Reflections on Time and the Warm Welcome of a Centipede's bite

Just before midnight we arrive in Tonga and step out on the tarmac. There is a small terminal with a quaint hand painted sign that says, “ Malo e Lei Lei, welcome to the Kingdom of Tonga”

As we clear customs, the Tongan Military is waiting for us with a massive truck for our gear and a small van for the passengers. We make our greetings and pile into the van in the dark. Remember the dark, it’s a key element. Off we go on the left side of a strange road dodging pigs and passing on blind curves. After 33 hours traveling from San Diego, I’m slouching in the back seat counting the seconds until I can shower and catch some sleep. Despite my mental condition, my brain has no problem alerting me to a small tickling sensation on my lower back. I casually swipe my hand under my shirt just as bright warm pain signals travel at the speed of light through my nervous system to the location of your brain that controls high pitched emergency communications. No one knows what is going on as I dig out my flashlight to see what has just bitten me. By the time I get the light, the perpetrator has vanished like a wraith. Minutes later my boss asks who had the torch (Aussie for flashlight, your welcome) and I shine it on him. Sitting perched on his shoulder is a 6 inch centipede and likely the aforementioned assailant. With a deft swipe and strangely no high pitched scream (foreigners are strange aren’t they) he knocks it off back into the dark of the van somewhere. Now the other six on the team are finally concerned with the situation. Everyone sits uncomfortably quiet with their knees pulled up to their chests to keep their feet off the floor, awaiting the centipede’s next assault. We arrive without further drama.

33 hours, give or take, is precisely the amount of time it took me from home in San Diego to my surrogate home here in Tonga. As you can imagine, that much time spent on airplanes and airports leaves you with more of what you don’t really need. Time. So I began thinking about time and cued up Pink Floyd on my ipod. Time seems to drive everything in our world. It controls how long we sit uncomfortably at desks and over keyboards. How much money it costs to have our cars tuned up, or a bathroom remodeled. How your friends and family judge your life and personal achievements (memorizing the planets of the solar system is remarkable at 4, required by 12 ,and pathetic if not achieved by 24).

I recently read a book about the man’s pursuit to accurately calculate longitude while at sea (LONGITUDE, by Dava Sobel) so I immediately resisted the romantic urge to try and deflate our western importance regarding time. The truth is that the concept and precise measurement of time is at the foundation of most of mankinds modern achievements. So, while we would all love to retire to the tropics, casting off our wristwatches and cell phones for a carefree lifestyle carving tiki’s for tourists, we simply can’t escape it. We are empowered and enslaved by it. Back to the book. The leading method of calculating longitude before the reliable marine chronometer was an incredibly complex system involving the predicted location of the moon in relation to prominent stars (the astro method). Scientists spent years and years simply recording lunar observations before they could even predict the location accurately enough to produce prediction tables. Then it was up to the at sea navigator to conduct complex calculations, often accounting for tiny details like atmospheric refraction and slight elevation adjustments for bridge height. From this, the hope was an accurate measurement of longitude and surer, faster arrival to the intended destination. Flash forward three hundred years and here we are on a plane to Tonga, a group of professional mariners and college educated men , arguing over what the local time will be upon arrival in Tonga. Should be a simple calculation compared to what our predecessors were used to. End result all of us were wrong.

Why should it matter really? We arrive precisely when we get there and Tongans are notorious for never rushing, but in a strange cultural twist Tongans expect westerners to be punctual despite their own carefree attitude toward schedules.

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I strapped on shoes and hit the waterfront for a run this morning. The lagoon was still and the sky was clouded and gray which made the water look like a high alpine lake already frozen for the winter. As I went along, the clouds turned on me and it began to drizzle. The Tongans driving by all did a double take (the first for the man running and the second for the man running in the rain). As I ran I was composing some thoughts in my head on this theme of time.

Last night at the royal Nuku’alofa gentleman’s club (not the kind with naked girls, the kind with no girls) they had a raffle and the prizes varied from a dozen eggs to a live chicken. Buster (ask me later how he got that call sign), our medical planning officer, kept saying repeatedly how old fashioned this whole scene was. Like an old British Officer’s club in a remote colonial locale. I made the comment that if Chickens could lay Ipods, I assume they would raffle those- but here in Tonga it’s just eggs. Then a local Australian Commander ,who is stationed here in Tonga, pulled him aside and explained the following points to him- The average Tongan earns about 50 cents per hour of work. When oil spiked last year to $150 a barrel it cost the average tongan a week’s salary to fill up their car with gas. This is not America, and we think we know that going in, but clearly Buster hadn’t fully comprehended it. Time it seems, even in the South Pacific runs everything.