Word: tongan
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...wilds of Solomon Islands' Western province, a more realistic eye also settles on the depredations of malaria, the ruinous idleness of youth, the vandalism of greedy loggers, and the frustrating isolation caused by impassable roads. No one lives in this environment without some hardship. Curragh and her Tongan colleagues, Seteone Polutele and 'Isileli Vei Koso, volunteered to be part of the country's Participating Police Force (PPF). Composed of officers from 11 Pacific nations, it's the law-and-order arm of the intervention force known as ramsi, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, that arrived two years...
...Tonga shortly after Vason appear to have stuck more closely to their brief, and to have frowned on a pastime in which men and women, boys and girls - almost certainly naked - cavorted in the surf. It's thought that the missionaries convinced the chiefs that fanifo was corrupting Tongan youth and didn't belong in a budding Christian society, and that the chiefs placed on the sport a tapu, or ban. "This is, to some extent, speculation," says Po'oi Puloka, secretary general of the Tonga Amateur Sports Association and National Olympic Committee (tasanoc), "but it's more than likely...
...surfing's Tongan revival? It all began with a love affair. In 1977, a 21-year-old chef from Sydney, Steve Burling, embarked on a holiday with some mates. Their plan was to surf Indonesia's best spots, then check out the less popular destinations of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. But Burling's holiday ended on Tongatapu, where on his first day he met a local beauty called Sesika. Burling had never had a girlfriend before; never been in love. Sesika knocked him sideways. "It was her femininity," he says. "And she was slamming attractive." She followed him back...
...Michael Burling, now 21 and a medical student at Auckland University, is a four-time Oceania junior men's surfing champion, twice the Oceania open men's champion, and the current Oceania longboard champion. Steve and Sesika's 19-year-old daughter, 'Anau, has claimed similar honors, and the Tongan surfing team were overall winners at the 2003 South Pacific Games, stunning favorites Tahiti. "These victories raise the profile of Tonga," says tasanoc's Puloka, "especially in aquatic sports, which we're trying to get our kids into. Once they see Tongans on the international circuits, the kids will aspire...
...competitive success of some Tongan surfers seems less important than the joy the sport has brought to local converts. "It is pure soul surfing for most of them," says David Boardman, an Australian staying at the resort. For the idle Liava'a, it was friends' involvement in the sport and their brightly colored surfing magazines that sparked his interest. Having had two serious knee injuries playing rugby as a schoolboy, he appreciates how surfing can provide equal or greater thrills without rugby's bone-jarring collisions. "I love it," he says. "It is fun for hours...