Sunday morning in my world

So it is Sunday morning and I live in a very interesting area.

Because all of Tonga is very religious it is not unusual to find yourself being woken up at 4 – 5 – 6 am on a Sunday morning by the bells or drums of the local churches.  Because of where I live I have 3 churches that wake me up. 

There is the Catholic Church at the end of the street, the church across the street and the other church around the corner. Usually the bells of all churches start anywhere between 4 and 5 am.  I imagine this is to wake the people to get ready for church!  As Sunday is a sacred day and no one is allowed to work at anything this is the only reason I can imagine for the bells to start so early. 

I am so used to using Sunday to sleep in and catch up on house work (cleaning or repairs) that this practice is still hard for me to get used to.

So now that the churches have woken everyone up they start ringing the bells an hour later (5-6am) to call the people to go to church.  And then they start singing!

I can understand singing for your faith but I swear these people are singing for their sins.  It is so loud that I can even here the singing from the Catholic Church at the end of the road.  I can understand the bells but singing that loudly. 

And I have a church across the street!  I swear there is one woman in that church who believes that the loudest person wins!  She is so loud that we hear her over everyone else in the area.  It almost sounds like she is yelling but she still keeps her tune.

And if it were not bad enough being woken up so early to this on a Sunday they do it again at 9:30, 12:30, 3:30 and sometimes 6pm all on the same day.  And I swear that same woman is across the street singing at the top of her lungs for all services on Sunday.

The best part of my Sunday is that after church at 9:30 my landlords come to our house and visit and they bring us a traditional Tongan brunch called a Lu (lou). It is corned beef or lamb cooked with onion wrapped in leaves that is cooked in a ground oven (Umu) since before church. A little salt and pepper and this is a great brunch for all. It is also a time that we can sit with our hard working landlords and not have to worry about them getting up to clean and/or fix something.  Our landlords are excellent – as I have said before.

Other than that Barry and I sit outside under the shade and watch the day go by. Many times people will visit for a little bit just to say hi because we live so close to town and they may be on their way home from church or visiting other people.  It is very slow – I almost said quiet but it is not quiet – time. And very welcomed after a hard week of tropical breezes and working hard lol.

Have fun and be safe

Char