If you’re in Tonga on a Tuesday . . .

The Friendly Islander Cultural Centre, brainchild of Papiloa Foliaki, provides the visitor to Tonga with one of the best displays of traditional craft to be found in the Pacific Islands.

Every Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. a group of women from the Fineupepe Women’s Cultu ral Training Centre, dressed in fine tapa, guide the visitor through the intricate processes of basket-weaving, Tongan cookery, tapa-making and traditional medicine, carefully explaining each step and en couraging close attention. The activity takes place in a magnifi cent traditional fale which is a display in itself fine sennit binding, great hewn beams, tightly woven walls and floor mats. A kava ceremony opens the proceedings with Papiloa explaining each stage from making to presentation. Every visitor is officially welcomed and invited to take kava a good opportunity to taste it for those who have avoided it so far.

Papiloa Foliaki is a very public figure in Tonga. She was the first female to be elected as people’s representative to the parliament in 1978 and although she was defeated in the last election she says, “in my kind of politics I work in or out.” The Friendly Islander Motel is another of her enter prises and she has started a hire car service to cater to tourists.

The motel has the advantage of being one of the very few self-contained visitor accommodations in Tonga. In 1984 she also started a small newspaper, but with competi tion in the form of the govern ment-run newspaper, one has

to wonder if Tonga is big enough for both of them.

The Fineupepe Women’s Cultural and Small Business Training Centre has had mod est grants from both Australia and Canada. Its main aim is to encourage the younger women to learn the many traditional ways of Tongan life which are sadly being neglected as West ern consumerism marches across these islands. Papiloa feels that many young Tongans have been seduced by the ease of boiling rice instead of grating staple root crops, or into taking proprietary medicines instead of learning appropriate natural cures. She and her colleagues

are also training housegirls for both expatriate and wealthy Tongan homes. The nearby hall which houses the centre has suffered several times from cyclone damage but has been restored with aid donations.

Youth groups use it for dances, band practice, and a variety of functions.

Many Pacific Islands proudly show their dance routines as displays of cultural heritage, but few recognise that visitors are interested in seeing the more basic daily routines of the indi genous people such as the laborious way in which fresh coconut meat is grated, mixed

with water and strained through the shredded husk to get the milk. And spectators have looked enlightened when the tapa demonstration begins and the familiar hammering sound which echoes over Nukualofa is identified. The display ends with refreshments of a freshly crushed pineapple and water melon drink and sandwiches a pleasant surprise, expatriates often bring their house guests to the cultural centre to see “the real thing. ” This excellent enter prise deserves support and should be on every visitor’s itinerary if they are ever in Tonga on a Tuesday. Ngaire Douglas.

Papiloa Foliaki (right), her small daughter Sophroma, and a colleague demonstrate Tongan traditional medicine.