Timing is Everything
The first time we
went to one of our Ward socials, we went at the announced time of 7 PM. The Beans and the other senior couple in our
ward at the time, the Johnsons, were the only people there. The school cafeteria was the location and the
lights weren’t even on. We were about to
leave thinking we had the wrong night or something when another couple from the
Ward arrived, the Fie’eiki’s. They
assured us the social was that night and we were at the right place. We were just a little early. It was now 7:30. When I asked about the announced time, they
just smiled and said these things usually start a bit later than
scheduled. This particular social got
started about 8:30, which is real expected start time for a 7 PM social. All of the rest of the socials have been just
fine, as we now know when they really start.
The last social
was really fun. It was supposed to have
light refreshments for a potluck. We
brought some tarts and the Johnsons brought some cookies. We found out that light refreshment means you
only fill your plate twice to overflowing versus a dinner when it is three
times. They had a pig, taro, two kinds
of chicken, potato salad, rolls, fish, yams, other salads, etc, with otai for
the drink, a very special treat. At one
point the senior couples were asked to get up and dance the waltz to the music
playing. If there is a dinner, there is
always a dance. Anyway, after Cath and I
sat down I remarked that we had actually danced the foxtrot instead of the
waltz. Sister Tonga leaned over and
said, “It’s OK Elder Beans, we can’t tell the difference anyway.” We chuckled
all night. Heck, we don’t know the
difference either.
Yawning Experience
We had a sweet
young woman named Talita come in to our afternoon office a while back to start
her BYU Hawaii application. She is from
the island of Eua and her mother was with her. Eua is just a short distance from this
island. The BYUH application process
takes quite a bit of time and multiple visits to our office. She was eager to get started and Sister Bean
and I were assisting her. Our office is
not big, but we have a couple of comfortable chairs. I was wondering what her mother was going to
do while we worked on the computer with Talita.
Mom just sat there for a time, then, she brought out two sticks from her
bag about 18 inches in length. I thought
great, she is going knit something to pass the time. Wrong.
I looked over a minute later and she was holding the sticks across her
chest and had closed her eyes. Within a
few minutes we heard snoring like a B-52 going overhead. Talita was a bit embarrassed, but there was
no waking mom. It was a crack up. Tongans are pretty relaxed and can sleep
anytime and anyplace. We witnessed that
first hand. Naps are common at any time
of the day. When it was time for Talita
to go, mom woke up, put her sticks away and out the door she went.
Go Coconuts/Bombs Away
Tongans use every
part of the coconut. They take the husk
off to expose the face of a coconut.
There are two eyes and a mouth.
The mouth is a soft spot where a hole can be punched in. Insert a straw and enjoy the juice. Just don’t try to put it in an eye. After the juice is gone they take their
machete and cut the coconut in half.
They then eat the white meat, or scrape it out for making otai or just
coconut milk. The shells and husk are
then fed to the pigs and goats. Coconut
milk is made by taking the scraped coconut and putting it in the outer husk and
squeezing and twisting the meat to get all the milk out. The rest goes to the pigs. Unfortunately coconut trees rarely grow
straight up. Because of that some of the
roads that are well travelled have coconut trees overhanging the road. It is common to see cars with big dents in
their windshields with the usual spiderwebs going all over the place from a
coconut bomb hitting it. Most of the
people do slow down when they cannot see much through their coconut
windshield. We had one land about 50
feet in front of us one day. They are
very heavy.
Sluggy
We woke one
Saturday morning a while ago to some crackling coming from our kitchen. I got out of bed hoping it was coming from
outside, but alas, it was coming from the socket by the stove. It was smoking and smelling the place
up. I had Cath stand in the kitchen
while I found the circuit breaker and turned it off. We got a hold of the maintenance people and
they sent over an electrician a couple hours later. He pulled the cap off the electrical outlet
and got a surprised look on his face. He
showed me the inside and there it was, sluggy, fried to a crisp. A slug had crawled up into the outlet and
slimed the contact points and that was the end of him. The electrician cleaned up the socket and it
works great.
Cougar Blue
One of the big
events of the year for the middle and high schools is an annual track
meet. It goes for three days and the
schools are out as the meet runs from morning to night. It is held at the stadium in town and there were
typically 6-7,000 people in attendance each day. It was on TV each night and ran for weeks
after the event. Since we have an office
in town we decided to stop at our lunch time and take in a little of the
event. Cath visit teaches one of the
runners for Liahona
High School and we were
hoping to see her run. We sat down, and
there were three seats in front of us open.
In walks a guy and a friend and they sit right in front of us. He was wearing a BYU hat, which is not
totally uncommon here due to the large LDS population. We introduced ourselves and he said he was
here on business. When we asked what
type, he said football recruiting. It
was Steve Kaufusi, the defensive line coach for BYU. He was on a long Pacific island recruiting
trip and was here in Tonga
to look at a few boys. He is also from
here and is the nephew of our mission President, President Tukuafu. We talked football and it was way cool. He is a very nice guy. Out of 6,000 seats, he comes and sits right
in front of us. It was a treat. We got a picture too.
Fire in the Hole, Literally
The humanitarian
missionaries, Elder and Sister Webb, asked us a few weeks ago if we wanted
several bottles of Wellington. Wellington
is a bathroom cleaner and we use it, but we had a couple of bottles
already. He said he had to get rid of a
ton of that stuff. It is one of the
cleaners that go to the missionaries to clean their apartments and
bathrooms. He said that one set of
Elders made a bomb out of Wellington
and blew up their toilet. The mission
president is taking no chances and no one gets Wellington anymore. He wouldn’t tell us who it was, but I’m
betting they were sorry about that the next day when the time came.
Not Even Close
The opening of
Parliament begins with a parade of schools, mostly middle and high
schools. A lot of the schools have a
banner and a marching band that leads their section followed by rows and rows
of students. The parade should take
about 45 minutes because the route is not long, but it took 3 hours due to
delays and events in the middle of the parade having to do with the King
opening Parliament, etc. Liahona High School was one of the last schools
to come through. Sister Bean and I had
just about given up but we came back to see Liahona, the Church school. The band had new uniforms that a couple of
sisters in our ward had just finished that morning and they were sharp. All the other schools marched well and played
well, but Liahona was outstanding. The
crowd went wild. The drum major called
the brass section forward and they danced while playing. They had a cool routine that was a real crowd
pleaser. We saw it again on TV that
night. That was pretty neat. We are pretty proud of those kids. They practiced by marching in front of our
house for weeks. We went up to say hello
to some of our students at the parade and Winnie turned around wearing a
Seahawks hat. Pretty cool.
I Need More Power Scotty
Sister Bean and I
drive along the waterfront on the way to our morning office. Not long ago we noticed a very different ship
in the harbor just in front of our office.
After a couple of days I brought our binoculars so we could get a better
look. It had a big central body and then
two arms sticking way out with pontoon-like apparatus attached. It wasn’t long before we realized it was a
Klingon warship. I believe they are
called Bird of Prey, or something like that.
You’ll have to ask Jeff or Krissy the real name for sure. We feel pretty special to have had a Klingon
ship here in Tonga. Someone was trying to tell us that it was
just a giant tri-maran the other day, but I know better.
The Ship Is In
The USS Pearl
Harbor arrived in Tonga
10 days ago. It is a humanitarian ship
that goes from port to port visiting lesser developed countries to provide
medical and dental services and give supplies.
In this case the Church donated multiple containers of school supplies
for primary and middle school children.
These were offloaded and taken to selected schools around the
island. We had the privilege of being at
Kolovai Government Primary School
last Thursday for one of these events.
This vessel has 700 crew on board, plus some Aussies and Kiwis, and
other volunteers who provide service. We
had a Sister Davies from the Yukon in Canada in our
Sacrament meeting last week. She was
here volunteering. While the
medical/dental/ mental health people go to the clinics in the village and work
all day helping upwards of a hundred people, Navy personnel go to the school in
the village.
There they play games with
the students on their playground such as skipping rope, kicking balls, throwing
the rugby ball and football, running and jumping. At the appropriate time the principle calls
them all together and they sit down. Our
humanitarian missionaries then take over.
Elder Webb speaks some Tongan, but Ana Ika the Welfare Manager is also
along to interpret. They make a nice
presentation of the school kits that the Church has put together that includes
paper, pencils, sharpener, eraser, scissors, ruler, all in a nice bag with
straps so it can be like a back pack.
They love it and know it comes from the Church. The people then offer gifts of thanks. We were standing pretty tall that day. The Church is really blessing lives here. I even learned how to throw a rugby ball.
At some of the
bigger presentations the Navy band is there to play. They also gave a concert Friday night in
downtown Nuku’alofa that we went to for a while, and they are very good. Rock and roll classics to Justin Bieber.
No comments:
Post a Comment