September 21,
I don’t know if this has ever happen to you- you’re enjoying a nice glass of wine on the beach after a wonderful day of class and teacher training and on the walk home you hitchhike in the back of a pick up with 3 dudes and a dead pig missing its head…
Today we got to celebrate one of our fellow volunteer’s birthdays (Happy 29th Tynesha!). There was an entire fruit spread and cake set out at teatime! We also had a great class on teaching strategies for the 5 basics of learning to read. Afterwards we all thought it would be nice to close out the week with a nice beer on the resort beach (there is a small resort with bar a few villages over from the village we have our TEFL training). When we get to the beach we discover it is around low tide, which means the water had retreated about 50 yards. After some time (and a few glasses of wine) a few of us decided to take the walk out across the part of the beach that is normally covered by water. It was amazing, it was like walking across another planet. The ground was colorful and alive with a host of plant and sea life.
This is Maradeth (one of the extenders from group 75) doing a demo of teaching reading to some Tongan kids.
Michael, Harrison, Steph and me walking across the low tide to the outer rocks!
On the walk back to our village (about a 45 minute journey), my language group decided to try our hand at sutoing (hitchhiking). Before you chastise us for making a stupid mistake let me add that it was getting dark and hitch hiking is a totally normal thing to do in Tonga, plus my Tongan host brother had run into us and was with us. We don’t even have to hail down a car because a pick up pulls over to offer us a ride (a common thing for Tongan motorist when they see palangi walking on the side of the road). Being that it has been Katy’s goal to ride in a back of a pickup since she got here, we waste no time in hopping in the back. We gave our greetings to the other guys in the back and before long I realize that we are not only sharing the back with the three men but also a giant dead pig. The pig’s head had been removed and place underneath its body. I couldn’t help but be excited by this and had to take a quick photo. Nowhere in the US would it be typical to hope in the back of a random person’s pickup and find a slaughtered pig! I explained the situation to my host mom over dinner after and she told me that the men had probably run the pig over and that is why they decided to eat it. It is moments like these that make me realize just how much I am going to enjoy leaving here…
This is what we were sharing the back of the pickup with....Yes I was very palangi and took a picture and yes they all looked at me like I was crazy...
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