Tu'anikevale: My Family Ties

I am staying in Tuanikevale with a young couple not much older than I. Tupou is 25 and her husband, Vi’iangi, is 27. They have three children. One is 4, Sifa is 3 and Falemaka is only 5 monthes. The family is overwhelmingly kind and treats me well. I fight with Tupou trying to get her to let me help. Week one, I said she could treat me like a guest but by week two I need to be pulling my own weight; yet, today she still said, “Next week?” when I got up to do my dishes but I shook my head and did them anyway. I am not very comfortable being catered to. The family is trying to help me learn Tongan by quizzing me on various occasions, particularly right after I wake up when I can hardly speak English so most of the time I just sound like I am slow. One, the four year old, is probably the most fond of me as he yells my name from the front porch whenever I walk down the drive and runs out, often bare-assed, to greet me. He even speaks to me like I am slow since most of the time I just smile at him and ask him the four questions I know. I let him listen to my ipod a few times and now he runs into my rooms asking for the telephone and making a motion of putting head phones in his ear.

The family is among the poorest in the village and I believe this to be in part because they are so young. The kids consume most of their time and I don’t see them working much away from the home because of this. Vi’iagne works in the bush harvesting crop and Tupou weaves mats for sale in town but with such young kids they do not leave the house for long. The baby was sick the first week I was here and cried a lot so I felt like another child to add to their burden. They are wonderful parents, noting a difference in parenting (I will talk about that later), and seem like very happy people. The family is Mormon, which I just discovered upon arriving at Mormon service Sunday and that will lead to a bunch of interesting discoveries I am sure. I received the Book of Mormon during the service; special for me in English.

I am very grateful for all that Tupou and Vi’iange are doing for me. This experience is proving to be interesting and challenging. The home stay is definitely to break us into the Tongan way of life and it is doing so fast and hard for me.