Hospitality was overwhelming. Thursday evening was my last night eating with my 'aiga (pronounced ayinga). Each tutor has responsibility for a group of married and single students. They have a large communal cooking, eating and meeting house. Children and dogs mill around. They kept telling me how much they enjoyed having me as it meant they were cooking better meals than usual. It made me aware that I was using valuable resources, so I did pass on a donation for their funds. I wondered how some of them had coped. One of the student's wives had been brought up in New Zealand, hadn't known much Samoan and had had to fit into the demands of a very strict way of life. She said she wept every night for the first month, but was happy now.
My 'aigaFriday night the faculty had a farewell feast for me and for Viliami, the educational consultant from Fiji. Formality was the order of the day. Everything, from the kava ceremony beforehand, through the seating arrangements (separate tables for guests of honour, the principal, tutors, prncipal's wife and tutors' wives) to the speeches and presentation of gifts. I suspect that protocol in the Prussian court of the nineteenth century was casual by comparison. Of course, you feel totally out of your depth when you don't know the conventions. My little gift to the principal seemed puny in comparison with the heap of souvenirs and lava lava cloths piled up in front of me by a line of dancing women. I would have needed several extra cases to bring them with me, so could only take a sample and leave the rest to be recycled through the gift- giving system.
The end of the 5.00 am prayer meeting, complete with sleeping children!All of this traditional culture is combined with an impressive programme of academic development. Piula probably leads the way among national theological colleges in the region. It has staff members who are completing PhDs overseas, so the faculty is being strengthened all the time.
From the end of WW1 until independence Samoa was annexed to New Zealand. That means it has been relatively easy for Samoans to stay and work in New Zealand. I wonder, long-term, how people - including the students at Piula - will cope with being split between two cultures.
I flew first back to Nadi in Fiji (transport between Pacific countries is expensive and rarely straightforward) then had a 5 hour wait for a flight to Tonga. Ah, Tonga! In some ways it's very different from when I first arrived in January 1979. Horses and carts (and bikes) are replaced by cars, mobile phones are universal, ATM machines dispense cash, new concrete and glass offices and stores have sprung up. Yet I suspect that John Henry Newman's description of the Catholic Church also applies to Tonga: it changes in order to stay the same. Building and development schemes come and go, but there's a strong sense of inertia compared to the energy in Fiji. Compared with the orderliness, beauty and communal pride in Samoan villages, There's a makeshift quality about Tongan settlements. Perhaps that's because so many families around Nuk'alofa have come from elsewhere in Tonga.
I was met by Taliai from Sia'atoutai and Sai'a from the Church Office. Sai'a is a young minister who has recently returned to Tonga after 20 years on New Zealand and He is charged with looking after me. He took me to my room at the Tungi Colonnade - part of a commercial complex owned by the church in the centre of Nuku'alofa - still being built last time I was here. Then we went for a meal at the Billfish down by the fish wharfs at Ma'ufanga - something of a Tongan jewel. I had eaten there my last night in Tonga 4 years ago. They still do great fish dishes.
More on Tonga in the next post.
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