Taste of Tonga

Our good friend Mike Foley just left the Broken Compass after visiting for over a month. When we have friends visit we make very few promises, except that their time on the boat will be “an experience.”

(Mike's first fish by spear)

One of the first nights on the island a dog fight broke out. Chad and I flew from the dinner table to break it as he grabbed Makai, and myself onto the island dog, Honyo. Teeth were in a shark like frenzy when I grabbed Honyo's cheeks to pull her off. I held Honyo from clamping down on Makai's neck, which freed Makai to take another bite at Honyo. Makai's white fangs disappeared into my wrist and slid out effortlessly. The fight stopped immediately and I slowly walked back to the kitchen to receive “Island doctoring” which consists of a medicine tree and Chad's suturing.

Life on the island settled down a bit and we watched a movie and went to bed early one night. Chad moved out to the dock. The dock is an ideal spot on hot nights with the cooling ocean breeze. Taking in the thousands of stars overhead keep you up for a few minutes, until the gentle sounds of waves on the coral beach induces sleep. Little did we know, halfway across the pacific the devastating tsunami hit Japan. A Tongan friend named Sione motored his little outboard boat 5 miles that night to warn us of the coming wave. We quickly gathered a few belongings, expecting the island to be submerged in the next couple hours. We sailed the remaining hours in the dark to a safer harbor, only able to hope for the best. Luckily, only a few boats in Tonga were damaged from abnormal tidal surges, marked by bouys to the harbor being torn out of the ground.

The following day we were invited by a Tongan friend to celebrate the harvesting of yams. We headed off to the rough village of Pangi. Removing yams from the earth is not an easy task. A spade is used to clear an area around the yam, which is vertically buried up to 4 feet deep. Each foot long yam took us about 20 minutes, while the larger expensive yams were reserved for the most experienced farmers. The afternoon was rounded with a beach party where we watched the water level rise and fall as a result of earthquake aftershocks.

Back to the village to finish the yam harvesting festival, we ate fish and yams. Kava, a drink mixture from a local root followed dinner. Accepting an invitation to sleep in the village, we were all sardined into position, and with my feet inches from the father's face. The following morning our surrogate mother dressed us in traditional church clothes in my first church attendance since arriving in the Pacific. The invitation continued into the afternoon as we ate pig along with more yams and a taro leaf dish. We lazily lounged on Ano beach after the feast, absorbing the sun and swatting at mosquitoes.