Death and an Election

I was supposed to go to another island this past weekend, but that did not happen. Plans change. As usual, the reason I could not go was that there was a funeral on the island, and I will be taking a boat out there this coming weekend.

In the past two posts, I have frequently mentioned funerals, and how important they are in Tongan culture. I also mentioned that I had never been part of the body unveiling ceremony at a funeral up to this point. Well, that did not last long. This past Sunday, an elderly woman passed away in my village. She lived a few houses down from me, and I knew her a little bit. We had not spoken much beyond the occasional, “Hello, how are you,” in Tongan, but she was the grandmother of one of my class 6 students and of several of the kids I teach in night class.

The funeral was held in the church on Sunday instead of the normal service. The grief was palpable. The woman’s daughter was hysterically crying by the body as she continually bent down to kiss and pray to it. It was pretty overwhelming, and I found myself unable to refrain from tearing up from time to time. The body was wrapped in white cloth at the front of the church.

About 30 minutes into the service, people starting lining up to pay their respects to the deceased. Not wanting to be disrespectful or make a mistake, I made sure to find someone in the crowd who I knew spoke English and asked him if I should go up to pay my respects. He said it was up to me. I slowly walked up and placed myself in the line waiting to kneel before the body. Around me everyone was crying. After a few minutes of waiting, it was my turn. The woman was completely covered in cloth, except for her head, which was bare. It was the first time I had seen a dead body, and I was struck by how peaceful she seemed. As if she could just wake up any second and ask why everyone was crying. I walked up to the woman, knelt down, put my face inches from her face, and gave her the traditional Tongan sniff that one performs in such instances. As I left, I whispered condolences to the family, and made sure my student was ok.

Sorry to depress all those of you reading out there. It was a poignant moment, and I wanted to do the ceremony and my feelings justice. Now for a somewhat happier topic. Several weeks ago Tonga held elections throughout the country to vote for the town officers (basically the mayors of the each village) and the district representatives (members of the lower house of parliament). The elections took place in the church hall in my village, and as any event in Tonga is paired with food, I was invited to eat a hearty meal with the government elections officials, which was quite enjoyable.

Since I am discussing the election, I believe now is as good a time as any to explain the system of government in Tonga. Tonga is a kingdom. It is ruled by the last and longest standing Polynesian monarchy and there is a king who holds the power. Tonga was the only nation in the South Pacific that was never conquered nor colonized, but it was a made protectorate of Great Britain in 1900. The government is therefore based off the British system of government, however, it is based upon the time when the King held the power, the prime minister advised, and the upper house of parliament were appointed by the king and were all nobles.

These elections, therefore, are a big deal in Tonga, as very few members of parliament were elected by the people prior to the riots in Tonga in 2006, when the people clamored for greater democracy. The country is still very much a monarchy, but it the past few years Tonga has passed several democratic reforms bringing change into the traditional government of the Kingdom of Tonga.

And now to end with information that no one will probably care about other than me, but I will still write about it anyway – I watched my first Heat game of the season on Saturday. Many of you may be rolling your eyes, probably rightfully so, but this was rather a big deal for me. Though I have followed the season closely, I may be the only person who cares about basketball in this part of the world – I explain it to Tongans as netball for men – and the games are rarely shown on tv. With the start of the playoffs, I asked one of the restaurants if they would mind showing the game during lunch and they were generous enough to oblige me. The Heat sadly lost, but I have to admit it made my day and it all felt very American of me, which is a rare feeling here.

Thank you for reading. I brought my camera to school one day so please enjoy the photos of my students at work. You can imagine how nervous they were when I started taking photos, but I explained that they were “action” shots to ensure they wouldn’t pose with gang signals.

Teaching my Class 6 and 5 together. I normally teach them separately, but the class 5 and 6 teacher was absent this day so I taught them for the whole day. They are working on a grammar worksheet on the board,  and I let them read English books when they finish to wait for the rest of the class.

Kapa

My plan for this post was to discuss the weekend I just spent on the outer island of Kapa with my school’s principal and her family. I will do this, but as I was enjoying myself over the weekend, I realized that my current experience was more than just an adventure, it was representative of two core features of Tonga. Nothing happens as it is planned and nothing happens how you – or at least I – expect it.

My principal, Selu, had told me to meet her in town at 12 pm Saturday, and then we would drive together South to ‘Ano beach on Pangaimotu, which is a separate island connected to the main island of Vava’u by a causeway, and take a boat to her village. For reference sake, Kapa is the name of a large island that has 3 villages on it, Kapa, Falevai, and ‘Otea, each several kilometers away from each other. Selu lives in the village of Kapa on the island of Kapa.

As I have mentioned before, nothing happens on time in Tonga. Life here very much exists on island time or as we say in Tongan, taimi faka-Tonga. At 11:30 I was hanging out with one of the other volunteers in town, preparing to meet at the prearranged spot at 12, but assuming that she probably would not pick me up until 1 at the earliest. I was therefore shocked to see my principle calling at 11:30, and telling me that she was waiting for me at the bank. Also, as another point of information, my principal does not speak great English but understands it well so we often speak in Tongan, Tonglish, or she speaks in Tongan and I reply in English.

Not wanting to be late, I rushed to the bank. I looked around for a few minutes, did not see her, and sat down to wait. In hindsight I should have realized, “I am already here,” in Tongan actually means I am leaving my house in 45 minutes, and I was picked up by one of her relatives at 12:30. Much to my surprise we did not drive towards ‘Ano beach, but instead drove for a few minutes to another part of town, and parked outside a house. My principal walked out of the house, wearing all black, and beckoned me to come.

I entered the backyard and was immediately immersed in swarms of Tongans wearing black. My first realization was that I was at a funeral and my second that I was quite inappropriately dressed – I was wearing shorts and a button down shirt. I sat down in the back with Selu, and watched as people entered the house and exited crying, which I assumed meant that people were paying their respects to the dead body, as is done in Tonga. For 30 minutes, nothing much really happened. Selu explained that the deceased woman was from Kapa, and kept saying osi vave pe, which means it will be finished quickly. As is also done in Tonga, I was offered a lot of food, so I simply sat back, ate, and accepted the reality that I was in Tonga and we would leave when we left.

Around 1 p.m., Selu told me to follow her. We hopped into a van, and drove to the Catholic Church on the other side of town, which to be fair is not very far. I asked Selu what we were doing and she responded that we were waiting, in Tongan. Seizing the moment, I put on my tupenu and my tao’vala (In American terms my skirt and mat) and waited. At 2 p.m. a huge procession, with a police escort in front, followed by the band from Keilana the Catholic high school, the body wrapped in Tongan mats and cloth, and the guests of the funeral, approached the church. The men lifted the mats, carrying the woman inside as if it was a casket and they were pallbearers. I followed them into the church, and for the next hour I observed my very first Catholic service.

The service ended at 3 and I finally thought we were finished. Of course I was wrong. The men picked up the body, and carried it back to the car. The procession then winded its way towards the Catholic cemetery. For the next hour I watched a woman whom I had never met be buried, feeling entirely out of place and somewhat disrespectful for taking part in such an emotional ceremony. No one else seemed to care however. At 4, the funeral was over, and as Selu guided me back to her car I finally thought we would be on our way.

Nope. Her husband, Ini, did not come back to the car until 4:30. We then headed back to their house to collect the rest of the family and the food. There is more to this saga, but as this post is already reaching essay-like proportions and I haven’t even reached the island, I will simply mention that it was not until 6 pm, 6 hours behind schedule, that we stepped on the boat and headed to Kapa.

The boat ride only took 20 minutes and we arrived at the wharf in Kapa in the darkness. The village is at the top of a hill, so we hiked up, using our flash lights to guide us, and headed towards Selu’s house. On arrival, Ini, took off his shirt, grabbed a pillow, placed a mat on the floor, and fell instantly asleep snoring louder than any person I have ever heard. The rest of the night was spent eating a dinner, which they called Tongan tea, of bread and butter, crackers, and cookies. After we ate I helped Selu’s high school aged daughter with her biology homework – I was glad to see my 1/3 of a year’s biology instruction in high school really paying off! All of this, of course, was only possible because of the solar power the Japanese government had installed just several weeks earlier, flooding the house with light. I went to bed at the early hour of ten, failing to fall asleep only because I was 3 feet from Ini and the snores were deafening.

The next morning, Sunday, was quintessential Tonga. Selu graciously let me sleep in and avoid the 5 am Wesleyan Church service. I woke up at 7, got ready, and then went to the hall with Ini to drink kava until the 10 O’clock service started. We drank kava for 2 hours, joking in Tongan as I struggled to hold my own and follow the conversation, with the only interruption being a 10-minute break to eat crackers and cake that I assumed was for the Father’s Day that Tonga celebrated last Sunday.

The rest of the day followed in typical Tongan fashion. The 10 am service ended at 11. Afterwards, I drank kava until one of the men asked me if I wanted to travel with him to one of the other villages, Falevai, and I hopped in the back of his cart.  Though he drove a new looking red tractor, the cart was so old and wooden I kept imagining myself riding on top of a potato cart being pulled by a sturdy horse in 18^th century Europe. The tropical scenery, however, did not match my imagination.

At Falevai, I toured around, walked to the beach, and was amazed by the beauty. From Falevai, I could see maybe 6 of Vava’u’s many islands. The water was the beautiful blue turquoise that I only believe exists in the South Pacific and maybe the Caribbean. Several yachts, parked just off the island, were there, having arrived early for the Vava’u tourist and yacht season, which is just beginning now. The scene was breathtaking. It was like looking at a traveling magazine. Since in my day-to-day life I do not see the ocean or other islands and I do live in a poor and developing country, I sometimes forget that I also live in a tropical paradise. I forgot how physically stunning Vava’u truly is. On this day, I was quickly reminded.

To end this essay, I spent the rest of the day eating, attending the 3 pm church service, and drinking kava before heading back the main island at 6 pm. It was a great trip, and I am incredibly grateful to Selu for inviting me to her island. She has also welcomed me to come back whenever I want to, which is extremely generous.

Thanks for reading. I apologize for the length of this post, but I just had too much to say this week! 

To prove I was actually there. This is the view from Falevai. You can see several different islands in the background, including the small, uninhabited, and beautiful island of Nuku in the back left. The boats that are close to me are the Tongan village boats, and the boats in the distance are the yachts/sail boats.

Leaving Kapa. The village of Kapa is right next to the tower sticking out on top of the right side of the island. Ini is driving the boat, my principal Selu is on the right, and their daughter's back is towards us in the middle.

Hauling the boat in to begin our trip to Kapa.

The beach at Falevai

The view from Kapa of a nearby island

The Coconut Wireless

Tongans love to gossip. This should not come as much of a surprise, as gossip seems to play a prevalent role in almost every culture. Without television or internet to captivate them, and very little desire to exercise or read, gossip is one of the few affordable, sustainable, and exciting activities that the men, women, boys, and girls have left to them. As such, stories and rumors spread like wildfire in Vava’u. A man caught cheating on his wife four villages away, that might take 20 minutes to reach my village. The son of the church minister is flying to America in a few weeks. The entire island knows that before the flight is booked. I could come up with more examples but I think you understand the point. With or without phones, the spread of gossip in Tonga is incredible. There is also a name for it. Here, the Tongans and palangis call it, the coconut wireless.

The gossip is rarely mean spirited. It is merely a person repeating what they heard. Then another person repeating their version of what was told to them. And onward and onward it goes. My life is a perfect parallel to this. My village, and to be honest, probably the entire east side of the island knows who I am and what I do. My life is in some ways familiar to a fish bowl. I will come back from town on a Friday to hear, “Hey Soni, how was town?” Only to of course find out that their 3^rd cousin’s brother’s friend’s wife saw me buying bread at the bakery. On that note, in an island of roughly 12,000 people everyone is related which makes the gossip that much more potent and rapid.

I don’t mind it. It is simply a facet of life. Sometimes, however, it can lead to interesting conversations. A few months ago there was a strange rumor going around Vava’u that someone must have read on the Internet regarding President Obama. On a Monday, one of my neighbors came over to my house to ask me a question. He looked somewhat distraught so I was a little worried. He hesitantly looked at the floor, avoiding eye contact, until after a long pause his eyes slowly drifted up towards and asked, “Did Obama make a deal with the devil? Why would he do that? I don’t understand that.”

Quick Note  - Fear of the devil is strong component of Tongan culture, dating back to pre-Christian Tongan society and remaining strong today. When children are misbehaving, their parents will often say you better behave or the devil will come and get you.

Now, unaware of any recent political news that could serve as a even a remote metaphor for the devil, and carefully assuming that Obama did not in fact make a deal with the devil, I assured my neighbor that it was not true and that, “President Obama would never do that.” I decided it was easier not to tackle the impossibility of the claim, and save that issue for another day.

The next day, I was just coming back from a run when a different neighbor’s high school aged daughter waved me down. She asked, barely waiting for me to take off my headphones, “Did the President of America get a 666 tattoo on his forehead….um, that’s what my friends told me.” Once again I assured her that no it was not true, and as I finished she flashed a triumphant smile and in a tone that would have made any teenager anywhere in the world proud, said, “I knew it. I told them they were being dumb.” I would not have wanted to be her friends the next day at school.

After two such requests, I decided to investigate and see if this was a rumor all over Tonga or if my village had gone crazy. I texted the other volunteers and found out that yes, they all received questions concerning Obama and the devil, and no, they had no clue why. Our only guess to this day is that someone saw a rumor on the Internet, and that rumor spread through the communicating marvel that is the Coconut Wireless.

Thanks for reading. Tomorrow I am heading out to the island of Kapa with my principal and her family, and next week I am returning to the outer island where the two pcvs live. I promise to come equipped in the next two posts with outer island adventures. Enjoy the photos of the evolution of my classroom below and have a great weekend.

       

My class room Day 1 - this was actually after it was cleaned. It was far worse before

The first week of school was spent white papering my classroom - think glueing a lot of white, computer type paper to the wall - and putting up the map I brought from the US. I also had the kids color strips of paper and used the paper to boarder the blackboards and windows.

The desks came a week later. The carpet did not come until March, but has made a huge difference as the kids no longer have to sit on the dirt floor.

As of yesterday, with posters from town glued to the wall.

The front of the classroom, with posters made by your humble protagonist

What I'm Doing

8 months in, I believe it is finally a good time to fully explain what I am doing as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga. Yes, I know I have mentioned that I am a teacher at a primary school, but now I hope to provide a little bit more information regarding my work, and actually prove that within the adventures of this blog lies a somewhat productive teacher/volunteer/palangi.

To reiterate my primary assignment – speaking in Peace Corps terminology (every government agency loves their acronyms and titles, Peace Corps being no exception) – is teaching English in a primary school. I teach all of the school’s English, and am responsible for making sure the hopefully graduating Class 6 students do well enough on the English section of their final exams to move on to the next level.

Within the school, I also play several odd roles, taking care of the positions that otherwise may fall through the cracks. One of these roles, quite simply, is being a male version of the Tooth Fairy, albeit with far less money.

Within Tonga, the ministry of health runs the Malimali (smile) program. In its simplest form, a Japanese (JYCA) volunteer and a Tongan hygienist visit my school once a week to brush the kids teeth, but they are unable to provide extra toothbrushes or toothpaste to the school. To fill this void, my counterpart Paea and I have been able to acquire toothpaste and brushes from the Red Cross, and I brush the kids teeth every morning before school starts. It is actually pretty fun, and as you can see in the pictures below the toothpaste gets all over the kids’ faces. With a few exceptions, the days I brush their teeth at school are the only times of the week their teeth get cleaned.

In the village, my town officer asked me to teach a night class to the older youth. The village was donated 3 computers in January, and he wanted me to teach English and computer classes to the middle and high school students. Hoping to make good on their investment in me, I of course agreed.  Havea announced the beginning of the night classes to the community in church, and the parents all promised to send their kids.

As tends to happen in Tonga, what was supposed to happen did not. Instead of sending their older kids, the parents sent their primary school children, happy to acquire an unexpected break. The older kids, inevitably, rarely came, if they showed up at all. After weeks of fighting the onslaught of children, I decided to run with this new program and now one of my night classes is aimed for the primary students while the other is geared for my invisible high school students.

Now, I finally get to the point of my post. With the hope of putting an emphasis on my service in Tonga and contribute something I believe will be meaningful and lasting, I have been working on developing a boys camp – named Camp Grow, Guys Reshaping Our World by your humble narrator – to run parallel to the internationally renowned Camp Glow – Girls Leading Our World. Camp Glow is run by pcvs all over the world and focuses on the empowerment of women.

I, along with several other volunteers, am helping to organize Camp Glow and am in the process of developing Camp Grow. Shameless plug alert! due to changes within Peace Corps, it is now much harder to request donations to fund projects, something I had already hoped to have accomplished by now. As such, we are currently in the process of partnering with a Tongan organization or forming a committee of influential Tongans to take ownership of the projects and hopefully ensure the camps’ sustainability. To conclude, in the event this is successful, I will be posting a link on this blog in the next few weeks, where people can send donations to help us run the girl’s camp this year and usher in the inaugural boy’s camp. I will provide more information when the link is ready, but I am hoping that a shameless plug with a little bit of warning is somewhat less shameless.

The above, for the most part, is my life in Tonga. I hope you found this somewhat interesting, as I figured I should actually reveal to the masses that I don’t only attend picnics, eat feasts, travel to islands, and go camping. I am, however, hoping to do some island hopping in the next few weeks – I didn’t say I never do those things - and can only hope to return with a fresh breath of tales and adventures.

Thanks for reading!

All of my students brushing their teeth. This is their school uniform.

Some of the boys of Class 5 and 6

Very excited to have their picture taken

Tonga’s Favorite Holiday

Weekends are not very exciting in Tonga. This is true for me, but it also seems to be the case for the entire country. I have already spoken about Sundays several times, when the entire Tongan population goes to church, eats, and sleeps for the whole day. However, I have failed to mention that not much happens on Saturdays either. Town is packed in the morning. People are literally pushing each other to buy the last bag of green peppers or snag the last piece of frozen chicken. The energy is awesome and overwhelming, but by 12 pm Neaifu is a ghost town. What 30 minutes earlier was hundreds and sometimes thousands of people in a small space, is now emptiness. Barely a car or a person can be seen and most of the stores are closed.

A person, in this instance, would seem to ask, “Where did they go? What do they do?” The answer I’m afraid is quite trivial, they go home. You see, Tonga, for the most part, has a consistent and fairly predictable rhythm. During the week some people work in the bush or in town. The kids go to school. Many of the women remain at home to weave or cook. On the weekends, other than a burst of activity in town on Saturday morning, people relax in their homes.

Only one things seems to disrupt this pattern, a national holiday. All Tongans tend to do one of two things on holidays, eva pe (wander) around the island in trucks or, the majority, head to a beach. You may rarely see a person at one of the beaches at any other time, but on holidays these beaches are absolutely packed.

This past sentence now leads me into the meat of this post, my day at the beach last Thursday. Last Thursday was ANZAC Day, which apparently is when Australians and New Zealanders honor their soldiers who fought in WWI, and is for some reason celebrated all over the South Pacific, including Tonga. My village was invited by Vili, the man who lead the Easter Camp in the village a month ago, to come and have a picnic at the beach in his village, Koloa, located on the far Eastern tip of Vava’u. It is also important to note that Vili is well known throughout the island, according to my neighbors, for selling the best fish at the cheapest prices. This means that Vili doesn’t have to travel to town to sell his fish, people come to him (This is important knowledge for your next trip to Tonga.)

I digress however. As I was saying, last Thursday I invited myself – I have become particularly good at this Tongan cultural staple – to the picnic. Around 11am, I hopped into my neighbor’s car and drove out to the beach. Upon reaching our destination, I quickly realized that half of my village was in attendance. The younger kids were splashing in the shallows of the low tide and wandering through the mud flats. The youth, say the 13 to 23 year olds, were swimming in the open ocean far away from the beach. The women had started a fire and were grilling the fish right on the coals. The men were pretending to help so they could sit closer to the food, and were constantly searching with their eyes for a place in the shade they could hold their kava circle.

Right when I arrived, the faifekau (Church Minister, in this case of the Wesleyan Church) pointed to huge cooler and told me to choose “my fish” and throw it on the fire. I picked up the slimy and dead invertebrate, put in on the “grill,” and sat down on a stump by the fire to chat with the men and women. Within seconds, I was handed another fish from the fire, wrapped in a leaf plate, and beckoned to begin eating. However, before I could take a bite I was quickly stopped. One of the woman offered me a root crop to go with my fish, as in Tonga no meal is complete without the ubiquitous root crop. I guzzled the food down, tearing into it with my fingers as I have learned to do – and my parents also learned much to their distaste several times when I forgot that I was not longer in Tonga while at the dinner table on our trip – and washing my hands in the ocean. This fish was as fresh as anything I have tasted before, as it was probably caught only hours earlier, and I was encouraged by the entire village with the incessant cries of kai lahi, kai ke osi, kai ke sino, and kai mate (eat a lot, eat ‘till you finish, eat ‘till your fat, and eat ‘till you die).

The rest of the day was spent in the way every beach day in Tonga is spent. After the first meal was finished – and don’t worry there were several courses throughout the day – Tongan culture began to assert itself. The woman sat down on mats in the shade, slept, talked, and occasionally walked around and swam. The men found a very nicely shaded spot for kava, and then sat from 12 to the time we left (5 pm) and drank, only getting up when they wanted more food or nature called.

I spent the first two hours wandering around the mud flats and exploring the beach with my camera. This last part is extremely important. The moment any of the kids or youth saw my camera I was bombarded with requests to take their pictures and put them on Facebook – yes, Facebook is huge even here. Tongans love to pose, though they rarely smile in their photos, which is odd considering they’re always smiling in life, and love to put up “gang” signs. Under constant “encouragement,” I took many photos, some of which you’ll see below.

I spent the rest of the time eating and drinking kava, as one tends to do in Tonga. It was a terrific day and it was really fun to interact with the village in a different setting. My Tongan still doesn’t allow me to follow along with all of the conversations, but I pick up enough and I can usually understand and respond when I am being spoken too. All in all, it was a typical, and very fun day at the beach on my newly discovered holiday.

As always, thanks for reading and enjoy the photos from the beach.

Cooking some fish on the "grill"

Where the mudflats meet the ocean

 Classic Tongan pose

Swimming in all of your clothes - the only way to swim in Tonga

Posing in the cave