About the language and other odds and ends

Last night I sat out on the porch where I'm living, talking to the landlady about the land situation here in Tonga. It seems that when someone who owns land dies the land goes to the eldest son unless the land belonged to the mother's family in which case it is passed on to one of the other children. It is all very complicated and because families are usually large and land is scarce there are often disagreements about who is to get what. Anyway, in the course of our conversation she told me about one of her brothers whom she said had gone to learn to be a "pirate" and then came back to take over some land. I didn't question this as I thought...well, this IS Tonga and there has been news lately about pirates...what do I know?? After speaking to her some more she said that the brother couldn't become a pirate after all because of some physical problem. It then dawned on me that he had wanted to be a PILOT not a pirate at all...less picturesque but more believable.
Riding by on my bike or walking I'm often greeted by local children who say "bye" instead of hi or hello. Here in Tonga there is a word for hello..."Malo e lelei" or "Mali" and two forms of goodbye...one for someone who is leaving and one for someone who is staying. If you are leaving you say "fono `a" to the person who is staying and they say "a`loa" to you. When you want to say "it is very hot" you say in Tongan.."vela aupito", vela being hot and aupito..very. Of course, in english the very would come before hot so the first time I used this phrase I said "aupito vela" and couldn't understand why I was frowned at. The "l" and "r" of english is often confused so that "taro" the plant, is pronounced here as "talo"...thus the "pirate/pilot" mystery.
Last week the principal of the school and the school band returned from a 2 month trip to New Zealand where they went to raise money for the school by giving concerts. The school is quite in need of funds because they rely on donations and fund raising for maintenance/supplies/scholarships, etc. I guess they had a successful tour and came back with over $500,000 Tongan dollars. It is badly needed as the school has a lack of furniture for the classrooms, equipment for the carpentry classes and the automotive classes and many other projects. The library on the junior side is upstairs in one of the buildings and at the very top of the stairs there is a hole in the floor which I'm surprised no one has broken a leg in.
Celebrations, feasts, assemblies are common at the school and an assembly and feast was held for the returning band...all the food was supplied by the PTA which is a very active group here at the school. We sat down to a table groaning with food to the extent that it was hard to find a place to set down the plate you were eating from. There was a suckling pig on each table plus all description of chicken, fish, shellfish, salads, Tongan desserts wrapped in leaves...amazing. There is always way more food than can be eaten and the leftovers are taken home by everyone afterwards. I didn't bother to take away anything as I was stuffed by the end of the meal and since I know how poorly the teachers here are paid and how many of them have children to feed I felt they could make better use of the extra food than I could.
On Friday we had a staff meeting and the principal makes an effort to hold the meeting in English which is much appreciated by myself and the one other non-Tongan speaking teacher here. The students must learn English because the examinations are written in English and of course, if they want to go anywhere outside Tonga they have to be able to speak English. Even jobs here in Tonga require English now. Many of the teachers do not speak English well, if at all, and it is difficult for them to understand what is going on in these staff meetings but they give it a good effort, sometimes breaking out in Tongan when they want to make a point. I have never had much aptitude for languages and still only know a few words of Tongan, definitely not enough to follow a conversation so the English meeting is a treat but I can sympathize with the non-English speakers.
It is very windy here today with a temperature of about 79f/25c and sunny. There was a cyclone warning earlier in the week and the way the wind is blowing one would think there may still be a possibility of something like that...I'm getting used to the extreme weather issues, tsunami warnings, cyclone warnings, and heavy downpours. The rain has pretty much kept to the nighttime...so that has been good since my transportation (bike) doesn't provide a lot of protection. Anyway, bye for now and "fono`a" from Tonga.