Post Field 2

The second assignment for the same class:

The audience I hope to reach with my project is anyone unfamiliar with and curious about the culture of Tonga. This will probably include friends and family, but also people I don’t know very well who want to know what living in a place like Tonga is like. Some of this audience has never even heard of Tonga, some of them are Tongan themselves, and some may not really care about Tonga, they just feel like they should know what’s going on in my life.

Tonga is a small island group in the South Pacific, northeast of New Zealand, east of Fiji, and south of Samoa. Vava‘u, the island I stayed on, is a forty-minute plane ride north of the main island, Tongatapu. It is twelve kilometers at its broadest length and is dotted with small villages and farmland. It is a developing country, which meant that we did not have wifi, we showered with a bucket of water, and the roads were filled with potholes. I lived with a young family of six. The oldest girl was six years old, and the three boys were five, four, and two. Most of our days were spent volunteering at primary, kindergarten, and high schools to teach English, finding and making food, interviewing, learning from our host mom, and attending dances.

I want my audience to understand what life is like beyond what we are accustomed to here in western America. There are so many people who do not have what we have; it is difficult to keep this in perspective, but allow me to reiterate it throughout this paper and the ones I write in the future.

Another thing that has been impressed upon me after this trip is the importance of going abroad, something I want my audience to recognize. Keep in mind that I am not referring to going abroad for a two-week vacation—that can never be enough. To be completely immersed in the local people and their culture is something of eye-opening nature. The challenges I had in Tonga were so drastically different from the ones I experience here. In Tonga I worried about my next meal or dancing too many times with one boy. In Provo I worry about whether I’m wearing the right sweater, or if the paper due tomorrow will impress my teacher enough to scrape an A. Entertainment there was rugby or a handful of rocks, not bowling or Netflix. And all the time I was thinking, they have no idea. They have no idea what my life is like back home, or all of the other things and possibilities in the world. And I am lucky to be traveling and discovering what life is like in a different part of the world.

Finally, I hope to convince my audience of the resourcefulness of the Tongan people with regards to their plant use. Initially I believed that the people there were very clever: they used all sorts of plants for all sorts of activities. But I found that more often than not, as I asked more about different processes, they were nearly as unsure as I was about why they did certain things. For example, the old leaves form the Fiki plant, or fig tree, are used to heal those that are “sick with a bad spirit from old people” (My host mom, Uini). Initially this kind of took me off guard, but I accepted the words and asked more about it. How did it work? What made it different from the other plants growing around the yard? Uini was not sure—it was something she had learned from her mother and had not thought to question. So maybe everyone in Tonga learned things from their parents and were never quite sure why things worked out the way they did. And on such a small island, where everyone knows everyone, change is difficult and too noticeable.

Post Field 1

I wrote this for the post field writing class that I'm taking this Fall. I'll probably put some up every now and then because I think they help to clarify my experience, both myself and for you guys.

I know I have changed as a result of my experience because of the new and different way I look at the people around me. I think I recognize that everyone always has something they can teach me because of the different experiences they have had. It is not my education or even my accomplishments that make me what I am, but the way I leave from day to day. I remember writing in my journal that I felt like I was learning some new truth nearly everyday; things about my own life became clearer to me. For example, with so much free time to fill, I was forced to retrieve the discipline that I knew was in me, but never had to seek out because of the routines that are almost always placed for me by someone or something else.

The lessons from my experience I never want to forget are first that I need to remember how many people there are in the world. I think I get trapped in the small world of Provo and classes and papers and forget how many people there are who struggle to survive. In Tonga I became familiar with this struggle, and although the people there were confident in their lifestyle, it was obvious that they were lacking. I was initially shocked to have the blinders I have worn for so long ripped off. This shock is what pushed me to serve and consequently to love the people of Tonga with all my heart. I learned to observe people in a way that is nearly impossible to do here because I could not understand the language. Body language and minute gestures or sounds became signals that I had to pay attention to. I learned how to look for things that I can write about in my journal, and because of this, I learned to strive for at least one new experience each day.

I wish I could explain to my family and friends the way I felt there. The way I felt at church meetings with the most ambitious singers in the South Pacific. The way I felt when people around the village began to shout greetings at us as we walked past. And most importantly I want people to understand the way I felt when the idea that the small island of Vava’u was now my home. I was beginning to have a completely isolated life there. When I called my family or emailed my friends, I almost didn’t know what to say or talk about because the things that were going on in my life had become ordinary. Some of these things have also become so common place to me that I am almost surprised when people don’t know what a ta’ovala is. I’m afraid that the only way I can get people to understand the Tongan lifestyle is to buy them a plane ticket there. I want to convey the patience of the mothers with their children, the excitement of a single scoop ice cream cone, the amazement felt when someone offers you an Indian apple.

Now that I am home, the thing I want to do with this experience is to let everyone know how special the people of Tonga are. Their kingdom is small, but they have huge personalities and generally believe that they are the center of the world. The trip may not have changed me in any drastic way, but I feel more confident and more aware of myself and of others. I do not want to forget this experience, or even pretend it hasn’t happened because it seems so far away. I want everyday to be fresh in my mind, to remember the lessons I have learned, and to persuade others to take notice of the other people of the world.