Moving in....

What’s up everyone? A lot new here in Tonga, as I’ve been at my site, the village of Makave (600 people, large by Tongan standards. Mind you that only 16K peeps live in Vava’u, 100K in all of Tonga. More Tongans live abroad than live in their own country.) for one week now. Quite quite interesting to say the least.

I have a really nice house by Peace Corps Vava’u standards. It’s a small, 3 room home. In my living room, there’s a bed, a couch, a coffee table and the side wall is decorated with a huge “tapa cloth.” Women in Tonga peel the inner bark from a certain kind of tree and pound it w/ mallets for days to i guess to make the material more dense....kind of like rolling out a pile of dough. after, they soak it in oils and allow it to dry and then paint it. It’s a sign of wealth in Tonga. ANyway...that’s my living room. I’ve made it home by hanging a “terrible towel” and a few pictures from home on the wall.

The kitchen has a large table, stove top burners and a little fridge that i bought used from Peace Corps....I’ve got it matted w/ photos as well, so when the kiddies come over to visit they just stare at the photos, point, and say “ko hai?” or who? They point to all of you girls who are in pictures and ask if it’s my sister, and if it’s not, they ask if she’s my “moa.” I think that I already mentioned that moa means “chicken” or is slang for girlfriend. I think they are refering to the girlfriend meaning:-)

Speaking of moas...I do have a Tongan moa at the time. This past week, I went to one of the villages where our training group stayed for training and got myself a little puppy. Woman, Mommy Jan, calls our dog Bella, girlfriend, quite often, so I named the dog “moa” as a tribute to her. She’s a cute little bugger...she is black with a white stripe that begins at her neck, goes between her eyes and expands, making her whole stomach white. She also has little black dots on her belly, so she kind of looks like a cow.

But, back to the house...my bed rooms has a bed and desk. that one was simple to describe.

the back of my house is pretty sweet. the right side is covered by a little tin roof and has a couple picnic tables set up. It will be nice for having people over. To the left are seperate rooms for a bathroom and shower. Outside of the rooms is my sink.

my yard is pretty impressive. It’s fenced in...probably about the size of my yard in DuBois, expept in place of pine trees, are big banana trees...i’m not sure how many of you have seen, but they’re pretty cool looking...big palm-tree-esque leaves and huge hanging banana piles dangling from them. I also have a Mango tree, which kicks ass right now, b/c they are in season. They haven’t started to fall down yet, except for when the wind really kicks up, b ut the kids in the village throw sticks up into the tree to knock them down=-----and usually they deliver them to me.

Only minor things that the house could use are a few shelves and an inside sink to wash my dishes. but, no biggie, as I just store my clothes in my suitcases, hang my button ups on hangers, from a rope that I’ve attached from one side of my bedroom to the other, and wash my dishes in a couple of plastic bins. I don’t have many dishes to wash anyway, b/c every time I walk around town, people invite my inside to eat. this is nice. in the states, i didnt mind eating alone, b/c TV would keep me company. here, the radio just doesn’t do the same trick, so it’s good to have conversation.

So, onto the fare. I’m starting to like the tongan food. Ufi, the bland root crop isn’t so bad w/ ketchup and it’s even better when heated in a little bit of oil. In the morning, I had been eating mangos...but earlier this week, the family I stayed w/ during training came over to visit and brought me papaya and bananas (mine aren’t ripe yet), so that’s been added to my cuisine.

For meat, most people eat “sipi” [see pee] or sheep. So many of the words here sound like the english version, but are just slightly diff. to fit w/ the tongan alphabet and the rule that two consonants cannot stand together. If you’re unsure of a word, you can always try to Say it in english and add an “i” on the end.

The sipi we get are the scraps of the sheep from new zealand that the kiwis won’t eat. it’s pretty bony and fatty, but not bad at all.

My days have pretty much been dedicated to getting aclimated into the commuity...translation, I walk around and talk to people a lot. One family has taken on a caretaker roll w/ me. I’m actually ,living in their house. they owned two, so moved out of mine and into their other one. The dad, Pa’a, works in the bush or garden, harvesting root crops and also works nights as a security officer and a co. downtown. His daughter, Lea, is 12, and has become my little buddy. We’ve been helping each other w/ our respective new languages. Her mom, Ana, works part time at “backpackers,” a nice little hostel in town. Makave is interesting as a handful of adults have structured job...in most villages, very few do. The women typically Lalanga, or weave mats all day long. Big mats used like rugs in the states, ta’ovalas, waste mats that men wear as a second layer over their skirts, tied by a rope, to church, work, meetings and other special occasions, and kiakias, the woman version of the ta’ovala. They sit in the floor of an empty room and just weave from dried huge prehistoric type strands of leaves, weaving and talking all day long. it would have to kill their fingers.

the men are a different story. For the ones who don’t work and for most all of the unmarried youth, ages 18-40, their day starts around 12. after eating, they go to the bush to work for a few hours, go home and rest. play volleyball from 5-7, go home, shower and go to drink kava until the wee hours of the morning. My trainer told me that is why they sent a dude, me, here to try to get the men more active. the volleyball thing is funny...people from 16 to probably 40-something play....talking crap the whole time.

I’ve said a few times, that living here has been a second chance at being a kid again. in my homestay village, i’d go to school, go play all day w/ the kids and get served lunch and dinner.

here, all the dudes are much bigger versions of peter pan. there’s not much
motivation to work b/c they have all they need to get by...the most fertile soil
in the world to easily grow their root crops, an ocean in their backyard to
collect shell fish and go fishing. each family owns land provided by the
government to live and then to farm. also, the culture allows them to live
leasurely.

everybody shares everything...there’s a real air of selflessness w/ everyone. for people that don’t work, family abroad sends money. if people need something...a new youth hall, computers, whatever, they automatically think, who can give this to us, what grant can we ask for money. there’s not a real sense of earning what you get. so, hopefully, our small business project will help instill that.

Me and a few people in the community have already started brainstorming ideas. we’ll be going into more detail at a youth meeting on sunday. It’s a bit difficult b/c of hte language barrier. my lang. has gotten a lot better, but it’s still quite hard to understand...and only a few people speak english (one of them, a Tongan American who was deported b/c of drug use...but, eh is a nice guy and has been helpful.). also, most tongans don’t like to speak out in groups...part of the culture thing in acting as a group, not as an individual...but, hopefully, if we break down into little committees we can get something going.

The group up here seems pretty cool. as of now, there are nine of us. Two, katrina and jim, from ohio, live on outer islands; and carol, garry and dan from my group; and ohio adriene and maryland sue, from last year’s group, all live w/in a 20 min. card ride from one another; another, dan, is set to leave in a month. it’s a good, fun group. everyone works hard, but enjoys doing outdoorsy type things, from hiking to kayaking to scuba diving to bsing over a few drinks. we all got together on Tuesday to have tacos, yes strangly enough, there is one mex. restaurant/bar in tonga. they have 1 dollar taco tuesdays, so we went there from happy hour, went to another place and then returned, via a boat later in the evening....probably the coolest way that i’ve ever ridden into a bar. but, anyway, everyone gets along great, so it seems like we’ll have a good time together.

well, i think taht i’m going to sign off now, as I”ve rambled on forever. i’ll be writing more letters now that i’m starting to get settled in. tahnks to everyone who has mailed to me. i keep them all in a binder so i can look back on them when i’m just sitting around.

I hope that all is well w/ everyone. Kim—congrats on the new job. JOdi, Hammer (i think it was your b-day), JMK and our newly mexicanized friend Kathleen rodriguez, happy birthdays. and gian, glad that you’re on the path to recoverry from the accident.

Ofa ‘atu,Joey

p.s. almost forgot. a noble lives in our village. there are i think 33 heriditary nobles in tonga who are part of basically a congress of tonga. well, the noble is near death, and his eldest son successor, Lolo, has been good to me. he speaks english and said that his family will support me and the group in all our projects. anyway, at kava the other night (more to come in next email), he re-christened me as “’a fitu,” meaning seven fences, refering to the seven lines of defense that a village formed, surrounding the noble for protection, in older days. so, he’s instructed the village to stop caling me sifa and call me by my new title.