this thread yesterday evening as #TCHarold was nearing us. It came closest at 7am.
My friends’ place and resort they were taking over in ‘Eua got smashed but she sent me this photo at 1pm.
“That’s all that’s left of the whole graveyard”