I'm still alive...

I have been in Tonga for three weeks now, so I figure it’s probably about time for me to update my blog!! I am loving my time here in Tonga—to no one’s surprise, I am sure.  Coming back here was just like coming home.   I was so happy when I arrived at the airport in Tonga, I couldn’t stop smiling while I was waiting in line to get my visa.  I was a little nervous when I got to the airport because my flight got in an hour earlier than it was scheduled (which does not really fit into my schema of Polynesian time, so that threw me off a bit).  So I figured that the family that was supposed to pick me up wouldn’t be there for another hour, so I’d be waiting at the airport by myself and being annoyed by all the taxi drivers!  But one of the many benefits of being on a small island is that everyone sees when a plane is coming, so as soon as they saw the plane they jumped in their van to come get me! I was greeted at the airport by one of my best Tongan friends, Boyd, and his little sister and cousin! It was a very warm welcome and I was thrilled to see some familiar faces and wear the beautiful lei that they made for me!

I stayed with their family, the Ikas,  in a little village called Ha’akame in Tongatapu.  When I got to their house I was surprised to see they had built a Tongan house for me, a little hut made of the coconut tree leaves and branches!!  It was amazing!!!  I absolutely loved it! Not only was it really cute, but it was super breezy. The family has three sons, 19, 18, 16 and one daughter, 9.  They all worked together with their neighbor to make it for me, so that was very special to me.  It’s hard to describe what it was really like, so I’m going to try and post pictures of it soon.  The sides of the house are just layers of the leaves braided together, and one layer just lays on top of the other so if you lift it up you can put your arms in side.  It was really funny because one of the boys in the family was like, “oh we should tie up the sides of the house here or else somebody might try to come shopping in here,” because I had a little table with all of my stuff sitting against the wall.  Another kind of funny experience happened one night when it started raining really, really hard and the rain started pouring into the hut.  It just started at like two or three little holes, but after about a minute it was dripping through in like twenty different places.  The boys all went running outside to get a tarp to put on top of the house to keep the rain from coming in.  It kept the rain out in most of the places, and I thought it was perfect!

 Ha’akame is known in Tonga for cooking the best horse meat (and eating the most of it!).  So the first night I was there, they cooked a ton of horse, and other Tongan food, and had all of their extended family over for a little get together.  It was really neat because each of the brothers and sisters went around the room and said what was going on in their lives and talked about what their children were doing with their lives and in school, etc.  It was really a cool thing to be a part of!  Other than spending time with the family, we just went to the beach everyday because it was only like a ten minute walk.  It was really fun, because unlike the beaches in Vava’u, this one was just a little hole in the rocks with really big waves. There was one spot that was really deep and you could jump in, it was super fun!!  

My time in tongatapu was interesting because it really does have a few differences from Vava’u.  I was surprised by how much bigger the town Nuku’alofa is than Neiafu (the town in Vava’u).  There is a lot more to do there, more palangi food, actual places to shop, big buildings, etc.  It was cool.  Also, one of the kids I was talking to surprised me when he said that the kids in town think they are better than the kids in the villages far away from town because “they don’t have to work like we do.” I thought that was an interesting statement, and not something I had heard when I was in Vava’u. 

So I came to Vava’u last Monday and have been so happy to be back here! Besides a couple of new shops and a new road, everything is exactly the same!  I am staying with a wonderful family, the Kapelis, in the same village (Leimatu’a) as I stayed in last time.   It’s been so fun to spend time with them! They have 13 kids, but only 7 of them are living at home right now.  They have three teenage daughters, one is 18, so that’s really fun for me! They are really sweet.  They are super funny too because they always want to do everything for me, like get my water buckets for my shower and put all of my food on a plate for me to eat.  It’s super sweet! They are such a humble family, and even though they don’t have a lot of things, they are some of the happiest people I know!  They have so much love for each other, and for me, and they have done so much to make me feel like I’m a part of this family.  When I said I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, Suli, the mom, said, “yes you do. You have Kefi, and Luse, and Cici, and Sina, and Ane, and Melenai, and Elenoa, and Siope, and Mote, and Mone, and Feleti, and Una and Tali.”   It made me so happy to hear her say that. 

Unlike my time in Tongatapu that consisted of a lot of relaxation and hanging out, I have been working every day since I got here, from 8 to 4 at the LDS church high school, Saineha.  Last week was just a training week and the student’s first day is today, so I don’t have any interesting stories about that yet.  The family I’m living with doesn’t have a car, so we always catch a ride to town with someone else that is going that way.  We usually ride in the back of someone’s truck, which is my favorite way to travel because it’s not hot. And it’s kind of fun, too! Don’t worry mom, the cars don’t go fast enough for anything too bad to happen if we wrecked.  

Yesterday, we went to the sea in Toula and were kind of fishing.  I don’t know what the English word for it is, but basically we just used wrenches to hit the mussels off of the rocks in the sea.  It was actually really fun! I did a really bad job at the first couple, and ended up smashing the meat of the mussel instead of just the shell, but after that I got really good at getting them to come off the rocks.  I use the term “really good” loosely.  Anyways, it was fun and so beautiful because we were just in the middle of the beautiful shallow see, with nothing but ocean and trees surrounding us.  The beauty of this island never ceases to take my breath away! 

Random funny moment of the week:  One of the little girls asked, “Have you ever heard of a village in America called New York City?”  Yes, yes I have heard of that village before.