Tsunami Update

This is an email I recieved from a friend and fellow sailor who visited Niuatoputapu at the same time we did last year. Tongan victims of the Samoa Quake are mostly unknown and forgotten. So that no one I know will forget, i'm posting it here.

Greetings,
Each of us has visited places while cruising where there was heartfelt affinity, and Niuatoputapu was one for the crew of Hannah. Since the tsunami of Sept. 30, we have been in contact with Paea Fitita, the competent and dedicated nurse practitioner with whom I briefly worked, and Laura Jeffery of the destroyed Palm Tree Island Resort. Paea saw the first of three waves from her home and ran with her family, but then went back to help the high school principal with another teacher, and they were hit hard but survived. Laura's caretaker Tulomia Tavake was among those killed. The third wave was as high as the coconuts.
Eager to help, we asked about items needed for health services which would not be given by large donors. We have an unusual opportunity to buy and deliver these immediately and reliably. We are working with Lori Osmundsen, a former Peace Corps volunteer on Niua, who later worked as a lawyer in Nuku'alofa and who is fluent in Tongan. She has been raising money for the Tongan Red Cross Society and is going to Tonga on November 19th. She will be a well-connected and tenacious expeditor who can get these items directly to Niua.
We are writing to ask you to donate money for this modest and thoughtful request:

"List of needs for our health centre in Niuatoputapu which have not as yet been promised by an aid agency and which we believe will not be rapidly supplied, if at all.
By Paea Fifita, Nurse Practitioner.
The aid agencies have been very good in providing medicines, so we are not short of these but rather of more practical equipment, such as:

Ophthalmoscope set ( I have been in Niuatoputapu for two years now but have still to be supplied with one by my ministry )
Small solar light with panel and battery for hospital at night. Two if possible.
Mobile phone ( cost in Niuatoputapu 104 pa'anga ) I have been given a standard desk size phone but this is not easily portable, and in any case should remain in the hospital. But as I am now having to go out a lot visiting the 'refugee' camps in the bush, as well as from village to village, a mobile phone will obviously be very useful for me, if not essential.
Phone cards for the phone ( 10 pa'anga each ).
Basic laptop computer ( much more practical for us than a computer set, which is what we used to have, as it can be charged when the generator is on at night and still used on the battery in the daytime. )
Basic printer for computer.
Large rubbish bin with lid
Yellow hospital container for used needles, etc.
Baby tub; for bathing babies
Weighing scales for babies
Solar torch for our night watchman"

We are asking for checks made out to Tracy Willett to be sent to 5640 Imai Road, Hood River, Oregon, US 97031. Please trust us to be accountable. We have already bought the cell phone and card and are committed to raising the funds before Nov. 19th.
Those who prefer to make donations on-line to a charitable organization could donate directly to the Tonga Tsunami Response of the New Zealand Red Cross.
To summarize what has happened from www.matagitonga.to, the Phase One immediate response is winding down. With breadfruit trees and fishing boats and nets destroyed, and emergency food being depleted, families are living increasingly on their root crops and food is scarce. The cash economy was based on weaving of mats sold in the capital and abroad, but the shoreline pandanus trees are destroyed. The ubiquitous rainwater tanks are unusable and people are relying only on untreated tap water from an ancient system without spares. This was the first tsunami on record in Tonga, and thus particularly traumatic.
After getting this request met, we are going to work on casting a net to the cruisers who will leave the west coast of the Americas next March. Whatever happens to the traditionally intermittent airplanes and ferries, these guys will arrive and are the perfect zero overhead volunteers who know how to fix stuff. My thought is to provide websites, marinas, magazines, nets, etc. with direct contact emails of people on Niua. Cruisers could email and ask what they could bring, so that everybody doesn't bring nails when hammers are needed. Perhaps there could be specific projects that cruisers could work on for a day or a week, something that falls through the cracks of the dollars donated for rebuilding, but work that local Tongans deem important.
When we look at the water coming out of our tap, be it from the city or well or spring or water maker, we often think about how we take it for granted. We all have the proverbial two pricey Polynesian beers or modest meal at the local pizza joint or more to pass up and give instead to our neighbors in this small world. We welcome questions, more ideas, new initiatives, connections with cruisers doing the same thing, etc. It turns out we were really bad at collecting boat cards, and if you can forward this to your pals that in itself would help.

Fair winds,

Tracy Willett MD and Steve Wrye