funerals

I go on holiday and spend two days at a funeral.

Such is my life and it's fine.

I went to Tonga knowing I was going to have a cultural experience.

I didn't realise that it was going to be a sad experience too.

Ok so Sesi and I arrived in Tonga.

We were picked up by the lovely Taa from Keleti Beach Resort

and we mentioned we had been unable to get seats

on the flight that afternoon to Vava'u.

She told us about the funeral that was coinciding with our catching up with family.

Which was good because the funeral was for an extended family member.

Not my family, Sesi's step-father's family.

So we blithely enjoyed our weekend before

we jumped on our place at 7am on Monday morning

and headed directly into the eye of the funeral.

The nephew whose funeral it was,

had been killed in a rather tragic and dramatic way.

At a school

with a van

by his wife and mother of his seven children.

In the process his brother was crushed and severely damaged.

Oh it is complicated and we received the story on little bits.

So I think I know what and why it happened but

I wouldn't put money on that.

Death in Tonga seems to be a dramatic thing.

People die in dramatic ways.

It seems many young men are killed in many ways.

It's a little a soap opera there.

We reckoned a reality show based in a village would easily be

gripping and complex.

Anyway back to me.

A super white, pre tan me.

The lovely Ansala with me holding Ono.

Ansala is dressed like that because she is a cousin of the dead guy

so has responsbilities.

Mostly it was her handing with her girl cousins and carrying stuff around.

We had just spent the evening sitting on tarseal at the morgue.

Tarseal is a 2 on the scale of 1 to 10 of comfortableness.

10 being super comfy.

Only gravel would be worse.

But it wasn't for a long time.

Just through the Methodist and the Catholic part of the service,

with plenty of singing,

in Tongan.

So I had no idea what was going on.

It was the beginning of the funeral service.

At the end the men came and gave us goodie bags of food.

Me and Ono kept each other entertained.

Boy, Ono is one serious little man.

The next morning was the gathering for the funeral.

I think we were there about 8am and

we were no where near the first people there

but got a good possie near the back,

under a tree but still under the gazebo.

Black was the colour de jour,

black with a mat of differing signifcance.

Black is quite hot in the tropics.

Plus we had layers on.

I'm not too good with layers of wrap around skirts

when I need to sit on the ground.

I mean what do you do with your legs that is modest

and comfortable?

Faiana, Sesi's mum kept me up with all the gossip

about everyone as they arrived.

She gave me the heads up for when the wife arrived,

fresh from prison with her children in hand.

Her family had already paid reparation of $10,000.

Her sister had already moved over to raise the children.

It's all so tragic and emotive.

After visiting the body and then sitting in the sun

and then getting another feed of Kentucky chicken,

taro, boiled eggs, more chicken, a sausage and

something that I really wasn't sure what it was

but it got eaten by a child that was with us,

Sesi and I slunk off to the kolo to sit by the habour

and eat fresh pineapple.

Did I meantion we spent our week eating?

Later as we sat in the cool of the evening,

the family explained the hows and whys of the crime,

the family and traditions.

I hardly remember anything but

I liked that there were rules for how people need to

behave in the face of such a crazy and sad crime.

The word had gone out to the younger men to leave well enough alone.

Revenge is something that arrives swiftly in the villages.

Probably is accurate though.

Tip: It wouldn't be against the wife but totally to another person.

Sio and his pool

Sio is Sesi's brother.

One day while in Tonga,

he took us to the seaside to enjoy a BBQ feast.

We started with freshly caught crab.

Yes Sesi is sitting on a roof.

The roof is of the wee house Kelemani has built by the bay

where the fishermen base themselves.

Base means they hang out until they see the fish jumping out in the bay

then they wade out to where they are can catch them in nets,
then wade back to shore.
It's pretty relaxed.

Sometimes there are lots and sometimes there isn't.

Such is fishing.

They fish primarily to feed their families,

but when there is a surplus they take them down to the Vava'u harbour

and sell them under a tree by the market.

I kind of wish I'd bought some fish when we were at the market

cause life can be hard when you live in a subsistence economy

with little cash in circulation.

But on the other hand, everyone is very generous and gives what they have,

 knowing when they are in need they will be helped.

But back to the eating...

This fishy was delicious.

Thrown onto the hot tin roof* until cooked perfectly.

Then on a taro leaf,

peal back the skin with that middle sized knife,

(there are only large knives in Tonga - it's a guy thing)

and hot, white fish flesh gobbled down quickly.

I seriously considered using the middle sized knife to fight Sesi for the fish.

BBQing in Tonga is a snazzy thing.

*Corrugated iron is put on the ground,

you light a fire with what ever is around,

then you can either just chuck what ever you are eating into the fire,

well those things with a skin you need to peal away

to get to the yummy morsel inside.

OR

you can get another piece of iron,

shape it a little then angle it to made a cooking plate,

like a giant frying pan with no temperature gauge.

We also had beef that came from the funeral

(still to post about that!).

Sio just sliced off some beef fat,

threw it on the iron,

when it sizzled up, threw on some sliced up beef

and Bob's your uncle!

Surf and turf BBQ Tongan style.

Works for me.

What didn't work for me was raw fish.

When Sio mentioned it earlier,

I thought he meant marinated raw fish,

which I love but he didn't.

He mean actual raw fishy fish,

just caught fish,

only just stopped flipping out fresh fish,

snap its head off,

squish out it's guts,

fresh, raw fishy fish.

Sio with a fish who has just lost it's head

that he is about to squish it's guts out onto the ground and devour.

I thought he was going to start chasing me with it.

Which would have totally unfair cause he plays semi pro rugby in Australia

and I don't...

play rugby, get paid for it or live in Australia, or run or play with my food.

This is Sio's pool.

Well it's on the family land,

(land is a whole complex structure of 'ownership' but is much more straight forward

and honest than the Western version of a very similar structure but still complex).

It is the King's pool,
where the King, I guess of Vava'u would go to bathe.
The Queen too,
actually probably the Queen mostly.
I could easily see the Queen and all the women hanging out in the cool water
washing their hair and gossipping about the men.
That's what I'd do.

It's a fresh water stream of the most purest water,
that flows from under the rocks out into the bay.
It pools here naturally but has been helped by
Sio building a wee dam that allows the water to flow out under the dam wall.

Sio was rightly proud with his slice of land on the bay.
It's yet another slice of paradise in Tonga.
The pool was bliss after a walk in the hot sun,
it was a gem that reveled itself in it's cooling freshness.

And I'm not going to tell you where it is.

Sunday in Tonga

To say Tonga is ultra religious is a lie.

Oops sorry, I said it.

Tongans are not anymore religious than any other country I've visited*

based on how I measure religious devotion.

Yes there are more churches than I've ever seen in my life.

Yes the whole country shuts down on a Sunday.

Yes most people go to church on a Sunday.

Yes I sat through one funeral service that three religions took turns at taking...

for three hours... sitting on asphalt**.

On Sunday we went to our Church to watch the General Conference Video.

This was in Tongan so liddle bit redundant for me

as my Tongan is limited to hello and thank you,

conveniently almost the same word.

So when I am in a new place,

I usually use a McDonalds to anchor my sense of place.

I have a really good sense of direction simply based I notice landmarks.

In Tonga there is no fast food places (that's awesome!)

so I use LDS chapels as my anchors.

When asked by a Tongan how far Sesi's Nana's house was from where we were,

I just said six Chapels along from here.

That was about right.

After Church Sesi and I walked down the road.

Basically cause we had no transport and

 because in the distance in the photo above 

there is the start of a small cluster of Methodist church buildings

where Sesi's cousins were at their Sunday meeting

in the church that Sesi's grandfather and adopted father (same person)

had built a long time ago.

I liked what he had done with the place.

Coloured glass windows, high ceilings that made the place cool,

floors polished from years of use, horribly uncomfortable pews to keep you awake

during even the longest, hottest and most boring of services.

LDS Chapels by comparison are new and have good air flow.

Are carpeted and have slightly more comfortable pews and are big.

Bigger than we have at home.

They also have more people in attendance.

Which unfortunately Sesi's grandfather's church did not.

What Sesi's grandfather's church did have though was volume.

Full on, make your ears ring volume.

There should be a warning notice outside that church

warning innocent Palangi tourists that it's freakin loud in those church services.

It's like they think God is old man kind of deaf.

The singing itself was beautiful and complex.

With callers and followers, rounds and harmonies.

It was joyous and hard work.

With pulsing forehead veins and sweating brows.

Then suddenly it was over and peaceful, quiet descended

as we waited for the Minister to start.

Even with a microphone he was so hushed I struggled to hear him.

Gentle and monotonous,

I realised the singing was the unifying jolt needed to keep people involved in the service.

I say this cause as soon as Sesi's cousins saw us

they beckoned us to go outside.

So half the congregation walked out to chat in the sun with us.

Then drive us to another Methodist Church because of course

that's where the rest of Sesi's relatives were,

especially since this one has Sesi's uncle as the Minister.

We arrived just as they were exiting the service.

Hugs and shouts of laughter, a few full body tackles included.

Then we drove (the kids walked cause it's all about respec' in Tongan)

to Nana's house.

That sounds so innocent.

Nana is the matriarch of Sesi's family.

Sesi as the eldest granddaughter will take her turn at some point too.

Nana is a New Zealand citizen because she and her husband spent

many years in Auckland when her husband was

a Minister for the Samoan Methodist Church there.

He was a great man by the sounds of it.

This means that Sesi as their adopted daughter automatically gets residency.

By the stories of naughtiness Sesi has told me,

Sesi's grandfather needed to be a great man with the patience of Job.

In fact he probably thought he was Job when Sesi became a teenager.

But back to my early ascertains that Tonga is not really anymore religious than other 'religous' countries.

Like all people, there are those who are devoted to their God,

those who are devoted to their religion and

those who are devoted to turning up and looking good.

These three things are different, especially the first two.

We have a saying about those who join our Church.

There are those who are converts and true converts.

Converts are those who are devoted to their religion,

its something they love doing, they love the community, they feel good when in Church

but when they get home they hang up their church duds and go back to their busy, normal life.

True converts are those who live and breathe their faith in God.

It's ingrained in their being, permeates all that they do, they are willing,

they have a grace about them that comes from being at peace and knowing God.

Nobody can say who is who because no person can read another's heart.

Even though legally Tonga observes the Sabbath,

(which I personally love because I do) 

it doesn't mean the people are truly converted to the faith.

No different to any other place.



* I have been to Vatican City so this may be an unfair comparison.

** Last time I did that I was in High School and it was for a fire drill where we gathered on the netball courts.  All us girls got up with melted tarseal stuck to our dresses and the parents called a school meeting to complain.

In Tonga

Sesi had been on about us going to her home in Tonga

for the longest time.

At first we were going with her family,

then just SaraMegan with us so she could meet her family,

but in the end it was just a girl's week in the sun.

Leaving at 620am is never a good time for a flight but

as Tonga is in the same time zone as New Zealand

it meant we arrived at 930am

going straight to the beach.

We stayed the first two nights at Keleti Beach Resort

in our wee fale named after the kids in the family who own the place.

It was mostly just me and Sesi there,

as its the end of the tourist season,

the whales have passed by on their way to whereever they go and

it's starting to get really hot.

But first thing was to have a nap.

Besides being Kiwi's going to the beach early in the morning

is a foreign concept.

Our sea is so cold that being near it too early gives you cold goosey bumps.

Not so in Tonga.

After our nap we wandered down to the beach.

A wee cove sheltered by a small cliff and a reef,

a perfect wee place for a first afternoon easing into a holiday.

The reef stopped the huge brakers smashing in on the swimmers.

You can see these weird rock formations as you fly in.

A long line of what looks like large lilypad shaped rocks that are just a few metres off the beach.

It was Saturday afternoon by the time Sesi and I had napped, talked and talked

then dragged our tired selves to the beach.

Once there, there was only us and a group of young Tongans

enjoying a picnic in the sun and playing in the water.

Sesi and I had forgotten one key item for the day

and that was food.

I mean we had a tonne of chocolate as gifts but no actual food.

The kids were eating sugar cane,

like from the actual sugar cane cane.

Chopping off bits and munching on it until all the sweet sugary juice was gone.

As they left Sesi did the Tongan thing of asking if they had any to share,

they didn't but instead they offered us some chicken which was very welcome.

To be fair, Keleti Beach Resort has a restaurant.

We were just too lazy to walk back up to go to it.

The guys at Keleti Beach Resort took great care of us.

Including taking us shopping at roadside stalls for coconuts and

helpful things like cracking open the coconuts for us to drink and eat.

Delicous food, watching the sunset at a seaside table, relaxed conversation, lots of fun and teasing.

Plus lovely Titree the guard dog joined us.

Not bad for a first day on Tonga.



Tonga

This is my year of living tropical.

I didn't start this year thinking

"this year I'll visit a few tropical islands"

actually I started this year not thinking about going anywhere much.

Tomorrow I set out for a week in Tonga

with my friend Sesilia.

We are going to visit Sesilia's mother.

At least I think that's what we are doing.

All I know is I have a flight to Hamilton tomorrow afternoon,

 then to Tonga Saturday morning

and then a flight to Vava'u on Monday morning,

and that's about it.

Oh and I have to visit Lucy Kolo's brother

to see her soon to be whangai'd niece,

take some photos and bring them home to Lucy

as she waits for her new daughter.

I'm pretty sure we have no where to stay in Nuku'alofa

for the first two nights but we will sort it out.

I'm on mental overload and worrying about one more thing will tip me 

over the edge like

Jessie seeing a gay man on a horse.

Ah the irony of Jessie meaning big girl's blouse in Scots slang!

Before I leave tomorrow afternoon

I have a specialist appointment.

I have a couple (?) of  spurs on my C6 vertebra.

They are getting on my nerves,

pinching them actually.

I have a wee problem with no disc and

a pinched nerve in my neck, through my shoulder and ending in my hand.

That makes my hand spasm between my thumb and forefinger.

Funtimes!

I guess I'll look like an over tired, nervy tourist for the next week,

shoes optional.

Angel in my carpark

This Megan Sara,

or as I call her Sara Megan

(but that's my preference and she is named for me)

at Church today.

I love baby girls all dressed up as butterflies, fairies or angels.

Hi Tovi!

and Larry who is to cool to look my way

First I had to get SMegan's mum Sesi to hold her still, didn't work.

Then I tried Uncle Tovi, he gets a better grip on her but the little wiggle worm likes to stand on her own two well grounded feet.

She reminds me of another well grounded Tongan, oh yeah Jonah Lomu.

Bye SMegan!

Best thing about Stake Conference

Well this is so not why Stake Conference should be great but for me it is. Since I left the Tron and all my friends and family (until Mags followed me that is) its been kind of weird being by myself at things like Stake Conference.

The first weekend I was in Chch Stake was Stake Conference and so I tackled (not literally) some missionaries to find out what Ward I was meant to be in. Got that sorted and went off to my new ward.

My bestest friend in my ward is Sesi. Apparently this is quiet odd, me being Palangi and Sesi being Tongan - its weird for a Cantabs, not for anyone else. So me and Sesi are mates and I get to cuddle her babies - she has four kids but, get this, after trying for eight years to have third child she was offered little girl from an extended family member (lots of details, all a bit crazy) and then she found out she was pregnant and when Sara-Megan was 7 months old Sesi had Lofi. Yes Sara-Megan is named after me cause I totally rock, least thats what I've been told.

So this is Sesi, isn't she beautiful!

We hang out and talk about the strangest things (maybe they aren't strange if you are Tongan!?!?) and she is helping me speak better English (her second language and my first) and laughs at my Tongan - I do too for that matter. She was telling me today (in the middle of Elder Viron of the Seventy's talk but he was repeating President McDonald's talk anyway and I had listened to that) that she used to have her hair long and down to her bottom but since she has been in NZ she has kept it short. So thats a bit of a no-no in Tonga, she's such a rebel and I can tell her husband O is real proud of his rebel wife. I'm just a little worried that when we go to Tonga for a visit next July that everyone is going blame me for her rebellious nature. Cause my hair is even shorter!

Although I have a halo here so I can't be my fault!

Anyway so Conference is great for me because Sesi and I just get to hang out - one great thing about the men in her family (husband O, her two older boys Chris and Joseph and then cousins Sami and Tovi) is that they take the babies and we get to hang out. It's nice getting to have a wee cuddle then hand them over and catch up. See here's Sami and Lofi...

Sami's single by the way and is an RMand looks really tough but really he's just shy, actually I might have that totally wrong. Sami is learning English (and doing really well cause he understands me and I speak really fast) and he probably is just to shy to speak English, once he gets that sussed he probably won't shut up!! Tovi always takes Sara-Megan and they had really wandered off so I don't have a photo of them, that will be next week when I'll post a picture of Sara-Megan's super fat thighs.