The Road Less Traveled : 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.