LAND OF WONDERS

Seems a man from Texas came to Tonga some years back, curious to compare farming techniques.  After spending a day on a Tongan “plantation”, the word for farm here, the Texan wanted to impress the Tongan with the difference in scale.  “This has been a wonderful experience,” said the Texan.  “But I want you to understand, it takes me an entire day to drive the perimeter of my ranch.”   The Tongan raised his eyebrows twice in acknowledgement.  “Oh yes,” said the Tongan, “I had a car like that once.”  (No offense intended, my Texan friends!)

Tonga is tiny, but it has its share of wonders.  And some of them are absolutely jaw-dropping. This tiny island nation, spread out over miles and miles of ocean, has many delights for the eyes, ears, noses, taste buds and fingers for those who will take the time to notice.

Let me remind you that if you added up all land of the 177 islands and islets that make up Tonga, you’d add up to a little more than four Districts of Columbia.  I live on the “big” island of Tongatapu, all 100 square miles of it – the size of DC and Arlington, Virginia put together. I have not seen all that this island has to offer, by any means.  But I have been awed by what I have seen.

To the east of Tonga, under the water, lies the Tonga trench, the second deepest point in the Pacific.  The sea floor here is the northeast juncture of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, and the Pacific plate is being driven beneath the Australian plate in a process called subduction.  Because of this process, there is frequent seismic activity in the area – we just had a 5.9 earthquake last week.  There are even underwater volcanoes being swallowed in this process.  I have been fascinated with the research going on that is documenting this dramatic event.  Here's a link to a news report from last November:

http://youtu.be/l_xbg_zU8TA

And we can visit the blowholes just minutes from our apartment and office, and be treated to a marvelous display each morning and evening.  From July to October, humpback whales frequent these waters, calving, nursing and tending their young.  We can see the whale spouts and flukes as these magnificent creatures surface, and now and then we are treated to a breach, when the whales jump out of the water, seemingly for the simple joy of doing it.  Mothers spend between 3 and 4 months here helping their babies grow, before they return to the Antarctic waters rich in krill, their main food supply.  The baby whales nurse and grow tremendously during these few months, but the mothers do not even feed.  Wow.  My biggest frustration is that the whales are always a few seconds ahead of my camera!

Closeup of a blossom cluster

My favorite perfume on the islands is the frangipani tree.  Even when this tree drops its leaves for the dormant season (I can hardly call it winter here), it keeps blooming, and the  palm-sized blossoms, either pink or yellow with white, have a gentle aroma that just makes me smile.

This tree is about 10 feet high, and loaded with pink blossoms.

This island of Tongatapu is proof to me that God has a sense of humor.  Even though this island is only 30 miles end to end, there are five different kinds of potato that grow here.  And one of them grows on a tree!  From “millimeter potatoes” that I grew up calling new potatoes to purple sweet potatoes to breadfruit (youth basketball-sized globes that indeed grow on trees) to the two-foot long “ufi” (OOO-fee), like in the picture.  Tongans can always get their starch, to go with their “lu”, corned beef wrapped in a thick, spinach-like leaf – a favorite at most family gatherings. Garden vegetables here are quite pricey, but you can always feed your family a kind of potato, and fill those empty stomachs. 

This is a screen capture of a Google Earth image.  

The Pigeon’s Doorway, or Hufangalupe in Tongan, is what happens when water, wind and erosion combine on the face of a cliff.  What looks like a sinkhole from the air is actually a chasm carved by the waves, with a natural bridge of rock and soil over a huge opening where the ocean rushes in.  

Low tide under the natural bridge formed by
 the rocks that  the waves can't reach.

The limestone cliffs are over 100 feet tall at the ocean’s edge, and even on the calmest day the waves crash with a humbling energy against the rocks. The volume is impressive; you have to walk away from the cliffs’ edge a good ways before you can talk to each other. 

Free-range pigs - a common sight here!

And everywhere, everywhere, are the birds, the fruit bats called flying foxes, the crickets that chirp every night year round, the varieties of floating jewels called dragonflies, the timid dogs and cats that scavenge for food, the free-roaming sows and piglets filing across the street – Tonga is a wondrous experience for me.  Can you blame me for wanting to stay forever?

UP TO MY EYEBALLS

Well, I haven’t posted lately because I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work!  We spent most of the last month  helping young adults finish their applications to BYU-Hawaii – I know we helped complete at least 50 applications.  To 
be scanned and faxed:  high school transcripts, family financial papers, recommendations from LDS Bishops and Stake Presidents (local and regional leaders), letters of sponsorship from U.S. relatives,  certification of English proficiency (from a test we administer monthly), and applications for BYU’s version of work-study, called IWORK.  Ends up being about 12 papers per student.  Add to that about 4 hours of typing in a second language -  I’m glad I’m not applying to college these days, because I  don’t have the patience for it!  Whew!

BUT, the surge is finished, and since BYU has no available IWORK for this fall, most of our qualified applicants are going to be online students to start off.  The school here may open one of its computer labs in the evenings, so young adults can use it to “attend” their online classes.  I can’t wait until that happens, because already we have three and four people waiting on the two available computers in our office.  I have to run someone out of the classroom where I teach in order to hold my own classes from four to six in the evening! 

The entrance to Liahona High School.  

Jim is enjoying the chance to observe teachers, as they do the version of student teaching we do here.  Even though most teachers here have four-year degrees, almost none of them have degrees in education, so in come the Szokas  (latest in a very long line of senior missionaries) to act as adjunct professors for BYU-Hawaii, to teach these college-level courses in education.  But since these teachers are already in the classroom, we tend to approach them as graduate-level workshop classes, rather than “read the chapter and answer the questions” undergraduate classes.  Makes the courses a lot more pragmatic when you can go back to your own classroom and try something out.

Anyway, Jim has been thoroughly delighted with two particular teachers he has observed.  Kalo (Kah-low), a math genius, is in her third year of teaching, and she is remarkable already.  Not perfect, but every time Jim gives her a suggestion, she puts it into practice, and he sees it the next several times he comes into the classroom.  She has a better understanding of teaching, both in theory and practice, after two and a quarter years, than I did after 12 years! 

The other teacher, Makaleta (Mah-kah-lay-tah, the Tongan version of Margaret), is simply incredible.  She has been a lab assistant for the past four years, and is serving as a long-term substitute this year.  But she has applied everything she has learned in the classes she has taken here, and both Jim and I feel we could recommend her to any school system in the world.  She teaches 9^th grade science, and here’s an example of her teaching:


In any second-language situation, you want to use a lot of visual aids.  Makaleta was teaching the concept of peristalsis, in which the muscles of the esophagus contract downward in a pattern that moves the food down to the stomach.  So what was her visual aid?  Not a simple picture, not something high tech – she put an apple inside a nylon sock, and pushed it down little by little from behind the sock, while her students watched the apple “magically” get pushed down.  Great demonstration!  Even if her students had a hard time pronouncing the word, they certainly understood what it meant!

Sometimes I feel like I'm  trying to
get a cow to fly, when the cow wasn't
designed to fly...knowhatImean?

Me, I’m having a roller-coaster ride helping classes of teachers figure out how to teach.  I go from being impressed that a Seminary (LDS religion class) teacher decides to try out reader’s theater to help her 9^th grade English language learners get past the archaic English used in the Old Testament, or being amazed at the grasp of “hands on” activities a new automotive teacher has, even to the point of having students create an active scenario about treating a victim of electric shock (rather than just talking about the safety rules) to being totally tickled and not a little wide-eyed when a new teacher writes in his “reflecting on our practice” journal that he never considered sharing his vocabulary words with his students.  That makes me wonder what he thought vocabulary words are for – are they classified information or something?  Hee hee.

Seriously, though, most of the teachers are making earnest efforts to apply what they learn in these classes, and you have to be impressed that someone with a business degree who decides to come back to Tonga to teach, spends a couple of years taking classes after putting in a full day of teaching, in order to satisfy the requirements the LDS Church has placed upon them.  That’s dedication.  Now if I can just get them to recognize that we have to teach BEYOND the year-end exams.  We need to teach skills which these teens will use for the rest of their lives, skills like time and resource management, decision-making, problem-solving, flexibility and self-direction – these are skills very absent in the traditional Tongan culture, but the curriculum here at Liahona Middle School and Liahona High School can be an effective vehicle for learning those skills.  Hey, wish me luck – I dream big!

BACK TO BUSINESS

Two cyclones in two weeks.  Whew.  First Cyclone Cyril brushed past us, flooding the eastern end of our fishhook-shaped island, and bringing the mango season to an early end – there were thousands of mangoes for sale for a few days after Cyril, and then - done.  Then seven days later, Tropical Cyclone Jasmine began toying with Tonga.  Her track went northeast from Australia, then she did a Dr. Seuss-worthy loop in place just west of us that lasted four days, before she finally headed southeast and dissolved over the empty ocean.  During those four days, we went from sunshine to sprinkles to 28 inches of rain in 24 hours, and back to sunshine, with the humidity staying at nearly 100% the whole time.  Can you say soggy?

The Humanitarian Services building downtown -  this was
typical of the flood damage.

Jasmine did much more damage to our island than Cyril.  The houses which were flooded the first time didn’t even have time to dry out before they were inundated a second time.  And even in our area, the center of the island, the storm brought down trees and damaged buildings – that lovely little roadside stand that I showed in the last blog was completely in shambles, though I must say the industrious family had a makeshift version up about five days after the storm.  I expected some of the softer-wood trees, like pines and coconut palms, to suffer, especially the ones with small root systems, but I have been surprised at the number of large, hardwood trees split open by this Category One storm.  Makes me wonder what would happen in a Category Four – no, never mind, I don’t have to find that out.

Well, living on an island during a storm has taught me the value of the phrase “batten down the hatches”.  Most of the stores downtown boarded up their glass windows and rolled down their metal security doors, to be secure.  I expected that kind of preparation, but there were a few surprises in store for me.  The electricity went out (nothing new, that happens frequently here, but Liahona Village has their own backup generator), and along with that, our internet connection.  We don’t have a key to get into the storage area to push the “reset” button on the internet supply, so we were without an internet connection for three days, until the Tech crew reported back to work.  Couldn’t get a weather report, couldn’t tell family what was going on.  Then the TV stations (there are only 2 here) stopped broadcasting.  Their equipment is not sturdy enough to be exposed to winds of hurricane speed, so they just closed their doors and sent everyone home.  And finally the cell phone service was cut – again, the antennae are subject to damage in high winds, so they retracted their antennae.  I felt like I was in a time warp, about 50 years in the past.  I can’t remember being as isolated as that since 1958, when a snowstorm made Falls Church, Virginia look like Nome, Alaska, and my mother boiled snow for drinking water.

Again, the eastern end of our island suffered the most – flooding, roofs torn off, electrical wires down, even along the road that leads to the King’s Palace.  And lots of downed trees.   The Red Cross brought in emergency clothing, bleach and soap, to help families stave off water-borne infections.  The Prime Minister made an official address to the nation, thanking families for protecting each other during and after the storm.  Thank heaven the village structure is still alive and well here, with the chiefs making sure that every family was okay, and reporting to the government.  No fatalities were reported, and that’s always a good thing.

Our little home was pretty safe during the storm.  We did get some water inside the “attic” space, and it managed to drain down into our bedroom ceiling light fixture, on the north side of our home, where the wind was blowing the rain sideways.  At the end of the second day, an electrician came to our house and drained the water from the light fixture.  He took the rest of the fixture apart, wiped it dry, and reported that even though the water that had collected in the light was orange with rust, apparently the water hadn’t gotten into the wiring.  The wiring looked safe, so he put everything back together and said it would be okay.  We still waited a couple extra days before we turned on that light, just to make sure everything DID dry out!  Keep your fingers crossed, no problems since. 

As the electrician left our home, Jim noticed that he was barefoot.  “Did you leave your shoes inside our house?”  asked Jim.  “Oh, no,” replied the electrician, “I left them at the last house I worked at.  The house was flooded, so I just left my shoes outside, and I forgot them there.  I’ll go back for them now.”  It wasn’t until later that Jim and I understood the impact of that electrician’s statement.  He had been working in a FLOODED room on ELECTRICAL WIRING – without wearing rubber shoes!  And if his example in our house was any indicator, he hadn’t ever turned the power off to the wires. 

Years ago, when we lived in Naples, Italy, we used to joke that you were completely comfortable in Naples when you offered to light the cigarette of the gas station attendant filling the tank of your car.  Now we’ve got one for Tonga – you’re completely comfortable when you invite a barefooted electrician to come work on live wires in a flooded room!  Ha!

Our other casualty was our little Macbook – apparently four days of 100% humidity was more than the six-year old laptop could handle.  We’ll buy another one and have it shipped from New Zealand, but it will take a few more weeks, doing bank transfers and waiting for delivery.   Nothing happens quickly in the islands!  Here’s  hoping the next one is more moisture resistant!

So, all the trees are a little one-sided now, but life is getting back to normal.  It took three weeks to have six days of school, and some of the schools closer to the coast still have large pools of water on the grounds, but everyone really appreciates the sunshine and the breezes, and we’re all grateful for the protection and shelter we enjoyed during the storm.   Thanks to our window-unit air conditioners, we have dried out.  And the sky seems a little bluer, the air a little cleaner, the birdsongs a little more joyous, the flowers a little more colorful.  Life is wonderful – now let’s get back to business.

EMERALD MOMENT

Saturday morning.  About a hundred men and women are gathered in a chapel to receive instruction that will help them better serve their own congregations.  To set the stage for the instruction, a young teenaged girl named Salote (Sah-loh-teh)is presented to the audience, to sing a solo.  Salote bears the disfigurement of a childhood accident, and has vision in only one eye.  She is obviously frightened by the prospect of performing in front of so many adults, most of whom she has never met. She stands at the microphone,  trying to collect herself, and the recorded accompaniment begins. 

She fights back tears.  Wiping her face, she is able to get out only a few words before her voice chokes, and she purses her lips, making them white with the effort to control her emotions.  Taking a deep breath, she sings another phrase, only to choke again on her fear, while more tears flow.  The recorded accompaniment continues without her.

We all watch, sympathetic to her fear.  But one woman takes action.  Moapa (Mah-oh-pah), one of the leaders for teenaged girls in our area, rises and walks over to Salote.  She hands Salote a tissue, with which Salote wipes her tears.  Standing behind the girl, Maopa wraps her arms around Salote’s waist, hugging the 13-year old to her. As she does this, she seems to send strength into Salote, who sings with a voice growing in surety as she continues.  Our focus is drawn back to Salote, and we are engaged in her performance.

As she sings about her faith in the Savior, the words Salote sings turn the moment from sweet to profound: “He knows I can do hard things….I know He is standing with me…” Those of us privileged to be present are witnesses to a defining moment as precious as any emerald.  Tears flow down many cheeks in the chapel, and our understanding is enlarged.  The words of Salote’s message sink deeply into our hearts.  As she finishes her song, Salote turns around and she and Maopa embrace.  The audience takes a collective breath, savoring this treasure of an experience. 

But that’s not the end of the story.  That afternoon, I visited with Maopa, and she told me.

Some months previous, Maopa had heard this young girl perform for a very familiar, small audience.  Salote, it turns out, has endured a great deal of teasing about her appearance during her short life, and her self-esteem has suffered greatly.  She began singing, and the sweet quality of her voice has helped her find at least one area in her life in which she can be accepted.

Having had some voice training herself, Maopa offered to give the child singing lessons.  They only had a few lessons together.  Trying to demonstrate how to breathe properly, Maopa invited Salote to come feel her abdomen while she inhaled.  The two of them worked together, first Salote with her hands on Maopa’s generous belly, then Maopa with her hands on Salote’s slender waist.  As they worked together on the physical requirements of singing, Maopa spoke to Salote of the mental and emotional elements, urging her to concentrate on communicating her message when she sang, and using her breathing to stay calm.  The physical connection they created became an emotional one, with the older, more experienced singer creating strength in the younger novice.   

Salote proved herself an excellent student, sharing and improving her talent in performance.  But this time, something was different.  Perhaps Salote could see the large collection of people in her audience this time.  She had performed for larger audiences, but they were farther away from her than in this chapel.  Perhaps Salote had not performed in a while, or perhaps she was just experiencing the self-doubt that plagues most 13-year olds. 

Whatever it was, the combination of Salote’s youth, nervousness and determined persistence, combined with Maopa’s loving, silent support, provided a cherished moment in Christlike behavior.  “He knows I can do hard things…I know He is standing with me.”  Well, Jesus Christ wasn’t there in person, but his servant was, and it was an honor to share that emerald moment.  

If Music Be the Food of Love... Then Shakespeare Was in Tonga!

With the reversal of seasons in the southern hemisphere, summer is coming on.  The past couple of weeks have been graduation ceremonies for the local middle and high schools.  And of course, with my musical background, the best part has been the music.  There have been a lot of awards given out, and a lot of good speeches, but the emotional communication of music is what has resounded in my heart.

I have listened to about 15 different songs and performances in the past week or two, not counting church meetings.  And I am struck by the same comment that the first LDS missionaries made when listening to the Tongans: “Their voices are loud and clear, such harmony I have never heard.  God is in it all.”  The singing that is such an engrained part of the culture here is truly a little piece of heaven.  Boys and girls, men and women, old and young – everyone sings, their voices strong and sure.  And most of them are very good at creating their own harmonies – not necessarily those written in the music, but still wonderful, and sometimes even better than what’s on the printed page.  I wish I had a way to share with you the sounds of these people.  I’ll just have to refer you to a youtube film, with sound.  This clip is one of the UNESCO cultural projects for preserving native cultures.  You don’t have to watch all of it, but you’ll hear the kinds of harmonies I’ve been hearing: http://youtu.be/tF7KpvBl0tk

As with all cultures, a musical performance has its own protocols.  But I think the one most new to me is the fact that a singer (and other performers as well) can be properly congratulated during the performance.  Look at the picture of this teacher singing at a middle school graduation.  She is wearing a traditional Polynesian-style lei of flowers, but she is also wearing a lei of plastic-wrapped treats.  Those were given her during her song.  One of her students came up and placed them around her neck and she simply continued singing.  During the rest of the song,  about seven more of her students came up and either placed a lei ( of one kind or another) around her neck, or tucked money under her collar (look carefully just inside the lei).  Not a lot of money – usually one pa’anga bill, worth about 65 cents US.  But these gifts are a sign of affection and respect for her, and for her performance.  I congratulated her later for being able to concentrate on the song while she sang – I know I would have been extremely distracted by all the accolades while I was trying to sing a song!

Apparently that kind of congratulation is only offered if one is singing traditional Tongan music.  This young man, finishing 8^th grade this year, sang the western popular song “You Lift Me Up” at his graduation (did a bang-up performance, by the way – accompanied by his mother), and everyone listened attentively, but made no move to cover him in flowers and treats.  Instead, they stood up and clapped their hands and whistled and hooted their congratulations.  Pretty standard western middle school behavior! 

Because these schools are church-run, (there are a few government-run middle and high schools on Tonga, but most of the secondary students attend schools run by the Mormons, Catholics and Wesleyan Methodists), each graduation ceremony began and ended with a congregational song and a prayer.  To hear a thousand voices joining in song is marvelous anywhere in the world, but to hear these untrained, instinctive musicians open their mouths and their hearts to music is awe-inspiring.  Because they are untrained, those who lead the singing must lead with their voices as well as their hands, and the audience responds more to a voice than to conducting.  And the harmonies, both established and invented, are sure to haunt me for years to come. 

There have been amusing musical moments, too.  I listened as this music teacher played pop music and traditional Tongan music during a dinner at an awards banquet, and smiled to myself as he sang “Jingle Bells” when it was about 84 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  With no Halloween or Thanksgiving to get in the way, it’s already the Christmas season here – there is a twenty-foot artificial tree already decorated across from our vegetable market, and icicle lights for sale at the open-air market. 

The other musical moment that made me smile came from a wonderful mixing of cultures.  Jim and I were invited to the “Welcome Home” party of a young sister missionary we met in the Auckland, New Zealand airport (she had served in the Phoenix, Arizona mission for 18 months).  We sat and listened to the loud, happy music played and watched everyone, from age 2 to 82, get up and dance.  (We chose to watch – my ankle’s not quite up to dancing yet, but I’m out of the boot and into an aircast, and even using just an Ace bandage for a few hours a day).  And then came “La Bamba.”  Even though it is sung in Spanish, it is very familiar to non-hispanics of my generation, because of its breakthrough popularity.  Well, it’s popular here in Tonga, too.  But the difference is that the Tongan version is performed by a Tongan singer, not Ritchie Valens.   The refrain is in Spanish, and very true to the original, but the verses are in Tongan, and have a completely unique rhythm and pace, which threw me for a few minutes.  But then I just accepted it and watched as the crowd enjoyed their version of an energetic song.  Smiled through the whole song.  And a little four-year old girl mixed traditional Tongan dance moves with pop dance moves - another reason to smile.

But the emotional high of the week was a performance by the entire Liahona Middle School, at the end of their graduation and awards ceremony.  The principal had composed the words and the tune, and had choreographed movements for the children to perform while seated on the floor, in a chair, or standing behind a chair, in what's called a "ma'ulu'ulu." So imagine three hundred children arranged in a huge horseshoe in a school gym, all in traditional Tongan costume, performing a 10-minute long storysong with complex head, arm, hand, and upper body movements, all in unison.  Oh, and some of the faculty and a few students played traditional drums over to the side – there were about 8 drums, the smallest of them desk-high and at least 4 feet across.  The performance was given twice, once so that everyone could simply watch, and the second time parents and family members came forward and showered their children with more leis and treats.   And their principal was also their punake - reviving their Tongan spirit through song, poetry and dance.  Wow.

Music has played a large key role in my life. To find myself now surrounded by natural musicians is an education like no other.  I just hope I can take it all in.