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.