Po Malu: New Edition, 2019

The heartaches and success of Tongans looking for a better life in New Zealand…..Po Malu in the Tongan language means ‘Silent Night’ in English. This story of migration from the Pacific to New Zealand is about a young Tongan man, Manu, who came to New Zealand on a work visa. He left behind a wife and three young children but met, and fell in love, with a young Maori woman, Kiri. She was a very beautiful woman with a lot of baggage but she found in Manu the mana of the man she can only imagine as a husband. Kiri knew Manu was married with three children but she did not care. She knows there will be no other man like him. …..Heilala, Manu’s wife received the legal papers for divorce and it broke her heart. The neighbors say they heard her crying and wailing like there was a funeral. They came to investigate what happened. Heilala was rolled up in a ball in the middle of their one room concrete and corrugated iron hut, her swollen eyes, hair and clothes so dirty, with the youngest toddler trying to comfort her as the sobs racked her body.