Ice Cream Bread

January 6, 2013

We were all supposed to take a camping trip this weekend out to this small island that this palangi couple owns but unfortunately due to rain we had to cancel the trip. Instead of going to the island- since I was in town anyway- I went out with Dominica, Mandy and the Australian volunteers to spend the day around town doing a kind of pub crawl (more of like a café crawl) getting a drink at the 4 cafes in town. After that we went back to the house of the Aus-aid girls and built a slip n’ slide out of tent tarps and had the Tongan delicacy ice cream bread- exactly like it sounds, you take a loaf of bread cut it into your desired amount, make a hole and then scope ice cream into it. It is actually really good! After that we tested the slip n’ slide. We ended our night with dinner at Aquarium café with pizza!

The next morning we got the famous Rusty (a giant bacon hash brown toped with eggs sunny side up) and did some yoga sponsored by Ginger Spice (oh the DVD choices you have here in the Kingdom...). After the yoga we cooled down in kitty pools and watched Friends, after such a fun weekend it makes me worried to actually be starting school and work soon (I think the break has been too long and I am stuck in vacation mode)…

Step 1

Step 2

step 3

the beginnings of a slip n' slide

The topper of the weekend

Uike Lotu

January 3, 2013

I have been feeling that I have not been getting enough church in my life lately, it is just my luck that for the next two weeks the country of Tonga will be celebrating what they call Uike Lotu (Week of Prayer). Everyday there will be church services at 5 am and 5 pm. Now, I am not trying to wake up at 4:30 so I can go sit in a service where I do not understand anything but, I will go at 5 pm to make my presence known, which is what I have been doing everyday this week. Church on Sundays is not so bad, I go for a bit, normally get some food and it's done, but everyday is overkill. I realized the overkill by Thursday when I was sitting in church and they sang for about an hour- perhaps every Tongan Jesus song there is. During uike lotu it is not really a services but a family gets up and makes a speech to the congregation, well when Tongans do this it is customary to cry. On this particular day without uttering a single word the women burst in to tears, but continued to keep talked for at least 45 minutes, why was she crying? Was it necessary (if I could roll my eyes in type form here is where it would be inserted)? After the women spoke her husband got up and talked for over an hour in a slow monotonous voice- I thought I might die, I was even praying that something might happen to end the service- something like heavy rain not anything bad… It was during this service that I realized Tongan church everyday is not for me- good thing I have another whole week of it!

Dominica came to my village to tou’a because the men in my village had been asking and I knew it would give me props if I could get a white girl to come, plus I thought she might enjoy doing it one last time before she leaves…It turned out to be really fun, it was nice to introduce someone to my village and show them my life here. We got invited to a feast the fallowing day, I think the plan was just to invite us so she would serve again in the morning.

The next day we went to kava again and let me tell you, there is nothing like getting a little drunk off kava before 10 am (again insert eye roll)! We get out of kava around 12 when the feast was supposed to start even though the guys would have kept us there all day if they could have… We got to the part of my village where the feast was supposed to be and we realized that we were not going to a feast but we were crashing a joint birthday party/ graduation ceremony. There are these huge tent type things set up and all these tables and an are stacked with Tongan mats that are gifts for the honorees. It was really fun even though it was a bit weird at first and we had to wait about 2 hours with our food just roasting in the sun before we could eat (bring it on Tonga, my stomach has become iron). There were tou’olungas and other dances, speeches, cake, speeches, gift presentations and speeches and speeches. All in all it was a pretty cool event to find ourselves in even though the people being celebrated where only family of people in my village and not actually from my village, which is why my Tongan thank you speech I was worried about giving didn’t ever happen.

Dominica serving

The people being honored at the ceremony. The birthday was for the little girl in the picture, your first birthday is a big event in Tonga

our food just chillin' (or more like warming) in the sun before we got to eat

some of our entertainment

It's a Tongan New Year

January 2, 2013

Passing new year in Tonga was pretty underwhelming to be honest, not that it wasn’t fun in an interesting way, but after having spent last year's with great friends at a rave and the year before that under the coliseum in Rome, going to church for 4 hours and then eating didn’t really top the epic new year’s eves list.

On New Year’s Eve we had a feast at my PTA chair’s house that I was sort of supposed to help cook for, but my principal came to wake me up in the morning and told me to go fai kava so I did that instead… The feast was really good- the best roast pig I have had- and there was ice cream! We went to have more kava after the feast but it didn’t last long since everyone started leaving to sleep before church, so I went back to the house where we had the feast to see if they needed help cleaning up. I have to admit, my return wasn’t all to make up for the fact I got out of cooking, I kinda wanted to see if there were leftovers (I know I am a bad person /: ). Not only did I get leftovers, but I also got more ice cream and cake! But hey, I also helped clean too… I went back to kava and then got picked up to go to a Ba’hai meeting run by these amazing palangies who have been in Tonga for 35 years! They were the first ones to grow vegetables on the whole island! They were awesome and will be a great resource in the future I am sure. I got driven back to my village just in time to go to church from 10 to 1 am! That’s right, if you guess I would be celebrating the new year in a three hour church service where we nonstop prayed then sang for the last two hours making me believe after every song we were done… you were right! You see, the way Tongans celebrate the new year is by going to a church service to make their last and first prayers of the year, I actually got lucky because I went to the church of Tonga, the Wesleyans went on until 4 am! Anyway the service finally ended, it was the hardest I have had to stay awake for anything in my memory. After the service (or more like group prayer session) We walked across the village and had a huge teatime with breads and cakes and some sort of milk tea.

New year’s day was cool in that we are the first ones in the world who get to experience it! In Tonga you spend the first day of the year going around to all your friends and family and wishing them a happy new year and talking with them. I had to go to the houses of the more important people in my village, like the town officer and my principal, and give them a new year’s greeting. Beside the greeting of people I didn’t do much else really but drink kava, go to church and hang out and at at my PTA chair’s house. I did however, get to end the night in the most exciting way possible (if you live in a village in Tonga)- a Mormon dance, which by the way, are way more awkward when you are the only white person. All in all it wasn’t a bad start to what is bond to be one of the more interesting years of my life.

a little new year's eve morning kava session

the feast, no, unfortunately those are not bottles of champaign- just cider given by a kid from overseas...

I snuck a picture in church, I think this was hour 2...

after (tea)party

dancing with the kids at the Mormon dance

Tongan Wedding

December 19, 2012

I got to go to a Tongan wedding yesterday (by accident really). I was invited to learn how to play basketball (Tongan basketball, which is just netball with more players) with some girls- at first at 5 in the morning, then as they saw my face and it was changed to 6. I woke up and went to the field and no one was there, so I told myself there is no excuse for me not to exercise since I am already awake. On the walk back to my place to get ready for the run Suliassi’s grandma told me that I was going to a feast later with them- score! Getting up early really has its benefits.

We got into town and to the house where they were preparing the food. The amount of food being cooked was mind blowing- 12 pigs were being roasted, a cow was being chopped up, lu, sausage, crab, fish, and of course a ton of root crop! Sean was also invited so we bummed around until it started. First the couple goes to the court and signs the papers before which they get paraded around in a car with a tappa matt covering it and a line of cars behind them (basically the major players in Wesleyan church in my village) honking. After the court they go to church. The couple is accompanied by their aunt- on the bride’s side, and the uncle- on the groom’s side, and they are dressed in a tappa covering. Apparently they are the lowest rank to the person getting married. What’s interesting is that the couple is not allowed to be coupley in public and they are even separated in the cars they are driven around in, most of the pictures that were taken were of them individually.

While I was waiting for the hall to be set up, loud music was playing and I danced with so many old ladies from my village but what was even more awkward is Tongans are so obsessed with finding me a girlfriend that my principal and others would literally bring me up to girls and ask if I like them, like right there in front of them. I spent 20 minutes with my principal as she pointed out 3 sisters and asked me which one I liked, then said look and decide and she will tell them. So during the dancing portion I was brought to several women. After the wedding my principal brought one of the sisters up to me and then told her to give me her number! I totally don’t understand, it is perhaps the most awkward thing that has ever happened to me, and it happens a lot here, your older elementary school principal should never be your wingman, and never in such an aggressive way!

After what felt like forever we were finally allowed to start eating! It was awesome and I am so glad that no one will ever see me at a feast- it’s like I revert some kind of primal species, I literally attack the food- no fork or knife is used- and I eat until I almost can’t move. Of course this was a Tongan feast so you have to take leftovers and people kept telling me to bring a bag, which I laughed about but Suli’s grandma had her purse full of bags and she told me to grab one of the weaved baskets in the corner of the hall and we put a whole leftover pig in it! I felt kind of weird about it but I guess it is some unwritten rule that it is okay, except I had to carry the basket for the old women and so now everyone thinks I am that white guy who shows up to feast and steals whole pigs... A lot of people didn’t even stay until the end, they ate grabbed their food and dashed. Here the family spend so much money on the huge wedding feast and people steal all the leftovers and don’t even stay to the end…

These are the guys who spent all morning roasting these pigs!

Of course you got to have root crop and lu. This is going to go into the ground in the huge umu they built

This is what they do instead of tie cans to the back of cars

the bride and her ant

the hall where the feast was- i guess it was equivalent to a wedding reception?

crazy old women dancing

Kaitunu- Tongans at The beach

December 27, 2012

Today was the day of the Wesleyan Kaitunu. A kaitunu is a picnic on the beach normally it consist of a roast pig as well. We loaded up in a couple of trucks and a big van and all went out to a beach near by called Keitahi. Tongans love the beach! They are actually like fish and I am sure if they had the opportunity they would definitely live in the water. We spent all day at the beach from around 9 to about 4ish ( I have stop carrying any time telling device so I have no idea the exact times of anything) and the Tongans spent pretty much the whole time in the water. The men had set up a kava circle of course amoung the trees but I had a bit of a stomachache so I chose not to partake. Most of the older women sat back and ate until about midday after the big meal. We all ate basically bbq chicken and hotdogs and water ever food people brought ie chips, cookies, horse meat (that I finally got to try! It tasted like beef but also distinctly different), and fruit for the big lunch type meal. When this was done a lot of the women started entering the water. The funny thing about Tongans at the beach is the go into the water fully clothed, I am not just saying with a shirt on but I am talking jeans, shoes, hat, jacket, actually fully clothed. It is pretty hilarious watching someone run full on into the water wearing all their clothes. It is really great because after a while women will drag other older women into the water, there is some resistance at first but then the women being dragged kind of submits. Some of the women don’t have to be dragged in though, some like it so much that they were jumping off the rock and splashing around with all the kids. The men would take breaks from kava and join in too, some had a sharp piece of rod iron and they were spear fishing!   It was a pretty awesome day even though I took a few naps on the beach and got sunburned

)-:

everyone grabbed spots under trees to set out their mats and start chowing down

some people from my village

that is the rock that even the older ladies jumped off of. As you see everyone is fully clothed....

Kilimasi LeLei

December 26, 2012

My first Christmas in Tonga came and went pretty quickly. Christmas is not a huge spectacle here so in all truth it didn’t really feel like Christmas at all. On Monday, Christmas Eve, I spent the day with the Mormon missionaries in my village on their day off- P-Day. We went to a Church in another village and played some volleyball and ate a big meal. It is the one day off the missionaries get a week so they all got to change out of their uniform and relax a bit. It was really interesting seeing into a completely different program and hear their stories and drama and what not. A couple of the guys were actually getting ready to leave, they had finished their 2 years. It is cool talking to them and hearing how they weren’t ready to leave- if they are that enthusiastic after two years and their program is way more strict than PC, it gives me a lot of hope for my time here. It was funny hearing how a few of them had plans to get married already; I guess they don’t waste anytime… I finally got to try ice cream bread too! It is really just what it sounds like, ice cream put on to a loaf of bread. The church we were at was doing some sort of kids program so they had this special treat and of course in Tongan fashion, they had to serve everyone who was there. Ice cream bread is where it’s at.

After P-Day I got a suto into town to spend Christmas Eve with the Australian volunteers who had invited me the previous day when they came to the beach in my village. I figured since Tongans don’t celebrate Christmas Eve I would spend it with the Australian Aid people. We put together a slip n’ slide out of tarps and had a talent show of sorts- where I performed the dance I had taught the kids for their graduation. I also got to have a really great conversation with one of their older volunteers who help me get a different perspective on my service here.

I stayed at Sean’s house because I am sort of watching it for him while he is on vacation and it was supposed to work out well because his neighbor, Mone, is related to Suliasi’s family and was going to take me to the beach where we were all going to celebrate Christmas. I was worried that this message didn’t get to him however, so I woke up at 6:30 to tell him and see when we were leaving. Turns out the beach day got canceled for some reason- either the doctor said or the rain, the whole not understanding Tongan yet makes things like this confusing. They gave me some cake and then I left to borrow Sean’s bike and head back to my village to try and make it to church at 10. The ride to my village on a bike takes maybe 40 minutes if you are making good time, I should explain Sean’s bike is a beach cruiser. My ride consisted of several hills of all sizes and I left at 9:10, basically I had quite the ride ahead of me. I started riding and the tires started flattening so about half way through the way back to was like peddling through sand. I decided to take a turn to go the back way so when I got to my village I didn’t pass people on their way to church. Well I thought I knew where I was going, turns out I was kind of lost and of course it started pouring down rain. So here I am on Christmas morning biking up hill on a beach cruiser with flat tires in the pouring rain. My white shirt was see through at the point I finally reached a familiar village and got on the road to my town. I looked at the clock and realized I made it back in enough time to get to church- it was 9:55. I quickly showered donned my Christmas tie and went to the Wesleyan church only to have my principal tell me to go to the church of Tonga. After church I got to go to a feast and then I drank kava for a few hours. I went back to my place and after watching every Christmas episode of Friends I went to eva. I said hi to a car passing, as is customary, the slammed to a halt and asked me if I wanted to go with them around. I mean I wasn’t really doing anything so I said yes and ended up going on a drive around Vava’u doing random drop-offs with the family. Got back to my place and made myself some pasta and finished the night watching the Grinch- Merry Christmas!

Christmas kava! Yes, I am wearing a Christmas tie- that got several compliments I might add.

this is my town officer being a big kava drunk and posing for the picture

Konoseti

December 21, 2012

They had a church fundraiser in my village last night, which consisted of a lot of dancing and kava drinking. How these work is the church sets up a dance, which is mostly the older women of the village and everyone comes and gives money. Every song women and kids get up and dance around and the people come up and give money, then the song ends and they count the money say thanks and repeat for about 3 or 4 hours. There are also tou’olungas and it gets real crazy when the women get one of the men from the kava circle- that was going on in the background- to come up and dance. It was a lot of fun and everyone died when I danced with a girl so it was pretty easy to keep the crowd entertained. I took this opportunity to mingle so I was drinking kava in the back with the men, hanging outside with some of the youth, drinking kava outside with the guys who brought the speakers from a different village, and dancing in the middle when a song came on that I liked.

from the back where the kava circle was set up. As you can see the men are drinking kava and the women and kids are in the center dancing

Holomesi dancing in the back, I have a video of this that is priceless!

there are specific dances too, this is one of the ones the younger girls did. The lady walking away had just gone up to give some money- they do this by putting the money down the dancers shirts.

one of the tou’olungas