No Child Left Behind

During my time in Tonga, I have tried my best to stay up to date on the latest news, whether it be world, political, sports, or cultural. The reason for this is twofold. The first is that it is very easy to feel isolated living on a small island in the South Pacific and reading the news of the world is an easy way to help feel connected. The second reason is that when I return to the United States in less than two years, I don’t want to be overwhelmed by culture shock, and I believe not living in a news-less bubble while I am in Tonga will certainly help ameliorate that transition.

It is not that difficult for me to stay up to date with the news. I have advised a strategy that works relatively well. I go online about once a week. Working quickly while online, I copy and paste all the news I can find onto a word document that I then read as a quasi-magazine during the week, until the process repeats itself again the next time I am in town.

This is therefore a long winded way to state that I am relatively aware of what is happening in the world at this moment, or at least what occurred last week. Thanks to an article I was able to copy from Time Magazine and other articles I have read, I am aware of Russia’s decision to make it illegal for American couples to adopt Russian children. While the articles mention that this may be a retaliatory measure on the part of Putin as revenge for a recent American bill attacking Russian corruption, the adoption legislation seems to be following a trend of similar laws that have passed in South America, Eastern Europe, and Africa outlawing international adoption over the last few years.

I am sure many of you are aware of this phenomenon, and specifically the recently signed Russian bill. With the current international adoption climate, I have decided that this would be a good time to discuss the unique institution of adoption in the Kingdom of Tonga, mostly for comparison sake.

There is no formal adoption agency in Tonga. No government body concerns itself with domestic adoption, and from what I have learned from expatriate Tongans trying to adopt Tongan children, international adoptions are particularly tricky as it is unclear where one goes to legally adopt a Tongan child. There are no orphanages.

Instead, adoptions in Tonga are governed by family concerns and a sense of community. If one family has too many children, some of the kids will be raised by the wife’s sister, the husband’s brother, the grandparents, uncles, aunts, a close friend, or any connection that you can possibly imagine. If a family has too many children of the same sex, they can adopt a girl or a boy from a family that similarly has too many mouths to feed or pass one of their children along to another family in need.

These children usually grow up knowing that their “Mom” and “Dad” are not their biological parents, but rarely seem to care or want to reestablish relations with their birth parents. For all concerned, the parents who raised them are their parents. Plain and simple.

Adoptions in Tongan can happen for a variety of reasons. A child born out of wedlock. The death of a parent. Having too many children. No issue in Tonga is too large or small to no merit adoption.

To give a more concrete example of how informal adoption is in Tonga, one only needs to look at my neighbor Mana. Mana, who lived in the U.S. for several years in the 80’s and speaks, along with his whole family, fluent English, is probably the person I am closest with in my village. One day, about a month ago, I asked him who the young 10-year-old girl was at his house who I had never seen before. Mana, who has a teenage daughter and son, told me that they adopted their new daughter because their older daughter was lonely and wanted a sister. From day 1, the family has treated her like they have known her their whole lives and love her no less than any member of their family.

In another example, I asked Mana to explain to me whether or not the 5 children, who looked like siblings, were related since they all lived in different houses. It was then explained to me that the youngest daughter, about 4, lives in town with her father. The oldest daughter lives with the mother in my village. The 8-year-old daughter was adopted by another family, and she lives in a different house in the village. The two brothers were also adopted by another family and live in a different house in the village as well. That means the 5 siblings live in 4 different houses, and are being raised by 3 separate families. I asked Mana why they were all adopted and he just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said they just were.

There is also one more interesting quirk concerning Tongan adoption. Tonga, like most societies, is a mostly patriarchal society that is dominated by the men. The one exception to this however, is that the oldest sister, based on hierarchy, is the most important member of the family. This means that if the younger siblings have children and the oldest sister does not have any, she can ask for the child and the younger siblings cannot say no. This practice is still prevalent within Tonga.

As you can see, the adoption system in Tonga is convoluted and quite different from the adoption practices of the Western world. I do not know if it is better or worse, I will leave that up to you to decide. It is certainly different, and while there is rarely, if any, legal tracking of these adoptions, they somehow work in the family-centric, community-dominated Tonga. It is not a practice that could work back home for a plethora of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, but I do know that every Tongan child, regardless of their lineage, has a family and a home in Tonga.

As for my life, there is not much to report. I failed to mention in my last post that during training in Nuku’alofa, the Minister of Education came to speak to us, which was a great honor. Though our work will rarely affect or come into contact with her level of governance, it was particularly interesting to hear the vision of the woman who is leading the revolution of the Tongan educational system.

In the past two weeks, I spent the first week finishing up my lesson plans, reading, and reintegrating back into my community, and this past week I have been attending the teacher-training week with every primary school teacher in Vava’u to prepare for the upcoming school year.

Monday, Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, I listened to speeches in Tongan that I did not understand, while sitting on a bench in a Wesleyan Church Hall in Neiafu. I met my new principal, a nice woman in her early 40’s who lives in Neiafu, and is now at least aware she will have a Peace Corps volunteer at her school. We have yet to discuss what I will be teaching during the school year, but I am hopeful that everything will be figured out as we spend the last two days of the week at our school.

Though, there was one funny/embarrassing moment. One of the woman at the Ministry of Education came up and spoke during training today. A few minutes into her speech, she called me up to the front, and only me, and had me demonstrate a Tongan song, with hand gestures, in front of everyone. It was only slightly horrifying, and I managed to survive the interaction relatively unscathed.

She then mentioned in Tongan that she had seen the Superman movie the night before, though I believe she meant Spider Man, and quoted, “With great power comes great responsibility,” as her inspirational speech. She then said she was Superman and laughed heartily. I think the message, unfortunately, wasn’t quite clear to the rest of the Tongan teachers, but I will always approve of superhero/movie quotes in any and all work related activities.

Finally, I am happy to report that my long period of forced idleness is almost over. Schools starts on Monday and I will be able to actually help my community, and hopeful relate some colorful commentary back to you, my readers.

Thanks for reading!