Good morning!

My day thus far has been incredibly productive and I am happily taking a break, eating my cereal and my vine drink I made yesterday while listening to Jurassic Five, “What's Golden” to celebrate :) I washed sheets, towels, etc. which is always the butt of laundry and hung them to dry. Laundry takes me usually an hour or two to scrub through and my wrist is always left with a rash after rubbing the clothes up against it. I also swept all the puaka (pig) poop from my yard and fetched water from the simovai to fill up all my nalogens. They're now sitting in my freezer cooling and doing that alone is productive because nothing is worse than running out of water in this heat! I also hung out with Lilio and her niece and nephew, and went to the bakery to get them some bread for their breakfast. All of this before 830am. It's been a Tongan morning :) and to top it off, my blog writing was just interrupted for a dance party with Fou leka to Flo Rider, “In the Ayer.” It's going to be a great day! In fact, I'm putting that song on repeat! Dance disco! Throw your hands up!



Puna! Puna!

Last evening a few of my neighbors stopped by my house on their way to the wharf to go for a swim. Even though I had just showered, I could not resist because the wharf is always PACKED with tons of people of all ages swimming, playing music, tossing footballs- just having a great time! Remember, Tongans prefer to go swimming when it is cloudy or raining. Around 6ish in the evening you'll hear the sounds of kids screaming as they 'puna' of the wharf and anchored boats. Puna means to 'fly' in Tongan and the kids fearlessly puna crazy dives and flips into the water. They're absolutely fearless and it is so much fun to watch them! They run one after the other and the other; not waiting for the previous jumper to come up from the water before they make their splash. You'd think people would be constantly diving into one another but no. They're Tongans. They're fine.

After swimming I went to choir rehearsal and even though I was late, there were still Tongans walking in up until the closing prayer! I stuck around and played with some kids who were in the back of the hall watching. They were also playing checkers with an old board and pieces that they had scraped up: pebbles and tossed cigarette butts.

Then I went home and made myself a yummy dinner of eggplant Parmesan with cheese that I had bought on the main island and brought back with me. Cheese you can find here, sometimes. It depends what the boat brings in. Either way, it is so expensive so the dinner was a treat. Of course, my neighbors came over just when I was dishing it up and in good ole Tongan fashion, I served as much of it out as I could. Tongans share everything as I have mentioned before. I am constantly reminded of that and even though I don't have to- being a 'palangi,' I want to make it a habit of my own as well.

Well, time to take a cold bucket bath because this heat is once again making me feel faint!

Thanks for reading!
'Ofa atu!
Ashley