Sleepovers

August 26, 2013

I ended up having am impromptu sleep over at my house when during school a class 3 boy, Samu Si’I, was telling the kids how we had fried breadfruit at his house that weekend and told me he would bring me bread fruit later to make it again. Of course I didn’t really imagine this idea panning out but surely enough around 7 pm I here Sammy banging on my door. Si’i and Maloni, a class 5, had come ready to cook and sleep over. As Maloni prepared the breadfruit I went with Samu to buy catch-up from one of the falekoloas, on our trip we picked up one of my favorite kids, Liu, he is in his first year of high school which starts at 12 here.

We all had a good time frying up the breadfruit chips and making banana bread and then when everything was done we put on a movie, a cartuni at the request of Samu. With Samu asleep within the first 10 minutes of the movie and Maloni falling asleep next to him I realized that they were not joking and they definitely where sleeping over. I made them a little bed on the ground and Liu and I finished the movie and I then I walked him home (he was scared of the devil on the walk home).

This is Samu Si'i (Little Samual)

Maloni

Me eating our Tongan Chips

Liu Leka (Liu Jr.)

Sammy being a boss

Maloni and Liu

Trolling

August 24, 2013

Got to spend the day fakatele (trolling) and I actually caught a fish! Our friends/mentors Don and Nori have a small fishing boat here and had invited the Peace Corps out for a day of deep-sea fishing. Harrison, Mandy and I boarded the boat with Nori (Don was sick) at 10 am with high hopes. Unfortunately for us, after Harrison first big catch the rest of the day was a wash in terms of bites. Hours on the water and we didn’t get so much as a bite, although we still had a lot of fun out on the water and seeing the back half of the island.

The real excitement came at the end of the day when we picked up a sign of a whale and went on a whale hunt. We were successful in our venture and where able see whales surfacing- it was super rad. We couldn’t get too close because we were not a registered whale watching boat and but it was pretty spectacular and the rush of chasseing them down was pretty great as well. And because when you’re on a roll good things happen, as we were headed back we picked up some diving birds and I got to actually reel in a fish! It was surprisingly hard but so fun- the adrenalin rush when you get the bite and the anxiousness you feel until the fish is successfully in the boat is awesome. I reeled my fish in and Nori gave it the final blow with the mallet. She also was able to clean and fillet the 3 fish that we had caught throughout the day all on the way back into the harbor.

When I got back to my village I started proudly marinating my catch. As the fish was marinating I went for a walk around my village, eager to brag about my day. I ended up being able to brag and get the fish cooked for me as I spent the night a family’s house after the mother offered to cook the fish and make me fried breadfruit (-: let’s just say it was a pretty solid day here in Tonga.

beautiful Vava'u Lahi

Me being a boss on a boat

Nori

All Heil The King!

August 10, 2013

Once a year (although it hasn’t happened in Vava’u for more than 5 years) each island group holds an agriculture fair where all the villages come together and display their best. Their best include: very large root crops, their healthiest of fruits, their most vibrant vegetables, mats and tau’ovalas. This year it was held on the rugby field at Vava’u High School. This year as an added bonus, the King was taking his first tour of the islands as the King. He was attending the ag. show for all the island groups.

Side note here on Tongan royalty. Tonga is still a very big monarchy, the King owns all the land and governs the country through his nobles. There is a separate royal language and one is not even supposed to address the king directly, in each village there is a Talking Chief who is appointed to relay messages to the king in his language. All of the monarchy is through inherited through family lineage along with that of the nobles, if you marry outside of royal linage you are ousted from your position and disowned. In fact the King even has the power to annul marriges if they are between a person of nobility and a commoner.

Harrison, Mandy and I had volunteered to help the Vava’u Tourism people at the show working at their booth (we were lucky to get some money donated to the women's empowerment camp we are trying to start). We painted the faces of the plethora of wild Tongan children running about the fair. As most of the Vava’u Tourism group is white and do not speak Tongan we were also their as crowed control.

For the main part of the morning we were busy at the tent but at about noon we took a break which lead into the ceremony for the King. The ceremony itself was very typically Tongan- lots of praying, crying, hymen singing and long-winded speeches. After the welcoming of the king he walked around the show looking at all of the villages goods, as he rounded the corner Harrison and I, who had been trying to sneak a picture of him from the next isle over, didn’t have anywhere to go so we just sat down at the corner. The king came around and he made eye contact with us and then gave us a smile and head nod- which to me basically means we are close friends now.

The show went on for a while longer and the King presented the pale (awards) for the best goods. Our volunteer friend Ryan got to shake the King’s hand because a guy who won a prize in his village asked Ryan to accept his reward! There was dancing and tau’olungas as well as stepping performed by the boys at the Mormon high school.

The show began to wind down and we all went our separate ways to hitch a ride back to our respective villages. I met up with my village and was waiting for a ride, fortunately this provided me with an opportunity to add another interesting item to my weird-stuff-I-have-eaten-in-Tonga list. As we were waiting for the truck to leave a women from my village opened up a small ziplock bag of what I at first thought was full of fish eyes. It turns out it was filled wit mama-what I later figured out is a type of sea slug. This special treat is about the size of your thumb and is relatively flat. It has a line of hard shell pieces along its back (they look like several half thumb nails but thicker and black). To eat it, you take the shells off and brown guts start come out of the openings made by the removed shells. After the shells are gone (and you mentally prepare) you pop it into your mouth. It was actually way better than the Jelly fish and the taste was more appealing than that of pig lung but the mental capacity it took to get over the image of what was in you mouth was too much for me so I only indulged in one.

As we rode back to the village, with one of my favorite class 3s falling asleep on my lap, I thought how awesome it is to be in a place that I can be in the presence of a king and eat sea slugs and ride in the back of a pickup all in the same day.

the entrance to the fair

my handy work on a class 5 from my village- Fokileni

Timote and me

these are some girls who have family in my village, the one in the middle is Sela, she actually lives in my village, she is a class 6

my village's booth

the King's Assembly, it's kind of a bad picture but the tent he was under (at the back of the picture) was really nicely decorate with Tongans mats and tapa cloth

a little guy dressed to play for the King

the King of Tonga right after he gave us a head nod

some of the other booths in the show

the King making his rounds- I think he looks rather white actually

Ryan right after shaking the King's hand

a little boy wearing a hat woven from coconut tree leaves

isn't how the display stuff so cool?!

Mormon Dances Redux

August 23, 2013

Mormon dances are the place to be in Tonga, I know I have already hinted at just how awesome these “hulahula” are but I thought I would emphasis the fact here.

One Friday trying to suto (hitchhike) into town I was picked up by a couple from a different village (which normally doesn’t happen) this couple invited me to their church and thinking it wasn’t really going to pan out I accepted their offer. I should have known that they would be more adamant about it being Mormon and all but unfortunately, I was not prepared and I found myself having to sit through the 3-hour church service that Sunday. Afterward the sisters (female Mormon missionaries) tried to give me their lessons. It was sad for them that they were not aware of just how difficult I was going to make that process for them and after about an hour of trying to talk about the faith with me they gave up.

Apparently I struck a cord with this family however, because the following week they invited me to their hulahula- this is what the Mormon dances are called in Tongan. Seeing as Friday nights are just so jammed pack here on the island I accepted. Luckily for me, I was in town and had access to a few beers (let’s keep this between us). Needless to say the dance was off the hook. These dances are the most gloriously awkward creation known to man and I cannot help but revel in the uncomfortableness of the event. Because I am white and am not “a member” I have a little bit more freedom at these functions then most. I danced my heart out with several different women of all different ages. At the insistence of my host I went up to various girls sitting around the edge of the dance floor and offered them my hand. See at these dances everyone sits around the dance floor, adults and teens, the men have to walk about to the girls to dance, but here in Tonga that is too hard for the boys so they walk about to a girl and stand about 10 feet away and nod at them. After the nod the girl gets up and they stand about 5 feet away from each other and sway a bit (did I mention how awkward it can get?). I don’t mean to brag but I was the life of the party. I pretty much started the dance floor while simultaneously trying to play wingman for the couple’s son. I kept trying him to dance with a girl that wasn’t his cousin-, which in Tonga is not only hard because of the strange dynamic between sexes but also because everyone is related. After a lot of dancing underneath the lights of the concrete tennis court and a lot of sweating the dance started to wind down. The Tongan programs started- lip singing (glorious), Celion Dion covers (no comment necessary) and of course tau’olungas.

I was having such a blast that I didn’t think things could get better until they brought out cookies! Pure joy. It truly was a great night and what really topped it off was my image of the reaction of everyone if they saw how we used to dance at the parties at my frat house….