Agriculture Show 2014

Another week, another major event in Vava’u. It has been a surprisingly busy “winter,” in our normally quiet little island, and the King must be a bit worn out from all of his frequent trips to Vava’u over the past few months. The most recent blowout to occur in Vava’u was the Agriculture Show, which as some of you may remember, is Tonga’s version of a county fair.

First, I must start as all fairs should – with the animals. The Chinese government runs a piggery in Vava’u in conjunction with the Tongan Ministry of Agriculture, and their pigs are absolutely massive as they are fed with real pig feed rather than the random assortment of coconut husks and trash most pigs eat here. One of the pigs on display was the largest piece of pork I have ever seen in my life. It was practically a pony it was so large, and the little kids were absolutely terrified of it, much to their parents laughter and delight.

Not to be outdone, the cows, both bull and heifer, were magnificent. The cows were not only succulently fat, but also lined with slabs of muscle. They were truly impressive beasts. As for the other animals, I saw ducks in Tonga for the first time (I have no idea if they are eaten as I’ve never seen duck served in a Tongan home or restaurant), and the chickens and sheep looked pretty standard.

For the layout of the show, almost every village had two stalls. One stall displayed their woven materials and Tongan made crafts, specifically mats, tapas, and hand woven placemats, coaster, and containers. The other tent was filled with the produce grown from the village, a few vegetables but the vast majority being the different kinds of root crops – yams, cassava, manioc, etc – found in Tonga. Every village took an enormous amount of pride in their stalls and they looked fantastic.

Some of the other highlights included my town officer, who runs a pearl (half pearls) farm off of a nearby-uninhabited island, which he crafted into jewelry and had on display. I also loved going to the booths of the outer islands as they displayed an incredible assortment of fish, clams, crabs, and other sea creatures. One of the cooler and smellier displays had sun-dried octopus hanging from outside the stall.

Along with some other volunteers, I wandered around the fair for a few hours until the King, the Queen, and the Queen mother arrived to officially open the show and begin the program. Speeches were made, prayers were read, high schools students danced, bands played, and prizes were given out for a variety of county fair like awards. It was a festive atmosphere and a great way to spend my Saturday.

Having observed the fair now for two straight years, it is really remarkable how the show, while still being distinctly Tongan, so closely mirrors the types of fairs we have in America. For all of our differences, there really are always so many similarities.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy the photos from the agriculture show.

A local women's group's vegetable stall

One of my villages displaying their root crops

Sun-dried (and smelly) sea creatures

The Pig

The outer islands showcasing an impressive array of marine life

Goodbye and Hello

Like Peace Corps Volunteers, Wesleyan Minister’s serve for a period of two years. This does not mean that they only work as ministers for two years then return to life as layperson, but rather that they remain in a village church for those years before moving on to another one. Our church’s minister, having arrived in July 2012, had fulfilled his two-year requirement several weeks ago and a new minister was coming to take his place.

One thing you can always count on in Tonga is a goodbye feast, especially for someone as important as the Wesleyan Minister. In one of the few Sundays I can recount where there was only 1 church service,  instead of the usual two or even three. This was to give the men and women of the village more time to cook the food and prepare the tables for the goodbye feast.

The service was like any other, and once the Lord’s Prayer was recited, we all left the church and walked to the hall into an overwhelming amount of food heaped on twenty or so tables. I was given a promising spot next to several of the more pious adult men and in absolutely prime real estate, right in front of one of the two roast pigs. We feasted while people took turns giving speeches and thanking the minister. There were many tears (a speech isn’t a speech in Tonga unless it coincides with plentiful amounts of crying, dramatically long pauses, and the theatrical blowing of one’s nose into a handkerchief) and the minister’s wife graciously thanked me for my service and reminded people that I was leaving soon as well.

It was a feast to end all feasts…that is except for the next two weeks when we had another round of copious amounts of eating to celebrate the arrival of the new minister. Once again there was lots of eating, crying, and speech making – though I believe this time these were “celebratory” tears rather than “sad” ones. I was just as fortunate in my seating arrangement in this feast, as I was honored to be invited to the main table with the minister, his family, and the village elders. Of course, proximity to the pig was again certainly an advantage, and no cause for complaints.

After not attending a feast in months, I very much enjoyed having three in as many weeks as I am trying to eat my full of roast pigs before returning to the states. As always, thanks for reading, and please enjoy the photos from my last camping trip.

Two our Tongan friends, Po'uli (left) and Ali (right), helping to build to fire

The view

Puaka Tunu (Roast Pig)

Feasting

COS

Two weeks ago Peace Corps Tonga Group 77, my group, came together for the last time on the main island of Tongatapu. We were 13 strong, but with us in spirit were two other volunteers who unfortunately had to finish their service a little early. While I will see many of the volunteers again in Tonga and in the years ahead, it was the final time we would all be together as volunteers in Tonga. It was understandably a bittersweet moment for us all. We were happy and proud of our shared completion of an experience that has meant so much to us, but sad that now the end has finally arrived.

The purpose of our conference was for Close of Service, a three-day training period where we discussed the forms we had to complete and medical exams we had to undergo before we could return to the United States. There were also sessions discussing our readjustment back to America, the myth or reality of reverse culture shock, and how to approach the job market. I won’t bore you all with the details, but it is suffice to say that many of our questions were answered over these days.

I won’t go into full nostalgic mode over the last two years now as I will save that for my final post, but receiving our completion of Peace Corps certificates, making the first of what will be many goodbyes, and receiving my return date to America had made the end feel very real (FYI I am leaving Vava’u on October 7 and returning to the US October 11^th).

It was a great final hurrah as a group. We ate many meals together, and stayed up late into the night once the sessions were over reminiscing over the profound, the silly, and the simply funny anecdotes that have occurred throughout our two years together. This post will be relatively short, as this blog entry is in many ways more about the photos below, then the words above. As hard as it is to believe, COS marks for me the beginning of the end of my time in Tonga, as in two short months I will no longer be a volunteer.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy the photos.

Group photo of Volunteers with their certificates and PC Tonga staff

We did it!

Admiring the sunset (Can you tell which one is me?)

Group 77 on arrival at training

Team Vava'u

Receiving my Completion of Service certificate

P.S. In the sunset photo, I am third from the left.

Too Low

The Tongan language has astonishingly few words. I do not know the exact statistics, but the number of Tongan words is comparatively low relative to the international average.  Since Tonga was a British protectorate from 1900 to the mid-70’s and has relatively few words to express numerous ideas, many Tongan words are simply the Tongan equivalent of our words in English (or as I like to say the words are “Tongified”).

This works in several ways. Certain words, like the days of the week, are separate words but are clearly based on their English equivalent. For example monite for Monday and tusite for Tuesday. Other words are the exact same as their English counterparts, but are pronounced differently. Party is still party but pronounced parttttiiii, with an emphasis on the final ti. The word “birthday” is also the exact same but sounds completely different when a Tongan says it in “Tongan.”

Other words are “Tongified.” Cancel becomes Kanseli and promise become polomosi. There are traditional Tongan words for these terms but they are used much less often. I could keep on going but I think you all get the point.

The reason for this long diatribe is that I have become interested in language acquisition since I started learning Tongan. I hear a lot of stories regarding how a word became a word, but the inspiration for this post is a story I heard last week from a Tongan friend of mine, Vava.

The word tulo means excuse me in Tongan. I never though much of the word because there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the Tongan and English words. However, Vava told me last week that tulo does in fact come from an English phrase. He said that some time ago when the first American Mormon missionaries arrived in Tonga, a missionary walked into a Tongan house and said in English, “too low,” referring to how low the roof was in the house and indicating that he had to duck to enter.

Vava told me that this was how the word tulo became a part of the Tongan lexicon to mean excuse me. I have no idea if this story is true or not, and in all honesty it is probably not, but I like it anyway. Thanks for reading and enjoy some of the aerial photos of Tonga below.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has donated to Camp Glow and Grow so far. If you still wish to give something to the project it is not too late and the link is:

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-421-001

Port Maurelle in Vava'u

Tongatapu

Leaving Tongatapu