Tu'anikevale: The Tou'a and the Men

Every evening as the church choir practice and maululu dances wind down, the men take over the halls for their kava circles. The kava circle is a boys club where the men get stoned on kava and shoot the shit, gossiping and poking fun at each other. If they are lucky, the men get a tou’a to serve them. The tou’a is a single young female who is willingly to hang with the boys, let their come ons roll off her shoulders and sass back to them while serving kava late into the night. The tou’a is typically guaranteed only at the formal kava circles or the circles held for fundraising for community projects where the men pay in to join the circle. I was asked to tou’a at one of the later and I could not say “no” to an invitation for my first peek into the Tongan boys club. The men were, I think, unusually kind to me keeping their crude jokes to themselves for now. I am pretty sure my instructor being in the next circle kept them somewhat inline. (He’s kinda a big guy. I wouldn’t mess.) The best way for me to describe the circle is to compare it to a puff, puff, pass situation in a smelly frat room where that guy is falling asleep against the wall and the guy on your left is giving you the eye but blushing when you catch it. The highlight of the evening came when an older member of my circle stood to relieve himself and his tupanu ( the mens’ wrap around formally worn in Tongan) had slipped down and his butt crack was peekin’ . The men rolled and continued as he walked across the room and bent over to talk to another man and mooned us all. Ah, giggle fits. Tongans are fun. Fakaoli, man.