Mistakes Happen in Two's

Apparently, there is more than one word for vagina in Tongan.

Since admitting my earlier pronunciation mistake and experiencing the classic

embarrassing language moment in another county, I thought I would experience smooth

sailing from here on out. It is also important to note that no one else has had a similar

experience in Tonga, so I assumed that if it happened again at least someone else was

due. I was wrong.

 

I have made friends with several of the Tongan children in my village since I have been

here. My closest friends (the spelling is wrong, but this is my best guess) are Seli, age 6,

Hausia, age 8, Hanitele, age 10, and Esita, age 12. I talk to them in a smattering of

Tonglish, and play cards with them, touch rugby, and handball.

 

Today, since they have the week off of school, they were taking part in one of our

classes. Like all kids, they are curious and wanted to know the names of the volunteers

living in the other villages, who come to my village in the afternoon for class. They

would point to one of the volunteers, and I would try to remember their Tongan names

and relay them to my young friends. I was doing fine until they pointed to Mandy, and I

told them her name was Amene, making it up on the spot.

 

They immediately started laughing, and I knew right away that I had said a bad word. My

first thought was “Crap, I did it again,” and turned to my language instructor, who was

listening to the conversation, to assess the damage. Giggling, she told me that “mene”

means the same thing as pali – vagina (I clearly have a problem not saying the word

“vagina,” in Tongan).

 

For the rest of the afternoon, the kids would point to Mandy and laugh. Since there so

young, I knew they would not easily forget my mistake and would want to tell everyone

in the village, so whenever an adult walked by I would put my finger to my mouth and

say, “SSSHHHHHH,” hoping that they would not tell everyone the palangi said vagina to

them during school. It worked for a little but I have no doubt the whole village will soon

know that I now know 25 Tongan words, yet somehow I know every way to say vagina

in Tongan (I really hope there are no other words or I will undoubtedly say it to a 4 year

old next week).

I told my host mom the story when I came home after school, and she thought it was

hilarious. She told me it was good that I am speaking Tongan and that I shouldn’t be

afraid to make mistakes, which – in the passive aggressive Tongan way of speaking -

means please keep speaking Tongan because you are a source of great amusement to the

entire village. Thus, I have to admit, I am doing particularly well in integrating myself in

Tongan culture because I provide much of the gossip for Ha’asini.

 

I sincerely hope that this is my last vagina story in this blog. If I do mess up again and

say a bad word, my new goal is to at least improve my vocabulary of swear words, or

kapekape, because I am getting tired of only knowing how to say “vagina.”

 

Birthday Feast on Sunay

 

A Pig from the Feast

This is Tonga

I really want to have a cool expression that just sums up Tonga. The idea is whenever something happens that could only happen in Tonga or happens frequently, I would just throw my hands up in the air and say this expression. If this sounds familiar it is because I completely stole it from the movie Blood Diamond. Whenever anything would go wrong in the movie, Leonardo Dicaprio would say TIA, This is Africa. I thought this was awesome, and I was planning on using TIA a lot when I was inevitability placed in Africa for my service. Since that did not happen and I am in Tonga, my initial thought was just to say, “This is Tonga.”

 

My first reaction was positive. My meaning is easily conveyed and Tonga is short enough

to make the phrase fly off the tongue. The problem is, however, that TIT makes for a very poor acronym, especially in a conservative country where showing your knees or shoulders is inappropriate, and distracts a bit from the overall point of the expression. So I am still working on the acronym and/or trying to find a non-stolen expression, but, in the mean time, here are my favorite “This is Tonga” moments to date.

 

•  A dog ate my only sandals because I had to leave them outside for cultural
  considerations. The process of getting them fixed has revealed to me the difficulties of living with island time or, in my case, taimi faka-Tonga.

• There are 6 meals a day. Breakfast, Morning Tea Time, Lunch, Afternoon Tea
  Time, Dinner, and Late Night Eating, which means that all the food that is left over from all the meals combined is devoured.

• Tongans smell you when they introduce themselves. They give you a hug, turn
  their head sideways, put their nose to your neck, and breathe in loudly through their nose. Luckily, this is the traditional greeting and I only received this once from my host grandmother. (For those wondering, I sadly did not sniff back)

• Enjoying a nice spaghetti bread sandwich. This delectable treat has 2 incarnations.
  In one, canned spaghetti, tomato sauce, and cheese are placed on top of bread and toasted in the oven. In the second – usually as leftovers for breakfast (yes this is often my breakfast) and lunch – is when the spaghetti, cheese, and tomato sauce are placed within two pieces of toast and cut in triangle patterns (always triangle).

• A 25-year-old girl sat behind me at a funeral last week and kept subtly touching
  my back. I could tell she was doing something but since I can’t speak much Tongan and I did not want to disrupt the funeral, I ignored her. That was a bad strategy, however, as when I stood up my ta’ovala and tupenu fell off to reveal my shorts below. She had been untying my outfit the entire time and thought it was hilarious. Thankfully the adults around us scolded her and not me, so it does not fall under the category of more embarrassing moments for Harrison.

• Bread and ice cream sandwiches. Since it is very hot and humid in Tonga and
  most Tongans do not have refrigerators, a lot of people store their ice cream in bread to make it last longer. The only problem with this strategy is that Tongans are always hungry, and usually just finish the entire loaf of bread stuffed with ice cream in one sitting, therefore defeating the whole purpose of using the bread as a storage device. I have come home from class several times to find my host mom enjoying an ice cream sandwich.

• Lack of personal space. One Sunday I was eating with all of Faiana’s family – her
  parents, children, and cousins – and I was sitting next to her mother. After gorging on food, or at least what I thought was a sufficient amount to make my hosts happy, Faiana’s mom started rubbing my stomach and said, “Eat more, you are too skinny,” eliciting laughter from everyone.

I will be on the lookout for more “This in Tonga” moments in the coming weeks, and
I plan on revealing them to you, my faithful readers, whenever they may appear.

 

 

Me, Faiana, and Baby after church

 

Church - By far the nicest building in town

 

Fusi and Hausia after church

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Nobody Starves in Tonga”

 

I was having dinner with Faiana last night and she made an interesting point.

Paraphrasing, she said, “In America if you don’t work you starve, but in Tonga nobody

works and no one starves.”

 

Tonga is very different culturally in some ways from America and the rest of the world.

Tongan’s place much less emphasis on work, and the status and availability of food in

Tonga is much greater than in most developing countries.

In America, we identify ourselves by what we do. Much of our self-worth is closely

connected with our occupation. We view our personal success and level of achievement

by what type of job we have and how much money we make. When someone asks you if

you are successful, they are generally referring to your work.

 

In Tonga, a person’s identity has nothing to do with what they do. Most Tongans are

happy to receive money from foreign aid, usually New Zealand, Australia, or Japan, and

also accept money from family members who are working out of the country and send

back money to Tonga – much like how Mexican immigrants in America will send back

money to their families in Mexico. Some Tongans will work to make money, but many

either fish, farm, or work in the bush to supply some food for themselves without caring

how they receive the money they spend. A lot of Tongans might not even do that much

because fishing and farming is very tough work, and they are content to buy canned food

at the falekoloa (store) with the money they are given.

 

A good example of jobs not defining ones status in Tonga is the issue of gender equality.

Many pcvs all over the world try to help empower the women in their villages and make

gender equality a large component of their service. Many empowerment strategies focus

on employment and making women self-sufficient. At first glance women in Tonga seem

to possess complete equality by our standards, as women are extremely well represented

in the work force and may even outnumber the men. Misrepresentation in the workforce,

as is and has been a problem in America, does not exist in Tonga. This does not mean

however that there is complete gender equality in Tonga, as possessing a job does not

elevate a Tongan to higher status. The job does not identify one’s importance or worth in

Tonga.

 

Neither value is inherently good nor bad, and I am not advocating the virtue of one over

the other. I just find it very interesting how different the two concepts of work are in the

US and in Tonga, and these values play a large role in differentiating the two cultures.

Similarly, food is a very important part of Tongan culture. Tongans are big by genetics,

but they also love to eat. Tongans eat large meals and snack all day. Lunch and dinner are

daily, not hourly, activities. This would seem strange as many Tongans do not have a lot

of money, and food is usually scarce in developing countries. The image that readily

comes to mind of food in developing countries is children starving in Africa. I know that

when I signed up for the Peace Corps, I assumed that I would be sent to a country where

the scarcity of food was a dominant issue.

 

That is the not the case in Tonga, however. If a Tongan does not have any food, he

simply goes next door. Tongans are an extremely generous people, and will always give

you food or eat with you if you ask for it. There are almost no beggars or homeless

people in Tonga, because a Tongan can always live with a family member no matter how

distant the relation. As Faiana said, no Tongan can ever starve because of the generosity

of their neighbors.

 

This phenomenon is increased exponentially at funerals, as the family of the deceased

gives food to everyone who comes to the funeral. Since the funerals last for three days

and everyone in the village attends, funerals are extremely expensive affairs in Tonga. I

went to a funeral my first week in Tonga, and they gave me raw meat, bread, sweets, and

a drink as a “party favor” for coming to the funeral. Faiana told me that the family killed

four cows just to feed everyone who attended the funeral.

 

That concludes my anthropological evaluation of Tongan and American culture. Please

let me know in the comments if you life this kind of post, or just find it boring. I find the

cultural differences interesting, but if I am pontificating too much please comment and I

will only discuss funny or cool anecdotes about my life in Tonga in this blog, and save

this stuff for family emails.

 

Faiana and Baby (one of the volunteers host sister)

 

Tongan dancer wearing traditonal outfit

Apali vs Apele

Everyone hears stories of people totally embarrassing themselves when they try to learn a language. You try to say one thing, but than say something completely different, hilarity ensues, and you are incredibly embarrassed.

My goal was for this not to happen to me. I was going to be careful when pronouncing my words, and not put myself in any embarrassing situations. Unfortunately that goal did not last very long.

To improve my Tongan vocabulary, I keep a notepad with me so that I can write down new words when they come up in conversation. I hear the word, try to write it down correctly, and then show it to the Tongans I know. They than either say io (yes) if it is correct or ikai (no) if it is wrong and correct me.

The method had been working out pretty well, and I had written down a ton of words. I had not considered, however, that Tongans have a wicked sense of humor and love to joke. So one night I was having dinner with Faiana, Fusi, the families of two other volunteers including a 5 year old girl, and my language instructor, Taua. Everyone spoke English, but they talked mostly in Tongan so we could learn the language and try to decipher what they were saying.

I was eating an apple, and I used the little Tongan I knew to ask how to say apple in Tongan. I heard apali, wrote it down, and showed it the Tongan women next to me. One of them smiled and said io, signaling I was correct. So for the rest of the night I kept using the word apali to refer to apple. All of the Tongans were laughing like crazy but I figured it was just because all of us were struggling with the language, so I just smiled and went along with it.

For the next few days, whenever I asked for an apple – which was actually a lot because I used it in practice sentences and I eat three apples a day in Tonga – people laughed but I thought it was because of my speaking ability, or lack there of. After several days of saying apali, my language instructor informed me that the correct way to say apple is apele (it may not seem like it but these two words are pronounced very differently) and that I have been saying vagina for the past few days.

Apparently, pali means vagina in Tongan and all the women were dying as I kept saying vagina repeatedly. Tongan’s are pretty conservative, and talking about sex is very taboo, so for everyone who was rolling on floor laughing I am sure I mortified just as many.

You will be happy to know, however, that everything worked out ok, as I am now able to say apple correctly in Tongan and can walk around town without any shame.

Thus the moral of this story is that when you are trying to speak Tongan, try not to mistake the word apple – apele – for vagina – pali.

 Hanging out with Sione.

Peace Corps Tonga Group 77 on our arrival in Tonga (As you can see I am kind of tired)

Enjoying my first bowl of kava at the welcoming ceremony

My first swim in Tongan waters. This is me jumping off a Tongan Navy boat for our swim safety lesson in Nuku'alofa.

Ha'asini, Pigs, & Fire Dancers

Hello everyone, I have no access to Internet at my home stay so my plan is to post whatever updates I have written when I go into town. The goal is to keep each individual entry relatively short, but post a lot of them for you to read at your leisure.

This post will discuss the basics of my home stay, and the rest will be funny stories, interesting cultural differences, and whatever else pops into my head and might seem interesting.

I have only been at my home stay in Ha’asini for three days but I already love the experience. The main office warned us before we left that many of our families would not be able to speak English, but Faiana speaks English very well and her 18-year-old son, Sione, just spent the past four years living in New Zealand, so communication is not a problem

I live in a house with Faiana and her friend Fusi. Fusi does not speak much English, so I learn a lot just by trying to understand what they are saying to each other. The house is very comfortable with a common area, a kitchen, and my own room. I have 24/7 electricity, but no running water so I use rainwater to brush my teeth and I shower with a bucket, which is not nearly as bad as it sounds. In my backyard there are plenty of dogs, and I share a fence with some beautiful pigs and roosters that don’t know when the sun rises so they are loud all day.

Faiana’s parents live across the street, and Sione lives with them. He speaks perfect English and is 18, so he has been a lot of fun to hangout with. My days are spent in class learning Tongan and various teaching methods, while I spend the rest of my day trying to meet everyone in the village and practice what I learned.

The younger kids are the most fun to play around with due to my limited Tongan. For the first few days I was simply called palangi (white person), but now everywhere I walk I hear calls of “Soni, Soni,” even if I have never met the kid before. I went for a run one of my first days in Ha’asini, and I ran past the school during the lunch break when all the kids in primary school go home for lunch. The moment they saw me, about 40 kids chased after me and ran the last quarter-mile with me to my home stay. It was kind of like my Tom Hanks in Forest Gump moment, and it will apparently happen to me for the remainder of my time in Tonga according to other volunteers.

Since you were nice enough to read this far, I have an update that is a little more interesting. Last night, I went to a local resort with Sione and one of his friends. Every Wednesday and Friday, the resort has a buffet and a show. Not even counting the rest of the food, they roast an entire pig, put an apple in its mouth, and cut the meat for you right off the bone. Imagine Thanksgiving, accept a larger animal, an open fire instead of an oven, spittle rather than a tray, and a massive pig like the kind you see every 10 minutes in Tonga versus a turkey, and than you get the idea. For the show, the final act was Tongan fire dancers, which are basically Tongans who juggle with sticks on fire in traditional Tongan warrior garb. It was awesome and I have some pictures below.

Cutting up the puaka (pig)

Tongan Fire Dancers

That is it for the nuts and bolts of my home stay details. I hope I didn’t bore you, as this post was more to update the family with my life, but I promise the next post will be more interesting.

My name is Soni

Since the letter "R" does not exist in the Tonga alphabet, there is no equivalent of Harrison in Tongan. As such, my Tongan name, and the name that everyone calls me in Tonga  is Soni. I like it. It is short and too the point, and I feel like it truly represents my inner-self. All good things for a name.

A lot has happened since I last blogged. I spent several days in Nuku'alof, and have now been living in my homestay in the outer village of Ha'asini for a week. In an effort not to bore everyone, I have decided to only mention the highlights.

On Friday night (fyi-my Friday is Thursday in America), myself, a few of the other volunteers, and some pcvs who have lived in Tonga went out to the bars in Nuku'alofa. The bars themself were very American, and like in any other culture, young Tongans love to drink. What was intetresting about the bar, however, was that I met my first fakaleiti. Fakaleitis are men who dress like women, and fakaleiti literally translates to like a women. Before I came to Tonga, the Peace Corps told us that sometimes if a family has too many sons and no daughters, they will raise their daughter like a girl (i.e. dress like a girl, have long hair, and hang out with other girls, etc..) to help out around the house. According to Tongans here, however, that is not necessarily true as many fakaleiti just like to dress that way.

It is a really interesting cultural pehnomenon because homosexuality is illegal in Tonga, but being a fakaleiti is entirely acceptable. Some men even have relationships with the fakaleiti, but it is not considered homosexual because they look and dress like women.  The one fakaleiti I spoke with was really nice, and actually invited all of us to her house the next day for lunch, which we were not unfortunately able to do.

Another cool thing about Tonga are Sundays. Sundays are ruled by the big 3 - chruch, eating, and sleeping. You are not allowed to do anything else on Sundays except for those three things.

To give you an example of how one Tongan family celebrates sundays, my host mom woke up around 6 to begin cooking the lu (a tasty concoction of meat, leaves, and vegetables stewed in coconut juice) in the umu, or underground oven. My mom - Faiana  - then went to church (my family is Wesleyan) for an hour, before coming back to the house to rest. I woke up around 9 to attend the church service with her at 10.

While church was not exactly my favorite activity, there was enough going on to keep me awake. Tongans have beautiful voices and everyone dresses very nicely - all the men, including myself, have to wear a black shirt, a tupenu, and a ta’ovala, a woven mat worn around the waist. So while it was an interesting cultural experience, it will be tough to go every Sunday. The service lasted for an hour and a half, and then we walked over to Faiana’s parents house to eat.

And eat we did. Without a doubt, Tongans know how to feast. On Sundays, everyone gets together with their family, so I ate with Faiana, her parents, her son, her daughter, and a cousin and we ate enough for 20 people. We ate lu, clams, octopus, all kinds of potatos, and ice cream for desert. I have posted a photo of the food below, but even that does not do the quantity and deliciousness justice.

For the rest of the day everyone slept. Many of the men drank kava, and I joined them for a little, but mostly people slept. There was another church service at 4, but besides that service, the rest of the day everyone is either asleep on relaxing at home.

Though it can be a bit boring, Sundays in Tonga are a great way to unwind and plan for the week ahead. It makes me feel kind of fakapikopiko (lazy), but I guess I will have two years to get used to it.

 Enjoying lu with my host family on my first Sunday in Tonga. Thats Sione in the back right, Fiana back-left, and her parents in the front.

Jeff and I at the beach in Ha'asini. That is the island of Eua in the background.

Malo e lelei

Hello from the Kingdom of Tonga.

I have officially been in Tonga for two full days and, as such, I have already acquired some pertinent information.

[Quick Disclaimer: This is my first attempt at blogging so if you like it thank you for being generous and if you don't I promise it will get better]

1: Men do wear tupenus (skirts) for work so I am wearing a beautiful black skirt as I write this post.

2: 10 year old girls will threaten to hit you with a stick in Tongan if your group of 15 does not walk in a strait line....I am still not sure whether or not she was kidding.

3: Besides that one girl, everyone in Tonga is incredibly nice and welcoming. The people are always smiling, striking up conversations, and constantly waving. It's really exciting to serve in such a friendly culture.

4: The Tongan language has some really fun words to say. Examples: fakamolemole is thank you, falemalolo is the bathroom, faka-Tonga is the "Tongan word", and totoatu is excellent.

5: Tonga is one of only two contries in the world, where you can swim with Humpback whales, which sounds ridiculously cool.

That's it for the fun facts. As for my life, I am already loving Tonga. The people are awesome, the country is literally a tropical paradise, and the Pacific Ocean is everywhere you look.  I am currently learning the language and attending a ton of meetings in Nuku'alofa, the capital city of Tonga, until I leave for my homestay on Ha'asini on saturday.

Hope you all enjoyed my inaugural post. I will try my best to update this regulalry. Toki sio - see you later.