30 July 2012

I can't believe I've only got a week left here. Time is passing so quickly, but so slowly!
Victoria and I always joke about how we're getting to experience the full Tongan lifestyle. We live in the same house with a young family. Laundry and meals are always together, if there is any food. Finding food, or even the money for food is a daily challenge. Crackers or bread for every meal is not uncommon. when the water stopped running 6 weeks ago, we all started using the outhouses and filling up buckets with rainwater to shower with. We go everywhere as a family, all of us in the van together with the music blasting, dancing crazy in our seats. The kids scream and cry and climb all over everything to sit on our laps with their heads out the window. We attend feast after feast and dance after dance, allowing our host mom to fix our hair or our outfits time and time again. Our host mom tries to help us understand what "Tongan boys like" so that we can have "lots of partners" at all the dances. Unfortunately all of our partners are either under the age of 16 or over the age of 65. Sometimes it's annoying to be treated like a 6 year old, but that's our life now. At feasts we make sure to bring home plenty of food for the family. We even accompany them to their grandma's house, where we're given banana bread (which we hated initially because it's fairly flavourless and the frosting tastes like butter, but now we love because we're always hungry) and Indian apples (the most delicious treat here). We happily and messily eat everything with our hands, sucking the juice off our fingers afterwards to try to get them clean. Sometimes we even get kuava, one of my favourite fruits here, despite how odd it is and how hard and small the seeds are.
We've become accustomed to an almost painfully slow lifestyle that is quite the opposite of things I experience at home. For example, if we are not able to get an interview in on a certain evening, I have nothing to fear because there are countless evenings ahead. Obviously that is coming to an end, but like I said before, time is so different here. For the Tongans, mornings begin around 5:30 am. You can hear music playing, roosters, dogs, children screaming or crying, breakfast being cooked, etc. The mornings are then filled with school, weaving, and going to the bush. The early to mid afternoons are the slowest times of day. Most people take naps if they can. The kids sleep whenever and wherever they can. Just last night all four of them fell asleep on a blanket on the floor of the living room and slept there the whole night. Other times they're up until 11. Any car ride longer than 20 minutes puts them all to sleep in the most uncomfortable positions I've ever seen. Manoa, the 2 year old, likes to stand on his seat next to his mom while she drives with his arm on her shoulder, and I swear to you I have seen him fall asleep in that position.
Probably the most interesting and problematic concept here is that when anyone has food, they are obligated to share it with whoever they are with. This is really hard for my American and capitalistic mind to embrace...Now I don't mind sharing the things I have, but when money and food are scarce anyway, and my stomach is grumbling, my mind snaps immediately to survival and hoarding food.
This last week Victoria and I performed our traditional Tongan dance, called a "tau'olunga." We performed it at an outdoor "concert" for the Tongan church to raise money. So we dressed up in our outfits, had beautiful leis tied around our necks, were rubbed up in oil, and went out to dance. I was really really excited. I messed up a few times, but people still came and stuck money on us, and an old man gave me a lei. We raised 124 pa'anga. I think people were surprised and even thought it was a little funny to see two palangi dancing and exclusively Tongan dance.
On Saturday we went to the hospital to meet the newly born baby of one of our good friends, Faaki. The little girl is named Lusia Victoria Elise. Can you believe it! Haha we thought it was a joke at first, but it's serious. She was so tiny, with skin the same color as mine and deep deep blue eyes. A beautiful baby. Babies make you think about life, you know?

22 July 2012

My concept of time has changed drastically while being here. I am now able to spend hours sitting, doing nothing, listening to Tongan and letting my mind wander. Other times we're busy writing or making leis, and before I know it a week has gone by. At the same time, I count the days and the weeks and hours closely. It makes me realize what I want to spend my time doing when I get home because I can be with the people I love most. Time is so curious, as I'm sure you already know. It is not the times that we are doing nothing that pass slowly in our memory, but the times that we are busiest and most enthralled with what we are doing. I think I got that idea from Steinbeck. I would not trade the three months I've spent here for anything. I've learned a lot about the people and a lot about myself and a lot about my stomach.
I'm sad to be leaving here so soon. I have only two weeks left on this beautiful island. You would not believe the sunrises or sunsets I've seen. Or maybe you would, who can say. I'd like to say I've met incredible people, and certainly I have. Most of them are under the age of ten, and the others have their personalities masked by this vicious and interesting wall called language. Just the same, I love walking down the street and smiling and waving and saying hi to all of the staring faces. Everyone smiles back. Everyone. I've never been greeted so many times with a "Good morning!" as when I walk towards Saineha High School. And I'll never forget walking through a crowd of children with their faces upturned, each of them grinning and touching my arms or my hands. Or one time when we were driving slowly away from a house, and a little boy ran alongside the van, holding my hand out the window the entire way out. Or hearing, "Palangi, eh?" from yards away and responding "Yo!" I think these people are unaware of how intimate their connections are. They are quite lucky, and I pity myself because I can never be a part of it, no matter how long I live here. I definitely hope to return here someday, to visit the people I've met and to feel at home with them again.
On a different note, as my project regarding plants progresses, I've decided that I want to focus more on the idea that Tongans are (or perhaps are not) resourceful people. Naturally this includes the plants that they use, not only for medicine, but for brooms, food, tools, etc. So I will be focusing on several plants, what they are used for, and the innovative nature of the people, or lack there of.
I suppose that's all I have to say for now. More in a week I hope.

9 July 2012

Yes, I'm still here.
Tonga is amazing. Recently I've been thinking about how much like babies Victoria and I are. We don't understand the language, our host parents are relatively strict, we can't really feed ourselves, etc. But of course we're learning as fast as we can. I just wish sometimes that the people here had more patience with how slow we are to understand. But more and more I have been feeling comfortable here. We know a good amount of people on the island because it is so small, and even if we don't know them, they probably know us because we're white and have been on the island for a good amount of time.
I think just a few weeks ago, the idea that "This is my life now" finally clicked for me. I've gotten used to riding in a beat up van with the steering wheel on the wrong side and four kids jumping up and down on my lap. The music is always blaring, the windows are always open, someones constantly dancing and laughing, and the scenery is amazing. I could probably spend a lot more time here and be perfectly content. The only unfortunate thing is that the people I love most in the world are not here to share it with me. But it just feels like I moved to a new place--it was hard to adjust at first, but now that I have, I'm perfectly happy. I have found myself worried that I'll miss this place very dearly, and consequently deciding that I will certainly return in the future.
This week we went to a feast nearly everyday because it is the Saineha alumni reunion. Saineha is the local LDS high school, I'm not sure if I already mentioned that or not. Anyway, we performed our two dances again for the governor this time. The governor's wife put a pa'anga on both Victoria and me, which is apparently very exciting. We also went to lot of dances, which have become more fun because of the people we know. There were parades and lots of money and candy thrown everywhere.
Today marked the end of teh two week break for schools however, so we are going back to our old schedule of school in the mornings and busying ourselves with our projects in the afternoons. It's kind of sad, but I think the weeks should pass quickly enough.