Eua Island...Tongans on Sunday
Trip Start
Apr 04, 2008
1
19
21
Trip End
Apr 22, 2008
Where I stayed
'Eua Island, Tonga
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Taki drove Bruce, Susan, Jody dropped us off down the road at the closest Wesleyan church. Tim and Angie stayed behind as Angie had sustained one of the worst sunburns I've seen in a long time during her hypnotic seasickness avoidance state on the ferry. They elected to relax instead.
When we got to the church one of the first things we noticed is that most all the kids were outside, but they were dressed beautifully. There were almost no cars there. It seems that most everyone walks to church. When we went inside though it was full. The entire sermon was in Tongan, so we couldn't understand what was being said. It didn't matter though because the singing was worth everything. Jody and I had attended a mass recently where the priest admonished the congregation for not singing joyfully enough. Well, he would have been more than proud of the singers there. The voices were so beautiful and powerful that it was a wonder that the roof didn't blow off.
Afterwards we asked some of the kids if we could take their pictures. They loved it and followed us down the road afterwards. There was one young lady who actually came up and asked if I would take a picture of her baby. I volunteered to send her a copy and she was thrilled saying that they don't get many pictures. I could see why since there were no Kodak shops or Walgreens anywhere it sight.
That afternoon we went on an "unguided" hike with Tim, Bruce and Susan. That means that they drove us a long way's and left us with a map to get to a snorkeling spot that they were going to pick us up at in the evening. On the way our driver pointed out the short cut to the snorkeling spot.
We saw a beautiful arch where the ocean came in and lots of cows, trees and crops along the way. Since it was hot, we started hallucinating, thinking that the short cut was each next clearing in the trees. Four or so "shortcuts" later Jody, Tim and I stopped going and waited on the road for Bruce & Susan to come back. When finally they didn't come back, we realized that the we were finally on the right track.
The beach there was beautiful with untouched live coral. We snorkelled for quite awhile and then relaxed on the beach in the shade and waited for Taki.
When Taki arrived there were 10 of us (some of the other guests were here as well), and 1 Isuzu Trooper. Silly me, I thought it would take 2 trips. Taki artfully arranged us though, 2 on the roof, 4 in the middle seat, 2 on the floor in the back and Jody up front and off we went. There was some screaming up top (due to the huge spiderweb they went through) and we did go down 1 dead end, but a couple small towns later we were back at the lodge.
That night, more food, rum & coke, wine, midori and Tongan beer later, we were back at our discussions of politics, religion and the differences between Kiwis, Aussies and Americans. Enough to fill volumes, if only I'd written down all the details!
Sadly we had to say goodbye to Bruce and Susan that night as they were on their way to Fafa Island Resort via the ferry the next morning at 5:30am.
