Two dozen youth, mostly male, line the outskirts of our meeting room, looking at me with disengaged stares that threaten to cross the fine line from politeness to impudence. I am trying, with a battered form of Tonglish (the unnatural combination of the Tongan and English languages) to bring our workshop for youth group presidents to a close. So far the forty-minute discussion and sharing time has degenerated into forty seconds of me waiting impatiently for any sign of awareness from the audience.
Given the blank looks on the audience members’ faces, I do what any good public speaker would: I rephrase the question. “What would you like the youth center to do?” I ask in jumbled Tongan.
This gets a response: snickers. I have inadvertently stumbled into an almost unpardonable error: using the word “do.” As in “to do,” as in a euphemism for “sex.” I lament the strange, adolescent trifles that cross language and cultural barriers.
Tongan sexual ethics seem to have lodged themselves firmly in a place similar to the American 1950s. Everyone is doing it, nobody will talk about it, and next to general horniness, guilt seems to be the dominant emotion involved.
A friend of ours who teaches psychology at a teacher’s training college looses half her class whenever sexuality is discussed: men and women cannot discuss the topic together, especially if a relative (and everyone is related here) is present.
The Vava’u Youth Congress (where Cliff and I work) is trying to be a reliable source of information about this tapu (forbidden) topic. We have a team of educators who can talk about sexuality with a straight face, we have a closet full of condoms that could be distributed if anyone asked for them (though they are past their expiration date), and our drama team has written and performed several short skits that highlight the consequences of sex without protection.
The VYC is equipped to talk about the topic, but the community isn’t ready for it. In Tongan, the most commonly used word for condom is milemila, or plastic bag, but even this unique term is rarely used. “Maybe its okay to not talk about the condom,” said Afu, our director of the drama team and the adolescent reproductive health program. “There may be old people who don’t like it.”
Even if a Tongan wanted to use a condom (or another form of birth control) to prevent disease or limit family size, few opportunities are available. Medical care is free, but state controlled, and confidentiality is not a popular concept. Asking for a condom from the doctor would signal inappropriate sexual activity: either premarital horseplay or extramarital infidelity. Why else would you want to prevent a pregnancy?
And many Tongans just don’t know their options. A few months ago I was alone in the youth center office when the phone rang. It was a successful local businessman, but I could recognize embarrassment in his voice. “My wife and I already have five children,” he said, “and we don’t want anymore. I know there is a way to stop this, but I don’t know how. Someone told me your office can help.” If a country’s leaders are uninformed, what can we expect of the general population?
Of course, sometimes having the right information and access to the right equipment doesn’t help. We’ve learned through the coconut grapevine that one member of our drama team, who gets his girlfriend pregnant in one of the skits, has found out the hard way that life sometimes imitates art.
As an American who was raised with conservative values but a liberal ability to discuss sexuality, I often find myself wanting to force the issue upon the groups of adolescents we work with. I want the next generation of Tongans to remove the tapu of talking about sexuality, and be able to honestly address their desires, the risks and pleasures inherit in them, and the guidelines for behavior that their shared faith encourages. Only then will they be equipped to make wise choices.
Sometimes, though, I just find myself wanting to laugh. As a married couple without children, Cliff and I are often accused of being lazy. Other volunteers have tried to explain that you can’t serve in Peace Corps if you have dependent children. Their Tongan neighbors understood this to mean married volunteers can’t have sex during their two years of service. “Fakaofa,” the neighbors say, What a pity. Indeed.
Amber
Monday, November 01, 2004
Friday, October 01, 2004
The Protector of All Things Plastic
One p.m. on a sweaty Tuesday afternoon, and I emerged, triumphant, from the jungle that is the bush allotment behind the youth center in Tonga where my husband Cliff and I work. A pace or two behind me was Afu, Cliff’s Tongan counterpart and a fellow coworker at the youth center. With him, walking reluctantly, easily distracted by the moths or weeds that crossed his path, was Sateki. He carried two plastic bottles, empty and with their labels torn off and caps missing, and a branch from a small coconut tree.
Cliff stood on the porch beside a broken chair, peering into the footpath. His eyes registered me, then Afu, then Sateki, and then his eyes relaxed.
Sateki is one of the students who comes to the youth center’s weekly class for the developmentally disabled, the only such class offered on our island of 10,000 people. I don’t know the name of the disability that has stunted his growth and development; neither do his parents. (Tongans, we have observed, have a great compassion for people with disabilities but little knowledge or training in the area.) Whatever the name of the glitch Sateki carries in his genes, the effects are clear. Though he has reached adulthood, Sateki is shorter than I, and I’ve never been accused of being tall. He walks with a mild affectation; not a limp, really, more of a lilt that seems to pull him just slightly to the right. He has dark hair, a thin, patchy beard, and a smile that in a child would be called mischievous.
Mischievous is a good word for Sateki. He is slow to follow verbal directions, though, to be fair, this might be because Cliff and I speak less than perfect Tongan. Still, it always seems to me that Sateki fully understands the directions, and would just rather go his own way. He’d rather walk the porch while his classmates watch a video. He’d rather sit in the corner than color a poster or sing a song. He’d rather dunk his bread and butter sandwich in his juice than finish his plate quickly and neatly.
But Sateki is not simple; he has one strong purpose in his life, an irresistible temptation that pulls him in all the subtle, physical ways the desire for a drink pulls an alcoholic. Sateki loves plastic. Any form of plastic will do, but his desire is most often fed by the 1-liter soda bottles that lie discarded along roadsides, in trashcans, on corner tables. He can spot a plastic bottle a mile away and he collects them protectively and brings them with him to his corner of the classroom. Once inside, he sits down, stretches his legs out, and puts the bottles at his side, between him and the wall where no one else can reach them.
Sateki the collector is not usually a disruption to our class time. We guide him gently, repeat our requests two or three times, and loudly praise each good behavior. And somedays he seems to really enjoy being with us. Other days, some deep internal desire pulls him out of the classroom and onto a hunt for plastic bottles and other objects of desire.
One Tuesday afternoon Cliff was alone with the eight students who come to our class to practice their alphabet, talk about hygiene, and enjoy a few hours away from their homes. The Tongan instructor had needed to leave early, and I was working in the office. So when Sateki decided to break out of Alcatraz, he only had one guard watching the door. Cliff has a leg injury that prevents him from running, so he shouted for me to come. There are playful “come here” shouts and panicked “come here” shouts. I knew Cliff wasn’t being playful.
A small bush plot borders our youth center, and a dirt road runs through it, barely visible to the casual observer because waist-high weeds have grown to cover the tire tracks. The road is so invisible, that despite spending 40 hours a week on this piece of land, I had never noticed it. It was down this road that Cliff pointed. Sateki was already out of site.
We wear skirts and flip flops here in Tonga. There’s a reason why you never see a marathon runner in sandals and an ankle-length skirt. With weeds brushing my knees and burrs catching my skirt, I hitched up my hem and ran as best I could down the blind path I thought Sateki might have followed. Within seconds I was out of sight of the youth center and surrounded completely by overgrown grass and coconut trees. Sateki was no where to be found. After ten minutes of bush-whacking through the trail I found myself approaching someone’s back yard. There was a decrepit pig lot (which is actually surprising, since in general no one pins their pigs here in Tonga) with a dirty looking tree, under which Sateki sat sulking.
And now the hard part of the day had begun: convincing Sateki to return with me to the center. No amount of garbled pleas in Tongan could convince him to leave his post at the pig pen. He was happy there – or rather, he was extremely sad and seemed to want to be left alone.
Now I was at a loss. I couldn’t leave him to return for help because he might run further. And I couldn’t stay and wait for him to change his mind, because he might sit there all day.
And then, looking like Superman to the rescue, came our coworker Afu, running as fast as his skirt would allow. (The day is memorable for this alone, as except on the rugby field I can’t recall seeing a Tongan run on any other occasion.) Within a few minutes Afu had negotiated Sateki’s return, which involved getting Sateki a palm frond he wanted terribly, and assisting Sateki with the transport of several plastic bottles he had accumulated along the way.
Together, and at a much slower pace, we followed the overgrown road back to the youth center where Cliff was anxiously waiting for us. Sateki returned to the classroom, arranged his plastic bottles in the corner, and spent the rest of the day playing with his palm frond. I spent the rest of the day picking burrs from my skirt.
We’ve watched Sateki pretty closely since then, and on only one other occasion has he made a run for it (in this case, “it” being plastic bottles and palm or coconut fronds). He still looks a little sad, a little angry, a lot mischievous. But we can’t help but love our little protector of all things plastic, for his single-minded devotion to the object of his affection, for the little smiles he offers when he’s pleased with himself, for the good laugh he provided us after we found him and were no longer scared.
Amber
Cliff stood on the porch beside a broken chair, peering into the footpath. His eyes registered me, then Afu, then Sateki, and then his eyes relaxed.
Sateki is one of the students who comes to the youth center’s weekly class for the developmentally disabled, the only such class offered on our island of 10,000 people. I don’t know the name of the disability that has stunted his growth and development; neither do his parents. (Tongans, we have observed, have a great compassion for people with disabilities but little knowledge or training in the area.) Whatever the name of the glitch Sateki carries in his genes, the effects are clear. Though he has reached adulthood, Sateki is shorter than I, and I’ve never been accused of being tall. He walks with a mild affectation; not a limp, really, more of a lilt that seems to pull him just slightly to the right. He has dark hair, a thin, patchy beard, and a smile that in a child would be called mischievous.
Mischievous is a good word for Sateki. He is slow to follow verbal directions, though, to be fair, this might be because Cliff and I speak less than perfect Tongan. Still, it always seems to me that Sateki fully understands the directions, and would just rather go his own way. He’d rather walk the porch while his classmates watch a video. He’d rather sit in the corner than color a poster or sing a song. He’d rather dunk his bread and butter sandwich in his juice than finish his plate quickly and neatly.
But Sateki is not simple; he has one strong purpose in his life, an irresistible temptation that pulls him in all the subtle, physical ways the desire for a drink pulls an alcoholic. Sateki loves plastic. Any form of plastic will do, but his desire is most often fed by the 1-liter soda bottles that lie discarded along roadsides, in trashcans, on corner tables. He can spot a plastic bottle a mile away and he collects them protectively and brings them with him to his corner of the classroom. Once inside, he sits down, stretches his legs out, and puts the bottles at his side, between him and the wall where no one else can reach them.
Sateki the collector is not usually a disruption to our class time. We guide him gently, repeat our requests two or three times, and loudly praise each good behavior. And somedays he seems to really enjoy being with us. Other days, some deep internal desire pulls him out of the classroom and onto a hunt for plastic bottles and other objects of desire.
One Tuesday afternoon Cliff was alone with the eight students who come to our class to practice their alphabet, talk about hygiene, and enjoy a few hours away from their homes. The Tongan instructor had needed to leave early, and I was working in the office. So when Sateki decided to break out of Alcatraz, he only had one guard watching the door. Cliff has a leg injury that prevents him from running, so he shouted for me to come. There are playful “come here” shouts and panicked “come here” shouts. I knew Cliff wasn’t being playful.
A small bush plot borders our youth center, and a dirt road runs through it, barely visible to the casual observer because waist-high weeds have grown to cover the tire tracks. The road is so invisible, that despite spending 40 hours a week on this piece of land, I had never noticed it. It was down this road that Cliff pointed. Sateki was already out of site.
We wear skirts and flip flops here in Tonga. There’s a reason why you never see a marathon runner in sandals and an ankle-length skirt. With weeds brushing my knees and burrs catching my skirt, I hitched up my hem and ran as best I could down the blind path I thought Sateki might have followed. Within seconds I was out of sight of the youth center and surrounded completely by overgrown grass and coconut trees. Sateki was no where to be found. After ten minutes of bush-whacking through the trail I found myself approaching someone’s back yard. There was a decrepit pig lot (which is actually surprising, since in general no one pins their pigs here in Tonga) with a dirty looking tree, under which Sateki sat sulking.
And now the hard part of the day had begun: convincing Sateki to return with me to the center. No amount of garbled pleas in Tongan could convince him to leave his post at the pig pen. He was happy there – or rather, he was extremely sad and seemed to want to be left alone.
Now I was at a loss. I couldn’t leave him to return for help because he might run further. And I couldn’t stay and wait for him to change his mind, because he might sit there all day.
And then, looking like Superman to the rescue, came our coworker Afu, running as fast as his skirt would allow. (The day is memorable for this alone, as except on the rugby field I can’t recall seeing a Tongan run on any other occasion.) Within a few minutes Afu had negotiated Sateki’s return, which involved getting Sateki a palm frond he wanted terribly, and assisting Sateki with the transport of several plastic bottles he had accumulated along the way.
Together, and at a much slower pace, we followed the overgrown road back to the youth center where Cliff was anxiously waiting for us. Sateki returned to the classroom, arranged his plastic bottles in the corner, and spent the rest of the day playing with his palm frond. I spent the rest of the day picking burrs from my skirt.
We’ve watched Sateki pretty closely since then, and on only one other occasion has he made a run for it (in this case, “it” being plastic bottles and palm or coconut fronds). He still looks a little sad, a little angry, a lot mischievous. But we can’t help but love our little protector of all things plastic, for his single-minded devotion to the object of his affection, for the little smiles he offers when he’s pleased with himself, for the good laugh he provided us after we found him and were no longer scared.
Amber
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Until Death Do Us Part: On Eating Well in the Kingdom of Tonga
Lolei stood at the window of the small wooden shack that served as her kitchen and held an empty plate for the gathering crowd of women to see. Though Cliff and I could only understand a handful of the words she used, it was not difficult to understand Lolei’s cause for excitement: we had cleaned our plate, eating every last piece of fried fish and breadfruit. Little else could have made Lolei as proud.
Before coming to Tonga, I’d read about the Tongans deep affection for food. But it wasn’t until that afternoon, sitting in Lolei’s kitchen as the neighbors gathered to congratulate her on a meal cooked well enough to please even a Palangi (foreigner), that I began to understand how in Tonga, food was a measure of value and esteem. A clean plate, second and third servings consumed and fingers licked were actions less of diet than of mutual acceptance between my Tongan hosts and the skinny Palangis that sat at their table.
Fast forward almost a year to the annual Wesleyan Conference, which is something akin to the Olympic Games of both church attendance and food consumption. It is an intense, two-week period of endurance eating. Feasts were held at 8 a.m., noon, 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., with non-stop church action in between. The average feast fed 700 people, with a roast pig for every four guests, a 2-liter of juice for every 2, and enough side dishes to feed the whole island.
Tongan feasts put the American pot-luck dinner to shame. Each Tongan family is given responsibility for one, two, or four table lengths of food, depending on the size of the feast and the size of the family. Twenty to thirty separate dishes, several pigs, and multiple baskets of fruit and snacks are prepared for each table. When ready, the average table is stacked two-dishes high, with little room for plates or utensils. And then there’s dessert: cakes with ice cream, custard pies, fresh fruit with puddings.
Feast food is prepared to be enjoyed at the table, but also to be taken home by the guests. People bring plastic bags to fill with root crop, chicken and fruit. Tongan grandmas carry away whole roasted pigs, wrapped in aluminum foil, like footballs. One village, nicknamed “6-pound,” gives away $40 6-pound cans of corned beef to every guest. Other tables distribute bottles of wine or soda, necklaces of candy, bags of chips, whole pineapples, and other treats.
Fourteen days of feasting makes a serious dent in an islander’s budget. One of my coworkers, Soni, whose family contributed to the ongoing feasts on several days, told me his family spent TOP$2,000 to feed 40 people. This is equivalent to an American spending 2/3s of his or her annual salary on a single meal. Soni’s family contributed to three meals.
Feasting is as tiring as it is expensive. With no refrigerators for storage or microwaves for quick reheating, all food must be prepared fresh. Families start cooking the day before and go without sleep for 24 or 48 hour stretches. Our neighbor Latai, nine months pregnant, stayed up all night to help prepare her family’s feast tables. Lolei, our homestay mother, worked 2 days and nights to prepare for our final meal with the family. More than just doing the work required, going without sleep is a sign of love to the community and family.
Despite the expense and the round-the-clock work each feast entails, Tongans give and work cheerfully. To do any less would be shameful. They give so generously that to provide any more would be impossible.
Eating well takes on additional importance when royalty is around. The King and Queen attended the biggest feast of the Wesleyan Conference. This feast, held in the village of Makave, was to celebrate the opening of a new church, a large white wood structure with open windows, polished wood pews, and a stained glass window of Christ on the cross, flanked by windows of the King and Crown Prince.
The Makave feast seated at least 1,500 guests in addition to the royal entourage. Like Americans, Tongans take the liberty of both revering and lampooning their leaders. Middle-aged Tongan women in traditional dress threw themselves on the ground before their king, wailing and writhing in ecstasy of his presence. The King, barely able to move himself from his specially outfitted black van to the decorated shelter, ignored their presence. At the tables and out of earshot, others contemplated the King’s poor health and made quiet jokes about the royal family.
Internationally, the King of Tonga is perhaps best known for his listing in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest monarch. At 6”4’, he once tipped the scales at over 400 pounds. An exercise regime and old age have whittled the height and weight down, but the people of Tonga still try to honor their super-size king with extra large me’a ofas (love gifts). At the Makave feast, the King was presented with the largest roasted pig I’ve ever seen. It took six young Tongan men to carry it. The sow had green apples in its mouth, stomach (where the organs had been removed), and bum.
The pigs on my table were more modest. They were flanked, on every side, by crabs, fish, beef, chicken, lobsters, and shellfish: a low-carb dieter’s daydream, though few in Tonga have heard of America’s dear Dr. Atkins. Cliff and I eyed a flock of roast turkeys on the table across from us. A friend of ours was eyeing them too, and grabbed an uneaten bird from the table as he left the feast. The next week we ate sandwiches of the stolen turkey every day for lunch.
Even without the turkey there was too much on my table, and too much on my plate. Kai mate, a Tongan woman on my right said to me as I picked at my feast food. Eat until you die. The expression, in Tongan, is not a death-wish or a threat of any kind. It simply expresses a host’s desire that you’ll eat until stuffed, and then eat a little more. That’s the Tongan way. To do any less, to leave the turkey on the table, would be ungracious.
Amber
Before coming to Tonga, I’d read about the Tongans deep affection for food. But it wasn’t until that afternoon, sitting in Lolei’s kitchen as the neighbors gathered to congratulate her on a meal cooked well enough to please even a Palangi (foreigner), that I began to understand how in Tonga, food was a measure of value and esteem. A clean plate, second and third servings consumed and fingers licked were actions less of diet than of mutual acceptance between my Tongan hosts and the skinny Palangis that sat at their table.
Fast forward almost a year to the annual Wesleyan Conference, which is something akin to the Olympic Games of both church attendance and food consumption. It is an intense, two-week period of endurance eating. Feasts were held at 8 a.m., noon, 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., with non-stop church action in between. The average feast fed 700 people, with a roast pig for every four guests, a 2-liter of juice for every 2, and enough side dishes to feed the whole island.
Tongan feasts put the American pot-luck dinner to shame. Each Tongan family is given responsibility for one, two, or four table lengths of food, depending on the size of the feast and the size of the family. Twenty to thirty separate dishes, several pigs, and multiple baskets of fruit and snacks are prepared for each table. When ready, the average table is stacked two-dishes high, with little room for plates or utensils. And then there’s dessert: cakes with ice cream, custard pies, fresh fruit with puddings.
Feast food is prepared to be enjoyed at the table, but also to be taken home by the guests. People bring plastic bags to fill with root crop, chicken and fruit. Tongan grandmas carry away whole roasted pigs, wrapped in aluminum foil, like footballs. One village, nicknamed “6-pound,” gives away $40 6-pound cans of corned beef to every guest. Other tables distribute bottles of wine or soda, necklaces of candy, bags of chips, whole pineapples, and other treats.
Fourteen days of feasting makes a serious dent in an islander’s budget. One of my coworkers, Soni, whose family contributed to the ongoing feasts on several days, told me his family spent TOP$2,000 to feed 40 people. This is equivalent to an American spending 2/3s of his or her annual salary on a single meal. Soni’s family contributed to three meals.
Feasting is as tiring as it is expensive. With no refrigerators for storage or microwaves for quick reheating, all food must be prepared fresh. Families start cooking the day before and go without sleep for 24 or 48 hour stretches. Our neighbor Latai, nine months pregnant, stayed up all night to help prepare her family’s feast tables. Lolei, our homestay mother, worked 2 days and nights to prepare for our final meal with the family. More than just doing the work required, going without sleep is a sign of love to the community and family.
Despite the expense and the round-the-clock work each feast entails, Tongans give and work cheerfully. To do any less would be shameful. They give so generously that to provide any more would be impossible.
Eating well takes on additional importance when royalty is around. The King and Queen attended the biggest feast of the Wesleyan Conference. This feast, held in the village of Makave, was to celebrate the opening of a new church, a large white wood structure with open windows, polished wood pews, and a stained glass window of Christ on the cross, flanked by windows of the King and Crown Prince.
The Makave feast seated at least 1,500 guests in addition to the royal entourage. Like Americans, Tongans take the liberty of both revering and lampooning their leaders. Middle-aged Tongan women in traditional dress threw themselves on the ground before their king, wailing and writhing in ecstasy of his presence. The King, barely able to move himself from his specially outfitted black van to the decorated shelter, ignored their presence. At the tables and out of earshot, others contemplated the King’s poor health and made quiet jokes about the royal family.
Internationally, the King of Tonga is perhaps best known for his listing in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest monarch. At 6”4’, he once tipped the scales at over 400 pounds. An exercise regime and old age have whittled the height and weight down, but the people of Tonga still try to honor their super-size king with extra large me’a ofas (love gifts). At the Makave feast, the King was presented with the largest roasted pig I’ve ever seen. It took six young Tongan men to carry it. The sow had green apples in its mouth, stomach (where the organs had been removed), and bum.
The pigs on my table were more modest. They were flanked, on every side, by crabs, fish, beef, chicken, lobsters, and shellfish: a low-carb dieter’s daydream, though few in Tonga have heard of America’s dear Dr. Atkins. Cliff and I eyed a flock of roast turkeys on the table across from us. A friend of ours was eyeing them too, and grabbed an uneaten bird from the table as he left the feast. The next week we ate sandwiches of the stolen turkey every day for lunch.
Even without the turkey there was too much on my table, and too much on my plate. Kai mate, a Tongan woman on my right said to me as I picked at my feast food. Eat until you die. The expression, in Tongan, is not a death-wish or a threat of any kind. It simply expresses a host’s desire that you’ll eat until stuffed, and then eat a little more. That’s the Tongan way. To do any less, to leave the turkey on the table, would be ungracious.
Amber
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
The end of the world as we know it
Last night around eleven, a few Tongan friends of mine thought the end of the world was near, and for good reason: the sky was falling. For the first time in remembered history, it haild here in Tonga, and today our coworkers can talk of nothing else.
Yesterday was one of the gray days we fear in Tonga, not because they’re dangerous but because like bad company, when they come you never know how long they’ll stay. A few months ago it started raining and didn’t stop for three weeks. Sure, a few hours passed without precipitation, but for the most part we had a constant downpour for 21 straight days. So you can understand why a gray sky like yesterday’s is enough to make us wish for anti-depressants.
In the evening, though, the rain settled and the air was damp and cold. Cliff called me outside at 10:30, and we watched lightening illuminate the whole sky, not in bolts but in dull flickers, like a florescent light that is struggling to come on in a dark room. Thunder started soon after – low, deep rumbles that rolled across the sky in a constant wave of sound. Soon the rain began – great downpours – and then we heard the clashing of tennis ball sized hail on our tin roof. The hail crashed down for four or five minutes then stopped, the skies cleared, and today we have sunny weather with no reminder of last night’s deluge except the awe it has inspired in the Tongans around us.
Piula, the first coworker to arrive at the youth center this morning, asked us about the hail immediately. “Did you see the ice-rain last night?” It had never happened in Vava’u, she said, though she once had heard of hail in ‘Eua, an island a day’s boat ride to the south.
Tavake, a coworker of ours, arrived next. He had been drinking kava with friends on a little plastic-roofed patio when the hail started. The men were convinced it was children shooting rocks at the roof with slingshots. Then ice started drifting into the patio. “It’s the end of the world,” Tavake joked; no one laughed. “Maybe there is a huge cloud of ice floating above us and it’s breaking apart,” one man suggested. One remembered hearing a story, passed from ancestor to ancestor, about rain that was like ice. Another man ran a few blocks to his own home and found his wife and children sitting in the dark, with the doors and windows locked, wondering what was happening.
For Cliff and me, hail is an frequent occurrence. It happens once every year or so, and our greatest concern (back when we had a car) was the damage the ice chips might do to our car’s paint job. For the Tongans, last night was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. It may never happen again, and certainly none remember it happening before. This strange weather phenomenon is enough to illicit apocalyptic concerns. As observers, Cliff and I can’t help but compare their first exposure to hail to the other “firsts” their Tongan ancestors have experienced. What must they have thought, for example, the first time a British boat pulled into the island’s natural harbor, carrying men with sticks that shot fire? That was, in some ways, the end of their world as they knew it. No doubt last night’s ‘alotamaki (bad weather) won’t change the culture, but people will be talking about it for generations to come.
Amber
Yesterday was one of the gray days we fear in Tonga, not because they’re dangerous but because like bad company, when they come you never know how long they’ll stay. A few months ago it started raining and didn’t stop for three weeks. Sure, a few hours passed without precipitation, but for the most part we had a constant downpour for 21 straight days. So you can understand why a gray sky like yesterday’s is enough to make us wish for anti-depressants.
In the evening, though, the rain settled and the air was damp and cold. Cliff called me outside at 10:30, and we watched lightening illuminate the whole sky, not in bolts but in dull flickers, like a florescent light that is struggling to come on in a dark room. Thunder started soon after – low, deep rumbles that rolled across the sky in a constant wave of sound. Soon the rain began – great downpours – and then we heard the clashing of tennis ball sized hail on our tin roof. The hail crashed down for four or five minutes then stopped, the skies cleared, and today we have sunny weather with no reminder of last night’s deluge except the awe it has inspired in the Tongans around us.
Piula, the first coworker to arrive at the youth center this morning, asked us about the hail immediately. “Did you see the ice-rain last night?” It had never happened in Vava’u, she said, though she once had heard of hail in ‘Eua, an island a day’s boat ride to the south.
Tavake, a coworker of ours, arrived next. He had been drinking kava with friends on a little plastic-roofed patio when the hail started. The men were convinced it was children shooting rocks at the roof with slingshots. Then ice started drifting into the patio. “It’s the end of the world,” Tavake joked; no one laughed. “Maybe there is a huge cloud of ice floating above us and it’s breaking apart,” one man suggested. One remembered hearing a story, passed from ancestor to ancestor, about rain that was like ice. Another man ran a few blocks to his own home and found his wife and children sitting in the dark, with the doors and windows locked, wondering what was happening.
For Cliff and me, hail is an frequent occurrence. It happens once every year or so, and our greatest concern (back when we had a car) was the damage the ice chips might do to our car’s paint job. For the Tongans, last night was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. It may never happen again, and certainly none remember it happening before. This strange weather phenomenon is enough to illicit apocalyptic concerns. As observers, Cliff and I can’t help but compare their first exposure to hail to the other “firsts” their Tongan ancestors have experienced. What must they have thought, for example, the first time a British boat pulled into the island’s natural harbor, carrying men with sticks that shot fire? That was, in some ways, the end of their world as they knew it. No doubt last night’s ‘alotamaki (bad weather) won’t change the culture, but people will be talking about it for generations to come.
Amber
Friday, June 18, 2004
Unsolved mysteries
Residency occasionally implies expertise. Our houseguests in Chicago often asked us about local political affairs or neighborhood socioeconomic trends despite our relatively limited academic studies in these fields…meanwhile, visitors to Tonga bombard us with questions about monarchy and agricultural logistics. On many occasions, simply investing in one’s community and listening to others’ stories can afford such knowledge. After nearly a year of calling Vava’u home, I understand the central complaints of the pro-democracy movement, the preparation process for community feasts, and countless other components of daily life in Tonga. Nonetheless, certain mysteries remain unsolved regardless of how many months one might call someplace home. The following bullet points represent those mysteries that continually baffle me no matter how long I live here.
• How does a Tongan tell which pigs and chickens are theirs?
Our backyard is a veritable petting zoo. At any given moment I can count thirteen baby piglets, several large sows, multiple dogs anxiously awaiting kitchen scraps, and countless roosters attempting to deny me peace and quiet. We’ve somehow grown accustomed to constant oinks and crows. We’ve even accepted the overabundance of pig crap out back. Here’s what we can’t figure out: if everybody here has pigs and chickens and everyone’s pigs and chickens roam freely throughout the community…how do you know whose pig or chicken you’re killing when feast time rolls around? As best I can tell at this point, possession is 9/10 of the law. If the rooster’s entered your yard, it’s miraculously become your chicken. But I’m pretty certain some law suits have arisen here over adjacent households’ pig disputes. Maybe there’s some computer chip they implant in the animals’ ears or wings; but if folks here aren’t innovative enough to build fences around their yards, then maybe microchips remain slightly out of their league.
• Why don’t people here treat dogs more nicely?
Tongans throw stones at dogs pretty regularly. If an innocent and naïve palangi (such as myself) inquires as to why these stones are constantly being pelted toward wandering canines, Tongan neighbors are likely to explain that dogs are rabid and vicious and antagonistic towards people. What particularly amuses me about this homosapien-canine stand off is that no one bothers to question why palangis’ dogs nicely rub against their owners’ legs while Tongans’ dogs angrily dig into their owners’ calves. Could this trend perhaps indicate that much as Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to salivate when bells rang, Tongan dogs have been conditioned to vehemently defend themselves against the strangers who insist upon hurling rocks at them? You see, if you feed dogs as opposed to beating them, they miraculously begin acting nicer toward you. I have yet to convince Tongans of this logic. So I’m baffled at locals’ refusal to treat dogs kindly and locals remain confused regarding why Peace Corps volunteers’ dogs are so much nicer than their own.
• Is quantity of food always more important than quality of food?
Simply put, YES. In Tongan “cuisine,” quantity always trumps quality. So when our youth centre holds a barbecue fundraiser that charges T$4 for freshly grilled chicken and sausage and a nearby store offers cold and soggy breaded fish for the same price, people always opt for day old fish nuggets. Why? Well, there’s more of it, stupid. Let’s be honest. If people here cared about how their food tasted, they wouldn’t subsist on diets composed entirely of bland root crop. Why eat root crop? There’s lots of it. Why eat pig? There’s lots of them. Why eat tinned corn beef that didn’t meet the quality standards in New Zealand and Australia? There’s also a lot of it. A French restaurant would clearly not do well here. Some waiter with a funny accent would serve baby carrots and a tiny cornish hen for T$100, and every Tongan customer would umu the French guy’s dog instead. Tongan food reviewer would be an incredible gig, though. “That restaurant’s good because they serve lots of food, but the restaurant next door is bad because they don’t serve as much.”
• Where are the books printed in Tongan?
Our dedicated American website readers would probably answer the above question with a sarcastic “Maybe at the bookstore or the library!” Very witty, but unfortunately those local establishments are more likely to offer bad harlequin romances in English than anything printed in the Tongan language. In terms of books printed in Tongan, you got your Bible and your Wesleyan hymn book and…um…did I mention the Bible? The thing is Tongans don’t really read all that much. I can’t say whether this particular behavior stems from low demand or low supply. Meanwhile, the King loves claiming his people have the highest literacy rate in the world…the equivalent of boasting about a nation where everybody has pilot’s licenses but nobody has planes. I mean, I’m all for reading the Bible, but at some point shouldn’t one of the Tongans living overseas start translating “A Tale of Two Cities” or “The Brothers Karamazov” into Tongan? Even “The South Beach Diet” would be a start at this point. Tongans that get educated overseas love sending money back, but I’m desperately waiting the day when they start sending books.
• What’s wrong with long-term thinking?
Were I to ask a Tongan about long-term thinking, he or she would likely inform me that we would be better off asking about long-term thinking later...“later” would probably remain rather undefined, eventually the conversation would end up indefinitely postponed, and then after a while we would both wonder why neither of us developed a long-term plan for discussing long-term thinking. The youth office frantically fundraises every month right before bills are due. Our neighbors never fix the loud grinding noise emanating from their car each time it starts, despite the fact that someday their engine will be damaged beyond repair. People leave on vacation without delegating their responsibilities or considering what information their co-workers might need during this absence. If carpe diem/seize the moment were applied universally and without exception, Tongans would flourish. They never miss the present moment…it’s just every moment that follows the present which comes as a complete and total surprise.
So there are some Tongan mysteries for your consideration. In July we will have called Tonga home for a full year, but thankfully we’re still just as confused. It’s something to be grateful for…because if we knew everything already, what in the world would we do for the next year?
Cliff
• How does a Tongan tell which pigs and chickens are theirs?
Our backyard is a veritable petting zoo. At any given moment I can count thirteen baby piglets, several large sows, multiple dogs anxiously awaiting kitchen scraps, and countless roosters attempting to deny me peace and quiet. We’ve somehow grown accustomed to constant oinks and crows. We’ve even accepted the overabundance of pig crap out back. Here’s what we can’t figure out: if everybody here has pigs and chickens and everyone’s pigs and chickens roam freely throughout the community…how do you know whose pig or chicken you’re killing when feast time rolls around? As best I can tell at this point, possession is 9/10 of the law. If the rooster’s entered your yard, it’s miraculously become your chicken. But I’m pretty certain some law suits have arisen here over adjacent households’ pig disputes. Maybe there’s some computer chip they implant in the animals’ ears or wings; but if folks here aren’t innovative enough to build fences around their yards, then maybe microchips remain slightly out of their league.
• Why don’t people here treat dogs more nicely?
Tongans throw stones at dogs pretty regularly. If an innocent and naïve palangi (such as myself) inquires as to why these stones are constantly being pelted toward wandering canines, Tongan neighbors are likely to explain that dogs are rabid and vicious and antagonistic towards people. What particularly amuses me about this homosapien-canine stand off is that no one bothers to question why palangis’ dogs nicely rub against their owners’ legs while Tongans’ dogs angrily dig into their owners’ calves. Could this trend perhaps indicate that much as Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to salivate when bells rang, Tongan dogs have been conditioned to vehemently defend themselves against the strangers who insist upon hurling rocks at them? You see, if you feed dogs as opposed to beating them, they miraculously begin acting nicer toward you. I have yet to convince Tongans of this logic. So I’m baffled at locals’ refusal to treat dogs kindly and locals remain confused regarding why Peace Corps volunteers’ dogs are so much nicer than their own.
• Is quantity of food always more important than quality of food?
Simply put, YES. In Tongan “cuisine,” quantity always trumps quality. So when our youth centre holds a barbecue fundraiser that charges T$4 for freshly grilled chicken and sausage and a nearby store offers cold and soggy breaded fish for the same price, people always opt for day old fish nuggets. Why? Well, there’s more of it, stupid. Let’s be honest. If people here cared about how their food tasted, they wouldn’t subsist on diets composed entirely of bland root crop. Why eat root crop? There’s lots of it. Why eat pig? There’s lots of them. Why eat tinned corn beef that didn’t meet the quality standards in New Zealand and Australia? There’s also a lot of it. A French restaurant would clearly not do well here. Some waiter with a funny accent would serve baby carrots and a tiny cornish hen for T$100, and every Tongan customer would umu the French guy’s dog instead. Tongan food reviewer would be an incredible gig, though. “That restaurant’s good because they serve lots of food, but the restaurant next door is bad because they don’t serve as much.”
• Where are the books printed in Tongan?
Our dedicated American website readers would probably answer the above question with a sarcastic “Maybe at the bookstore or the library!” Very witty, but unfortunately those local establishments are more likely to offer bad harlequin romances in English than anything printed in the Tongan language. In terms of books printed in Tongan, you got your Bible and your Wesleyan hymn book and…um…did I mention the Bible? The thing is Tongans don’t really read all that much. I can’t say whether this particular behavior stems from low demand or low supply. Meanwhile, the King loves claiming his people have the highest literacy rate in the world…the equivalent of boasting about a nation where everybody has pilot’s licenses but nobody has planes. I mean, I’m all for reading the Bible, but at some point shouldn’t one of the Tongans living overseas start translating “A Tale of Two Cities” or “The Brothers Karamazov” into Tongan? Even “The South Beach Diet” would be a start at this point. Tongans that get educated overseas love sending money back, but I’m desperately waiting the day when they start sending books.
• What’s wrong with long-term thinking?
Were I to ask a Tongan about long-term thinking, he or she would likely inform me that we would be better off asking about long-term thinking later...“later” would probably remain rather undefined, eventually the conversation would end up indefinitely postponed, and then after a while we would both wonder why neither of us developed a long-term plan for discussing long-term thinking. The youth office frantically fundraises every month right before bills are due. Our neighbors never fix the loud grinding noise emanating from their car each time it starts, despite the fact that someday their engine will be damaged beyond repair. People leave on vacation without delegating their responsibilities or considering what information their co-workers might need during this absence. If carpe diem/seize the moment were applied universally and without exception, Tongans would flourish. They never miss the present moment…it’s just every moment that follows the present which comes as a complete and total surprise.
So there are some Tongan mysteries for your consideration. In July we will have called Tonga home for a full year, but thankfully we’re still just as confused. It’s something to be grateful for…because if we knew everything already, what in the world would we do for the next year?
Cliff
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Planes, Boats and Automobiles: One month of travel in The Friendly Isles
It was almost four, yesterday afternoon as I stood in line to purchase airline tickets for my sister-in-law, Kim. The airline, which opened just two weeks before, has its offices in a building roughly the size of a large bathroom, and shares space with a radio station and a car rental company, all owned by the Crown Prince.
My Tongan language instructor, Elenoa, was there with me. She and I were the only people in the waiting room weighing in at less than 200 pounds. The room was crowded: ten people sitting and standing in a formation tight enough to induce claustrophobia. Most of the people in the room traveled to Vava’u for a church conference. They were dressed in traditional Tongan style, with woven mats big enough to cover a living room floor belted around their waists. From my position in a corner chair, my knees and nose were in jeopardy of rug burn.
After 40 minutes of not-so-patient waiting, I finally earned my turn at the chair near the lone employee’s desk. “I’m here to purchase the tickets I reserved this morning,” I said, with every hope that the endeavor would be just as simple as the sentenced sounded.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER ONE: Nothing is ever quick in a country where fakapikopiko (lazy) and fiemau malolo (need to rest) are valid excuses to give your boss when you want to call off work for the day.
“The 10:30 flight?” the clerk asked.
I hesitated. The flight time was earlier than the one I’d been given before, and the new time made for an impossible connection between Kim’s international and domestic flights. The clerk, who was amazingly relaxed despite a full day of servicing pushy crowds, saw my hesitation and explained: the flight time had changed, for the third time in three days.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER TWO: In a country whose stone monument from the 13th century still defies engineering logic, nothing modern is ever set in stone.
I cancelled Kim’s ticket on Ea Peau Vava’u (Air Waves Vava’u), and moved down the street to the other airline, Air Niu (Air Coconut), which also opened two weeks ago. These two new airlines are the replacement for Royal Tonga Air, which went belly-up (thankfully, I mean this only as a figurative expression) right about the time Cliff’s parents decided to come visit us.
Darlene and Elmer landed on the capital island, Tongatapu, and planned to spend two quick days there, recuperating from jet lag and seeing the few sites the main island has to offer. Their stay extended from two days to six when Royal Tonga Air’s only working plane experienced mechanical problems. (RTA had two other planes, one that had been out of commission for five months and another that was recently repossessed by the Sultan of Brunei.) Getting stuck in Tongatapu is about like flying into U.S.A. for the first time and only seeing Detroit.
But RTA came through for us, and four days late we were able to meet them at the airport in Vava’u. We spent a week showing Darlene and Elmer around our tropical island and then the four of us began to prepare for the final leg of their vacation: a week together in Fiji.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER THREE: No question is a dumb question in a country where this verbal exchange can take place:
Where’s Makoni?
With the cooler.
Where’s the cooler?
With Makoni.
Two days before our scheduled flight from Vava’u to Tongatapu, to catch a connecting flight to Fiji, I stopped by the RTA office to pick up our tickets. Back at the restaurant where Cliff was dining with his parents, we looked at the tickets and noticed the four of us had been placed on two different flights. So I went back to the RTA office to have our tickets changed.
“Sure I can change your tickets,” said the man behind the counter, “but there’s really no need to make the change. We aren’t going to have any flights on Wednesday.” Ten minutes earlier he had given me the tickets, and now he was telling me they were as useful as Confederate war bonds. My fault for not asking, as I took the tickets, “So, this flight will happen, right?”
RTA, we were told, was having additional mechanical problems and planned to suspend flights for nine days. (The mechanical problems turned out to be a little thing called bankruptcy.) The last flight was scheduled for 9 that same evening, but it, said the folks behind the counter, was for people who were scheduled to fly the following day. Unless we could get on that flight, we were stranded on a tropical isle, with no hope of making our international connection.
As many of you readers know, Cliff has great puppy dog eyes and a fair bit of acting ability. The woman must have been moved by his look of utter dejection because a few minutes later she mysteriously found four seats on the 9 p.m. plane. We closed up work, packed for Fiji, and started our vacation two days early.
Eight days later, back from vacation, Cliff and I were stuck in Tongatapu with better tans and return tickets for a now defunct airline. A cargo ship was our only option for returning to our island.
There are three ocean-going cargo ships that make frequent trips between Tongatapu and the distant islands. The Olavaha, nicknamed the Orange Puke, is the biggest, but slow. The Otu Tonga is smaller than the Olavaha and designed more for cargo than passengers. The Pulapake (which Cliff’s dad referred to as the Porta-Potty) is fast, and feels like a cruise ship compared to the others, though I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t meet U.S. safety standards.
Given the options, the Pulapake was our number one choice, but it had run aground on a coral reef in Ha’apai the week before. The Olavaha had engine problems and was puttering to Fiji for repairs. That left us, and about 200 other passengers, with the flat-bottomed, motion-sickness inducing Otu Tonga.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER FOUR: Be careful where you roll while being spooned by an 80 year old Tongan woman. Also, always bring toilet paper.
About 60 of us stuffed ourselves onto the top deck, which fortunately was sheltered by tarps from the chilly rain. The deck was about the size of a small living room, with a row of benches circling the outer edge and mats covering every inch of floor space. Cliff, our friend Victoria, and I shared the space of one mat, about the size of a dining room table.
There’s not much to do on a cargo ship except sleep, so by the time night fell most of the boat was already snoring. Our mat space grew more limited as a large, elderly Tongan woman one mat over stretched her legs and arms in her sleep. At one point, Cliff awoke to find himself in her clutches, her ample knees almost folded into the backs of his and almost half our mat space given to her intruding form. To quote the John Candy movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, “Those aren’t pillows!”
The only thing less pleasant than Cliff’s sleeping partner was the bathroom. There were two on the boat, one that never flushed and one that occasionally did. Neither had toilet paper, but Girl Scout that I am, I came prepared. After 27 hours on the boat, the smell was so rank that even being in the same hall as the bathroom was enough to bring on a gagging reflex.
What I have just described may sound like a night in h-e-double hockey sticks to you, but Cliff and I actually climbed off the boat feeling a bit exhilarated. The ride itself was not as unpleasant as we expected. We’d had a few good conversations with our Tongan boat companions, and, after a month of travel woes, we’d safely made it home where we could rely on the fleet of unreliable taxis to drive us around our island. This was exactly what we’d imagined serving in the Peace Corps would be like. Which leads us to …
TONGA TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER FIVE: In a country called The Friendly Isles, where malimali (smiling) is a command and fiefie (happiness) is a way of life, don’t let palapolema (problems) spoil your ava pe (vacation).
Amber
My Tongan language instructor, Elenoa, was there with me. She and I were the only people in the waiting room weighing in at less than 200 pounds. The room was crowded: ten people sitting and standing in a formation tight enough to induce claustrophobia. Most of the people in the room traveled to Vava’u for a church conference. They were dressed in traditional Tongan style, with woven mats big enough to cover a living room floor belted around their waists. From my position in a corner chair, my knees and nose were in jeopardy of rug burn.
After 40 minutes of not-so-patient waiting, I finally earned my turn at the chair near the lone employee’s desk. “I’m here to purchase the tickets I reserved this morning,” I said, with every hope that the endeavor would be just as simple as the sentenced sounded.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER ONE: Nothing is ever quick in a country where fakapikopiko (lazy) and fiemau malolo (need to rest) are valid excuses to give your boss when you want to call off work for the day.
“The 10:30 flight?” the clerk asked.
I hesitated. The flight time was earlier than the one I’d been given before, and the new time made for an impossible connection between Kim’s international and domestic flights. The clerk, who was amazingly relaxed despite a full day of servicing pushy crowds, saw my hesitation and explained: the flight time had changed, for the third time in three days.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER TWO: In a country whose stone monument from the 13th century still defies engineering logic, nothing modern is ever set in stone.
I cancelled Kim’s ticket on Ea Peau Vava’u (Air Waves Vava’u), and moved down the street to the other airline, Air Niu (Air Coconut), which also opened two weeks ago. These two new airlines are the replacement for Royal Tonga Air, which went belly-up (thankfully, I mean this only as a figurative expression) right about the time Cliff’s parents decided to come visit us.
Darlene and Elmer landed on the capital island, Tongatapu, and planned to spend two quick days there, recuperating from jet lag and seeing the few sites the main island has to offer. Their stay extended from two days to six when Royal Tonga Air’s only working plane experienced mechanical problems. (RTA had two other planes, one that had been out of commission for five months and another that was recently repossessed by the Sultan of Brunei.) Getting stuck in Tongatapu is about like flying into U.S.A. for the first time and only seeing Detroit.
But RTA came through for us, and four days late we were able to meet them at the airport in Vava’u. We spent a week showing Darlene and Elmer around our tropical island and then the four of us began to prepare for the final leg of their vacation: a week together in Fiji.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER THREE: No question is a dumb question in a country where this verbal exchange can take place:
Where’s Makoni?
With the cooler.
Where’s the cooler?
With Makoni.
Two days before our scheduled flight from Vava’u to Tongatapu, to catch a connecting flight to Fiji, I stopped by the RTA office to pick up our tickets. Back at the restaurant where Cliff was dining with his parents, we looked at the tickets and noticed the four of us had been placed on two different flights. So I went back to the RTA office to have our tickets changed.
“Sure I can change your tickets,” said the man behind the counter, “but there’s really no need to make the change. We aren’t going to have any flights on Wednesday.” Ten minutes earlier he had given me the tickets, and now he was telling me they were as useful as Confederate war bonds. My fault for not asking, as I took the tickets, “So, this flight will happen, right?”
RTA, we were told, was having additional mechanical problems and planned to suspend flights for nine days. (The mechanical problems turned out to be a little thing called bankruptcy.) The last flight was scheduled for 9 that same evening, but it, said the folks behind the counter, was for people who were scheduled to fly the following day. Unless we could get on that flight, we were stranded on a tropical isle, with no hope of making our international connection.
As many of you readers know, Cliff has great puppy dog eyes and a fair bit of acting ability. The woman must have been moved by his look of utter dejection because a few minutes later she mysteriously found four seats on the 9 p.m. plane. We closed up work, packed for Fiji, and started our vacation two days early.
Eight days later, back from vacation, Cliff and I were stuck in Tongatapu with better tans and return tickets for a now defunct airline. A cargo ship was our only option for returning to our island.
There are three ocean-going cargo ships that make frequent trips between Tongatapu and the distant islands. The Olavaha, nicknamed the Orange Puke, is the biggest, but slow. The Otu Tonga is smaller than the Olavaha and designed more for cargo than passengers. The Pulapake (which Cliff’s dad referred to as the Porta-Potty) is fast, and feels like a cruise ship compared to the others, though I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t meet U.S. safety standards.
Given the options, the Pulapake was our number one choice, but it had run aground on a coral reef in Ha’apai the week before. The Olavaha had engine problems and was puttering to Fiji for repairs. That left us, and about 200 other passengers, with the flat-bottomed, motion-sickness inducing Otu Tonga.
TONGAN TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER FOUR: Be careful where you roll while being spooned by an 80 year old Tongan woman. Also, always bring toilet paper.
About 60 of us stuffed ourselves onto the top deck, which fortunately was sheltered by tarps from the chilly rain. The deck was about the size of a small living room, with a row of benches circling the outer edge and mats covering every inch of floor space. Cliff, our friend Victoria, and I shared the space of one mat, about the size of a dining room table.
There’s not much to do on a cargo ship except sleep, so by the time night fell most of the boat was already snoring. Our mat space grew more limited as a large, elderly Tongan woman one mat over stretched her legs and arms in her sleep. At one point, Cliff awoke to find himself in her clutches, her ample knees almost folded into the backs of his and almost half our mat space given to her intruding form. To quote the John Candy movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, “Those aren’t pillows!”
The only thing less pleasant than Cliff’s sleeping partner was the bathroom. There were two on the boat, one that never flushed and one that occasionally did. Neither had toilet paper, but Girl Scout that I am, I came prepared. After 27 hours on the boat, the smell was so rank that even being in the same hall as the bathroom was enough to bring on a gagging reflex.
What I have just described may sound like a night in h-e-double hockey sticks to you, but Cliff and I actually climbed off the boat feeling a bit exhilarated. The ride itself was not as unpleasant as we expected. We’d had a few good conversations with our Tongan boat companions, and, after a month of travel woes, we’d safely made it home where we could rely on the fleet of unreliable taxis to drive us around our island. This was exactly what we’d imagined serving in the Peace Corps would be like. Which leads us to …
TONGA TRAVEL LESSON NUMBER FIVE: In a country called The Friendly Isles, where malimali (smiling) is a command and fiefie (happiness) is a way of life, don’t let palapolema (problems) spoil your ava pe (vacation).
Amber
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Vakapuna
The small boxy plane that (somewhat) regularly transports passengers from Nuku’alofa to Vava’u had just landed uneventfully. We watched for three slightly more pale passengers to emerge from the ancient aircraft, knowing well the dazed and awe-struck looks that accompany one’s first glimpse of our island home. The camera crew from Washington DC was seeking updated marketing materials from Peace Corps sites, and their recent excursion to Turkmenistan left them uniquely grateful for South Pacific scenery.
“What’s it they say? ‘The toughest job you’ll ever love.’ Man.”
The twenty-minute ride back toward town offered many similar comments on our good fortune as Peace Corps volunteers, our picturesque site, our two years in ultimate paradise. Muddy pigs and naked children beyond the van’s windows passed by strangely unmentioned. The one-hour hop from Tonga’s capital to Tonga’s lone tourist center often transforms visitors’ perspectives, vanquishing memories of mangy dogs along dusty roadsides in favor of bright blue waters Americans see only in glossy magazine ads. I once assumed South Pacific seas to be exaggerated, doctored up in Photoshop to achieve that utopian shade of aquamarine. Then sixty minutes of commercial flight changed everything. So we humored our guests from distant lands, allowed the overwhelming beauty to overshadow the realities of daily life here. I couldn’t begrudge them after all; I vividly remembered stepping off that very same plane only nine months before.
The Tongan word for airport is mala’i vakapuna. Vaka means boat; puna means jump; mala’i refers to both fields and cemeteries. Thus, our local airfield is the jumping boat graveyard. Tourists rarely discover such idiosyncrasies, but these quirks effectively portray this nation’s juxtaposition of modern convenience and primitive infrastructure. It’s impossible to convince outsiders that this place can try one’s patience, challenge volunteers’ endurance, and even produce near-constant stress. The South Pacific’s reputation simply precedes itself: the friendly islands, sailors mutinously opting to never return home, yachts cruising through for sunny relaxation. But behind every pleasant plane trip and remote island oasis is a frustrating reality. Royal Tongan Airlines owns three decades-old aircraft and loses approximately a million pa’anga per month; the financial bleeding chiefly stems from Tongans who cannot afford air travel and the Crown Prince’s ill-fated dreams of international flights. Two volunteers in the remote island of Niuafo’o were assured flights every Tuesday and Thursday…a plane hasn’t landed on that island since January and the volunteers haven’t received mail for over two months. Our flying boats offer their share of difficulties, and life on the ground can exceed even those trying circumstances.*
Six desktop PCs constitute our Youth Centre’s computer lab. These machines are mostly composites built from the scraps of other computers that once functioned seamlessly and now comprise a technological graveyard in our building’s back room. Our scrap metal lab hosts regular classes in computer basics, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel; from all appearances the Vava’u Youth Congress is just another indication of Tonga’s rapid ascent to developed nation status. Except the floppy drives work only when unnecessary, networking has repeatedly proved itself impossible, and there’s an apparent rotation amongst the machines regarding which one will simply refuse to turn on that particular day. The phrase appearances can be deceiving has never been more relevant, especially when the simplest of documents takes three computers, four disks, two printers, and several pa’anga spent at local computing establishments. The Tongan word for computer? Kompiuta.
However, few frustrations exceed those stemming from Tongan business development. Downtown Neiafu always places its best foot forward: t-shirt printing businesses, waterfront drinking establishments, quaintly decorated internet cafes. But such endeavors are rarely Tongan-owned, reflecting instead New Zealanders and Americans quests for fulfilling retirements in paradise. Tongans typically settle for yet another corner store carrying the same basic products at the same basic prices with the same basic lousy customer service and the same basic IOUs for every local customer. Peace Corps volunteers and development banks have been attempting to revolutionize Vava’u residents’ business instincts for years, but the same ten people have been attending workshops and eating free lunches for some time now. This country is developing around Tongans but rarely through them. International aid agencies and foreign-born developers pour millions into this little island society. Communities here aren’t committed or equipped to developing business concepts, and every foreign-financed project convinces them there’s little need to invest or think creatively or risk. Just wait for the palangis (white people) to build new roads and provide new services and finance our projects. Peace Corps volunteers become little more than grant-writers, and Tongans become little more than innocent bystanders in their country’s desperate attempts to become the next Fiji or Tahiti. Someday planes will start flying regularly and computers will start functioning reliably…but many residents will wonder whether paradise just arrived or already departed.
The camera crew asked about the pros and cons of Peace Corps service. I recounted for them medevac’d volunteers’ stories from around the globe: Latin American volunteers who feared violence but watched satellite TV while drinking American beers, Eastern European volunteers with comfortable apartments but remarkably dreary communities, African Peace Corps workers in housing arrangements much like ours but craving social contact with other volunteers. Every site offers upsides and downsides. Visitors from distant lands immediately see Tonga’s benefits, but the drawbacks conceal themselves very effectively. Amber and I live less than ten minutes from the picturesque blue waters of Vava’u’s Port of Refuge, but lately our service-related projects have proven hopelessly complicated. There are moments when our backyard offers a glimpse of starry skies and the faint sound of the tides; there are moments when our co-workers demonstrate little commitment and local residents seem equally indifferent. Our three pale visitors from Washington DC seemed skeptical of our troubles with paradise. Then their Royal Tongan flight got cancelled and a cyclone warning affected travel plans. Ah, utopia indeed.
Cliff
*An addendum: In May of 2004, we rode with my parents on Royal Tongan Airlines’ final flight ever. The sorry financial state of the monarchy’s commercial airline became painfully apparent in the following days, as bankruptcy was declared and refunds were refused. While two new air carriers are presently attempting to commence with domestic services, returning from vacation with my parents meant a 26-hour ferry ride on rough seas. If only the camera crew wouldn’t have missed that experience.
“What’s it they say? ‘The toughest job you’ll ever love.’ Man.”
The twenty-minute ride back toward town offered many similar comments on our good fortune as Peace Corps volunteers, our picturesque site, our two years in ultimate paradise. Muddy pigs and naked children beyond the van’s windows passed by strangely unmentioned. The one-hour hop from Tonga’s capital to Tonga’s lone tourist center often transforms visitors’ perspectives, vanquishing memories of mangy dogs along dusty roadsides in favor of bright blue waters Americans see only in glossy magazine ads. I once assumed South Pacific seas to be exaggerated, doctored up in Photoshop to achieve that utopian shade of aquamarine. Then sixty minutes of commercial flight changed everything. So we humored our guests from distant lands, allowed the overwhelming beauty to overshadow the realities of daily life here. I couldn’t begrudge them after all; I vividly remembered stepping off that very same plane only nine months before.
***
The Tongan word for airport is mala’i vakapuna. Vaka means boat; puna means jump; mala’i refers to both fields and cemeteries. Thus, our local airfield is the jumping boat graveyard. Tourists rarely discover such idiosyncrasies, but these quirks effectively portray this nation’s juxtaposition of modern convenience and primitive infrastructure. It’s impossible to convince outsiders that this place can try one’s patience, challenge volunteers’ endurance, and even produce near-constant stress. The South Pacific’s reputation simply precedes itself: the friendly islands, sailors mutinously opting to never return home, yachts cruising through for sunny relaxation. But behind every pleasant plane trip and remote island oasis is a frustrating reality. Royal Tongan Airlines owns three decades-old aircraft and loses approximately a million pa’anga per month; the financial bleeding chiefly stems from Tongans who cannot afford air travel and the Crown Prince’s ill-fated dreams of international flights. Two volunteers in the remote island of Niuafo’o were assured flights every Tuesday and Thursday…a plane hasn’t landed on that island since January and the volunteers haven’t received mail for over two months. Our flying boats offer their share of difficulties, and life on the ground can exceed even those trying circumstances.*
Six desktop PCs constitute our Youth Centre’s computer lab. These machines are mostly composites built from the scraps of other computers that once functioned seamlessly and now comprise a technological graveyard in our building’s back room. Our scrap metal lab hosts regular classes in computer basics, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel; from all appearances the Vava’u Youth Congress is just another indication of Tonga’s rapid ascent to developed nation status. Except the floppy drives work only when unnecessary, networking has repeatedly proved itself impossible, and there’s an apparent rotation amongst the machines regarding which one will simply refuse to turn on that particular day. The phrase appearances can be deceiving has never been more relevant, especially when the simplest of documents takes three computers, four disks, two printers, and several pa’anga spent at local computing establishments. The Tongan word for computer? Kompiuta.
However, few frustrations exceed those stemming from Tongan business development. Downtown Neiafu always places its best foot forward: t-shirt printing businesses, waterfront drinking establishments, quaintly decorated internet cafes. But such endeavors are rarely Tongan-owned, reflecting instead New Zealanders and Americans quests for fulfilling retirements in paradise. Tongans typically settle for yet another corner store carrying the same basic products at the same basic prices with the same basic lousy customer service and the same basic IOUs for every local customer. Peace Corps volunteers and development banks have been attempting to revolutionize Vava’u residents’ business instincts for years, but the same ten people have been attending workshops and eating free lunches for some time now. This country is developing around Tongans but rarely through them. International aid agencies and foreign-born developers pour millions into this little island society. Communities here aren’t committed or equipped to developing business concepts, and every foreign-financed project convinces them there’s little need to invest or think creatively or risk. Just wait for the palangis (white people) to build new roads and provide new services and finance our projects. Peace Corps volunteers become little more than grant-writers, and Tongans become little more than innocent bystanders in their country’s desperate attempts to become the next Fiji or Tahiti. Someday planes will start flying regularly and computers will start functioning reliably…but many residents will wonder whether paradise just arrived or already departed.
The camera crew asked about the pros and cons of Peace Corps service. I recounted for them medevac’d volunteers’ stories from around the globe: Latin American volunteers who feared violence but watched satellite TV while drinking American beers, Eastern European volunteers with comfortable apartments but remarkably dreary communities, African Peace Corps workers in housing arrangements much like ours but craving social contact with other volunteers. Every site offers upsides and downsides. Visitors from distant lands immediately see Tonga’s benefits, but the drawbacks conceal themselves very effectively. Amber and I live less than ten minutes from the picturesque blue waters of Vava’u’s Port of Refuge, but lately our service-related projects have proven hopelessly complicated. There are moments when our backyard offers a glimpse of starry skies and the faint sound of the tides; there are moments when our co-workers demonstrate little commitment and local residents seem equally indifferent. Our three pale visitors from Washington DC seemed skeptical of our troubles with paradise. Then their Royal Tongan flight got cancelled and a cyclone warning affected travel plans. Ah, utopia indeed.
Cliff
*An addendum: In May of 2004, we rode with my parents on Royal Tongan Airlines’ final flight ever. The sorry financial state of the monarchy’s commercial airline became painfully apparent in the following days, as bankruptcy was declared and refunds were refused. While two new air carriers are presently attempting to commence with domestic services, returning from vacation with my parents meant a 26-hour ferry ride on rough seas. If only the camera crew wouldn’t have missed that experience.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
An Ode to Empty Youth Centres
an ode to empty youth centres…
If this last week is any indication, our life just became even busier. Our youth centre has already staved off serious financial crisis, started two new programs, and begun pursuing funding for major expansions next year. Not bad considering the New Year started three weeks ago, eh? Here’s some of what’s in store for the upcoming calendar year:
- Peace Corps is partnering with our Vava’u Youth Congress to develop a microloan program that will offer training, funding, and mentorship for qualified young people interested in starting small businesses here. Of course, the catch is they have to pay the money back…a rather foreign concept around here (no pun intended). Amber is particularly involved in this program’s policy formation, curriculum development, and upcoming implementation.
- Our youth group has expressed interest in planting a vegetable garden, placing trash cans throughout our community, and eventually building Vava’u’s first gym. We’ll start with smaller projects in the hopes of our group learning the essentials of project design and getting some success before, you know, building an entire gymnasium. This week we’re getting our weekly fundraising kava night started up again, and next week I might be helping some group members write a small project assistance proposal to Peace Corps.
- Our youth centre remains relatively short on youth; this seems somewhat problematic given our organization’s mission statement. So we’re hoping to level our large lawn, construct some athletic fields, and begin some activity nights that will draw youth from throughout our island. Of course all that requires funding, so we’ll be having a biweekly barbecue at the local market. Sensing any trends yet?
- My Tongan counterpart and I will be visiting and assessing all 31 member youth groups in Vava’u over the next several months. These site visits will hopefully help us to structure programming around local communities’ needs and empower groups to effectively pursue their development goals. That’s two nights a week of visiting local villages…you guys are writing all this down on a calendar, right? I’d record all scheduled events in pencil, as these visits tend to get cancelled about 90% of the time.
- Our youth centre is the only organization in Vava’u servicing the needs of people with developmental disabilities. Thus far these services have chiefly involved singing songs with nine individuals whose disabilities are disparate to say the least: cerebral palsy, Downs Syndrome, mental retardation, physical disabilities. We’re hoping to offer our staff training with this population and broaden services to include practical lessons.
- The drama team that I “help” (my assistance typically consists of watching, offering some critiques, and frantically attempting to keep track of dialogue written entirely in Tongan) will be traveling to ‘Eua, another island in Tonga. This trip will encourage the new drama group in ‘Eua and educate youth there about various issues facing Tongan adolescents. While we’ll also be performing in Vava’u before and after this trip, it’s our travels that constitute the group’s greatest financial needs. So obviously we’ll start a fundraising effort…that way Amber and I have even less free time.
- Remember all those fundraising activities? Well, Amber’s the lucky one who gets to organize our staff, regularly review our financial status, keep everyone motivated, and prevent constant staff bickering. Oku pule ‘a ‘Emipa…meaning, she’s the boss.
We’ve come to realize that planning these various projects doesn’t necessarily guarantee they’ll occur anytime soon. The Tongan life is slower and more easy-going than non-profit existence in the States. Nonetheless, the time of initial community assessment and relationship building is drawing to a close, and the time for real work is starting. Which is daunting, to say the least. If you thought our domestic job descriptions were vague in terms of success measures, you have no idea what we’re dealing with here. So stay tuned. While our Peace Corps cohorts are basically attending a couple meetings a week, we’re putting in nine hour days. It’s not very fakaTonga of us, but at least we left our palm pilots and cell phones behind.
Cliff
An Ode to Pasikala a Kilifi
an ode to pasikala a kilifi…
everyday i ride you home
no longer do i moan and groan
you carry my burden, you ease my pain
therefore i will not complain
the helmet’s dorky, the exercise is rough
but my dear bicycle you save my duff
The verse printed above functions at multiple literary levels:
1) light-hearted tribute to E.E. Cummings and his well-known aversion to capital letters
2) self-effacing acknowledgment that I never have been and never will be a poet
3) genuine and heart-felt appreciation for my rusty, two-wheeled savior
Lest you think I’m exaggerating, January’s bicycle purchase has radically altered my experience of Tonga. The hip pains that plagued our first six months in country have slowly grown worse, making constant walking difficult and therefore making daily life slightly complicated. Our lovely little home is a ten minute walk from the Peace Corps office and a fifteen minute walk from the Youth Office. We were walking approximately one hour a day upon first arriving in Vava’u, leaving me sore before the workday even started, negative before even appreciating Tonga’s beauty, and persistently seeking creative methods for avoiding travel. I’m happy to report that things have changed.
Having seen me endure daily pain and hobble occasionally, a nearby Peace Corps volunteer and dear friend concluded that I needed his bike more than he needed his bike. Even though his Peace Corps service ends in March, he’s going bikeless and saving me. What does having a bike for daily commutes and transport mean? It means energy at the outset of every single workday. It means looking for opportunities to explore our island instead of looking for opportunities to avoid physical exertion. It means feeling independent and physically capable again. It means much more than any cheesy poem could ever possibly express.
One of my doctors in Washington D.C. was a young and athletic guy who had recently undergone total hip replacement. He’d run a few too many marathons, and he feared his active lifestyle would suffer following surgery. Quite to the contrary, he assured me there was hope. He now bikes 300 miles a week, and the near-constant pain he formerly endured has disappeared. I’ve got a couple years before that kind of idyllic existence becomes a reality, and for now that means dealing with daily pain. However, thanks to my bicycle I’m enjoying being here more than ever before and I’m seeing things for the first time that I’d walked by everyday. I gotta say this island’s a pretty incredible place to call home, and if you’re interested in visiting we could always take a bike ride together.
Cliff
everyday i ride you home
no longer do i moan and groan
you carry my burden, you ease my pain
therefore i will not complain
the helmet’s dorky, the exercise is rough
but my dear bicycle you save my duff
The verse printed above functions at multiple literary levels:
1) light-hearted tribute to E.E. Cummings and his well-known aversion to capital letters
2) self-effacing acknowledgment that I never have been and never will be a poet
3) genuine and heart-felt appreciation for my rusty, two-wheeled savior
Lest you think I’m exaggerating, January’s bicycle purchase has radically altered my experience of Tonga. The hip pains that plagued our first six months in country have slowly grown worse, making constant walking difficult and therefore making daily life slightly complicated. Our lovely little home is a ten minute walk from the Peace Corps office and a fifteen minute walk from the Youth Office. We were walking approximately one hour a day upon first arriving in Vava’u, leaving me sore before the workday even started, negative before even appreciating Tonga’s beauty, and persistently seeking creative methods for avoiding travel. I’m happy to report that things have changed.
Having seen me endure daily pain and hobble occasionally, a nearby Peace Corps volunteer and dear friend concluded that I needed his bike more than he needed his bike. Even though his Peace Corps service ends in March, he’s going bikeless and saving me. What does having a bike for daily commutes and transport mean? It means energy at the outset of every single workday. It means looking for opportunities to explore our island instead of looking for opportunities to avoid physical exertion. It means feeling independent and physically capable again. It means much more than any cheesy poem could ever possibly express.
One of my doctors in Washington D.C. was a young and athletic guy who had recently undergone total hip replacement. He’d run a few too many marathons, and he feared his active lifestyle would suffer following surgery. Quite to the contrary, he assured me there was hope. He now bikes 300 miles a week, and the near-constant pain he formerly endured has disappeared. I’ve got a couple years before that kind of idyllic existence becomes a reality, and for now that means dealing with daily pain. However, thanks to my bicycle I’m enjoying being here more than ever before and I’m seeing things for the first time that I’d walked by everyday. I gotta say this island’s a pretty incredible place to call home, and if you’re interested in visiting we could always take a bike ride together.
Cliff
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Christmas in Tonga
Ah, Christmas in Tonga. Perhaps some of you – our small but devoted legion of loyal website readers – find yourselves wondering what exactly the Advent season looks like here in the South Pacific. Well, allow me to paint a portrait, albeit a picture absent reindeer, lightly frosted windows, fireplaces, or any other Kincade-like characteristics of winter wonderlands.
You see, there aren’t really any reindeers in Tonga, but we did have an entire horse carcass hanging in our backyard last week. Our neighbors were hosting a wedding feast for a family member, so they slaughtered a horse, blowtorched numerous pigs, and generally reminded us why we didn’t live nearby Chicago’s stockyards. We’ve got a great photo of an able-bodied young Tongan male showing us the horse’s head, just in case anyone’s looking for Christmas card fodder.
In terms of frosted windows, most windows here seem to have forgotten their central duties of keeping out the elements or looking pretty. Nope, windows here pretty much just collect dust during the months of May to October and then allow buckets of rain indoors during the months of November to April. On Thanksgiving, I asked our neighbor when the rainy season would start, as we’d not yet had rains during November. He informed me, “Uha lahi i Tisema.” …which roughly translates to, “Just wait till December when it rains so much your pants start growing fungus and your outhouse looks like a swimming pool.” Sure enough, December 1st rolled around that week and we’re now sitting around attempting to describe the sun for young children who have forgotten what life looked like before the storms began. And rain here in Tonga doesn’t involve sprinkles or mists or dew-like beauty. You’ve got your torrential downpour, and you’ve got your slightly more torrential downpour. Those are your options, and the aforementioned windows consider themselves successful when only a few inches of rain are allowed to invade a home. Happy Birthday, Jesus!
And oddly enough, fireplaces are eerily absent here in Vava’u. It’s as though the 100 degree heat with 100 percent humidity has left the population with little need to roast chestnuts or warm mittens. When it’s not raining, people remain rather wet thanks in part to the rampant Christmas sweating. I’m sure there’s a Christmas fable about yuletide sweating, in the tradition of Frosty the Snowman or Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer. Perhaps something like Vito the Perspiring Workshop Elf? It could be a network television stop-motion animation hit as early as 2005.
The two familiar things Christmas clearly involves here are decorations and caroling. The decorations serve to remind Americans disoriented by tropical climate that tacky plastic lawn ornaments signal holiday cheer in every society. On Thanksgiving, the Peace Corps volunteers of Vava’u had a humongous potluck dinner featuring dishes miraculously prepared without any animal slaughtering or boiled root crops (and there was much rejoicing); after gorging ourselves on single male volunteers’ delectable contributions of recently picked fruit, steamed rice, and bags of chips many of us went swimming off a nearby pier. I’m guessing you can picture our stunned and perplexed faces when we emerged from the inviting blue waters of the South Pacific on a beautiful Tongan day to find Santa Claus hanging from numerous store-front windows and Christmas lights on multiple family homes. And after expatriates have forgotten about Christmas lights or plastic Santas or glowing elves, church choirs remind them that the holidays have arrived. At any given moment in December, one can hear a Tongan choir somewhere singing choruses in a strange language locals call English. Their selections include “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” “Joy to the World,” and Handel’s “Messiah.” Just to clarify regarding Handel’s masterwork, Tongan choirs typically follow American choirs’ lead by simply singing Hallelujah repeatedly for a couple minutes and then giving up. Amber and I have occasionally been tempted to offer hot cider to local choirs, but I’m afraid that would be akin to offering cold glasses of ice water to carolers braving the cold of Midwest America. Lest scalding beverage be tossed in our general direction, we will continue quietly singing along from our living rooms while choirs rehearse next door.
Before closing this portrait of Christmas celebrations and Tongan winters (you’ll notice the glaring absence of Hanukkah or Kwanza in my narrative…that’s because Tongans’ idea of holiday diversity is attending a different Christian church on the 25th), I’d like to sing the praises of Tonga’s greatest contribution to celebrating Advent: the mandatory week off from work. In case you’re wondering what happens between December 24th and January 1st here in Tonga, the answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Everybody takes a week off at Christmas time, so it’s no wonder everybody gets so excited about decorating and singing songs and generally rejoicing in their impending vacation. Amber and I will most certainly appreciate the rest; it will offer us the chance to open any gifts that actually manage to arrive on time and of course prepare a traditional Christmas dinner of pineapple and Tuna steak. Thankfully, no horse heads will be involved. Welcome to Christmas in Tonga, everybody.
Cliff
You see, there aren’t really any reindeers in Tonga, but we did have an entire horse carcass hanging in our backyard last week. Our neighbors were hosting a wedding feast for a family member, so they slaughtered a horse, blowtorched numerous pigs, and generally reminded us why we didn’t live nearby Chicago’s stockyards. We’ve got a great photo of an able-bodied young Tongan male showing us the horse’s head, just in case anyone’s looking for Christmas card fodder.
In terms of frosted windows, most windows here seem to have forgotten their central duties of keeping out the elements or looking pretty. Nope, windows here pretty much just collect dust during the months of May to October and then allow buckets of rain indoors during the months of November to April. On Thanksgiving, I asked our neighbor when the rainy season would start, as we’d not yet had rains during November. He informed me, “Uha lahi i Tisema.” …which roughly translates to, “Just wait till December when it rains so much your pants start growing fungus and your outhouse looks like a swimming pool.” Sure enough, December 1st rolled around that week and we’re now sitting around attempting to describe the sun for young children who have forgotten what life looked like before the storms began. And rain here in Tonga doesn’t involve sprinkles or mists or dew-like beauty. You’ve got your torrential downpour, and you’ve got your slightly more torrential downpour. Those are your options, and the aforementioned windows consider themselves successful when only a few inches of rain are allowed to invade a home. Happy Birthday, Jesus!
And oddly enough, fireplaces are eerily absent here in Vava’u. It’s as though the 100 degree heat with 100 percent humidity has left the population with little need to roast chestnuts or warm mittens. When it’s not raining, people remain rather wet thanks in part to the rampant Christmas sweating. I’m sure there’s a Christmas fable about yuletide sweating, in the tradition of Frosty the Snowman or Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer. Perhaps something like Vito the Perspiring Workshop Elf? It could be a network television stop-motion animation hit as early as 2005.
The two familiar things Christmas clearly involves here are decorations and caroling. The decorations serve to remind Americans disoriented by tropical climate that tacky plastic lawn ornaments signal holiday cheer in every society. On Thanksgiving, the Peace Corps volunteers of Vava’u had a humongous potluck dinner featuring dishes miraculously prepared without any animal slaughtering or boiled root crops (and there was much rejoicing); after gorging ourselves on single male volunteers’ delectable contributions of recently picked fruit, steamed rice, and bags of chips many of us went swimming off a nearby pier. I’m guessing you can picture our stunned and perplexed faces when we emerged from the inviting blue waters of the South Pacific on a beautiful Tongan day to find Santa Claus hanging from numerous store-front windows and Christmas lights on multiple family homes. And after expatriates have forgotten about Christmas lights or plastic Santas or glowing elves, church choirs remind them that the holidays have arrived. At any given moment in December, one can hear a Tongan choir somewhere singing choruses in a strange language locals call English. Their selections include “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” “Joy to the World,” and Handel’s “Messiah.” Just to clarify regarding Handel’s masterwork, Tongan choirs typically follow American choirs’ lead by simply singing Hallelujah repeatedly for a couple minutes and then giving up. Amber and I have occasionally been tempted to offer hot cider to local choirs, but I’m afraid that would be akin to offering cold glasses of ice water to carolers braving the cold of Midwest America. Lest scalding beverage be tossed in our general direction, we will continue quietly singing along from our living rooms while choirs rehearse next door.
Before closing this portrait of Christmas celebrations and Tongan winters (you’ll notice the glaring absence of Hanukkah or Kwanza in my narrative…that’s because Tongans’ idea of holiday diversity is attending a different Christian church on the 25th), I’d like to sing the praises of Tonga’s greatest contribution to celebrating Advent: the mandatory week off from work. In case you’re wondering what happens between December 24th and January 1st here in Tonga, the answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Everybody takes a week off at Christmas time, so it’s no wonder everybody gets so excited about decorating and singing songs and generally rejoicing in their impending vacation. Amber and I will most certainly appreciate the rest; it will offer us the chance to open any gifts that actually manage to arrive on time and of course prepare a traditional Christmas dinner of pineapple and Tuna steak. Thankfully, no horse heads will be involved. Welcome to Christmas in Tonga, everybody.
Cliff
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