I am "palangi"

I am currently staying at a guest house in the capital city of Nuku'alofa. The term city is used loosely as the city is approximately 2 miles by 5 miles and as one Tongan woman on the street told me, "If you stay here long enough, you know everybody!" The people are so welcoming and greet you from their cars, their front stoops, on the street or even from inside their homes while you are walking by. Part of that could be because I am "palangi" or foreigner and I am a white girl. The Tongans also love to laugh and do so heartily at all times in any situation, although once again part of this could simply be because I am palangi, but the Tongans really are a refreshing sort of people. The city is unlike anything I imagined as far as a capital city is concerned. Pigs, chickens and dogs roam the street as well as people yet no one seems to get hit by the toyota trucks and mitzubishi cars that come barrelling down the dirt roads. Oh and they driver in on the right of the car and traffic is on the left. I continue to double take every time I see a small child leaning out the front left window of a car, swearing I just saw an infant driving that car! There are banana, mango and coconut trees in every yard and exotic flowers decorate the gates yet crushed pop cans and scattered trash flank the roads. Behind most houses are large cement rain basins to collect the rain which is used to bathe and drink in the community. The king lives here with the queen mother's castle across the road. The castles look more like upper surbia houses with very long driveways, a gate, and a few select members of the king's army wandering the yard. All of this is set in front of vast clear blue sea that kisses the sky interrupted by the glipses of islands in the distance. It is "'ifo".