Follow the Yellow Brick Road

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend, one that can help explain the unique lifestyle that can encourage someone to stay here. This story isn’t always pleasant, there are snags, but Dorothy had to deal with some crap when she followed the yellow brick road too.

From Friday evening to Sunday morning I stayed with another volunteer, I’m sure Amy won’t mind me using her name. Her village is located on an outer island and I have been meaning to do this since we got to our sites over a year ago, so we we’re overdue. With us, was a new volunteer Saskia and the three of us were excited for our weekend; Saskia and I were going to spend some time away from our everyday lives in our villages, and Amy was going to have our company, something that is coveted for some us volunteers.

We did a variety of things: Square dancing with the Mormon youth, which didn’t seem like something to go on the “to do in Tonga” list, but it was fun. We set aside the entire Saturday to explore her island and everything it has to offer, plus observing Amy’s dogs (2 dogs and 2 puppies) in wild pack mode...this is where the yellow brick road gets rough.

The three of us wake up early Saturday morning, have a great breakfast of wheetbix bread we made the night before, smothered with peanut butter and jam, an excellent assortment of teas provided by our stellar hostess, and we were on our way. It takes maybe 5 minutes to walk out of ‘Otea, Amy’s village, and maybe another 5 of walking in the bush for the dogs to detect a pig, and the four of them bolt into the brush. Bush pigs are the pigs that have left the villages for a free life in the unfenced woods. They don’t belong to anyone.

At first we call for the dogs, then realize they aren’t coming back…uh oh, they have successfully hunted down a pig. Like I said, the pig doesn’t belong to anyone, but you still don’t want your dogs to get into the habit of killing pigs in Tonga, they’re valuable, and if a dog is caught killing them they may end up in the ‘umu (as food). So we find them, with fresh kill, and made them leave it. We continue our travels.

We don’t have yellow bricks in Tonga by the way; we can call our road the…muddy stick road, yes that’s more appropriate. So we follow the muddy stick road to one of the other villages, there are two more besides Amy’s and we planned to see them. We walked happily through the thick mud and brush for another 30 or 45 minutes when the dogs made advances on a bird in distress. It was a larger bird about the size of chicken, but not a chicken, and it was stuck in a random fence surrounding a random abandoned house in the middle of the bush. We rush to stop them, succeed, and it’s obvious that the bird has been there for some time. He’s alive, but has ants crawling all over him, likely dying. This is a most horrible way to leave this world but none of us could bring ourselves to put him to a quicker end. So we get him out of the fence, and he miraculously flies off into the deep woods, where we idealistically believe he recovered and lives still today…onward!

Fale Vai is maybe half the size of Amy’s village, with 10 houses give or take. We walked through the village down to a most beautiful beach with the softest sand that I’ve ever felt between my toes since I’ve been in Tonga. We sat and soaked up the sun and scenery of crystal blue water speckled with more tiny islands. We played with a little white crab, and examined his purple under belly…releasing him when our interests were satisfied. Then it was time to go again.

The girls and I, with the dogs, backtracked our way through the same village and this is where the dogs spot a lone piglet…oh, crap. Now, if they manage to kill this pig that obviously belongs to someone in the village, that someone is going to be pissed, and we’re likely to leave with fewer dogs. Amy and I run down to rescue the piglet….whew it’s fine, crisis averted, now let’s get the hell outta dodge before they eat a baby or something. Seriously the day isn’t half over and these dogs lost their cuteness a while back.

It was absolutely a gorgeous day, the sun was shining and we were shaded by trees for most of our trek. We went through brush and mud; we were sweaty, dirty, and happily chatting through it all. When we made it to the final village called Kapa (kah-pah), the smallest of all, it took maybe 5 minutes to walk through. There were few houses and some looked abandoned too. We made our way down to the beach where we made a modest picnic of wheetbix, peanut butter, and peanuts. The three of us were satisfied and tired, so we napped; even the dogs were too exhausted to kill anything. I’m pretty sure Saskia knocked something very creepy from my head such as a spider, but assured me it was just a fly, but I can’t recall a time when fly was ever cause for such an urgent sweep of the hand, but it was nice of her to try to avoid a panic from me.

It was getting later in the afternoon and we needed to start walking back; we took a different route back and needed to ensure daylight. As we walked, we passed dozens of orange and lime trees, picking sour oranges and limes on our way. This weekend I even tried a fruit that I hadn’t had the entire time I’d been here, I don’t even think I had seen it until Amy gave me one. Turns out it’s probably one of the best flavors I’ve ever had in my life. It’s unique to itself, and I’m not sure what to compare it to; the best I can do is to advise any traveler to Tonga to ask for ‘Apele Tonga.

Amy, Saskia, and I make it back to ‘Otea where we bath and begin preparing a well deserved meal….gas runs out. A reminder, we don’t have electric stoves here, and if we did, Amy doesn’t have electricity, so it’s gas all the way. Oh dear, an unfortunate event when you are on an outer island, away from any place that offers tank refills, and even more so on a Saturday night when nothing but bread is sold on a Sunday. But this is where the light shines again at the end of the tunnel…neighbors are a wonderful thing to have sometimes. The people that live behind Amy allowed us to bring our food to their house to cook. They didn’t take our offer to share the food, but I’m sure their kindness will be rewarded with banana bread baked by Amy later. Unfortunately, her dogs did not take any of this into consideration when they kill a kitten the next morning belonging to the same neighbors.

Sunday morning it was time to go back to the main island. The boat ride was short and calm. Saskia went back to her village, while Amy and I went to the Mormon Church conference in Nei’afu. Ha, yeah, random I know, apparently it’s a yearly event. People from her village were going and people from my village were going to be there, and our presence would be appreciated by them; and I needed a ride back to Tefisi. I’m not Mormon, not going to be, but I will say that I’m glad I went to this thing because a man who is very famous among Peace Corps Tonga, who happens to be very famous as Mormon high up guy. Mr. Shumway was here when the first 2 groups of Peace Corps Volunteer groups came to Tonga, worked a great deal with the language here, and even has developed a dictionary. I can appreciate meeting him as I did, talking about where I was from and what I was doing here. Nice guy, this Mormon Rock Star in the Tongan language.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my weekend, because I enjoyed living it a great deal, and where as I am extremely happy that I am going to America in a week, I will miss my home here. This weekend was a reminder of what appeals here; the strange adventures that happen, the random people you can meet, and the muddy paths that take you to places you may never see again.