I am in Tonga since one week. Time to check witch the rest of the world. The good news: There is no new Wordpress update… The bad news: Girls in Tonga stay at home; Kitchen, cleaning and taking care of the kids… But Tongan customs go further (ask for details^^). Sunday is a strict rest day. No work, exercise or shopping. Only baker shops are allowed to open. I stay here with a Family, their two boys and x girls (where x is a big number). In Tonga I go to church and choir practice. I also slack a lot and not only on Sundays. Tongan families usually have some animals (pigs, chickens, maybe a cow, dogs and sometimes cats, lizards and lots of insects [one cockroach a day]) and fruit trees (bananas, papayas, mangos, …). Books or something to write can be pretty important if you don’t want to behave like a tourist (or Tongan) all day. You should also drink a lot, no tab water, but (boiled) rainwater… or sweet Tongan drinks. Since roosters surround my little cottage, I was usually awake around 4am (but could go back to sleep). So this type of local animal is not my friend! I cruise around the Island with the two girls who are closest to my age (one of them is my NZ contact, the other her cousin). Unfortunately they are very busy and I can not hang out with them as much as I would like to. It also seems to be impossible to visit one of the other Tongan Islands with them, because they are expected to stay at home, do work in the house and for other family members. We had a few sunny days, but cloudy days are not bad either. Even rain doesn’t bother me here (you will enjoy rain baths). Tongans usually don’t like to speak to much english, but I am learning to speak some Tongan…. more later…
Archive for January, 2008
Tonga: Culture, customs and cockroaches
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Hitchhiking, Climbing in Paynes Ford#2 and Christmas reloaded
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008Ok, it has been a while… here is an update (pics will follow):
- Hitchhiking to Golden Bay was Fun!Fun!Fun!. We met a lot of friendly people and saved some gas money… I’ll try to list the people we met: A women with a boy in a 4wd who hitchhiked through Europe, a Maori bus driver who was going to pick up some students up north, a girl in a van who was going to meet her German travel companion up north, a dutch girl cruising/camping through NZ who’s car got hit by a truck and you could smell some exhaust, a local couple, a nice mother of a three year old girl in a small car who owns an organic coffee shop and local art and crafts shop in Motueka took us to the McKee campground where we had dinner together and sat on the beach. The next day a east European couple on their way to Golden Bay picked us up after quite a while waiting around the campground (not a good start for hitching), we stopped at the lovely coffee shop “Four Winds” in Motueka, a guy in his van took us to Riwaka where we all bought tickets for the Black Seeds concert, then a packed van stopped for us and waived their friends out to take us over the mountains in their overheating van… and here we are in front of the Hangdog campground in Paynes Ford!
- We didn’t managed to go climbing that day, but we had a look around. The camp was quite busy, but not too crowded — we found an ok place to place our tent (thx CUTC). From the last night at the McKee campground we knew it better and found a place in the shade (the morning sun heats up the tent and wakes you up at 8am).
Then the 24th Christmas? NoNo. Only for the wired European legacy… and it was raining… enough so make climbing in Paynes a pain. We went to Pohara with a German dude. The walls there were dry and we had some fun, later it was raining quite hard, but we still had fun on a sheltered wall. An 18 was the challenge for the day, the last two meters were wet and slippery. - The 25th: Christmas Day! It stopped raining in the morning, the xmas trees (we had two) where decorated and it was a question of going climbing or not, because today was the big day. About 50 people joint the Hangdog Christmas meal (the deal was to chip in NZ$10 for a giant lunch/dinner/meal). So we were just hanging around, offering our help with preparing the food… and so on. We couldn’t wait to get going with eating. When the food was finally served we didn’t exactly know how to act: Grab a plate a.s.a.p. or take pictures of the great view of four camping tables full with gorgeous food? I chose option #1. Plenty of salads and veggies and salmon… wow! Eating, eating, eating until we were fully full man, and then desert (and party poppers!). Some people passed out… after a while. At some point and some desserts we decided to go for a climb, but changed our mind and went swimming at Pohara Beach. It was quite windy, but it seemed to be nice to go for a swim on Christmas. What a day!
- We then had three more days of climbing in Paynes.
(Pictures temporarily stolen from tom)