The Tongan People
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| Coming Home From the Api |
We just want to share a few things
that we have observed about the people we have lived among for almost 18
months. It has been a blessing for us to
get to know them. There are things we do
not have and cannot get here in Tonga but we are very comfortable.
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| Planting Taro |
Once in awhile we get a glimpse of how
many live here. Most do not have washing
machines. They do their laundry in a 5
gallon bucket. I don’t know how they do
it but everyone always looks neat and clean.
A teacher might casually say as part of a lesson, “My husband gets up
early to start a fire to heat water so that we can wash up in the
morning.” Another tells us that she
doesn’t have a frig, her brother does and they share. Electricity is very expensive. Children know that kerosene is used in lamps
so that they can have light in their homes.
Seventy percent of the people in Tonga
are unemployed. However, there are many
people who work in the bush (farm) or are fishermen or who weave baskets or do
other crafts like Tapa. There are many who
do not call that work. But believe me it
is hard work.
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| Weaving Baskets from Coconut Plams |
Tonga is very much a communal
society. It is part of the culture to go
to family and say, I need money. You want
to give your money and you are expected to give it. They share all that they have. I have seen many who did not have much to
share and still they give it away. It is
part of Tongan Faith. They trust that
Heavenly Father will take care of them and they trust that when they need
something the family will help.
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| Taking the Bark off Limb to Make Tapa Cloth |
But there are draw backs to this
philosophy. If you are trying to save
for something like a house and every time you get some money put away, someone
asks for it and you give it to them. You
will never get a house. A teacher in one
of our schools is trying to build a house without a mortgage. Her husband is a good fisherman. I have seen the huge lobsters that he
harvests from the ocean. One year he was
able to catch a lot of sea cucumber and they put a lot of money away towards a
house. But people knew and little by
little the money disappeared.
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| Doing the Wash in a Bucket |
So the next year instead of putting the money
in the bank, she bought blocks to build the house. When people came to ask for money, she told
them it was all gone and it was. Now her
husband is in Australia doing construction work. They are buying the wood and the tin for the
roof and the wire and sand so that they will have a paid for house. He will be gone for six months but it will be
worth it.
It is interesting to get to know a
Tongan family. They may have five, six
or seven children and two or three others are living with them. Sometimes they
just live with them so that they can go to school. Or they have adopted them. Generally adopting does not mean going
through all that legal stuff. It means
that you have them in your home and you take care of them. They are part of the family. They just want to make sure that the children
have what they need and that they are cared for.
We are reminded of some of the closing
words in The Other Side of Heaven.
Elder Groberg was talking about people in the Niuas who still live as they
did in his movie. Things are much better
on Tongatapu than that. Still his words
are often true. “These people have nothing and yet they have everything.”
