Tonga isn’t the only tropical country close to my heart that has faced disaster in recent weeks: Madagascar has been hit first by Tropical Storm Ana and then by Cyclone Batsirai, leaving a trail of death and destruction. Mananjary, on the east coast, was destroyed by Batsirai, as torrential winds and rain caused scenes of devastation and destruction and at least ten deaths. The country has already been hit badly by a prolonged drought fuelled by climate change. Please consider donating to the cyclone relief efforts of the UN World Food Programme, to the famine appeals of CBM and Money for Madagascar, or to the longer-term programmes of Action Against Hunger, Unicef and Small Steps for Africa.
22 February 2022
Tonga is dropping out of the global news cycle, but it will be a slow road to recovery for the country.
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28 January 2022
More first-hand accounts are emerging from Tonga.
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23 January 2022
The news of a volcanic eruption in Tonga a week ago threatened to monopolize my attention during a typically busy start of semester; more than news of increasing Covid hospitalizations in the UK, Boris Johnson’s blatant attempts to distract attention from his political plight, Vladimir Putin’s imminent invasion of Ukraine, or Brexit-caused miles-long lorry queues at Dover and Calais. While I was engaging with new students on two different courses and marking and moderating assignments from two more, my mind kept returning to my own postgraduate years, which involved studying and writing about Tonga throughout the 1990s and spending two months there in 1993. Anyone knowing the country will have been taken aback at the sight of the satellite image of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai’s ash cloud.
Taken by the Japanese weather satellite Himawari-8, 15 January 2022.
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22 January 2022 · 1 Comment
We had a faint positive lateral-flow test in the family last Saturday and so have to self–isolate until next Tuesday, despite negative PCRs all round and no definitive Covid symptoms (although with Omicron it’s harder to tell). The chance of false positive LFTs is low, so we have to assume this one wasn’t, and Track and Trace want us to isolate either way, even with negative PCRs and multiple jabs. It’s not how we would have liked to spend the week running up to Christmas, but the rapid rise in cases was already putting paid to those plans; everyone here seems to have entered voluntary de facto lockdown in lieu of actual lockdown. The street has been unnaturally quiet all week.
What a fitting end to another difficult year. Looks as if January 2022 won’t be much better either. Hope you and yours can keep safe.
24 December 2021
Two weeks ago today I wasn’t feeling quite right, and thought I’d better do a lateral flow test from the kit we’d recently been given, just in case. Within moments I was confronted with this:
Damn.
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21 September 2021
Typical mid-pandemic sights. Mouseover for more.
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31 August 2021