Pandemic Love Story: A Yearlong Roundabout to Maui

Under a calm, high-clouded Maui sky, Navi Somerville remembers back to the single email that turned her life upside-down.

A Peace Corps volunteer working on the island of 'Eua, in the Kingdom of Tonga of the South Pacific, in March 2020 came the sudden message to stop everything and go home immediately.

“We got an email that said, ‘Give your key to your principal, and get on the next boat out,” Somerville said this week from her new home in Waiehu. “Then it took almost a year for us to reunite.”

By “us” she means partner Kapu Fili, whom she met in Tonga and was about 18 months into their relationship when a global emergency meant hardly enough time to say good-bye. Just enough time, that is, for Fili to ask for her hand in marriage.

"He proposed when we were about to go to the wharf, the day we were evacuated," Somerville remembered.

Their story is among many to be told in coming months and even years, from lovers, family members, friends, and acquaintances stuck on faraway islands or distant lands due to the historic pandemic response. Because, basically, wanting to be with your family or close friends through the global emergency was not “essential” enough.

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In mid-March last year, the U.S. Peace Corps ordered the evacuation of over 7,300 civilian volunteers helping out in 61 countries, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the then-growing novel coronavirus, and also to avoid having the volunteers get stuck in their host nations.

It was an insightful move by the Peace Corps, an independent agency of the U.S. government. Not long after their mass evacuation order, entire island nations locked down their airports.

It wasn’t like Hawaii’s, where air flights in and out were reduced, but travelers still could attempt it ~ as long as they agreed to quarantine alone for 14 days upon arrival.

Many islands to the south simply shut down altogether. Somerville worked her way back to her parents’ home in Pittsburgh, all the while scouring the internet and tapping the phone to inquire what to do with Fili, suddenly a prisoner in his own country.

“We tried to get him here, but in Tonga, there is only 1 flight a week,” she said. “These countries are very protective of the people. Tonga has zero COVID cases.

“Tonga would not let people go, because planes were coming from other places, too, and had pilots and flight attendants who had been all over,” Somerville said.

Thus began a lengthy learning experience, as Somerville helped Fili with 20-page application forms for a transit visa, only to see requests rejected repeatedly for one reason or another. It was a challenge trying to secure a seat on a very limited number of flights, all the while depending on government approvals just to get on the plane.

“For months and months, every week we would change the flight tickets,” she said.

Somerville, who has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree and is now pursuing a doctorate in transformative studies online, worked diligently behind the scenes to try to make her fiance's departure a reality. For his part, Fili doubled down on his attention to the matter last fall, after witnessing delay after delay.

At first the plan was to fly him to Pittsburgh to stay with Somerville and her family. Then, in part to flee the harsh winter back East, the focus shifted to her aunt’s home in Waiehu. Somerville took a chance and flew to Maui in early January.

“A few weeks later, he finally made it,” she says with clear relief. But it wasn’t your typical straight-to-OGG flight.

Fili had to first fly from his island south to Auckland, New Zealand ~ or, in the opposite direction of Hawaii ~ where authorities spent at least a little time causing a hassle over paperwork. From there it was on to Los Angeles, where Fili was forced to spend the night at LAX before he could jump on a flight to Oakland in the Bay Area. From there, finally, he flew to Maui.

“Of course it was just trying to get out of there at first,” Fili said, “and then to go and meet up was the challenge.

“It’s amazing to just be together, and in getting it done,” he said this week with a huge smile. “Flying is a good experience, even in a pandemic. I’m just glad to be here. We have to adapt.”

His favorite part of Maui? The weather, he says, nodding upward to indicate the big blue sky. Aside from pleasant temperatures and conditions, Maui also has a small-island feel like 'Eua, which is 1 of only 2 islands in Tonga with streams, or a bridge. 'Eua was discovered by an explorer for the Netherlands in 1634, and British Captain James Cook visited the island in 1773 and 1777.

Fili has found project jobs as a handyman and landscaper, while preparing for the next steps in his life and with his fiance, who continues seeking at least part-time work while continuing her Ph.D. studies.

Already she has enjoyed a visit from a childhood friend, who spent days creating a stunning mural at her aunt’s Waiehu house in a quiet little neighborhood not far at all from the beach in the northwest corner of Wailuku.

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The U.S. Peace Corps has been active in the Tonga islands for over 50 years. Tonga was a protected state of Great Britain until 1970, and it remains the South Pacific's last Polynesian kingdom, governed through a constitutional hereditary monarchy.