Kids and Animals

Living in a rural village in Tonga is not much different from living on a farm. Not an hour, let alone a day, goes by that I don’t see a pig or a chicken just a few feet away from me. I average a cow a day and a horse a week. Dogs, by far the least domesticated of the group, come to my house almost non-stop, begging for scraps or scavenging through my trash. At night, I am serenaded by the lovely sounds of pigs scratching themselves against my house, roosters cackling, and dogs barking. It is a far cry from the sounds I was use to in the first 23 years of my life.

All these animals and the symbiotic farm/village relationship, meanwhile, mean that the Tongan kids grow up very comfortable with these animals. They have no fear of them, and hardly seem to even notice the animals. I have seen 4-year-old kids chase away pigs that were at least 3 times their size and 5 times their weight with only a shout. From a young age, the children are accustomed to these “domestic” animals.

This lack of fear can lead to some interesting moments at school. The first incident occurred a few months ago and actually does not involve a farm animal. Tonga, as an island created from coral growth, has very few interesting land animals. The only animal that might peak anyone’s interests is the flying fox, a very large bat that is always evident at night. One day at school, my students were playing around and found a baby bat sleeping in a tree on the school grounds. Rather than turn away, they broke off the stick it was sleeping on and started carrying it everywhere they went. They took the bat to the classroom. It went to the bathroom. It was part of the recess break. They even walked with the bat during lunch when they returned to their homes. The entire time they were doing all of this, they would pet the bat and pretend to kiss it, playfully asking if I wanted to give it a kiss as well. I respectfully declined.

A few weeks later, a cow accidentally wandered onto the school grounds. This happens every few weeks as the students often forget to close the school fence and the cows are not fenced in. The cows don’t cause any harm, but the problem is as there is only one opening in the fence, the cows are rarely able to find their own way out. When the kids see the cows, their eyes gleam with delight. As one, my class 6 shouts in a mixture of Tongan and the little English they know, if they can go and take care of it. While I know it may not be the greatest experience for the cow, I shout yes and in a flash the kids are running at the cow, shepherding it off the school grounds. Showing far less organization than a group of sheep dogs, the kids blindly chase the cow until they are lucky enough to force it out. Though I have experienced this momentary excitement several times so far, I have yet to get tired of it. It is truly a sight to behold.

My last animal anecdote occurred just last week. On Monday, the kids brought a live chicken to school as a gift to the teachers. The idea was for the teachers to kill it and eat it for lunch. I asked my counterpart Paea how you kill a chicken, assuming some quick and humane answer like slitting its throat or breaking its neck. Instead, Paea told me you grab something heavy, close your eyes, and then proceeded to mime the action of bludgeoning a chicken to death for me. I do not think he was joking.

Alas, the chicken remained alive, as we had no pot to cook it in. The plan was to eat it the next day. I walked into school on Tuesday expecting to see the same chicken, but there was a new one in its place. I asked the kids what happened, and they explained to me as if it was the simplest thing in the world that the chicken was gone and this was a new one. A few minutes later my teachers arrived at school, saw the chicken, and realized they forgot to bring the pot again. Thus, the chicken was momentarily spared, the children were able to play with it all day, and I never saw that particular bird again.

In other news, Tonga has recently made the news - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23469223. I thought some of you might be interested in reading the article. The article discusses Tonga’s growing relationship with China, a subject I touched upon several posts ago. It also shows that no matter where you are in the world, even in a remote island in the South Pacific, you can never truly leave world politics behind.

As always, thanks again for reading. Tomorrow, I am leaving to spend the weekend with a few volunteers on the nearby island of ‘Ofu, which should make for some interesting reading material next week and some beautiful pictures.

Volunteer Picture of when we went snorkeling last month

The end of the day with the whole snorkeling group - volunteers, friends, and families