The Road Less Traveled : The UAE, a Mormon Feast, and an Exam

This past week was oddly eventful so I’m just going to discuss a myriad of thoughts and ideas as they come up in this post.

To start, international and foreign aid is fascinating, whether you’re from a country that gives a lot of aid (The US) or receives it (Tonga). I know there is a lot of controversy regarding how much aid is spent and where it goes, but I am not going to talk about that at this juncture. Instead, I am going to look at foreign aid through the guise of Tonga. Tonga receives significant amounts of money from New Zealand, Australia, the US, China, Japan, and formerly, the EU. The reasons New Zealand and Australia send aid to Tonga is fairly simple, as both countries receive large numbers of seasonal workers from Tonga and Tonga is relatively in their backyards. Similarly, China courts Tonga because of their UN vote and their aggressiveness in acquiring access to fisheries all over South East Asia and the South Pacific. The United States and Japan send money to help combat China’s influence, and for the latter to also gain the rights to Tonga’s fisheries. The EU, which no longer sends money to Tonga, is currently holding a climate change conference in the Cook Islands where 15 South Pacific countries are being represented. My counterpart, Paea, is there now as a representative of Vava’u. (Again, as a further disclaimer, these views are solely my own and do not reflect the views of Peace Corps or the US government.)

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is different. About a few months ago, the UAE funded and built a vast network of solar panels on the main island of Vava’u. The panels are not finished yet, but they will eventually power half of Vava’u and make electricity significantly cheaper. For a long time I was racking my brain trying to figure out why a country from the Middle East would send money to Tonga. I knew they were rich in oil and looking for foreign investments, but Tonga is not a place you expect to make money let alone a percentage return. Last week, however, my questions were answered. In the harbor, was a beautiful yacht with a massive blue sail that read Dubai EXPO 2020. I spoke to one of the boat’s employees, and apparently Dubai is one of the four cities that has a chance to hold the World’s Fair in 2020. Every country, including Tonga, has a vote, so the UAE has sent their boat to many of world’s islands, traveling through the Caribbean and the South Pacific, promising the islands projects in renewable and sustainable energy if they vote for Dubai. Clearly, Tonga happily capitulated to that demand.

Now, it’s feast time. I haven’t mentioned a feast in a while, as the feast season has been a little slow the past few months. It picked up in a big way last week, however, when the Mormon Church invited all of my village and important Mormons from the neighboring villages to fill our stomachs. The food at the feast was as plentiful as I have ever seen it, and in Tonga that is saying something. There was so much food that there was not even room for a plate for people to eat on. Trays of food were stacked on each other. To eat, you simply attacked the mountain of food like an onion, layer after layer. No plate, and to be honest, silverware was needed. I gorged on clams, pig, raw fish, chicken, fillet of fish, beef, noodles, cake, and so much more.

Though I try my best to remember proper eating etiquette, I must confess my eating has become decidedly Tongan. My hands flew from left to right, shoveling food into that hole in the center of my face. Forks were a nuisance, not a tool. I drove my hand into the pig like the bad guy in the second Indiana Jones movie, ripping a man’s heart out with his bare hand. To give myself credit, however, I was probably the only person using my napkin. So…you win some, you lose some.

After the feast, the Tongans moved as fast as you will ever see a Tongan move to snag the leftovers, of which there were plenty. I’ve gotten better at asserting myself into the leftover mix – meaning I no longer wait for someone to make me a plate and try to grab a little of what I like – but I still have a ways to go in this regard and I was hopelessly outweighed if any struggle ensued. I did however, after asking permission, grab a massive crab that made for a delicious dinner the next night.

As I mentioned early, my counterpart and class 6 and 5 teacher, Paea, is currently in the Cook Islands, so I taught his class all week. This is certainly challenging, as one can only teach so much English in a day, but it’s kind of fun to try my hand at teaching them math and geography or just playing rugby on the field. Also, with a school break of two weeks starting today, I had to give my students an exam that would go on their report card to their parents. While a few of my kids did exceptionally well, the rest scored pretty low, which was certainly disappointing. There English was very low when I arrived and I know it has improved, so if anything this just gives me more determination to work even harder next term to get my students ready for the Secondary School Entrance exam in October.

Finally, this will probably be my last post for about two weeks. On Monday, my first visitor to Tonga, Katherine, is coming to Vava’u, so I will be m.i.a while she is here. I am incredibly excited to share my experience here with another person and were also doing a bit of the tourist thing, so I hope to supply my next post with some cool stories and even better pictures.

As always, thank you for reading.