November 20, 2012
I am learning one of the Tongan war dances. As I have mentioned before, school as of now is pretty much over, it is just the kids learning traditional songs and dances. I take some of the kids during the day and do little English things with them while their peers finish up some test and then that is pretty much the extent of it. The dance is fun though, I get a spear type stick and I get to pretend I am intimidating.
The kids and their families are responsible for bringing me lunch everyday until december 7 so I haven't had to do any cooking yet except for recently when they started bringing me uncooked food. The brought me two large lobsters the other day, which i baked and they came out great! That's right people I actually touched the lobsters and all of the lobsteryness, I am slowly concurring my fear of sea life (watch me peel prawns now Paige!). Yesterday they brought me two big fish and I stupidly told Mele that I wanted to make 'ota ika (a typical Tongan dish that is pretty amazing but it is raw fish- like uncooked). It was perhaps the hardest thing I have had to watch- kids helped to prepare it but the water wasn't working in my house (a common thing) so it was done outside, no hands were washed and the kid cleaning the fish had so many open gashes on his legs that I knew he probably had been picking. Watching them clean the fish almost made me sick, especially the part when they gutted it and then ate the eggs inside of it- is it just me or would other people find this a bit unsettling? They also waste nothing here so we cooked the fish heads and tails in a pot with coconut milk and veggies. Of course you have to share everything here so the other teachers came over and we all ate together- which was fine by me since I was scared to eat too much anyway. In the end I survived so I am thinking this means health codes don't really account for anything...
one of my lunches... isn't this scary to anyone else, it's like eating aliens...
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