Kaipola 'Aho Fa'ele'i (Birthday Feast)

If anyone had told me that on my 23^rd birthday I’d be sitting in the sand in a shady grove of trees at the edge of a beach on a remote island kingdom in the middle of the South Pacific watching two guys slaughter a pig for me…I probably would have told you that pigs are my friends, not food.

Except for bacon. Bacon is definitely food. Food from the Gods.

After almost four months of repeated attempts at befriending (sometimes aggressively) the abundant sows and their baby piglets that cross the street in greater numbers and with greater authority than people here do, I’ve given in. One day I will have a pig friend (probably named Sherlock), but for now, I’m content roasting one over an open fire to reluctantly celebrate turning another year older. 

Pote and Sala slaughtering the pig to be roasted. 

Not that I really contributed to much of the cooking. 

Corinne, Bailey, Sammy and I watched on as the guys—Nepote and Lisala, two of Corinne’s friends from ‘Ohonua who we’ve also started hanging out with too since moving to ‘Eua—slaughtered what we hadn’t realized was a live pig in the sack that Sala had carried the whole way over on our walk to the roasting spot. 

Pote carrying the dead carcass to burn the hair off of it in the fire. 

When it was finally dead, they set to work gutting it, and then burning the black hair and rubbing it from the pig’s flesh. They spitted it with a long wooden pole, and began to cook it, slowly turning the body over the flames.

Corinne, Sammy, Bailey and I just sat there and watched, drinking coconuts and passing around a bag of gummy worms.

Pote made a tepile for us to eat on—a pile of luscious green leaves torn from some trees farther down the beach—and Sala brought over the puaka tunu (roast pig) and set it among the leaves. Using a bush knife, Pote began hacking at the now crunchy pig-skin and ripping apart its limbs to make it easier for us to eat.

“Kai taimi!” he said, “Time to eat!” 

Sala holding the pig in place while Pote split it with a bush knife.

Sammy and Bailey briefly recited a Tongan blessing for our food, and then we all went at it, tearing off the fatty skin—the best part—with our fingers, juices running rivers down our palms and coating the sides of our mouths, which we just wiped off with the backs of our hands. Sammy added some fresh pineapple, and Bailey some lobster and crab into the mix too.

After a rendition of “Happy birthday” and “Happy long life” to me, it was taimi kaukau tahi, time to swim in the ocean.

Nepote did some cannonballs into the shallow coral-bordered pool, splashing us all, then retreated to the shade of a rocky ledge with Sala to hide from the vela la’ã (hot sun).

We’ve decided Tongans are afraid of it.

Sammy, Bailey, Corinne and I sat back, letting the waves and sun wash over us, in shallow pools of salt water, at the edge of a beach, on a remote island, of a kingdom in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Bliss. 

Corinne relaxing with Sammy, Bailey and I while the boys worked to prepare our feast.

Sala and Pote bro-ing out after swimming in the ocean.

Bailey and Sammy rocking their sassy Tongan beach hats.

Putu (Tongan Funeral)

            I was standing in a stranger’s home, surrounded by people I didn’t know, looking down at a dead body. How I found myself in that situation in the beginning of just my second week in ‘Eua is beyond me.

            The lined features of the middle-aged man, expressionless in death, looked waxen, fake, as if his brown skin had been sculpted out of clay and carefully shaped to resemble the living.

            But, that’s not what I was thinking about as I stood over him. It was more like, what the hell am I doing, kissing a dead man?

I didn’t even know the guy, and yet there I was getting ready to pucker up. (Like, at least buy me dinner first, amirite?)

At my neighbor’s encouragement, I’d stood up to join the line of people filing over to the shroud. I thought that it might reflect poorly on me if I shunned someone who had been a well-known and respected member of my community, after living here for just one week.

I hadn’t thought paying my respects would mean I’d have to kiss him though.

Shuffling behind the other women in front of me, I hadn’t been paying attention to what they were doing. I was too distracted by the piles of painted tapa cloth and woven mats donated by all the guests; by the clean, soft, snow-white blankets that made up the man’s shroud, festooned with purple ribbons and multi-colored needlework; by the fact that there was no coffin in sight.

Next thing I knew, the woman in front of me was bending over him and just laying one on him. For a drawn-out moment, I panicked internally, but it was too late for me to back out without offending everyone and their dogs’ fleas, so I just mimicked what she did.

I bent over him and leaned to plant a kiss on his forehead, but at the last second I balked and noncommittally reared my head back so that my lips hardly even grazed flesh.

I probably looked something like a chicken does when it’s searching for crumbs of food in the grass, pulling it’s head backward and thrusting it forward in that weird, tense, jerky motion.

When the deed was done, I turned quickly and restrained myself from bolting through the door. I walked casually, with measured steps outside and across the lawn to an area that had been prepared for the morning feast.

At 7 a.m. all the guests that had attended the morning prayer service and wake, sat down on wooden benches to feast on hot dogs in oversized buns, plain white cake smothered in yellow custard, flattened corned beef sandwiches on white bread, and roasted pig, washed down with hot coffee or black tea and lukewarm glasses of Tang. Each person left with a stack of plastic take-away boxes to bring home to their families.

Much like with anything of importance here, two major things accompany funerals in Tonga: lots of praying and lots of eating. And, out of respect for the suffering family, most activities throughout the community that would make much noise—for example, rugby games or other sporting events—are either canceled or moved to another village.

With the burial scheduled for Friday afternoon in Petani—one of the villages bordering my home—prayer services began on Tuesday and were held once every evening leading up to the actual day of the funeral, and then for three days after.

People from all over the community dressed in black with various-sized ta’ovala wrapped around their hips. The size of each person’s ta’ovala depends on their rank in relation to the deceased. So, for example, someone who ranks lower than the deceased might wear a ta’ovala that covered most of their body—the lowest ranking even wearing some that hooded their heads. The higher-ranking family members wear smaller ta’ovala and kiekie to also show their rank.

On Friday, there were three services: the morning prayers and wake, the afternoon formal church service and burial, and the evening prayers at the mourning family’s home.  Guests provide gifts and donations (typically of the kind mentioned above) to show their love and support for the mourners, but it’s the family of the deceased’s role to provide food for all of the people—close and distant—who attend the different services.

At the afternoon burial services, all of the guests first attended a formal religious service at the Free Wesleyan (Methodist) church in Petani. Everyone stood, turned toward the aisle, and watched as two rows of men carried the man’s lifeless body over their shoulders—wrapped only in a mat woven from pandanus leaves—and laid it at the foot of the alter in the front of the church. Singing, prayers and the readings of hymns contributed to the blessing of the body before burial.

When the service was finished, everyone filed out of the doors and made their way to the cemetery, about 200 yards down a dirt and gravel path leading from the church. The men followed in the rear, hoisting the body over their shoulders, and heaving it onto the open flatbed of a waiting truck. The truck then followed the procession of people to the cemetery.

People sat anywhere and everywhere. Some people watched the proceedings from the shaded front yards of families living adjacent to the cemetery. Some sat on the walls making up its perimeter, while others sat at their base or on the grassy lawn in between stone-covered graves. They shielded themselves with shawls, umbrellas or wide-faced leaves—anything they could get their hands on to fend off the hot sun beating down on us.

 More prayers were said, then the same men who carried him before, lowered the man’s body into the plot. Again, everyone took to the path heading back toward the main road. In the crowds of people, two columns started to form. We were sorted into lines: children on the left, adults on the right. At first I couldn’t see anything over the heads of the men and women in front of me, but as the cluster of people flowed steadily forward, I could see two trucks parked on either side of the dirt road. A couple of men had climbed onto each truck-bed to distribute plastic bags to each person who passed. When it was my turn, I reached up to accept and to investigate the contents of whatever it was they were handing out to everybody.

The plastic bags were filled with raw chicken breasts and legs, and flanks of beef. They dripped on the outside with the blood from the uncooked meat.

I held the bag in both hands and made eye contact with Teisa and Linili (two of the women who I work with at the high school, Hofangahau). The look on my face must have been absurd—a mix of surprise, confusion and amusement at the ridiculousness of what had just happened—because they burst out laughing at me.

“What? This isn’t how you do funerals in ‘Amelika?” they said to me.



Below is the link to a short video compilation from a different funeral I went to earlier this year in a village called Houma. It highlights some of the spiritual and food-related aspects of the putu that I mentioned in the post above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGDWd7TNVHY&feature=youtu.be

'Aho Faiva (Swearing-In Ceremony)

Promptly at 8 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 31, a horde of fearsome Tongan women armed with bobby pins, freshly ironed puletaha, flowered hair accents, and kahoa stormed into Sela’s Guest House. The mothers and several daughters from our host families got right to work preparing us for our Swearing-In ceremony, which was scheduled for 10 o’clock later that morning. 

Milise and I at Sela's Guest House before the Ceremony.

            “I don’t think so,” Milise said, taking one look at my hair. She abruptly grabbed another woman walking past, said a couple of quick sentences to her in Tongan—too fast for me to understand—and firmly pushed me into a nearby chair. The other woman returned after just a minute or so and, without a word, started undoing the braided bun at the back of my neck. Her deft fingers twisted and tucked thick strands of my hair into an up-do, all while Milise looked on with a fiercely critical eye. 

            When the other woman finished, Milise appraised her work, then beamed her big, gold-toothed smile, her eyes crinkling into slits. She laid the final touches: a white flower for my hair, and a pearl necklace draped over my collarbones. 

A view of my up-do from the back, in the van on our way to Swearing-In.

            The fifteen PCTs of Group 79 all piled into vans to head to Ita’s Guest House, where the ceremony was held. Our host families waved as we drove away, and then climbed into their own vehicles to follow closely behind.

            Ita’s had been transformed since the rehearsal on the day before. Bolts of red and blue cloth covered the ground of the open-air pavilion that looked out onto the shining water of the inlet. White drapes were fastened to the poles with blue and red ribbon, and a Peace Corps banner hung in the center of the display, above a podium draped in white cloth and a decorative mat woven of pandanus leaves. To the right of the podium, the Tongan flag waved proudly in a cool Tongan breeze. 

The decorated pavilion for the ceremony at Ita's Guest House.

            The Swearing-In ceremony featured several speeches from our Country Director, Eddie Stice, Tonga Ministry of education and Training (MET)’s Director of Education, ‘Emeli Pouvalu, our Director of Programming and Training, Paul Jurmo, and our Program Manager and Training Manager, Lavinia Palei and Elenoa Kauvaka. We swore an oath of loyalty to the United States Government, followed by a brief introduction of each PCT, stating our individual locations of service, followed by the presentation of laminated certificates officially recognizing us as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs). 

Me receiving my certificate from DPT Paul Jurmo, as an official PCV.

After we received our certificates, Bailey and Kelsey stood up to read a letter written to our host families in both English and Tongan, thanking them—on all of our behalf—for all that they had done to house us, feed us and love us over the past two months.

            Our cultural performances were up next. We had all spent several hours a night, several nights a week over the past month learning each of the dances and songs that we performed. By Tongan standards, they were probably all mediocre at best, but that didn’t stop us from performing them, or the audience from enjoying them, with reckless abandon.

           

PCVs Bailey Bollinger and Kelsey Smith reading the thank you letter.

While Kevin and Abrham performed their kailao (traditionally male dance done with spears), Liz, Kelsey, Alex and I were whisked outside to get ready for our hula. After the hula came a Tongan song, sung by Carrie Lee and Sammy, accompanied by Harry and Renee on guitar and ukulele.

The tau’olunga was the grand finale.  

            Under the pavilion, music played during a five-minute intermission to give us time to change into our faiva (show) outfits. Our host monsters dragged us out into the parking lot, stripped us down, and wrapped us in painted tapa cloth. Each design and outfit was different. Some had feathered hairpieces reaching more than a foot into the air; some had kafa ropes with shells intricately braided into them; some had flowered kahoa tied around their necks while others wore thin black chokers adorned with a single bleached shell. 

PCV Chiara Razzino's hairpiece for the faiva.

            Our host moms were a terrifying force to reckon with as they dressed us, yanking us here and there as they tugged and folded the cloth around us, and forced the hairpieces, wristlets and anklets into place.

They showed none of that shame or modesty we were told so adamantly that Tongans have. I still don’t know who did it, but one woman gave me a sharp little spank on my half-naked booty while Milise wrapped a tapa skirt around my hips; another woman reached her hands all the way up that same skirt as she lathered my legs in oil, then quickly moved on without missing a beat to my bare chest, shoulders and arms.

            When we were finally ready, we all filed into our positions on the stage. As soon as the music started, the chaos began. Tongans and palangis alike cheered, whooped, clapped and danced their way up to the stage to shove one-, two- and five-dollar bills down the front of our outfits and slap them onto our sticky, oiled limbs. 

            They danced beside and behind us to show their support for us as we officially began our two-year service as PCVs in the South Pacific Island Kingdom of Tonga.

Me and my LCF, Taua Tonga, at the Swearing-In ceremony.

Sammy, Bailey, Kayla and I before being sworn-in.

Group 79 PCVs swearing an oath of loyalty and service to the U.S. Government.

Kevin getting ready to do the kailao.

Abrham and Kevin dancing the kailao.

Harry, Sammy, Carrie Lee, and Renee performing a Tongan song on guitar and ukulele.

Harry, Liz, Alex, Kelsey, Kevin, Abrham and I performing the hula.

Dancing the tau'olunga.

Me with my certificate authorizing the completion of PST, and initiation as a PCV. Wahoo!

And here's the video of us doing the tau'olunga!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob-rcKF12fo&feature=youtu.be

Ko Hoku Fãmili Tonga (My Tongan Family)

My home-stay family's yard. Mango tree, palm trees, Milise's garden, the pig-pen and ''umu (underground oven) in the back.

It took one night of home-stay for me to learn that roosters do not crow at dawn, when the sun comes up. They crow at four o’clock in the morning, well before the sun comes up; and again at five after four o’clock in the morning; and again at six after; and again and again every couple of minutes until they must have woken every rooster from one side of the island to the other. 

            The roosters would wake the dogs, which would wake the cows, which would wake the goats and sheep, which would wake the church bell-Toller (sounds more like a gong actually), who would wake my host family.

One of my host-family's dogs briefly allowed out in the yard.

Puli and Inu, my host-father and 13 year-old -brother, shouted through paper-thin walls, to Milise and Sioa, my host-mom and 14 year-old -sister, in the next room over, across the narrow hallway. By the time the sun was up, Puli was outside tending the pigs, cows, dogs and ducks; Milise watering her garden; Sioa, cooking breakfast and getting ready for school. Inu was usually still lying in bed, maybe even crying about something already, even though it was barely 6 a.m. I didn’t speak Tongan well enough yet to know what it is that made him upset, but there always seemed to be something.

The plants inside Milise's greenhouse.

Ripening tomatoes in Milise's garden.

On days he was feeling sick—or really just giving a lackluster effort at fighting off a kava-induced hangover—Puli would half-mumble, half-moan Sioa’s name repeatedly, never changing his pitch or tone, until somehow she heard him and responded to whatever request he made.

“Sioa…Sioa…Sioa…”

Not quite the Big-Toehold maneuver or the tone-deaf rendition of “wake up, Sami, wake up. We wish you well, we think you’re swell. Wake up, Sami, wake up!” that I grew up with back home, but same concept. Sort of.

Puli was always apologizing to me for how loud Tongans are. I told him that I was used to it, and that he hasn’t seen anything.

I’m not the only crazy palangi in my real family. But, I am the only palangi in my crazy Tongan family.

Puli taking a nap under the mango tree.

Puli is 5’10” or so, with a round face and eyes that are permanently crinkled at the corners from smiling and laughing all the time. He’s a softy. Especially with Sioa, who he calls his right hand. “Daddy’s girls,” and “Momma’s boys,” are universal.

He’s used to walking around the house without a shirt on, bare stomach hanging out for everyone to see. That was until I came around. When I moved in, he tried to learn to keep his clothes on in the house too. But he’d always slip up. He’d be walking around doing his thing, until he saw me, then he’d panic and start scrambling to find a shirt, towel, curtain, blanket, anything to cover up in front of the palangi.

Puli covering himself up with a spare tropical print shirt while making lu for Sunday 'umu.

He works as a primary school teacher at a government school called Tokomololo, on Tongatapu. When he comes home from school, after working in the bush, he’s still a teacher.

They had a bookshelf lined with donated books set against the wall in the main living room of their home. In the hallway between bedrooms, a worn-out whiteboard rested against the wall, math equations and English phrases scrawled all over it in black dry-erase marker.

A view from outside of their home library.

During the second week of home-stay Puli woke me up at 5:30 one morning to tutor me in Tongan.

“You’re gonna be best in your class!” he said as he proceeded to overwhelm me with Tongan grammar points that were far too difficult to wrap my head around that early in the morning.

That never happened again.

 

Puli, Inu and Sioa using the whiteboard to study at night in the hallway between their bedrooms.

Milise was my mom away from my mom. She fried my breakfasts and boiled my dinners, overseeing how much I eat at every meal, occasionally grabbing chunks of bread from Sioa and giving them to me because “she was already two of me.”

When I stayed home from training because I was sick throwing up all night and morning, she made me stay in bed, giving me hot tea and a heating pad to settle my stomach, and wrapping a shawl around my head to protect me from the dangers of the cool breeze outside.

She worried. Like my real mom, I’m sure. Maybe even more. I was a half-hour late coming home from training one day because a couple of the other PCTs and I had stopped to hangout on our walk home. She called ‘Elenoa, our training manager, Taua, my language instructor, and at least two other home-stay parents asking where I was. I hadn’t had to report back to anyone in so long that I hadn’t even thought to let her know.

Milise using thread made from pandanus leaves to weave a new ta'ovala.

At around 6’0”, Milise towers over me, and stands taller than or even with most people I’ve met here so far. If her size didn’t already give her a formidable presence, her personality would. She’s tough, with a resting b*tch-face that could compete with the best of them.

Tough. But, not cold.

In social settings she could out-drink, out-sing, out-laugh anyone. You could hear her outbursts of hoots and cackles from across several rooms. Especially if there was karaoke involved. 

On the morning I was leaving for ‘Eua, she showed up at the wharf to send me off with a fresh-made lei around my shoulders and a tight squeeze for good luck. She was already making plans to visit in December.

Sioa tip-toeing over the coral to go for a swim in the ocean.

Sioa was the little sister I never had. She has her mom’s height, her dad’s round face, and beautiful black hair that falls in a slight wave all the way past her butt. In many ways, she is a lot like teenagers in the U.S. She would take somewhere around 4.7 million selfies each day using my iPhone, which I pretty much didn’t see from the time PST started until it ended two months later. Nothing was just mine anymore when I moved in. Some of Sioa’s favorite things were my iPhone, my laptop, my camera, and my ukulele.

Sioa and I on our way to the beach. One of maybe 100 selfies taken that day.

She spent what seemed like hours in front of the mirror, borrowing my mascara to do her makeup, doing and re-doing her hair a dozen times until every bump was perfectly smooth, and otherwise preening in every way possible to look perfect to go out in public.

We had dance parties, movie nights—some “girls only,” kicking Inu out, and some including him—and would lay in my bed together talking about our families and what we wanted to be when we grew up. She would wait for me almost every night to eat dinner, where we’d sit at the table gossiping about boys and the latest scandals in Nukunuku. On Saturdays, we’d do the laundry together. Or, well, she would do the washing and I would watch, only becoming useful when it came to the folding. We’d sit on the floor of the living room folding the whole family’s clothes, comparing the ways things are in Tonga to the way they are in the U.S.

Inu and Sioa selfie game strong.

Inu, much like my real brothers, only liked me when no one else was around. In public, he’d usually just pretend like he didn’t know me.

He was always getting into trouble for being fakapikopiko (lazy) or not listening. Some days he’d come sprinting home from the neighbors’ houses, busting through the door and leaning against the wall to catch his breath. I didn’t always know why, but at least one time I know he’d gotten into a fight with a kid from the next road over whose dad had chased him all the way home.

He hated going to church and would do just about anything to avoid it, for which he’d get a nice beating later on. When he did go, he’d distract himself by playing with pebbles or generally misbehaving. His ta’ovala was never on right. He’d fasten it haphazardly with the kafa rope, so that it was crooked in the back, just barely hanging on.

Sometimes he’d just straight up leave early.

 “Inu is so bad, he doesn’t listen,” Milise would say to me several times a week at least.

He is so smart, though. He likes reading about Greek mythology and would sometimes look over my shoulder when I was reading the whole The Lord of the Rings series. 

For two straight months, after listening to it on my phone, he walked around the house belting out the song “Let it Go,” from Disney’s Frozen. You could hear him singing it in the shower, in the yard, and sitting at the table as he did his homework. All day, every day.

The kid eats like a grown man twice his age. He’d wolf down an entire loaf of bread in one sitting. And that would just be his appetizer. The last morning of home-stay I challenged him to an eating contest. I beat him, but only because it was for speed, not to see who could eat the most. Obviously I set the rules, because he would have destroyed me otherwise. He already challenged me to a rematch in two years, before I go back to the U.S.

“I am looking forward to it,” he said when I was walking out the door to leave.

Inu's face after I beat him in our final eating contest.

He couldn’t make it to our Swearing-In ceremony because of end of the school year exams, but when it was over, Milise handed me a woven armband made out of thread from pandanus leaves. She told me he’d made it in school and had wanted to give it to me.

Vakamisini hanging out in her porch domain.

Part of me thinks that Vakamisini is the only one from home-say who will really miss me. She is the family cat. White fur with black spots, and fierce as a jungle cat. She’s a hunter. I’ve seen her leap from the table to the ceiling of the porch to ensnare a lizard in her jaws of death. Poor little boiiii was a goner before he even knew what hit him.

She wasn’t supposed to be allowed indoors, but she’d sneak in anyway to sit on my lap while I ate my breakfast, trying to snatch up whatever she could get while I wasn’t looking. When I couldn’t finish the bowls of porridge laid out for me that were bigger than my head, she’d help me out. Before I came, no one but Inu called her anything other than pusi, the Tongan word for cat. She earned the name Vakamisini, which means “motorboat,” because of the way she would purr when I’d pet her. It was like she’d never gotten that kind of lovin’ before.

Hanging with the pusi.

I made it my goal to become a part of the family, not just treated as a guest. I tried to learn to be Faka-Tonga. I road with Puli to the bush. I went to church every Sunday dressed in puletahas and ta’ovalas. I ate me’akai Faka-Tonga (Tongan food), and I often ate it like Tongans do: with my hands, and way more than one person should be able to eat at one time.

What I got was something in the middle.

             For the first four weeks or so, I was never allowed to do chores or to help out in any way. I couldn’t cook my own meals, do my own laundry or wash any dishes.  When I made my own bed after the sheets had been washed, Milise scolded me, saying I should have waited for her to do it.

            I slowly worked my way up to doing big things though. By week five I poured my own cereal. Week six, I washed some dishes and helped Sioa fold some laundry. Week seven, I scraped the insides out of a couple of coconuts to feed to the ducks. Serious moves were being made. I think if I’d been able to stay another few weeks, I might have been able to dress myself for church on Sunday like the fully capable adult that I’ve been for the past four years.

          Probably not, though. Putting a big ta’ovala on by yourself is hard.

Puli doing the laundry outside.

The bush knife and hakalo I used to scrape out the coconuts to feed the ducks.

             We did share everything though. Including all of my techy devices, and most importantly, food. They helped me navigate the language and culture. They told me what to wear and when to stand and sit in church—yes, I even messed that up. They laughed at me when I pronounced words wrong or accidentally said bad words. They laughed at me even harder when I tried to tau’olunga (traditional Tongan dance). I never had to be alone, if I didn’t want to be.

            I was also never left alone, even if I did want to be.

            They told me that one of the reasons why they treated me that way was because they hoped that if they ever came to visit in the U.S, they’d be treated the same way. I hope to make that happen one day.

            The other reasons are all just part of what it means to be Faka-Tonga.

           

For Your Entertainment:

1) "Let it Go" cover by Inu Vaiagnina:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4J6r6vDa6M&feature=youtu.be

2) Dance party featuring Sioa and I:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ismx1jQz7Fs&feature=youtu.be

3) Me beating Inu in our goodbye eating contest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvBIERwzalE&feature=youtu.be

Kapekape (Cussing in Tongan)

My Tongan host dad, Puli, came home from work one day carrying an unwieldy burden of food. Sapa sui (chop suey), lu sipi  (sheep meat baked in taro leaves), moa fakapaku (fried chicken), and a small puaka tunu (roasted pig), among other tinfoil-wrapped food items piled one on top of the other, were precariously balanced in his arms.

It was the end of the first day of the Class 6 sivi (final exam) at GPS Tokomololo, the government primary school he works at as a teacher. The sivi is one of the most important exams that Tongan students take in their academic career. It determines what school they qualify to attend for Forms 1-7, which equate similarly to the high school level and the first couple of years of college credit in the U.S. education system.

To celebrate the end of a full year of preparation for the exam and to thank the teachers for all of their work, the communities that feed into the primary schools give each of the Class 6 teachers a kato—a traditional Tongan basket woven from palm leaves—filled with exorbitant amounts of food to take home to their families every day after administering the exam. 

Viewing it as an opportunity to practice my vocabulary from the “Food” unit we’d just covered in my language class, I enthusiastically thanked Puli for bringing home all of the delicious foodies.

“Mãlõ e ha’u mo e kota!” I awkwardly pieced together. Thank you for coming with the basket full of food.

At least, that’s what I thought I was saying.

My host sister, Sioa, gasped and clapped her hand to her mouth. My host brother, Inu, stopped shoveling handfuls of curry chicken into his mouth and stared at me. Puli just walked away.

Then Sioa and Inu burst out laughing.

“You swore!” they hissed at me.

They refused to tell me what I’d said, so I asked Taua at language class the next morning.

Thank you for coming with the food?

No. Not even close.

Thank you for coming with the uncircumcised boy.

Kato and kota definitely do not mean the same thing in Tongan. Somebody should have warned me.

To the great amusement of our Tongan Peace Corps staff, not a single one of the PCTs in our group have escaped making a grievous language error. Some have been harmless. Some have proven fatal.

Taua seems to have made it his personal goal to teach our language group all of the kapekape (Tongan swear words—not always the same as in English) that he can. He says we need to know in case our students cuss at us, thinking we won’t know what they’re saying. Really, he’s just angakovi (badly behaved, or mischievous).

He regularly incorporates kapekape into our language instruction, using them in sample sentences to highlight various grammar points. Maybe it’s unconventional, but it seems to work for us.

 Taua adding a dirty spin to a casual game of Hangman during morning language class.

Here’s a list of some of the good (but, mostly bad) kapekape that Group 79 PCTs have accidentally come across:

1)          ‘Usi – a**hole. Dangerously close to ‘osi, which means “finished,” or “done,” and is used quite frequently in Tonga to declare the end of a presentation or speech etc.

2)          Potu – penis. Again, dangerously close to poto, which means smart or clever; quick to learn.

3)          Fie’uli – horny; literally translates to “to want the dirty.” Fie’uli is very different from faka’uli, which means “to drive.”

4)          Huhu – If you say ‘eku huhu, it means “my fork.” If you say hoku huhu, it means “my boob.”

5)          Ta’e – When used before a word it is the equivalent to “less,” or “without,” (e.g. “careless” or “without care”). When not used before another word, it means sh*t.

6)          Fai – Most of the time it means “do,” as in “what did you do this weekend?” Other times it means “to f*ck.”

7)          Tepilo is “to fart.” Tepile is table.

8)          ‘Ono’ono – to moon someone; a.k.a. to drop trough and show someone your pale booty view. Ono ono is the word for the number 66. Distinguishing the difference in pronunciation is a matter of finesse.

9)          One of the other PCTs called her host mom po, or “toilet bowl,” for the first three weeks of training. Her name is Pou, a very common nickname for Tupou in Tonga.

10)       I repeated the word fulu in Taua’s ear literally seven times until he laughingly begged me to stop saying that. I was trying to tell him that I was “washing the dishes,” or fufulu ipu. Fulu is not fufulu. Fulu is “pubic hair.”

My Tongan language class. From left to right: Me, Taua, Renee, Carrie Lee, and Hame.