You Know you are integrated when…. You Know you are integrated when…. You Know You Are Integrated When...

June 13, 2013

You know you have been in Tongan for a while and you are feeling integrated when:

After a 4 hours of drinking kava your principal’s husband wakes you up at 5 am before the sun has risen to borrow a flash light. Upon returning said flashlight he engages you in conversation about hooking up with the tou’a (the kava server- who they always want me to take home even though that would never actually happen). Instead of being angry or bothered by this you simply wonder why he is going to the bush in his tupenu…

If while having Sunday lu at a family’s house, your favorite three year-old takes off his shorts and starts to run around naked then proceeds to squat and poop and this does not make you lose your appetite.

you hear someone telling a story that is about you.

your kava jokes get told to other people then spread around town.

When you no longer wear any type of footwear to work.

Only washing an article of clothing when it begins to smell bad.

the kids don’t find you particularly fascinating anymore nor do they try and feel your skin/hair.

Killing a tub of ice cream with 3 Tongans guys from your village outside the falekoloa (the shop where you can buy food items and random Chinese products) without the use of any eating utensils.

Telling kids to give you some of their keke (fried dough) in the morning before school without any hesitation. This one extends to making the kids do pretty much any type of manual labor for you as well.

You start to look for the root crop at every meal, even the ones you make yourself, and even if that meal consist of carbs only anyway (i.e. Pasta or rice).