fanau

Let's face it,

there is nothing more adorable than

wee kiddies with liquid, chocolate eyes and cheeky grins.



Ono and Sami.
Maybe not be Sami,
the kids tended to swirl around like mini cyclones.
So unless their mother was yelling for them I'm not entirely sure what their names are.

Kailupe whose English was very, very good.

Kailupe and Ono

Sami and Faiana
These kids always had lollies.
That's a universal word - lolly.

Sesi and Tomasi.

Tomasi is an angel of a big brother and big cousin.

Always watching out for the multitudes of little ones as does his friends.

To be fair Tongan kids are good at watching out for each other.

Which is good cause they run wild but in a good and free way.

I hope Tonga never gets Palangi parenting skills,

it'll be the death of barefoot running, jumping off walls, divebombing of wharves,

playing in dirt, having fun with nothing more than their imaginations.

Faiana and her gummy grin.

Beautiful Chanel is being adopted by friends of mine,

Dino and Lucy who are her relations.

Tongan families in New Zealand will adopt a niece or a cousin's baby

to give the baby a better life in New Zealand.

I guess it's swings and roundabouts as to how much better

but all the kids are well loved.

Sami and the jumping-est boy Kelimani.
Kelimani jumps off everything, all the time.
Maybe it's that he climbs on everything and the only way down is to jump.

That's is Ono's smile.
His is pretty serious for such a wee tot.

This Faiana's little sister.

Faiana decided on the my last day there that she would speak her little bit of English.

She was pushing this little sister around and

would come up to me and said

"This is my baby"

and so she is.

Ono and me had a thing going on.

He adopted me and I adopted him.

When I was there, he sat on me,

when I wasn't, he asked his grandmother where his Palangi was.

He would come up to me and whisper "Sala" in my ear

just to check I was his.

He turned me into his table, laying his lunch on my nap,

he shared his boiled egg with me but just the yolk,

when he didn't like what he was eating and spat it out into his hand,

he gave it to me.

He cried when we left the house for the airport so that his father

came running after our van so he could come too.

Once in the van he fell into a sweaty sleep on me.

When we got to the airport I couldn't let him go,

 knowing he didn't realise I was going.

The look on his face when he realised was one of betrayal, then bewilderment.

How does such a wee person in such a short time become so precious?

All the children I meet had a sweet, caring nature.
They shared everything, played endlessly, listened to the adults as a rule,
didn't play up during the long funeral day we had,
more about that later,
they were cuddly if that suited them,
they were independent if they wanted,
they sought their mum when they needed her,
they are healthy, grubby, smart little kids who were adorable.