As Barry and I are sitting here in Vava'u for Christmas and, being the off-season most others are away, we were invited by our wonderful and always welcoming landlords to attend the 50 Anniversary Gala of the Catholic Church High school.
This was a wonderful event where nearly 5,000 people attended in temporary pavilions set up over tables set up on about 1.5 acres. This was on the front grounds of the Catholic high school with about acres of 3/4 acres of green space inside the horseshoe.
While waiting for the festival to start the music started and people went onto the central area to dance and enjoy their event.
If you look carefully at this picture you will see a woman in the centre on the ground. This woman is so excited for the day and for the festival that she has dropped and started rolling in Joy and happiness. This is a common sight in Tonga. People yell, whoop, dance and roll to express their joy and excitement when they have a festival like this.
On the tables the food is wrapped in serving size packages and is piled high on the table. Barry (handsome man in the picture) and I literally had to eat our way to our plates so that we could put the food on our plates!
Everything on the table was available eat or take home. People came, ate and left leaving room at the table for others to come and eat as well. This picture shows only one table but in each tent is 12 tables and there must have been 100 tents. The amount of food and people was truly amazing.
While the dancing and presentations continued during the feast the different groups or families would take the field and present their gifts to the school and to the dignitaries that were there for the festivities.
As the people bring their gifts of cloth, blankets, tapa, and mats to be presented to the school a young lady in traditional clothing is covered in oil and does a very delicate dance. The woman in blue is going to the young lady to put a $2 bill on the young ladies oiled skin as appreciation for the dance and a donation for their family/group. One girl made $600 during her dance.
All in all it was a very interesting experience and I hope we get invited to the next one.
This picture is showing some of the handicrafts that are available at the market. Everything is hand made by the sellers and the selection is always because of this.
The market is also the main place to buy all of your produce. This is the closest thing that Vava'u has to a grocery store. Each table is individually owned and items for sale depend on the availability. For example pineapples can be bought for 5 for $10 in November and December but they sell for $10 each the rest of the year because they are not in season.
For all imported food items you can buy those at the Chinese shops. Meat is bought at the Chinese stores as well but everything is frozen and the quality is not anything near as good as we get in Canada.
Hello Char,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your informative blog. We, (Rassie (Razz for short) & Anna) are thinking of a permanent move to Tonga and would like to get as much info as we can before making the final decision.
We currently live on 9 acres in South East Queensland. It was just a piece of land with nothing on it when we bought it. We built a shed that we live in with bathroom kitchen, man cave, rainwater catchment system etc. We did it all by ourselves. Razz built the frames and put them in place by tying them with rope to nearby trees (I still wonder how he got it square), did all the electrical wiring, plumbing etc.
Razz:
Fitter/welder/mechanic Engineering/Teacher in sheetmetal work. Basically can build almost anything and has owned businesses so has a good mind for business.
Anna:
Administration (qualified Legal Secretary)/bookkeeping/Sewing
The plan is for Razz to establish a business in the line of mechanical maintenance, repairs and manufacturing of sheetmetal and structural products - welding, cutting and grinding etc. We have most of the tools and machinery required to this. What do you think of the idea? Is it worth putting a reliable 1ton ute and building materials in the container rather than used furniture?
If we decide to do the move, we would have to secure some sort of income to survive as soon as possible as we do not have heaps of reserves. We are happy to do any work to make this happen.
Do you sometimes regret your move? What do you miss most? And what would you do different if you had to do it all over again?
We will be visiting Tonga around 19 – 27 April of this year and would very much like to meet up with you and your husband if possible please as we have hundreds of questions.
Kind regards
Razz and Anna Erasmus
safozzy@gmail.com