The Road Less Traveled : 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.