Excuse me, where is the closest Walmart?

I expected many things from my trip. An amazing time with my family. A fascination with hot showers and food. An addiction to fast internet. And a desire to do anything, and I do mean anything, on Sundays. I was even expecting a bit of a let down when I returned, not because I would be sad to come back, but because I would have to readjust myself to a different life style. As is usually the case, I never expected what happened – to be rejuvenated.

Part of this was just leaving Tonga for 10 days and being able to reconnect with the outside world and think about what I am doing as pcv from a more distant perspective. The other part was that at this point, this is my life. Things are not new anymore. Washing my laundry in a bucket is no longer a cultural experience, it is a routine. Wearing a skirt every day is not showing respect to the people, it is my formal attire for work. Burning my trash in the backyard is simply house cleaning.

I have become used to Tonga. This can be a good and bad thing. The bad part is that it is making writing these blogs and providing interesting material to my faithful readers much more challenging, as I now have to wait for something unusual or embarrassing to happen to me – not a rare thing I must admit - as I seem to have exhausted many of my cultural subjects (don’t worry, however, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve).

It is also a good thing. Last week, all of the volunteers and I spent a week training on the main island of Tongatapu. It was a fantastic transition of moving from my family to the friendly atmosphere of the group. We talked about the successes and challenges of being a volunteer and enjoyed some of the food in the big city (Tongatapu’s population is 66,000 while Vava’u’s is about 12,000) that we cannot get on our friendly island, like roast chicken and Chinese food.

I digress, however. As I was saying, I feel like I have an understanding, if an imperfect one, of Tonga so that I sometimes forget that after almost 8 months, I have been here longer than most people I meet. Before our flight to Vava’u last Saturday, a few of us decided to check out the market. As we walked to the market, we saw a gigantic cruise ship dominating the wharf a few blocks away. It was as large as the Carnival Cruise ships you see in the US, and it seemed completely out of place in Tonga. I had heard that cruise ships came to Tonga, and some times Vava’u, but it was ridiculous seeing it in person. It wasn’t just the largest boat on the island, it was also the tallest building in the country. For some reason, the image that came to my mind was seeing King Kong on top of the Empire State Building. It was that out of place.

About an hour after the ship came into Nuku’alofa, the city was swarmed with tourists, all wearing the ubiquitous blue lanyard and nametag that would allow them to re-enter the ship. As we walked through the market, one of the tourists became stuck in the middle of a conversation I was having with another volunteer, and her eyes lighted up when she realized that we both spoke English and seemed to know the area. With a thick Australian accent (I later learned the ship embarked from Sydney), the woman asked me, “Where is the nearest Walmart?”

I tried to hide my grin. I really did. I, as did the others, unfortunately failed. I just couldn’t fathom the idea. Sure, Tongatapu has some larger stores you could call markets, but the idea of a Walmart seemed ridiculous. Seeing our poorly hidden smirks yet pleasant demeanor, the woman backtracked quickly, saying, “Someone on the boat told me there was a Walmart.” I responded, “I am sorry, there is no Walmart, but there is store called Molisi over there (pointing the appropriate way I assure you) that is pretty decent.” And so there ended a conversation I’d never thought to have in Tonga.

If this post was less than satisfactory, I hope the pictures more than make up for it. One of the volunteer’s has an underwater camera, and I was able to get from him the pictures from my trip to an outer island. Some of the pictures in Mariner’s Cave are hard to see because of the odd lighting of the underwater cave, but the rest I believe came out pretty well.

As always, thanks for reading, enjoy the photos, and as I’m living in this part of the world, Happy ANZAC Day!

Attempting (and failing) to spearfish in the reef

Inside Mariner's Cave - as you can see, the lighting was quite odd inside the cave

The hole is the way out of the cave - going out into the light is much easier (and much less scary) than coming into the darkness

One of the volunteers swimming out of the cave

Leaving the cave (that's me on the left) - this is how the cave looks before you enter, pitch black