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….

Site Visit Round 2

August 7^th, 2013

I guess we have been here long enough to warrant our second site visit by Peace Corps. As a Vava’u island volunteer, very far away from PC HQ, it is always a big deal to actually have face time with any of the Peace Corps staff so site visits are actually a pretty good thing. For the site visit our Program Manager and her assistant where suppose to come by and observe us teach then give us feed back on our service as of yet. I received a text message the night before they were coming my site, the message was informing me that they were coming along with the Director of Program and Training (essentially the head honcho since our Country Director lives in Fiji), his wife and a high up representative of the Ministry of Education here in Tonga. I was happy because I pre planned pretty decently and felt good about my lesson but I was also a bit overwhelmed by the increased numbers, mostly due to the fact that the room I now teach in (since taking on just class 5) doesn’t have any chairs (my kids sit on mats and use their benches as desks).

The morning of the visit I told my principal about the update to our guest list and she was a little thrown off because we had planned to cook for Ila and Lavinia and she didn’t know if there was enough food for the new people (she also asked me if white people would eat canned beef, my response- “well I eat it, so I guess”).  

While I was teaching I marveled at how amazing my students could behave if people where watching them! They were all perfect respectable angels. All in all my lesson went great, my kids were awesome and I received super flattering feedback. I told them how much of a struggle it has been to find my groove teaching here and that I was very happy to hear that they felt I did a good job. I told them of my idea for a side project- first aid education and training in primary schools, and they really liked it. They also gave me the most flattering comment I think I could have ever received which was that if there was a reward for the most integrated Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga, they would give it to me. I was truly very happy to hear that since I have worked very hard to integrate myself into my community and learn this language. Sometimes it is the smallest comment that can really make you feel awesome about your service, and it’s those comments you have to remember for when the times you feel useless come about.

As a parting bonus when we all took our picture the women from the ministry grabbed my ass, a gesture that I chose to accept as a token of appreciation at a job well done.

Me with Tupou (on the left) and 'Una (the kid in the back) who are class 6ers and little Saane who is in class 3

this is (left to right) Timote class 3, Peesi class 1 and Sina class 4 after a garden clearing work day, the one being creepy in the back is Violeni she is in class 5

this little guy is Vaha, he is in my class 3, and yes that is a bush knife between his legs

'Ofu Island

August 5, 2013

Last weekend Harrison and I went out to ‘Ofu Island to visit Jeff (the Peace Corps out there). ‘Ofu is an outer Island but relatively close to the main island. This was a trip we have been planning for weeks and was supposed to include all of us Vava’u volunteers but every time we planned to go out someone would get sick, we would get rained out, we would receive a no small boat travel from Peace Corps; finally, after a month of being foiled I told Jeff that no matter what I was coming to visit. Harrison was the only other volunteer with my same resolution and even up until a few hours before we actually left for the island we were waiting for the small boat band to be lifted and the rain to stop. The band got lifted but the rain didn’t stop unfortunately so the boat ride over to the island was very wet.

After getting to the island however, any bad feeling was immediately abandon. ‘Ofu is beautiful- a true tropical paradise, no cars and a grass walkway that extends the length of the island. We spent the first night just going around with Jeff and drinking kava with his people. I always love drinking kava with new people because all my old kava jokes become new again and people think I am hilarious and really good at Tongan. I felt a little bad though because I have picked up the language more easily than Jeff and Tongans, being so blunt, kept mentioning that I was better than Jeff and he was lazy with the language…

We woke up and went for a snorkel, basically right outside his front door. After the snorkel we borrowed kayaks from the very small hostel on the island and took an amazing kayak to three separate islands! One of them, we parked the boats at the back and took a hike through the bush and came out in this really small village. I kept think how funny it would have been had the same situation happened 30 years earlier, people would have been so shocked to see three white dudes just pop out of the bush. We walked around the village for a bit and I heard my name called (something that happens to me a lot now but I was a bit more taken aback being we were on a small outer island I had never been to before), I walked up to the little youth hut and realized it was a kid whose family I had gotten a ride into town with a few weeks earlier. After we spent some time walking around the island and getting the village kids to take our pictures, we took our kayaks around to the island of Mafana and then to Fetoko. Fetoko is a very small island that is owned by a couple from California. They built a super nice restaurant on the island and are currently in the works of building a fancy tree house to accommodate guest.

We were pretty worn out after the big kayak so we just spent the night hanging out at Jeff’s place. In the morning after church we got invited to have lu and a plethora of other dishes, I ate to my fill and then some. When we met up with the guy who was supposed to be taking Harrison and I back to the main island they were just finishing up their Sunday meal. They were having otaika (my favorite Tongan dish, it’s raw fish in coconut milk with peppers and onions) so I had to have more food… As we drove away from the island, bellies full, I was imagining Jeff after two years and thinking what a way to go out as a Peace Corps- actually drifting away from you life for two years watching your island get smaller and smaller as you head off back to the “real world”…

Jeff and I with some of his Kids

the beautifully manicured grass walkway the extends the length of the island on one side

parking our boats to go for a bush hike

talking to the guy who called my name in his hut

a village kid trying to figure out how to take a picture with my iPhone

Harrison and I with the kids from the village we hiked to

this is a picture of the restaurant the Californian Couple built on their island- the nicest place i have seen in Tonga yet

us getting our picture taken after church

the sunsets here are incredible

Island Explorer Extraordinaire

July 31, 2013

  Here’s the thing about Tonga, it is made up of over 177 different islands. There is a lot of islands with in a short distance from the main island in the Vava’u group- so basically if you have access to a boat you can have a lot of adventures; I was invited on one such adventure yesterday by a few Australians and one of their Tongan boyfriends (the one with the boat). I got the day of from school (a request that was sadly all to easy) and we took Po’uli’s boat to the outer island of ‘Eua Kafa.

      We had such an amazing time snorkeling, fishing, hiking and generally just hanging out on an unpopulated island. The snorkeling was pretty awesome, I thought anyway, and fishing was rad (by fishing I mean I used a net once and caught some small sardine looking fish while Po’uli caught some puffer fish and needle fish with nylon attached to bamboo and a speargun). We made ‘ota ika (my favorite Tongan dish) from scratch with the fish we had caught and some onions and limes that we had brought. We even got our own coconut milk from gathering coconuts, breaking them open, grating them on a stick and squeezing the milk with the coconut husk. We also built a fire and cooked some of the fish and toasted the coconut. The food came out awesome and plentiful.

       After eating we took this crazy long hike through the bush up the mountain to get to this old burial ground and lookout point. We tried to find the supposed path but we kept getting lost so instead we took the bush knife (machete) and made our own path. It was actually really fun just trying to find a way to the top all the while walking through spider webs and over fallen trees (all barefoot by the way), I felt like Indiana Jones. We finally made it to the look out and it was beautiful. The hike down however, was a bit more precarious than the hike up and we ended up having to use a lot of hanging tree branches and vines to propel down the sides in some places. We rewarded our efforts with another short snorkel and some cookies. As far as Tuesdays go I would say it was pretty solid, above average even…

a squid that Po'uli ha d got on our way to the island

'Eua Kafa

Po'uli and I at the ancient grave

chillin' in the old grave

the view from the look out

the crew

It's From The Sea It Has To Be Delicious!

July 25, 2013

  Feeling board with my Tongan language I’ve started a new goal- to learn 6 new words a week. I have also been more diligent about my village strolls; in a flash back to life when i first got to site, I took my flashcards on a walk last Saturday and found myself in an interesting situation.

    I was walking and chatting with various people and passers by when I came to a family eating outside there house. Since one of my favorite things is free food on an eve pe I called to the family-

ko e ha me’a ‘oku mo kai? (what are you eating?)

The answered back kolukalu. I had no idea what that meant so I went in to investigate. My first impression is the word kolukalu must mean some sort of animal mucus because it appeared to me that they were slurping up grayish colored snot.

I asked again- ko e ha? (what is this?)

Again they responded kolukalu.

I asked mei fe? (from where?)

mei tahi, ifo (from the sea, delicious). It is a rule of mine to try everything in Tonga so with an apprehensive face and anxious onlookers I slurped up the offered spoonful of goop. Nothing about it was pleasing to the pallet, not the texture, the flavor or the rank after taste.

I wanted to know what I had just put in my mouth so I questioned more-

mei fe? (from where?)

Mei tahi (from the beach)

Io! Ka mei fe, mei tahi?! (yes, but where from the beach?)

Mei tahi, ifo (from the beach, delicious) seeing as I was not getting anywhere I decided to write the word down and look it up later. I stayed with the family for a while and we laughed at my confusion and dislike for something they thought of as a delicacy.

      In case you were wondering what I ate was jellyfish and it was not delicious.

Call Me Doctor Sifa

July 31, 2013

  I came into Peace Corps and to my village with some ideas of what I thought would be good to try and accomplish while I was here, it is pretty safe to say I was idealistic… Not only was idealism the issue but also importance or lack of. For instance, one of the projects I wanted to start was community recycling- not to say I won’t try and do this later on, but the community would not really rally behind it since there really isn’t anything to do with the recycling once you collect it unless you can convince someone to drive across the island to the aluminum only recyling place.

      About a month ago during recess I saw one of my kids out of the corner of my eye. What made me double take and call the kid over was I saw he had about a three inch wide, and very deep hole in his arm near his elbow. Apparently, he had fallen off a horse a week prior and was just letting things work themselves out. By the time I saw it, it was already pretty infected and an unnatural yellow color. I took him to my house and cleaned it out and bandaged it with some of the medicine from my PC medkit (shhh don’t tell anyone, we aren’t really supposed to do that). I have been taking care of his arm since then and have talked to the PC Docotor to get help with what I should be doing, I even went to talk to the kid’s mom to inform her how to keep the wound clean. This not the first time I have had to put on a docotr’s cap and it won’t be the last, Tongan kids play hard and cry for about everything else but pain.

       This incident made me realize that the need for first aid knowledge at the school and in the community is pretty dire. A lot of the cuts, sores and burns could be treated with first aid skills. I am now working to bring those skills to my school and community. I guess the worse thing and the best thing about PC service is time- it takes so long to feel like you are doing anything (if ever) yet you have a lot of time to try new things and start things, the things that you have seena real need for in your community not just the things you thought would be a good idea before you lived at site.

School's Out For...2 Weeks

July 8 , 2013

Last week was an American invasion in Vava’u. We were on school break for two weeks and so many volunteers had family and friends visit from the states. Katy came up to Vava’u with her best friend and her friend’s mom and sister, Chiara came up with her parents, Harrison had his girlfriend in, and Mark and Alissa were hosting Alissa’s parents. It was so much fun to meet everyone and get a dose of America. After over 10 months abroad it was nice to get a small break from my daily Tongan routine. We all had a lot of fun doing some of the touristy things that Vava’u has to over like a day sail and staying in the “resorts” (I put resorts in quotes because they are not exactly resorts- more so little rooms on a small portion of beach). I had a great time getting to see Tonga from the angle of a visitor and as an extra bonus the place Katy stayed in had air conditioning! We all spent a lot of time together, which was nice since I haven’t seen Katy and Chiara since training.

It was really interesting hanging out in a family dynamic again, I didn’t even realize that it was something I was missing until I was having dinner with Chiara and her parents. Even more of a bitter sweet moment was when I was eating with Katy and her friends and they were talking about all of this stuff I wont be able to care about for so long like apartments, new dogs, new places to go in their town. As I was listening to them talk about their excitement to get back and meet the new dog I was a little bummed knowing that it will be another 17 months before I can even begin to think about anything of that nature. Not that I am in a rush to leave Tonga, but I guess it was the first time I realized what I am delaying by being here…

Those thoughts aside, it was a really amazing break filled with a lot of good times. We even went to this one Island right off the main island that is run by a couple from Spain. The only thing on the island beside their house is a very small restaurant where they do a tapas dinner upon reservation. It was so peculiar, but one of the coolest things I have seen. It was like a little slice of Spain on some small island in the South Pacific. It was even a trip getting there, loading all 16 of us on two small boats in the dark- one of the boats ran out of gas half way to the restaurant and was slowly taking on water (even though the restaurant wasn’t Tongan we couldn’t escape Tonga and their bizarrely inefficient boat travel)…

The last night we all had a great conversation, facilitated by Alissa’s dad who played the role of the question master, about Tonga and our experience. I thought it was interesting that all of us had such different opinions about the experience and life in Tonga yet we almost all had similar ideas for things we would change or we thought could be better. Saying goodbye wasn’t easy but when I finally got back to my site I felt ready to get back to real life (if that is even what it is) and get back into school. I was actually surprised how much I missed my kids, even though they drive me crazy we really do have fun together and after a much needed two week break I was excited to get back in the classroom.

Katy and I at the resort

from the left: Harrison, Katy, me, Chiara, Alissa, Mark

our whole group after our day sail

Katy, Chiara and I

Katy and her friend Kelly and I having fun on their last night