Where's the beef?

Michael, Row Your Boat to Shore

We work in the mornings across the street from the ocean in a part of Tongatapu called Ma’ufanga Toliki.  We arrived one morning and were about to pull into our usual parking space when we noticed an Evinrude outboard motor, gas cans, oil cans, boots and old clothes right by where we park.  There is 24 hour guard service at the facility because of the computers and being a somewhat remote site.  We asked the guard what that was all about. 

Sister Wixom, the Primary General President and Sister Burton, the Relief Society General President of the Church were in Tonga for firesides and leadership training.   

There is a branch of the Church on one of the little islands north of the main island.  The only way to get to the mainland is to get in a boat and make your way there, which is a 30 minute trip in good weather.  The Branch President had loaded all his leaders in his boat and drove to the mainland, landing not far from our office.  They were picked up by other members and driven to the leadership meeting, and then spent the night with family members/friends.  Since the motor is worth about $6,000 Pa’anga( About $3,500 USD ), the Branch President hauled the motor and other stuff to the secure area of our facility so it could be watched.  A couple hours after we were at work, the process was reversed and the motor was gone.  I was impressed with those islanders.

Huh!

We get three channels on our TV.  Of course this is Tonga, and two of the channels show the exact same programming, which is usually a minister preaching in Tongan.  Oral Roberts comes to mind here.  The other station shows some news on a network called CCTV, which stands for China something TV.  At least it is in English.  They show segments from around the world, but with a certain bias to their opinions.  Anyway, they cover the weather in China and then show pictures of big buildings and temples from around the world while giving the temperature there.  They go alphabetically, and when they have the temperature for Atlanta, USA, they show the Church’s Atlanta temple.  I think that is amazing.

Get Around to it

About a month ago, I noticed that the counter in our morning office, held up by brackets screwed into the wall, was coming loose.  Since we had two PC’s and a large printer on that counter, I thought it a good idea to notify the facilities management people.  I sent an email and waited for a response.  I saw the FM guy a couple of days later and said it would be good to get someone down there soon, like ASAP.  He said he’d have someone look at it the next day.  

The next day we walked into the office, and there on the floor was the counter.  The security guard had been in the building sweeping the floor when he heard a loud noise.  He rushed into the area where the counter was and just in time rescued the computer and printer by getting them on the floor before the whole counter came down.  Anyway, they re-secured the counter and got it back up that afternoon. It is so humid here that you can’t tape anything to a wall.  The wall is just wet, and the tape loses its stick so why bother.  The counter had been secured by screws in the grout.  The grout gets soft and down comes the counter.  They used bolts after that.    

Oil Change, Tonga style

We got a new car when we arrived here, a Toyota Yaris.  At 5,000 km you get your first oil change.  We called the crack FM people and asked how they wanted to handle that.  There are no Jiffy Lubes here, so I knew it would be a bit more complicated.  They said to bring it in that morning, but we were already in Ma’ufanga so we agreed upon that afternoon, Tuesday afternoon to be precise.  They would give us another pool car to use and we’d switch back as soon as the oil was changed.  The switch was made, only we got the biggest van they make.  We parked it for the night, but when we were on our way to work the next morning the gas warning light came on.  That’s right, it was almost out of gas.  Since it is 14 km to our office we had to stop and put some diesel in the van.  When we called about switching cars back that day we were told the oil change had not been done yet.  Tomorrow.

Thursday morning here comes an FM person with what we had hoped would be our car just as we are leaving our place.  Unfortunately it was not.  She said the mission needed the van today and she was bringing another car for us to use that day. “ When will our car be done,” we asked?  “Hopefully by the end of the day,” was the response.  We transferred cars and headed to work.  We hadn’t gotten very far when the gas warning light came on.  That’s right, another car out of gas.  We had to stop and put gas in that car too. And, when we called to swap cars they told us the oil had not been changed yet.   Later that night we ran into a sister from a neighboring ward who asked us if we got our car back.  We said no.  She indicated that she had been driving it and FM wanted it back that day.  So, FM took a mission car( our car) and loaned it out.  Great!

Friday morning we called FM before heading to the office in town.  They said our car would be ready by 10.  Since we could not afford to sit around for 2 hours waiting, we said we’d pick it up in the afternoon when we got back from town.  We got our car at 4 pm Friday afternoon. Quite a bit of our gas had been used. That was a Tuesday to Friday oil change, two loaner cars out of gas and a lot of phone calls.  I will never complain about Jiffy Lube taking an extra 10 minutes ever again.

Wake up please

To apply for a PEF loan it takes about 60-75 minutes on the computer with the appropriate information at hand.  But, before you can start, you need an LDS account.  If you have never had one before, it is really easy to get one.  It takes maybe 5-10 minutes online.  If you have had a PEF loan before, you have a username and password.  Before we arrived, a secretary did all the entry work for all previous students including getting their usernames and passwords.  This year, we are working with the applicants in helping them apply online.  The renewing students need their username and password to reapply.  Of course, none of the renewing students know their username or password because someone else did it for them last year.  We asked if anyone remembered any of them, and the secretary tried to come up with the information sometimes.  To put it mildly, retrieving the usernames and passwords was a nightmare.  In order to get them in the first place an email had to be attached.  Most of the students either did not have an email, or couldn’t remember it, or closed the account.  The Church will only send the information to the attached email when requested, it can take days to get both username and password as we had to get new emails and communicate that to the Church, etc.

We finally make it all the way through the renewal season.  We had threatened suicide more than once if another renewing student walked through the door.  When, in walks the secretary, with a big notebook.  She says, “Look what I found, all the usernames and passwords.”  Mom and I counted to ten, thanked her for the information and ground our teeth as she walked out of the room.  All we could do was laugh when all was said and done.  We would have loved those notebooks early on.

A Petrie Dish

To say it gets humid here is probably an understatement.  Summer runs basically December through mid-April.  It never gets over 85-87 degrees.  But, the humidity is usually over 90% and often reaches 100% making it feel much warmer.  We went through a stretch in the last week of February through the first two weeks in March where it rained every day, sometimes very hard.  I mean buckets, roads flooded, schools closed, mud and goo.  Thank goodness for air conditioning, which we used a lot.  It was like living in a Petrie dish for those 3 weeks.  For the Elders, anything in the closet that you didn’t wear much got mold growing on it.  (My suit is still at the cleaners.)  I take a few pills every day.  OK, a bunch of pills every day.  I have a pill box I fill up once a week on Monday.  By Wednesday I noticed that my multi-vitamin pill was starting to grow mold on it.  So, like so much of our stuff, that pill lives in the fridge for now.  We are starting to get a day here and there where humidity is not a big deal.  By mid-April things should moderate pretty well.  The rest of the year is really quite pleasant.  We’ve made it through the worst weather.  And, no cyclone this year!  

Seahawks

A rather large young man came into our office a few weeks ago.  He was looking for a church bookstore.  There used to be one in the area.  He asked where we were from and he lit up when we said Seattle.  He said his brother played for the Seahawks this last season, but was now with the Steelers.  Just then an even bigger guy came through the door.  The brother named Hebron, who played for Seattle.  He played his college ball at USC.  Said he was looking forward to playing with the Steelers as there are two LDS guys on the team, Kiesel and another guy.  He seemed like a very nice guy.  We wished him well except if they ever played the Seahawks.

We scheduled an English test for a young man who just came back from his mission in the US.  He served in the Washington Spokane Mission.  One of the visiting dentists here now is from Spokane and actually had the young man in his home for dinner a few months ago.  Anyway, he knew we were from Seattle after we visited with him the other day, so he showed up for his test wearing a Seahawks jersey.  Never mind that it was Aaron Curry’s number.  It was pretty cool.  He knocked the test out of the park by the way.  The highest score we’ve seen since being here.  The test is required for entrance to BYU Hawaii.  

Only, I mean, Only in Tonga

We were in our afternoon office one day when a friend came by to say hello.  Mom asked him if he knew about the Family History Center office located in our morning office.  Mom and Elder and Sister Webb had been in that office looking for some supplies.  When they pulled out a drawer they found some name slips that looked like they were ready for the temple.  Since that office was now closed, mom wondered if those names should be retrieved and taken to the temple.  Our friend knew the country family history director and he suggested we contact him to see what to do with the names.  We said we’d call him, but our friend suggested we just go to his house. We may have mentioned that there are no addresses in Tonga.  There are almost no street signs, and no one has a number on their house.  Directions are generally given by landmarks.     

These are the directions he gave us:

Take the road out in front of Liahona until it comes to an end and then take a right onto the road to the airport.  When you get close to Vaini, look for a large mango tree (Large mango trees are everywhere.)  There will be a horse tied to it.  That is about 150 meters before you get to the Vaini Stake Center.  If you get to the Stake Center, you have gone too far.  His house is just 2 houses up from the mango tree, next to a Chinese store.  (There are Chinese stores everywhere on this island.  They are like locusts.  They are Tonga’s version of a 7-11.) He said you will recognize the house because his first wife is buried in the front yard.  We laughed so hard we hurt.  We look for the horse every time we go through Vaini.  So far, we haven’t seen the horse, the 1^st wife’s grave, or the house.  Perhaps they sold the horse.  Now we will never find the house.

 

Where’s the Beef?

On November 27, 2012, Bob and I returned from our morning office at 1:30 PM.  We usually have lunch at our house and then go to our afternoon office across the street.  We were just sitting at our kitchen table, polishing off the last of our peanut butter sandwiches, when we saw a few trucks hauling calves drive down the street in front of our house.  (The Church has a cattle ranch not far from our house.)  There is a very large speed bump in front of our house.  One of the trucks was going a little too fast over the speed bump and the gate on the trailer popped open.  Three young calves suddenly found themselves in a very exciting situation.  They were no longer fenced in!!!  

Two of them dutifully headed back toward the cattle ranch, but one adventurous cow didn’t want to let this opportunity pass.  He took off running down our driveway and began anxiously exploring our back yard.  Bob told me to grab the camera quickly, which I did.  I was still wearing my apron, when I ran outside to capture the excitement on film.  The young cow was having the time of his life running all over.  Elder and Sister Coles rushed out of their house and began chasing the calf.  Elder and Sister Johnston came out of their house to join the round-up. 

Remembering that the hot Tongan sun is not good for my fair skin, I quickly ran back in the house to get my hat.  I must have looked very funny wearing my apron and my baseball cap, but this kind of lunchtime aMOOsment was not to be missed!  Elder Coles grabbed a rope and tried unsuccessfully to put it around the calf’s neck. (If he had watched as many John Wayne movies and read as many Louis Lamour westerns as Elder Bean, he could have done it easily.)  It was very humorous to see Elder Coles, Elder Johnston and Elder Bean, all wearing their white shirts, ties, and missionary badges, try to capture the calf.  The young cow had no trouble outsmarting the 3 city slicker missionaries.  I’m sure the calf was laughing as he watched the would-be steer rustlers running every which way.  I got some fun photos and wrote a poem about our lunchtime excitement.

 

“Hey Diddle Diddle,

The cat and the fiddle.

The cows jumped out of the trailer

The missionaries laughed to see such a sight,

But their rescue attempts were a failure.”