So Longa to Tonga: Church Bells, Chickens, and Children

At any given time on any given day in Tonga you can hear one if not all of the three Cs listed above. On Sundays you can hear them all starting at 4am. The church bells have a beautiful and calming sound to them. Who doesn’t find the laughter and play of children sweet? But these chickens. I am done with them. In a perfect world chickens would not make sounds, more specifically, roosters would not exist.

I am ready and prepared to go chicken hunting. These creatures make noise at all hours of the day. The roosters in Tonga missed the memo that their services are only required once a day when the sun is rising. The roosters also sound like someone is being killed. So when the roosters are screeching at 3am while I am in my prime sleep it does not end well. Many of my dreams have included chickens, one in which I was speaking to the chickens. Having actual conversation with them. The moral of this rant is the chickens are ruining my life and potentially making me psychotic.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I have been thinking a lot this week about how I can properly put Tonga in perspective. It is so hard to explain the Tongan Way because it is so different than anything I have ever experienced before. As I was walking to class tonight I think I finally figured out how to put my new Tonga life into perspective in one sentence: This morning our house was out of water, I walked past three cows on my way to school, and my mom packed me four peanut butter and butter sandwiches for lunch and a coconut. To better explain this sentence I will break it down for you. Number one: you never know if water will or will not come out of the faucet. Sometimes the water supply just runs out and you can only hope that it will return within the next few hours. I have learned that if I have a spare moment and the water is working to take a shower and brush my teeth because when you ideally would want to do these tasks there may be no water. Number two: When you all read “I walked past three cows on my way to school” you maybe thought “cool story, Bailey, I drive past fields of cows everyday”. My response to that would be good for you. When I say that I walked past three cows I mean there was no fence, there was no rope tied to a tree, and there was no cow farmer supervision. There were three cows just standing on the side of the road roaming around and mooing at me. Had my first experience of petting cows been more successful last week I could have pet the cows. Number three: The Tongan people pride themselves in feeding people, they love butter, and there are coconuts everywhere! My mom would feed me ten times a day if I would let her. In fact, yesterday, she told me that she was going to make me fat before I left her house. My mom literally has a goal entitled Make the Palangi Sino (Make the white person fat). Continuing on with the point is, butter. The Tongan people have been watching a little too much Paula Dean if you ask me. Butter is a staple. If the food doesn’t have butter on it then it is not worthy. Finally, the coconuts are no joke in Tonga. Coconuts are used for everything here. When my mom packs me a coconut in my lunch it is intended to be a drink first and then a food. As it turns out if you eat a whole coconut it is 2,000 calories. NBD.

I have had a lot of new experiences since I have been here in Tonga. Two of which happened this week. My first new experienced is I scraped the scaled, pulled it’s guts out (with my bare hands), chopped it’s head and tail off, and then took a bite off of it. It is was definitely fish in its rawest form. Another new experience I had was I got to watch my mom make tapa. Tapa is used in Tonga for many reasons, but the most common use of it is to cover the body of a family member after they pass away. The process to make tapa is very long and very tedious. The end product looks like a paper tarp that has been water stained and with designs painted on with clay from the ground. It is a very cool activity to partake in and it is also considered to be a women only activity in Tonga. There are women who spend hours a day working on tapa.

To finish this blog post I will leave you with a story. We all know that I have a fear of butterflies. Seeing how butterflies and moths are similar creatures the fear carries over to the moths. Tonight at language class I was standing up in front my of language class speaking some Tongan when Sammy points to my shirt and asks what’s going on with my huhu’s (In Tonga huhu means breast and also fork. We had happened to learn of the dual meaning of the word earlier that day) because there appeared to be something in my shirt. I proceeded to look down my shirt when I discover that there is a moth sitting on my right breast caught in between my shirt and my bra. All control was lost. Clearly my only option was to take my shirt off. So I am in the middle of my language teacher’s house: ripping my shirt off, spinning in circles with my eyes squeezed shut (avoiding reality), and yelling…lots of yelling.

I love and miss you all!

Here are some pictures from the last week!