I guess I should explain some of the highlights of the week (Rowan and Julian if you are reading this, you will particularly enjoy this story)…. The first Monday of class I ate my packed lunch, which had some papaya. Now, I thought it was good but maybe a little too ripe- mistake one. I should interject here and give a brief overview of what the PCMO (Medical officer) just presented to us yesterday about food safety. The presentation was pretty much two hours of making us all incredibly scared to ever eat anything in Tonga. In Tonga us Palangi cannot drink the water because it has too many minerals or is rainwater collected from the rooftops, which has any number of contaminates. We are also supposed to set up a 3-part food washing method that involves soaking food in bleach-water solution and rinsing with purified water (so again, we are now in belief that we cannot have any water or food). The deep cleaning of the food does not happen at home stay…. not at all. I should also interject here with a side note that Tongan toilets don’t really understand how flushing works, they more just add water to the bowl rather than flush anything down- most toilets take a good 2 or 3 flushings to get anything down- this tid-bit is important later. So back to the fruit, I felt a little rumbly in my tummy after it but nothing to write home about (not including this of course…). I went about the day feeling okay and when I got home to dinner my mom had made amazing fried chicken. Another quick side note on Tongan food- it is a lot of root crops, which I am not about, and a lot of good food but kind of bland and always a few assorted bones. The fried chicken however, was the best meal I had eaten since being in Tonga, better even than the traditional Togan dish called Lu (this is chicken marinated with onion and coconut milk, wrapped in taro leaves all in a tinfoil packet and cooked in the Tongan umu- underground oven). I ate a lot of this chicken to say the least. Cut to me surviving the night but waking up around midnight with sharp pains in my stomach. Here I am thinking to myself- I feel like I am going to have to upchuck/ downchuck my meal. I am thinking to myself- given I puke, should I do it in the toilet or go off the balcony? Now I have mentioned that the toilets don’t flush plus I felt if I went of the balcony the pig would eat it and then my host mom wouldn’t have to clean anything…. So, after a 20 minute debate with myself I decide to go off the balcony, I proceed to pace the entire 7 feet of the balcony to work up the vomit. As I finally feel it coming I start dry heaving off the ledge making what could only be described as the sounds of a dying sea lion. I am successful and as I here my sick hit the ground bellow the sound of a pig comes snorting around followed quickly by one of the many roaming dogs. I return to my bed and try to fall back asleep. No less then 20 minutes later I find myself sprinting to the balcony giving an encore of the symphony of noises that is me barfing. When I finish I turn to find my host my looking shocked and scared for my health, I assure her I am now fine and start to return to my bed. Being the lovely women she is, she brings me a cup of tea and I pass the rest of the night watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and trying to forget the wonderful first impression I just made.
P.S. Now my family is so scared of me getting sick that they a very concerned with all my meals and double check with me every dinner idea. Quote “for now on you tell me what you want to eat, Tongan stomach very strong, we eat anything but you…” Essentially white boy can’t hang….
Here is a picture of the beautiful beach incase you can't get the image of me puking out of your head....
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