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.

Palangi Fakasesele (Crazy Palangi)

You’re not a true Tongan until you eat like one.

Eating like a Tongan means a lot of things. It means eating whatever’s in front of you. It can mean eating with your hands, even if there’s silverware around. It is kai lahi or kai lelei (“eating big” or “eating well”), which means eating enough for two, or three. Or seven. I saw my host brother, Inu, eat a whole loaf of bread for breakfast, once. He washed it down with a plate full of cooked sausages and veggies. He’s 13 years old.

Eating like a Tongan also means letting nothing go to waste.

            One night, while having boiled fish for dinner with my home-stay family, my sister, Sioa, and mom, Milise, teased me for not eating the fish’s head. I had picked out all of the bones and eaten off all of the meat that I could find, but had pushed the head to the side of my plate to feed to the animals later on. Laughing at me, they said they knew that palangis don’t eat the heads, but, to Tongans, that’s a waste.

            I took that as a challenge.

            At language class the next day I asked my LCF, Taua, to teach me how to eat fish the “Tongan way.” I told him how my family had made fun of me and then excused me because I was a palangi, but I wanted none of that. Right after põ ako he came over. He told my family he was there to teach me how to be Tongan, but really he probably just wanted a free meal.

He sat with me at the table and walked me through it, swallowing literally the whole fish—brains, eyeballs, everything—spitting out only the bones and gills. Then it was my turn. They all thought it was hilarious. Taua called me a “crazy palangi,” and Sioa filmed while I took more than triple the amount of time that Taua had taken to finish it all. But I did it!

Here’s the video, courtesy of Sioa. WARNING: Content may be kind of gross.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FAaJvHDjlk&feature=youtu.be

Polokalama PST (PST Schedule)

The fish stared lifelessly up at Taua, one of Peace Corps Tonga’s Language and Culture Facilitators (LCFs), as he held it down to the cement landing behind the Mo’unga Saione Hall where we have our pre-service training several days out of the week.  In his right hand, he gripped the wooden handle of a rounded tool, edged with a row of triangular shark-like teeth. Securing the fish’s limp body in place, he lowered the metal jaws to its flesh and scraped the teeth against the grain of its scales.  Dozens of perfectly circular, translucent discs flew into the air in its wake, leaving the fish’s skin slimy and smooth.

            Reaching next for a knife, Taua proceeded to shave off its fins, and then gouge a hole into its intestinal area. He dug his fingers into the hole, pulling out the fish’s innards and holding them out for all of us to examine. Without warning, he popped a piece into his mouth.

            “Ifo,” he gurgled, mouth full, as he chewed and then swallowed the guts in one gulp, “delicious.”

            Fingers still coated in guts, Taua grabbed the fish’s body again, and began sawing off its head and tail. He picked up the remainder of its mid-section, where most of the meat was located, and cut ridges into each of its sides. He then tore off chunks of the raw flesh and offered them to the bravest souls in his audience to taste.

            The purpose of our pre-service training here in Tonga is to prepare us for life at our sites, when the comforts and ease of home-stay have been removed. This includes everything from the simple—but immensely important—tasks of healthy and safe food and water preparation, to achieving an intermediate level of language proficiency that will give us the skills to, hopefully, communicate effectively with the members of our various communities, and to enable further learning throughout our service.  We are building a foundation to be able to survive on our own and to integrate into the Tongan culture and lifestyle in order to help make our impact sustainable.

            A month and a half into training, our days and weeks have become structurally routine. My weekly schedule is pretty much as follows:

            Mondays/Wednesdays:

·      8:30 – 12:30 p.m. -  Each language group meets at their LCFs’ house to learn and practice lea fakatonga, or “speaking Tongan.” At some point during the four hours of language training, each group breaks for taimi ti, a.k.a. tea time. Tea time is the best time. Top five at least.

·      12:30 – 6:30 p.m. -  After morning class until our group language hour at 6:30, groups are generally free to eat lunch and possibly dinner, work on self-directed learning activities, or to complete assignments for the week’s upcoming training events.

·      6:30 – 7:30 p.m. -  Põ ako or night school for more Tongan language practice.

·      7:30 -- ??  -  Language and cultural activities with our home-stay families. More often than not this means to eat, hang out with the fam, read or watch movies, check the internets and then sleep. After dark, we aren’t supposed to go anywhere unless we find a ride or escort to transport us somewhere, and we have to check-in with our home-stay families if we do (e.g. go another PCT’s house to hang out or what not).

Two of our LCFs, Taua and Tasi, hanging out at the hall. Taua is teaching several of our PCTs a Tongan song to perform with ukuleles at our Swearing-In ceremony on Oct. 31. 

Tuesdays/Thursdays:

·      8:30 – 10:30 a.m. - Language session, followed by a 15-minute taimi ti.

·      10:45 – 12:45 p.m. -  Pre-service training session. Either Safety & Security, Medical or Technical (pertaining to the Tongan Ministry of Education’s (MET) system and curriculum, our Project Framework and the kind of work we’ll be doing at our individual sites).

·      12:45 – 1:45 p.m. - Lunch and impromptu group bonding shenanigans (e.g. Never Have I Ever, and Dutch Blitz). Sometimes we ‘eva pe (stroll), down to Losa’s—who has earned our designation as the local “curry lady”—food stand to buy a heaping plate of her neon-green chicken and manioke (cassava) to-go. There’s also the option of the Chinese falekaloas (stores) to buy a 50 cent cup of nutolo (noodles). Or we could just settle for the Tupperware lunches provided by our home-stay families, which often boast of heaps of smashed spaghetti sandwiches, random fried eggs, butter and tomato sandwiches, really, butter and anything sandwiches, and endless papaya and bananas.

·      1:45 – 5 p.m. -  More of the training sessions mentioned above.

·      6:30 – 7:30 -  Lea fakatonga session. And the rest of the evening free to do as we please.

Tongan Peace Corps staff members, Lose and Elenoa a.k.a. Mama Noa, who take care of us like we're their own.

            Fridays:

·      8:30 – 12:30 p.m. -  Visits to the schools/sites of the current Group 77 and 78 Tonga PCVs. We generally explore their homes and villages, and discuss the resources and methods they use in their classrooms and with their Tongan counterparts. 

·      12:30 – 5 p.m. -  We return to the training hall to present and discuss our observations, and participate in more technical training.

Weekends:

·      We spend Saturdays with our host families and with each other, making trips into Nuku’alofa (the capital city) to get a mediocre but highly-craved burger at High 5 or internet access at TCC or Friends Cafe, perusing the markets at the wharf or in town, catching a ride to the beach or even just hanging out and helping with the cleaning and chores at home.

·      Sundays are for eating, sleeping and praying, and nothing else. Everyone dresses in their Sunday best: vibrant puletaha, skillfully hand-crafted ta’ovala or kiekie, silken tupenu, and intricately braided hairstyles. Some women even bust out their platform wedges and stilettos for the morning church services.

My host sister, Sioa, helping my host mom, Milise, get ready for church. She tightens and fastens the ta'ovala (mat made from woven pandanus) around her waist using kafa, a braided rope made from the husk of a coconut, embellished with seashells.

Milise's sisters and nieces, also part of home-stay families for PCTs in Nukunuku, gathered together with my fellow PCTs Megan (in red) and Sammy (in pink), and me.

Milise, and I at the Free Wesleyan Church service in Nukunuku, Tongatapu. We wore pink puletaha in honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness month.

**Special Notice: We’ve started practicing for the different dance/song performances that we’ll be putting on at our Swearing-In ceremony on Oct. 31, in front of the Peace Corps Tonga staff, our home stay families, representatives from Tonga MET and maybe even the Ambassdor. Videos of the show will (hopefully) be uploaded!