Tongan Take-aways : Cooking Day and Farewell Dinner

October 29, 2012

Today was cooking day! Before they send us off to live on our own they decided we should have a day where we try and actually cook. We got to go into town and cook at the PC office. We separated into our language groups (plus Wren from Ha’asini) and we were given 30 pa’anga. We went to the market and bargained (using our extensive tongan vocab...) to get all the food we needed to make our meal. We bought root crops and lai’pele (a leave vegetable) and carrots and onions and lamb. We also found pineapple! I was so stoked, my first Tongan pineapple- everyone here knows I am dying to eat all the pineapple Tonga has to offer so they were all very excited for me… Our meal turned out great, and even though one of the groups didn’t get the memo that we were all going to eat together, the Futu’mu group did and we had a nice lunch, especially with their addition of their group's cabbage wraps (-:

our cooking group plus Nemo (the fat dog Chiara is holding)

After lunch we all did some business in town, I took the chance to splurge on an ice coffee, which even though I knew was expensive, almost worth it. We rode back into the villages and Nakolo decided to take a detour before going home and we all went to our little library to finish the last of our teatime supplies (did I mention that we are the fat group?)… Chiara and I have been making it a routine to hang out at Katy’s house after class and today was no exception. We were over at Katy’s watching her take in her laundry (because village life is just that exciting) when we saw a group of baby chicks. I went over because I thought it would be fun to try and hold one, well they all went right through the fence but their fat mother couldn’t fit through. She knew I was trying to pick up the babies and was not pleased; she turned from the fence and with a evil look in her eye she flew directly at my face! That’s right, an angry chicken attacked me, and I will be honest, it was one of the more scary moments of my life.

In order to say goodbye to us Chiara’s host family decided to throw us a going away dinner. Because her family, along with Steph’s and Katy’s, are all Mormon we had it at the Mormon church. I felt really bad because my host mom couldn’t come because she is really sick, I often feel like we are outsiders because my family is not Mormon so it was a bummer not being able to fully participate. I felt as if the families almost felt bad for me, which is sad because my home stay family rocks and I was sad I couldn’t show up with them to show the other families. Regardless the dinner was really awesome and extravagant. There was tons of food and the kids performed Tongan dances for us. The kids were awesome but of course we all had to dance and the Tongans loved when we get up to groove with them, they especially loved all my moves of course…. Steph’s host mom was dancing with us at one point and felt it necessary to pick me up in the midst of dancing (I don’t know who decided I should always be picked up but I am a bit sad that it made it all the way to Tonga). The families each spoke and said really nice things (from what I could understand) about us. We also got up and said a little something that we prepared in Tongan. We felt really honored that they did so much for us even after hosting us and we are all excited to come back and visit everyone once we get established in our site communities.