Lola & Toni in the Tonga

A sad thing that happened last week. The mother of one of my students passed away.  So, on Wednesday I was to go to a Putu (funeral) with my students and some of the staff here at my school.  Putus here in Tonga are a huge affair.  Also, when a family member or friend dies, everyone wears black for an extended period of time.  If it is a mother or father, you are required to wear all back for at least a year.  If it someone else, you can usually get away with 3-10 days depending on who the person is that died.  So, since people are always dying, and Tonga has such a huge family system, approximately half the people you see or deal with in Tonga are wearing black at any one time.  Anyway, like I said, Putus are a huge deal.  They generally last for a few days and there is constant singing and praying going on.  This particular putu was huge.  There were tents sent up everywhere for people to eat, or people to sit and sing.  One tent in front of the house had about 100 women sitting there singing.  They sing non-stop except for when a group comes to pay their respect for the person and family, and then the group prays and sings.  There is also quite a bit of presents, money and food exchanged between the guests and family.  So, as a group, we came with a collection of money and many blankets, mats and tapas as gifts for the family.  We give the presents (which are later re-distributed through the community) and then go in the house to pay respects.  We say a prayer, we sing a hymn, we sing another hymn, and then we say another prayer as a group.  After this is done, we go see the body and smack a big kiss on her forehead.  This is the weird part for me because there is no embalming done in Tonga, so the body is kept frozen at the hospital until the showing.  So when you pay your respects, and kiss the forehead, it is like kissing a block of ice.  Since this is only my second putu, I still haven’t gotten used to this yet.  After we are done paying our respects, everyone gets to eat.  The family feeds all guests that arrive, and in many cases such as this, it can require feeding hundreds of people.  This is also one of the  only times you eat beef, or horse if there are no cows.

Anyway, this was a sad event for my student, but a very interesting cultural event to be a part of.  I am sure there will be many more in the future.

Last Friday I skipped work along with everyone else on Tongatapu to attend ‘Aho Sipoti (Sports Day). ‘Aho Sipoti is essentially the scholastic intermural track and field Nationals. My Tongan counterparts try to explain it as “Intercollegiate Sports Finals” but that is not quite right as the kids that are participating are ages 12-17 years old.

‘Aho Sipoti is actually a 3 day event, Wednesday and Thursday are the initial heats to determine who is in the finals and then the finals and awards are held on Friday. Kids from schools on all the island groups in the Kingdom attend and compete. One of the coolest aspects of this competition is that schools on Tongatapu will raise money to help bring their comrades in from the neighbor island groups. As the Tongatapu kids don’t have to travel far they do fundraising to offset the travel costs of the neighbor island students. The competion is held at the local stadium called Teu Faiva which is a pretty nice venue. For ‘Aho Sipoti the grandstands at Teu Faiva are saved for the paying customers (who pay TOP$3) and all the students (or those who sit with them rather than in the grandstands) get in free and sit together in groups with their respective schools surrounding the track. There are even cheerleaders!….they are male, not feminine in the least, and they are literally cheer leaders. They lead the entire student bodies in the cheers they already know and keep everyone attentive and pumped up. I also learned about school “prefects” that day. Amid the sea of student bodies are student who stand up the whole time. I learned that they are prefects. Apparently due to their good behavior and schoolwork these students are awarded the title of prefect. As a reward these students get to stand up all day while everyone else gets to sit. Huh.

Tonga is a strongly collectivist society. The whole experience of ‘Aho Sipoti was this strange dichomous lesson in collectivist behavior. Like, how do you compete without feeling the sting of losing? Well, maybe it doesn’t hurt so bad if you helped raise money for the kid who won to get here, who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend. How do you recognize the best and brightest at your school in collectivist Tonga? Well, you make them stand up all day in front of everyone. I haven’t quite figured out the male cheerleader yet…why is he allowed to “show off” in a society that frowns on such things? I will definetely need to attend again next year in order to figure this all out.

I posted some picture of ‘Aho Sipoti. Check them out.

Love

-L