Friday, February 19, 2016

'Oku 'osi 'a e Ta'u e Taha. 'E Toe 'a e Ta'u e Taha. (One Year Down. One More to Go)

In a year and a half I have…
1.     Learned how to eat the bones and heads of fish clean, and to chew on and suck the marrow free from the bones of the staple animal parts that appear at every meal;
2.     Eaten dog, horse, got brains, pig ears and feet (as well as almost every other part), sea urchin, sea cucumber, a number of other sea creatures I don’t know the names of, and even sea turtle;
3.     Been a tou’a, serving kava at men’s kava circles (faikava) and clubs (kalapu)  in between intermittent renditions of love songs played by callused, hard-worked hands strumming easily on wooden ukuleles and guitars while accompanied by a range of voices from deep, throaty baritones to smooth sopranos until all hours of the morning;
4.     Been persistently courted by Tongan men with fresh pineapples, watermelons and coconuts;
5.     Eaten raw fish straight from the sea, marinated only in the fresh, clear salt water of Ha’apai;
6.     Drank kava, soaked in natural hot springs, roamed up and down the rows of fish, produce and handicrafts at markets, swung from a rope into freshwater pools, and walked along abandoned train tracks through fields of sugar cane in Fiji;
7.     Been body-slammed (and still left last woman standing) by sturdy Tongan women twice my weight during evening games of the island-wide summer papolo league;
8.     Lived primarily off of the rainwater collected in concrete water tanks during the seasonal rains;
9.     Fought a daily battle against armies of ants that come in at least 27 different breeds and find their way into everything I own (sealed jars of peanut butter, bags of sugar, etc.), nests of cockroaches, ever-present flies, demonic, overgrown centipedes sneaking in through cracks in the floors and walls, rats living in the cupboards beneath my sink, seemingly drunken, suicide-prone crickets, spiders the size of my palm hanging out in ceiling corners, termites eating away at my chair and doors, stinkbugs creeping along my shelves, and months of persistent lice;
10. Taught English, computer skills, and fitness and nutrition to students at the primary and secondary levels;
11. Learned a traditional Tongan dance (tau’olunga) in one day and performed it in front of a crowd of people at the opening ceremony of a completed Tonga Water Board project;
12. Camped in caves by the sea, using palm fronds as a mat to sleep on;
13. Watched boys climb coconut trees, toss down heavy green coconuts from 35 feet up in the air, shimmy down and use a bush knife to crack them open for me to drink the slightly fizzy, freshly sweet water inside;
14.  Helped to start a monthly girls’ hiking club aimed to encourage young girls to explore our island and to lead nutritionally healthy and active lifestyles;
15. Translated a series of children’s stories from Tongan to English to expand English literacy materials in primary school classrooms;
16. Biked for miles along still-dark bush roads to see wild horses roaming the cliffs at the Southern tip of our island at sunrise;
17. Been chased and circled—and bitten only once—by dogs both on foot and while riding my bike;
18. Walked with the neighborhood kids during rainy downpours along the pot-hole strewn, dirt and gravel main road of our island splashing and jumping in murky puddles the size of small lakes;
19. Been chased through the bush and stung up and down my legs and booty by a swarm of bees;
20. Skinny dipped on isolated beaches at all times of the day: sunrise, midday and after dark;
21. Learned how Tongans use every part of a coconut and tree for cooking, gardening, making handicrafts etc.;
22. Gotten lost and found in the bush;
23. Had boils in inconvenient places;
24. Bathed with cold water out of a bucket;
25. Used a handheld fan woven from coconut palm fibers as my personal, and only, air-regulation system;
26. Raised a baby pig that was rescued by my neighbors from some dogs;
27. Started weaving a traditional Tongan ta’ovala;
28. Worked on building libraries at both my primary and secondary schools;
29. Learned to speak Tongan (not yet fluently);
30. Learned to basic Tongan braid (Tongans do it better than the French);
31. Scraped out a coconut to make a kava cup;
32. Learned how to make traditional Tongan foods in the underground oven (‘umu) such as lu and vai lesi;
33. Watched animals be slaughtered and roasted over fires or baked in underground ovens;
34. Read Tongan hymns at church on Sundays;
35. Slept on bathroom floors during bouts of food poisoning;
36. Gone swimming with whales;
37. Snuck out to the local warehouse turned nightclub in ‘Eua (falehulohula) to boogy the night away with Tongans ranging in age from infant to 92;
38. Lived without a refrigerator or oven;
39. Reunited with friends from high school and college, and slept in a rented camper van on a beach in Maui after toasting tequila shots to a lifetime of travel and reunions;
40. Spent one day learning to surf and one day nearly drowning in the surf in Oahu;
41. Struggled through 26.2 miles of the Maui Marathon alongside my brother and sister;
42. Drank red wine at an opera, and cruised on a boat in the Sydney Harbour;
43. Gone canyoning in the icy water running from the mountains, bungy jumped off a 43-meter high bridge to be dunked up to my hips in the river below, hiked for three miles along rough and scenic terrain of the Routeburn Track in Queenstown, New Zealand;
44. Watched seals basking on rocks in the sun while sailing and kayaking in the tea-stained water of Doubtful Sound in the Fjordland National Park of New Zealand’s south island;
45. Woken up to minor earthquakes shaking the foundation of my home, and cyclone (Winston) force winds blowing rain through the cracks in my windows to partially flood my home…

Here is the link to a video I’ve compiled that will give just a glimpse into what life in Tonga has been like over the past year and a half:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Qa27iL3ms


Cheers to another year of adventure.

No comments:

Post a Comment