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.