South Pacific tour

One of my jobs this year was to evaluate the impact of sports programs (and especially table tennis) being delivered in the south Pacific. The sports program is specifically designed to engage people with disabilities. Table tennis is ideal as it tends to encourage and support play between persons with disabilities and able-bodied people.

The research took me to Fiji, Tonga and Kiribati.


Fiji has a rocking table tennis organisation and is super-well developed. Partly due to the population size, partly due to the well-developed facilities and much due to the energies of the President of the Fiji Table Tennis Association, and now President of the International Table Tennis Federation Oceania.

The work took me to see the Fiji many miss when they stick to the resort-style islands off Nadi (pronounced Nandi). I was in Suva which tends not to be on the tourist route. However, it was a good city in my opinion - as far as cities go. In general, I prefer the wilder areas outside Suva and outside Nadi.

Tonga is my kind of place. This is a low-lying archipelago known as the Friendly Isles after Captain Cook visited there back in 1773.

Sadly, some days before I visited, the Queen Mother Halaevalu Mata’aho died aged 90. Much loved, the whole kingdom observed a period of ten days of mourning and events to commemorate her life.

Part of this memorial included decorating the buildings in black and purple, the official mourning colours.

From the few interviews I was able to conduct, it was clear that the Queen Mother will be sadly missed. She was a well-known patron supporting various institutions caring for persons with disabilities.

And finally Kiribati which is pronounced, kiri-bass. The name Kiribati is local word based on an earlier name for the islands, namely the Gilberts. It is unclear why or how, but in Kiribati, the letter 't' is pronounced as 's'.

Kiribati is a paradise.

The single road from the airport passes along a chain of islands (South Tarawa) passing very simple, rustic homes. People live in local communities and extended family groups. They often live subsistence lifestyles growing and eating bananas, coconuts, taro, mangoes, etc., and LOTS of fish.

The drawbacks are numerous of course. The northern islands in the south Tarawa group feature old military installations, the population is relatively poor (but apparently fairly happy), the major source of income appears to be fishing rights granted to foreign fishing vessels, and the highest point in Kiribati is 1.3m above sea-level - which is why Kiribati often comes up when people are talking about global warming and rising sea-levels.

Kiribati is reportedly one the least visited places on the planet.

But please don't go there. Just leave them be - and maybe try to adopt some of their strengths. It seems that their world can teach us about the strength of smaller, tighter communities catering for their own needs and rejecting rampant materialism.