Millennium baby passes year in obscurity

By MONIQUE DEVEREUX

The heat and humidity are overpowering in Fahefa, a tiny village in the kingdom of Tonga. The day becomes only a little more bearable in the shade of the mango trees.

There is not much to do here. A slow drive around the island - the speed limit is 65 km/h - finds people lying on mats in the shade of trees.

This is where the world's millennium baby - Kala Sosefina Milleniume Kauvaka - has spent the first year of her life, quiet and almost unnoticed.

In a small wooden house in the remote village, the Herald met the child who became the millennium baby when she arrived in the world at 12.06 am on January 1, Tongan time.

Tonga had quietly introduced daylight saving for the first time last summer - propelling the Pacific kingdom one hour ahead of New Zealand, thereby making it the first place to see the year 2000.

But attention was focused on the first baby to be born after midnight in New Zealand and the world hardly noticed Kala's birth.

Since then, fame and fortune have not descended on the house where Kala lives with her extended family of 15 people, including six girls under the age of 5.

Little Kala has been the subject of just two media interviews and her family have received $1000 from a Tongan gentlemen's club.

A submission to the Guinness Book of Records to recognise Kala as the millennium baby was turned down. The book chose not to recognise any "millennium" achievements.

No worldwide flurry of media attention, no $1 million sponsorship deals - life goes on in sleepy Fahefa as it always did.

Kala lives with her parents, Senituli and Ngaloa'afe, and two sisters, Nanise, aged 4 and Vai'ata, 3.

Also living in the sparsely furnished three-bedroom house are Senituli's parents, along with Senituli's brother, his wife and their three children.

Senituli is a teacher in a state school, but the wages are not good and the family have very little. But they are fiercely proud of their millennium baby.

Grandfather Maketi has taken photographs of Kala every month - his camera is one of the few luxury items the family owns.

In his limited English, he proudly displays the colour pictures and describes his granddaughter - his sixth - as a "bright one."

He says he is a little puzzled about the lack of media attention until now, but is happy to encourage Kala to smile for our camera.

In the Tongan Visitors Bureau the friendly woman smiles at the name Kala Kauvaka. "She is very special to Tonga, our millennium gift from God."

Today, Kala's family will celebrate her first birthday with a feast. They are expecting many friends and family to join them. But it will be a double celebration, because they also claim the last Tongan baby born in the last millennium. Kala's cousin Kaloni was born in the same hospital at 11.50 pm on December 31.

"We are blessed," says their grandfather, Maketi.

* The first baby born in New Zealand in 2000 is doing well, says his family's agent, Andy Haden.

Tuatahi Manaakitunga Edwards was born on New Year's Day at 12.01 am. He underwent heart surgery within days of being born.

In the days after Tuatahi's birth Mr Haden said he fielded between 50 and 100 inquiries from media in New Zealand and around the world.

Mr Haden is still representing the family but declined the Herald's request for an interview.

Herald Online features:

2000 - Year in Review

2000 - Month by month

2000 - The obituaries