It’s That Time of The Year Again

Three things are absolute in Tonga: eating, sleeping, and church. Two of those things, eating and church, are epitomized every year at the Misinale. The word Misinale literally translates to missionary but it often refers to the annual fundraisers each village holds every year for the church. Some of you may remember my post about the church fundraiser from last November. You are forgiven if you do not. Last year, in one of the first weeks after my arrival from training on the main island to Vava’u, I attended the fundraiser at one of my villages. While I went to the Misinale in one village, I arrived after my other two villages, including the village I live in, had held theirs. Several weeks ago, I was finally able to attend the Misinale at one of the villages I had missed last year.

Though church fundraisers are held by every denomination in Tonga, I am most familiar with the Wesleyan Church and my post today will focus on the Wesleyan’s Misinale. The Church fundraisers are completely different from the normal services. There are no sermons, and few prayers and hymns. Everyone sits in their pews waiting for the never-ending passing of collection boxes. Every few minutes several women, who for some reason are dressed in ridicules outfits walk around the church to collect as men, women, and children drop 1, 2, and 5 dollar bills into the collection. At this particular Misinale one woman wore a Santa Clause style fake beard and another wore a blue wig. One trick I learned from one of my neighbors, which is quite useful, is to make sure to have small bills before you attend any fundraiser. The night before, knowing what lay ahead, I made sure to acquire 10 $1 bills so that I could put some money into the box every few times the women passed by. As my neighbor correctly asserted, the trick is to allow everyone to see that you are contributing, but not bankrupting yourself in the process.

However, bankruptcy is exactly what happens. The money that goes into the collection boxes is nothing compared to money each family has to donate to the members of the church who, seated at a table right in front of all the pews, count and announce the amount of the donation to the entire village. There is absolutely no anonymity. Every family is expected to donate at least $1,000, with many contributing significantly more. Anything less than $1,000 would bring shame on behalf of the family.

This is a lot of money in Tonga. Many families do not have a single member with a paying job, and instead support themselves through their farms and money sent from family members living overseas. Even for the people who do have jobs in Tonga, very few jobs provide enough money to allow for such a large contribution. The vast majority of this money given to church is from money sent from family overseas in places like New Zealand, Australia, and California, Texas, Arizona, and Utah in the US. Ironically, very little of this money remains with and is used by the village congregation, but is instead sent to Church’s headquarters on the main island and even to the countries mentioned above. This creates a constant cycle of money from overseas being sent to family in Tonga yet never the less ending up in the churches from the very countries the money was sent from. It seems that only Western Union – yes, that still exists here – profits from such an arrangement.

My village is very small and only raised around $26, 000. This is a significant expenditure for the small community, and is a large percentage of their annual income. Another volunteer, attended a Misinale on the same day I did in the larger village of Tu’anekivale, and told me they made over $60,000. In Tonga, these fundraisers are no laughing matter.

As is always the case, any event in Tonga must be accompanied with food, and often in copious amounts. After the three hour Misinale, a tent was set up in front of the church, and lines of tables were stacked with food. All of the staples were there – fried fish, sweet and sour chicken, hot dogs, lu, root crops, beef with vegetables, deviled eggs, noodles, raw fish, and much much more. After the initial prayer, everyone gorged on the food, while listening to the fakamalos (thank you speeches). One of the elderly women gave an incredibly generous falamalo on my behalf, which was very touching. After the service, the women sitting next to me piled heaps of food into plastic bags for me, ensuring that I would not need to worry about food for the entire week ahead. It was a money-and-eating-filled-day, and I now I just have to wait for my other two villages to conduct their Misinales in October and November respectively.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy the photos.

Two of my class 5 students, Malia on the left and Sosefina on the right, working hard

The girls posing in the garden

In the vegetable garden

Pretending to work

Healthy Life Styles

When properly motivated, Tongans can do some absolutely amazing things. Several weeks ago, the Ministry of Education, in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, announced on the radio – often their method of communicating with the schools – that the schools should place a greater emphasis on promoting healthy life styles to the students. This would come about in two ways, a school garden and aerobics classes.

The garden is the teachers’ domain. The very day of the announcement, my principle Selu barked out orders to the students to begin tilling the soil. 30 minutes of furious activity later, the kids had finished their duty. Over the next two days, we, and I’m using the word “we” very loosely as I sat around and watched my students, planted carrots, tomatoes, peppers, onions, cabbage, and lettuce on the school compound. As they were working, my counterpart Paea pointed to a Class 1 6 year old student who was chopping down some branches and joked that he was far better than I was with a machete. I wholeheartedly agreed and sat around in awe watching my kids create this incredible garden in minutes, where I would have been completely befuddled and needed days to do accomplish even half the amount of work. A month later, aided by copious amounts of rain, the garden is looking good and we are all excited to eat the healthy vegetables after the test.

Watching the rapid farming however was sort of a bittersweet experience for me. On one had it was truly remarkable how seamlessly the students and teachers worked together and how much even the youngest Tongan child knows about farming. It is truly a different world over here. The entire work was done in two days, and with relative ease. The bitter part about the garden is why did it take so long to start in the first place? Many schools have gardens, this not a new or revolutionary concept in Tonga. The students and teachers enjoy the papaya and bananas that grow from the trees on the school compound that were planted years ago. Seeds are similarly easy to find and are not prohibitively expensive. One of the difficult aspects of serving in Tonga, and I am sure this is true of many developing countries, is that it is easy to see how much could easily be done, but simply isn’t for a variety of poor reasons. That being said, I am happy we now have a beautiful garden to reinforce to the students the importance of eating healthily, I only wish it hadn’t taken an edict from the ministry for such to get done.

The second part of the healthy life style agenda is simply exercise. On this point, I take personal responsibility. When I first came to my school, I was loath to teach physical education. The main reason for this is that my school has no water tanks as they are all broken. I am trying to alleviate this situation through grants, but I am still waiting to hear back on that note. The only access to water my students have is ground water, which runs infrequently, is dirty, and is high in mineral content. This is not great water for my students to be drinking, but they often do anyways because it is their only choice. The second reason is that like all kids my students already get a ton of exercise from recess when they are constantly running around. This doesn’t even count the 1 km or longer walk it takes them to  get to school. These two reasons held me back from running physical education classes for my first few months at school.

That all changed, however, with the radio announcement and my principal’s request for me to spend 2 hours a week with the students working out. My worries were somewhat relieved by my students bringing water from home on the days we work out, so I have started doing exercises with them. On Mondays we play a variety of sports like ruby, soccer, and kickball. I teach them a few drills – I have learned that they are tragically unable to run the three-man weave – and then I let them run around and scrimmage. It is not very organized, but it makes the kids move and they seem to enjoy it.

The real fun happens on Thursdays. Aerobics, or zumba, is huge in Tonga. For those of you who are not familiar with zumba, the basic idea is that people either watch an instructor or a video and follow their dance/exercise moves while listening to popular up-tempo music. Many villages in Tonga hold zumba classes, and I have to say that one of the funniest things in Tonga is watching the older men and women, who are usually quite large, dancing through their Zumba routine while listening to the latest US pop songs. The best song and dance routine absolutely goes to gangnam style, which every one in Tonga, aged baby to walking stick, unabashedly loves.

Now that you know what zumba is, I lead zumba sessions every Thursday. One of my teachers brings in speakers, we blast music, and I lead an impromptu and entirely unplanned dance session. I must admit that I have absolutely no clue what I am doing. I am not a good dancer and I undoubtedly look ridiculous to the 45 Tongan children who are forced to watch me and mimic my uncoordinated “moves.” I do not yet have pictures of myself leading zumba, as I have been too scared to actually see how I look when I do it. I do not have particularly high hopes for myself, however, judging by the laughter ringing from the other teachers who completely immune to all my requests to jump in, simply sit behind me, laugh, and watch.

Zumba is without a doubt as ridiculous as it sounds. Since it goes on for an hour, I have resorted to such eclectic and old school dance moves as holding my nose and moving up and down to pretend I am swimming to the spirit fingers from the cheerleading movie Bring IT On that I admit I have seen to anything else I can remember from the dance sequence in Pulp Fiction. It is ugly, I cannot deny that, but it is equally hilarious watching the kids copy my routine and it does work up a sweat. Luckily, one of my class 5 students is particularly good at zumba so I will often have her stand next to me and remind me what move I should do next. I am still in learning mode as I have only taught the class a few times, but its moments like this when I am very glad that no one back home can see me.

Thank you all for reading. There may be hope some day that I overcome my fears and actually get someone to take photos of me teaching the ridiculous zumba class. Until that day, please enjoy the photos below.

The kids waiting in line for their soccer drills and enjoying the trampoline

Mesui, one of my Class 5 students, playing soccer

Samiu, our trouble making Class 1 student, decided he'd rather pose than play soccer

We had a funeral in the village this week. Funerals are a huge deal and practically bankrupt the family of the deceased. The men are preparing the hundreds of pieces of meat that will be given to everyone who attended the funeral. Think of it as the Tongan version of sitting shiva.

What I haven’t told you

This week marks my 1 year anniversary of living in Tonga. I left Los Angeles on September 2^nd, 2012 and arrived in Tonga on the 4^th. I know it is cliché, but wow. While I will not stretch the truth by saying this year has completely flown by, it absolutely has been a fascinating year and I cannot truly believe that I am already half way through with my service. I still remember getting onto the airplane incredibly nervous, questioning whether I was making the right decision and unsure if I could handle the rigors of living in the developing world. I remember being overwhelmed by the rapid fire Tongan that seem constantly aimed at me, and taking pictures of roasted pigs and thinking how this was such a “cultural experience.” Little did I know that hundreds of roasted pigs lay in my future.

Though I do not want to delve too personally at this time, I feel that I have grown as a person and into my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It hasn’t always been easy, and I certainly spend a lot of time alone and reading, but knowing everything I know now, I still believe that I would make the same decision to get on that plane as I did one year ago. I have accomplished some of what I want to achieve while I am here, and for the rest I have 13 months to put my stamp on Vava’u and attempt to make a lasting difference.

As for the title of this post, I feel like you, my readers, and I have come a long way. If after one year you are still reading this blog, it must mean that I am either doing something right or that you really, really like me (I’m hoping for both). I feel that we have grown together in this great South Pacific adventure. For the most part you have lived the experiences I have gone through, and have been interested enough to return. I must admit, however, that I have been holding a few things back. I truly believe that you are ready for them now and that after 1 year of reading this blog, these points come out as, “That is not much of a surprise,” rather than, “Oh! That is disgusting!” Well…here we go.

First, there are rats. Plenty of rats. In the developing world, where houses, including mine, contain numerous holes and entry points, unwanted rodents appearing in your house are inevitable. I still contend, however, that I have been lucky. I have not been plagued by the dozens of rats that infest the houses of some of the other volunteers. Some of that luck was self created as I have worked hard to cover any cracks and crevices that I think a rat could crawl in through, but regardless of such diligence, I do live in the bush and I have not been able to completely stem the tide.

In the roughly 9 months I have lived in my house, I have probably caught about 8 rats. Due to my covering work, these rats have mostly been babies. They are so small in fact that when I discovered my first rat in the house, back in January, I went to town to buy a sticky trap and poison and I mentioned to one of the volunteers who had serious rat problems at her house, that I had found a mouse under my sink. Not missing a beat she felt the need to tell me, “Harrison, there are no mice in Tonga. That was just a small rat.” Lovely, I thought. At the time, I felt like she really didn’t need to tell me the truth. I was quite happy with the lie.

My reaction to seeing rats in my house has similarly evolved. The first few rats absolutely terrified me. I would let loose high pitched yelps and frantically try to crush them with my broom, which would undoubtedly fail as they found cover in a spot I could not reach. After those initial three, I was used to it. If I saw a rat or evidence of one, i.e. droppings, I would calmly put out poison and a rat trap and dispose of the dead rat the next morning after I had calmly slept like a baby the night before. One of my proudest moments as a volunteer I am not proud to say was catching two rats on the same trap. That was a big day for me.

Secondly, Tongans eat lice. Well…ok, not really, but it certainly looks like they do. Many Tongans have lice in their hair. It is kind of unavoidable. I am a bit paranoid about the lice, so I am obsessively careful about not putting the back of my head against anything in any car, plane, couch, etc that I find myself in. That being said, no volunteer that I know of, has of yet succumbed to these insidious creatures.

To get back to my main point, to remove the lice Tongans groom each other by sifting through the hair and picking out the lice. It is extremely common to see a mother combing through her daughter or son’s hair to remove the lice. Mothers and daughters are the most common sight as boys keep their hair short in Tonga, but Fathers and sons, sisters, brothers, and friends can all be seen grooming each other. It is practically an epidemic, as evidenced by the grooming and the fact that the kids are constantly scratching their heads.

The eating part is the most shocking when you first see it. I know I was kind of stunned out of motion my first time observing the delicacy. Lice have apparently very strong outer shells and are difficult to kill. Fingers are simply not strong enough to dispose of the lice properly. As such, the Tongans put the live lice in their teeth, chomp down on the lice to kill it, and then spit it out. However, the spitting tends to be far subtler than the whole putting a bug into your mouth part of the process, and it thus looks like the Tongans are eating lice. It is quite a site.

I hope you are still with me. As far as I cam remember, these are the only two aspects of life in Tonga that I have been holding back on, though I think you were ready for them. For any of you who are planning on visiting me in Tonga, it’s ok. Take a deep breath. You will not get lice and probably won’t see a rat. Please, still come to Tonga. Malo (Thank you)!

To end on a somewhat more serious note, I do want to thank all of you for your incredible support and your unbelievable donations to Camp GLOW and GROW. I would not have been able to get through this first year without the amazing people back home who have been in my corner the entire time. I am truly blessed to have so many special people in my life and I cannot express adequately how much it means to me. Thank you.

Please enjoy the photos that weren’t able to load in last week’s post.

My kids posing with the vegetables

The girls practicing for the Thank You program

Loving the trampoline

Norie baiting the lines