I was approaching the end of my eight kilometer trek home when I passed by the elementary school of our neighboring village. Class was over and the students were pouring out of the small school house. I heard one of the teachers call out to me from the porch.
“Senifa! Where are you wandering to?” She was frowning and I noticed she had chosen the verb “to wander” as opposed to “to go”.
“Home!” I answered, trying to seem cheerful.
“How come you are never here to help us? You are always wandering in town.” she stated without preamble. Immediately on the defensive, I tried to explain that I wasn’t just “wandering” in town.
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I work Monday through Thursday at Kalana High in town, then I work Fridays at the Kindergarten in Ha’akio. In the evenings I teach night school to the children in my village.”
This response did not seem sufficient; she continued to scowl and another teacher shook her head from side to side. I didn’t know what else to say, so I apologized again, waved good-bye, and kept walking. I cursed under my breath.
Once inside my house, I sighed and leaned against the door. In my peripheral vision, I caught my reflection in my home’s one cracked mirror. Something didn’t seem right, so I inspected myself closer. I touched what appeared to be bruises underneath my eyes. “Oh my god,” I exclaimed to no one. “I have under-eye circles!”
My cell phone started chiming an alarm. I fished it out of my pocket and groaned. “Aerobics” it reminded me.
Several weeks ago I had promised the women of Ha’akio that I would teach an aerobics class, but due to extenuating circumstances (choir practice, power outings, etc.) it hadn’t actually happened yet. It was raining outside, and knowing Tonga, I knew this was a good enough excuse to cancel again. I watched the rain for a few minutes.
“Screw it! Just get it over with!” I told myself and started to change.
Ten minutes later, I emerged from my house looking like what I envisioned as an“aerobics instructor”. I wore black yoga pants and a form-fitting t-shirt with my blond hair held in a high ponytail. I had even tied a bandanna across my forehead. I marched through the rain to the town hall. A few women were lounging out front.
“Time to do aerobics!” I chirped. The women laughed.
“My stomach aches!” one complained, rubbing her ample ailment.
“You’re only fake sick! Stop being lazy!” I chastised her, bringing forth a fresh burst of merriment. I rang the church bell that announced town meetings or other Ha’akio activities.
“We’re doing it today! I’m going to go get some more women, but we’re going to begin in ten minutes. Don’t you dare try to escape!”
I went to the individual houses, navigating a path over the pig fences and patches of mud.
“Time for aerobics!” I called out. Most of the women told me they were sick, or that they had to do laundry/weave/cook, but I was taking no prisoners.
“You can do that later! C’mon, let’s go. You don’t even need to change, just come in that.” I grabbed their hands and dragged them out of their houses.
After a good half hour of verbal and physical harassment, a ragged group of middle-aged potential exercisers were assembled in the hall.
“Yay!” I clapped, already the perky instructor. “Thank you all for coming!” They threw side-ways glances to each other. One sat down.
“O-kay!” I said, my voice rising on the “kay”. I turned to start the music I had prepared for the occasion. "Down in Mexico" by The Coasters began, and the women seemed to perk up.
We stretched (a necessary precaution, assuming most of the women had not exercised since high school, if then), the women surprising me with their ability to touch their toes. Stretching their quads wasn’t as successful: most of the women had too much leg between their heels and glutes. The fact that everyone wore ankle-length skirts also didn’t help.
The Coasters finished and Missy Eliot’s "Work It" began to thump through the speakers.
“Time to exercise!” I cheered. I started to do slow squats in time with the bass, making the movement, without my intention, extremely suggestive. The women howled with laughter, then tried to mirror the movement. Some could only bend at the waist, but everyone was enjoying the effort. A two hundred pound house-wife next to me grabbed my rear and cried out, “Ouaie!” She then took large handfuls of her own bottom and pretended to compare the consistency.
“Good to exercise!” I winked, which was followed with more hoots of laughter.
Pitbull’s "Hit the Floor" came on next, and I prayed no one would understand the lyrics. Encouraged by the communal mischievous mood, I decided to show them a modified version of pop, locking, and dropping it. Tongan dancing is mostly performed with the hands, so most of the women didn’t understand how to “shake it”. I assisted one woman by placing my hands on her hips, guiding her weight to shift from side to side. A mother of eight, she giggled and covered her face with her hands.
The women were huffing and losing steam, so I announced that the next song would be the last; I skipped ahead to “The Train”. The pulse came on and I instructed the women to form a line behind me, hands on each other’s shoulders. We hopped from foot to foot and conga lined around the room.
“Up high!” I called out and the women squealed and raised their hands up to the ceiling. “Down low!” I shouted and circled my hands at my knees. Everyone followed, laughing and hooting. Then I had everyone join hands in a circle, come together, run back out, then come back in again.
“Whee!” they cheered. We finished by dancing however we wanted to: knocking hips, shaking butts, flapping arms. The song ended with everyone exhausted and smiling. “Next week?” I asked, grinning. The question was met with a resounding “Yes!”. Outside the hall, a teenage girl approached me and asked if she could join next time. “Of course!” I replied.
Walking home, my feet still keeping time to "The Train", I sang to myself:
“C’mon ride the train, jump right in…I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
Friday, May 8, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A small exchange
I already felt like an outsider, a white girl on an island in the middle of the South Pacific, but the three teenage girls teasing me made it much worse. Tonga usually lives up to its name, the friendly islands, but, at times (as it is world-wide), kids can be punks. And, let's admit it, I made an easy target: face red from the heat, walking bent forward to counter-balance the weight of my back-pack, sweat forming a crescent on the neck of my shirt.
The three adolescents had started following me at the bottom of the hill, whistling, making noises, giggling; I ignored them and pushed on towards my office. They continued to follow me, asking, in Tongan, if I'd give them money, if they could have a camera, etc. Then one said, "I'm thirsty; give me your soda."
I turned and they froze. "Thirsty?" I asked in Tongan. I held out the Coke I had been carrying. They eyed me warily, then looked at the offering and nodded. One crept forward, extending her hand for the treat. Once she had it in her grip, I yelled "HAH!" and took off running up the hill. When the group realized it was an empty can, they started sprinting after me, shouting. I had a good head start on them, so I reached my office, just in time to shut the door and stick my tongue out at them from the window.
We were all laughing.
The three adolescents had started following me at the bottom of the hill, whistling, making noises, giggling; I ignored them and pushed on towards my office. They continued to follow me, asking, in Tongan, if I'd give them money, if they could have a camera, etc. Then one said, "I'm thirsty; give me your soda."
I turned and they froze. "Thirsty?" I asked in Tongan. I held out the Coke I had been carrying. They eyed me warily, then looked at the offering and nodded. One crept forward, extending her hand for the treat. Once she had it in her grip, I yelled "HAH!" and took off running up the hill. When the group realized it was an empty can, they started sprinting after me, shouting. I had a good head start on them, so I reached my office, just in time to shut the door and stick my tongue out at them from the window.
We were all laughing.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
What can you do?
Fifteen minutes before the end my first period class, the intercom sputtered with its daily interruption of announcements. The voice of our principal, Vincent Carbino, invaded the classroom. Mr. Carbino was pale and pudgy with blond hair and watery blue eyes: the picture of what anyone would envision as “the man”. Despite this, in an effort to relate to his Spanish students, Mr. Carbino pronounced his name Carrr-bee-no, but everyone else, mostly to spite him, pronounced it Car-bin-o.
“A word to the wise,” the voice began and the students groaned. “A word to the wise,” one student parroted and everyone laughed. Even I, not one to encourage the students' inherent disrespect of authority figures, rolled my eyes.
“Next week is the William’s Compliance Check, so every student must bring their textbook every day.” He emphasized every word with grandiose pauses; his flare for the dramatic usually stretched his announcements into ten minute sermons.
“Textbooks?” I said out loud. We were halfway into the semester, and I had never seen a book for Journalism, my subject, in all of Santee High. As a result, I had written to The Los Angeles Times and they had been donating fifty newspapers a day, all of which I had to share amongst my three periods of at least thirty students each.
“Today, during each period, every third floor teacher must report to the textbook room, with their students, to ensure that each student has their own book. I want, and I know, the Santee Falcons will soar through the William’s Compliance Check with soaring colors…”
I stopped listening. I had asked for Journalism textbooks at the beginning of the semester, but Car-bin-o had told me that the budget didn’t cover “extra-curricular” courses. I wondered what the budget did cover, considering that the school had been rented out as a movie set during last semester’s week of exams, closing the library for filming. No one knew what had happened with the money garnered from that “extra-curricular” enterprise.
“Are you going?” my surly neighboring teacher asked, opening the door between us.
“I suppose we have to, although I’m positive there are no textbooks for my class.”
“This is such bullshit,” she muttered, and for once, I agreed.
The textbook room was chaos. Before any of my students took the golden opportunity to ditch, I gathered them into a clump towards the back. “Ah, miss!” they complained, watching their peers make the most out of the mad-house. Mr. Carbino approached in his three piece suit, the tie bringing out the color of his dish-water eyes.
“Where are your students’ books?” he interrogated.
“We don’t have any,” I replied. “My class is Journalism and there are no books.”
He snorted.
“Yes, there are. The tenth grade Literature textbook. Have each of your students get one then return to your classroom.” He began to turn away.
“Sir, I teach Journalism. That book has nothing to do with my class.”
He scoffed. “Have you read it?”
“Yes, Sir. I taught it last semester. That book has fiction, poetry, and drama. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to check it out.”
He whirled on me and pointed his finger at my chest.
“If you were a good teacher, you could a find a way to make it work. Check them out and go upstairs.”
He walked away before I could reply.
“Wow,” one my students said. “You want us to throw down?” another joked.
“Do we have to check them out? Those books are heavy, Miss.”
I stood there a moment, watching his back.
“No, we don’t. Let’s go.”
Later in the staff room, I vented to the fellow teachers.
“He chastised me in front my own students! My students! And he has the audacity to tell me I’m a bad teacher when he’s just trying to cover his own ass!”
“I don’t have any Economics textbooks either, and he told me the same thing,” a fellow teacher added.
“So, what are you going to do?” I asked, turning to the veteran History teacher. He took a bite of his sandwich.
“I checked them out. What can you do?”
I still refused to check out the books, and continued teaching Journalism as I had before; if the auditors came to my classroom, I would be more than happy to inform them of the situation. Then, on Wednesday morning, I was no longer the Journalism teacher.
“What the…” I whispered, staring at my computer screen. I had logged on to submit by daily attendance and saw that my Journalism course title had been changed to Writing Seminar…the class requiring the literature textbook.
“He can’t do this!” I shouted, slamming the desk.
I went to the Culinary Arts teacher, our former UTLA representative, and apprised him of the dilemma.
“Is there something the Union can do about this?”
“Well, he really can’t change the course half-way into the semester without giving you three days off, paid, for lesson planning...”
“But what about the students? Half of them already took Writing Seminar with me last semester!”
“Hmmm. Jordan Henry is the current UTLA representative. He could take it to the Union for you and maybe something would happen.” He paused.
“You know, Jenny, this is sorta how it goes around here. Maybe UTLA could help you, but in all likelihood, nothing will happen and you’ll just end up on Carbino’s shit list. He’s fired people for less than this, and considering you’re a brand new teacher, not even fully credentialed, this could easily mean your job.”
“What floor does Mr. Henry work on?”
Mr. Henry told me he would find out how many other teachers this had happened to and then he’d get back to me. The bell rang and I returned to my classroom. Before I could even shut the door, I was bombarded with complaints.
“Miss, I already took Writing Seminar and I need my credits to graduate!”
“Look guys, I’m figuring this out and this is still Journalism. Don’t worry about it. Let’s begin class.”
I walked over to the board and erased the day’s agenda.
“I’ve decided we’re going to put the review section on pause so that we move straight into the current events section. Since I want all of you to have the experience of real reporting, I would like us to write on events here at Santee.”
I turned back to them and smiled.
“Maybe the Williams audit would make a good piece?”
Every day, the students came into the “newsroom” excited to share their new information. It had turned out that a married couple on the first floor, history teachers, had also had similar problems: their AP textbooks had never been delivered, so Carbino had switched their classes to regular History. One teacher had yelled at Carbino and been thrown out by security. Her husband was now planning to walk out on Friday.
“Ok,” I instructed my class. “We need to be unbiased reporters, so make sure all your facts are correct, that you have reliable sources that you can quote, and be sure not to express your own opinion. This isn’t the opinion section and I don’t want any of you getting into trouble. I want the final drafts on Wednesday.”
The students did incredible work, surprising me with their enthusiasm. A few groups even interviewed Mr. Carbino, who seemed to be avoiding my classroom. On Thursday, I gave my last assignment. “We don’t have a printing press, but this is your voice and it can reach your community. I want all of you to go home and read your article to your parents, your family, everyone. Then I want you to invite them to the protest tomorrow morning. I won’t be in class, but I hope to see all of you there.”
“Miss Solove takes it to the street!” a student cheered.
The next morning, the sidewalk was packed. Students, teachers, and parents were all shouting: “Are we gonna take it? -No! -Carbino Must Go!” The police surrounded the school, helicopters circled above us, even The Los Angeles Times came to cover the story. Everyone had come together.
By the end of the following week, Mr. Carbino had resigned.
* * *
“A word to the wise,” the voice began and the students groaned. “A word to the wise,” one student parroted and everyone laughed. Even I, not one to encourage the students' inherent disrespect of authority figures, rolled my eyes.
“Next week is the William’s Compliance Check, so every student must bring their textbook every day.” He emphasized every word with grandiose pauses; his flare for the dramatic usually stretched his announcements into ten minute sermons.
“Textbooks?” I said out loud. We were halfway into the semester, and I had never seen a book for Journalism, my subject, in all of Santee High. As a result, I had written to The Los Angeles Times and they had been donating fifty newspapers a day, all of which I had to share amongst my three periods of at least thirty students each.
“Today, during each period, every third floor teacher must report to the textbook room, with their students, to ensure that each student has their own book. I want, and I know, the Santee Falcons will soar through the William’s Compliance Check with soaring colors…”
I stopped listening. I had asked for Journalism textbooks at the beginning of the semester, but Car-bin-o had told me that the budget didn’t cover “extra-curricular” courses. I wondered what the budget did cover, considering that the school had been rented out as a movie set during last semester’s week of exams, closing the library for filming. No one knew what had happened with the money garnered from that “extra-curricular” enterprise.
“Are you going?” my surly neighboring teacher asked, opening the door between us.
“I suppose we have to, although I’m positive there are no textbooks for my class.”
“This is such bullshit,” she muttered, and for once, I agreed.
The textbook room was chaos. Before any of my students took the golden opportunity to ditch, I gathered them into a clump towards the back. “Ah, miss!” they complained, watching their peers make the most out of the mad-house. Mr. Carbino approached in his three piece suit, the tie bringing out the color of his dish-water eyes.
“Where are your students’ books?” he interrogated.
“We don’t have any,” I replied. “My class is Journalism and there are no books.”
He snorted.
“Yes, there are. The tenth grade Literature textbook. Have each of your students get one then return to your classroom.” He began to turn away.
“Sir, I teach Journalism. That book has nothing to do with my class.”
He scoffed. “Have you read it?”
“Yes, Sir. I taught it last semester. That book has fiction, poetry, and drama. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to check it out.”
He whirled on me and pointed his finger at my chest.
“If you were a good teacher, you could a find a way to make it work. Check them out and go upstairs.”
He walked away before I could reply.
“Wow,” one my students said. “You want us to throw down?” another joked.
“Do we have to check them out? Those books are heavy, Miss.”
I stood there a moment, watching his back.
“No, we don’t. Let’s go.”
Later in the staff room, I vented to the fellow teachers.
“He chastised me in front my own students! My students! And he has the audacity to tell me I’m a bad teacher when he’s just trying to cover his own ass!”
“I don’t have any Economics textbooks either, and he told me the same thing,” a fellow teacher added.
“So, what are you going to do?” I asked, turning to the veteran History teacher. He took a bite of his sandwich.
“I checked them out. What can you do?”
I still refused to check out the books, and continued teaching Journalism as I had before; if the auditors came to my classroom, I would be more than happy to inform them of the situation. Then, on Wednesday morning, I was no longer the Journalism teacher.
“What the…” I whispered, staring at my computer screen. I had logged on to submit by daily attendance and saw that my Journalism course title had been changed to Writing Seminar…the class requiring the literature textbook.
“He can’t do this!” I shouted, slamming the desk.
I went to the Culinary Arts teacher, our former UTLA representative, and apprised him of the dilemma.
“Is there something the Union can do about this?”
“Well, he really can’t change the course half-way into the semester without giving you three days off, paid, for lesson planning...”
“But what about the students? Half of them already took Writing Seminar with me last semester!”
“Hmmm. Jordan Henry is the current UTLA representative. He could take it to the Union for you and maybe something would happen.” He paused.
“You know, Jenny, this is sorta how it goes around here. Maybe UTLA could help you, but in all likelihood, nothing will happen and you’ll just end up on Carbino’s shit list. He’s fired people for less than this, and considering you’re a brand new teacher, not even fully credentialed, this could easily mean your job.”
“What floor does Mr. Henry work on?”
Mr. Henry told me he would find out how many other teachers this had happened to and then he’d get back to me. The bell rang and I returned to my classroom. Before I could even shut the door, I was bombarded with complaints.
“Miss, I already took Writing Seminar and I need my credits to graduate!”
“Look guys, I’m figuring this out and this is still Journalism. Don’t worry about it. Let’s begin class.”
I walked over to the board and erased the day’s agenda.
“I’ve decided we’re going to put the review section on pause so that we move straight into the current events section. Since I want all of you to have the experience of real reporting, I would like us to write on events here at Santee.”
I turned back to them and smiled.
“Maybe the Williams audit would make a good piece?”
Every day, the students came into the “newsroom” excited to share their new information. It had turned out that a married couple on the first floor, history teachers, had also had similar problems: their AP textbooks had never been delivered, so Carbino had switched their classes to regular History. One teacher had yelled at Carbino and been thrown out by security. Her husband was now planning to walk out on Friday.
“Ok,” I instructed my class. “We need to be unbiased reporters, so make sure all your facts are correct, that you have reliable sources that you can quote, and be sure not to express your own opinion. This isn’t the opinion section and I don’t want any of you getting into trouble. I want the final drafts on Wednesday.”
The students did incredible work, surprising me with their enthusiasm. A few groups even interviewed Mr. Carbino, who seemed to be avoiding my classroom. On Thursday, I gave my last assignment. “We don’t have a printing press, but this is your voice and it can reach your community. I want all of you to go home and read your article to your parents, your family, everyone. Then I want you to invite them to the protest tomorrow morning. I won’t be in class, but I hope to see all of you there.”
“Miss Solove takes it to the street!” a student cheered.
The next morning, the sidewalk was packed. Students, teachers, and parents were all shouting: “Are we gonna take it? -No! -Carbino Must Go!” The police surrounded the school, helicopters circled above us, even The Los Angeles Times came to cover the story. Everyone had come together.
By the end of the following week, Mr. Carbino had resigned.
* * *
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
My day
"How was your day?" my pen-pal asked.
I still had two hours until night school, so I strapped on my running shoes and opened my screen door. At the familiar creak, eight children jumped up from the porch of the abandoned house next door.
"Vaiolupe!" they screamed, swarming around me.
"Alu ki fakamalehesino?" Going to exercise? one kid asked, tugging my shorts.
"Alu ki lele?" Going to run? said another, pushing the first. On my other side, two children jostled to hold my hand.
"Io!" I replied, trying to make it out of my yard.
"Whee!" they whooped, skipping in circles around me. "Ifo fakamalehesino!" Yay exercise! they chanted.
Reaching my gate, I stepped over the metal and began to jog down Ha'akio's only road. The children, barefoot, began to jog next to me, still whooping. Most quit when we reached the end of the road, but one little boy ran next to me the entire four miles, chattering the entire time.
"Oku ke sia'ia guava? Oku ou ia guava momoho i ko hoku api pea..." Do you like guava? I have ripe guava in my yard and...
Finally, we were in front of my house.
"Okay, oku totuno ke ke foki ki ho'o api koe'uhi oku ou fiekaukau kuosi kamata po'ako." You should go home because I need to shower before night school.
The boy stood on my steps, looking crestfallen.
"Te u sio a koe anai!" I will see you later! I encouraged, stepping inside.
Half an hour later, I was standing in front of a piece of wood painted black, nineteen children, from age seven to seventeen, sitting on the floor in front of me. We were in the abandoned house next door, the church hall occupied by the men's kalapu. I floundered to find a lesson that would fit the vast range of students present.
"Umm...why don't you seven write your name for me. You five write three sentences about yourself, and you seven write a paragraph describing yourself using these conjunctions."
I wrote AND, BUT, and BECAUSE on the painted wood. The children began, looking over each others' shoulders, fighting over pencils, elbowing each other for room. At the end, I discovered I had four kids with the same name and six kids that all liked to eat yam.
"No, no. Write something different. Don't copy what he writes! Tell me what you like!"
The children looked up at me bewildered. I decided to take a different approach; I told the little kids to come back Monday, then began a lesson with just the high school students.
"Let's review the three basic tenses," I began, turning to erase the "board". I looked around for an eraser.
"Here!" a girl volunteered, holding out her flip-flop.
An hour later, my phone rang.
"We're outside, you ready?" my American friend asked.
"Yeah, give me one second." I turned to the class.
"Okay, we're done today. Come back next week, same time. And next time, please come at seven, not seven forty!"
The students shuffled out. I grabbed my over-night bag and ran to the car parked outside.
"Alright, ladies night!" sang the Australian volunteer sitting next to the driver.
"Whoo!" I cried, hopping into the back-seat.
Three glasses of wine and one night later, Ema tapped my shoulder with her foot.
"You still want to go to yoga?" she yawned. It was dark out.
"Yeah," I said, rising from my foam mattress on the ground.
Yoga was held on the deck of the American woman's restaurant, overlooking the harbor of Vava'u's capitol. As I stood holding the tree pose, I watched the sun rise over the water, turning the sky from pink to blue. A summer rain began to fall. The empty yachts bobbed on the water, waiting for their owners to return for the sailing season. What an exciting life, I thought. I wonder what kind of people come sailing in the South Pacific?
After briefly talking online to my over-seas love interest (a boy I had met once five years ago), I signed off from fantasy land and headed up the hill, back to Ha'akio. A girl from my village was having her wedding today, so I would not be working at the high school in town. At the top of the hill, I saw a procession of cars and trucks, all honking their horns and singing, making as much noise as possible. I started to run.
"Hey!" I called out, waving my arms.
"Vaiolupe!" they called back. "Hifo ki lalo!" Get in!
I grabbed the moving truck bed and climbed inside. They handed me a pot and a stick, which I started to bang in time with their singing.
After circling through all the villages in Vava'u, which took half an hour, the wedding procession ended at the church. During the ceremony, the light rain turned into a torrential downpour. At the end of the service, everyone crowded at the doors, eyeing the feast waiting across the field. The tables were set, grilled pigs prostrate on top, their mouths and anuses stuffed with flowers. The DJ had even begun to blare Tongan hits.
Suddenly, a middle-aged woman ran out into the rain, climbing to the top of a hill between the church and the feast. She started to dance, gyrating her hips in a ridiculous and lewd manner. Everyone howled with laughter and clapped. Four other women ran out to join her. Soon, the five of them were dancing on the hill, their clothes beginning to stick to their ample bodies. After a short internal debate, I sprinted out to join them.
Soon, half of the wedding party was on top of the hill, soaking wet and dancing. The original women had ran back to the church, grabbing protesting family members. Holding onto flailing arms and legs, they lifted their victims and carried them to giant puddles, dropping them in with a great splash of mud. As the women carried one man, he struggled to keep his tupenu (a long wrap-around skirt that Tongan men wear)shut; when he inevitably flashed the crowd, everyone cheered. Another woman was stuffed into a giant cooking pot, which was hauled to a puddle by six strapping men. After being dumped into the mud, she shrugged her shoulders and tried to sit on the pot. It crumpled with her weight. A shriveled old woman, the groom's grandmother, jumped face-down into a puddle. She began to raise her arms and kick her feet, pretending to swim.
Not to be out-done, I grabbed the hand of the Tongan woman next to me. "Ready?" I shouted, hauling her down. At the top of the hill, I laid out flat, my arms clasped over my head. "Here we go!" I called, rolling down the hill of grass and mud. The woman rolled after me, knocking into me when we reached the bottom, our muddy skirts raised up over our knees.
"Toe!" Again! she squealed, grabbing my hand. We sprinted back up to the top.
"Oh, it was good," I replied.
I still had two hours until night school, so I strapped on my running shoes and opened my screen door. At the familiar creak, eight children jumped up from the porch of the abandoned house next door.
"Vaiolupe!" they screamed, swarming around me.
"Alu ki fakamalehesino?" Going to exercise? one kid asked, tugging my shorts.
"Alu ki lele?" Going to run? said another, pushing the first. On my other side, two children jostled to hold my hand.
"Io!" I replied, trying to make it out of my yard.
"Whee!" they whooped, skipping in circles around me. "Ifo fakamalehesino!" Yay exercise! they chanted.
Reaching my gate, I stepped over the metal and began to jog down Ha'akio's only road. The children, barefoot, began to jog next to me, still whooping. Most quit when we reached the end of the road, but one little boy ran next to me the entire four miles, chattering the entire time.
"Oku ke sia'ia guava? Oku ou ia guava momoho i ko hoku api pea..." Do you like guava? I have ripe guava in my yard and...
Finally, we were in front of my house.
"Okay, oku totuno ke ke foki ki ho'o api koe'uhi oku ou fiekaukau kuosi kamata po'ako." You should go home because I need to shower before night school.
The boy stood on my steps, looking crestfallen.
"Te u sio a koe anai!" I will see you later! I encouraged, stepping inside.
Half an hour later, I was standing in front of a piece of wood painted black, nineteen children, from age seven to seventeen, sitting on the floor in front of me. We were in the abandoned house next door, the church hall occupied by the men's kalapu. I floundered to find a lesson that would fit the vast range of students present.
"Umm...why don't you seven write your name for me. You five write three sentences about yourself, and you seven write a paragraph describing yourself using these conjunctions."
I wrote AND, BUT, and BECAUSE on the painted wood. The children began, looking over each others' shoulders, fighting over pencils, elbowing each other for room. At the end, I discovered I had four kids with the same name and six kids that all liked to eat yam.
"No, no. Write something different. Don't copy what he writes! Tell me what you like!"
The children looked up at me bewildered. I decided to take a different approach; I told the little kids to come back Monday, then began a lesson with just the high school students.
"Let's review the three basic tenses," I began, turning to erase the "board". I looked around for an eraser.
"Here!" a girl volunteered, holding out her flip-flop.
An hour later, my phone rang.
"We're outside, you ready?" my American friend asked.
"Yeah, give me one second." I turned to the class.
"Okay, we're done today. Come back next week, same time. And next time, please come at seven, not seven forty!"
The students shuffled out. I grabbed my over-night bag and ran to the car parked outside.
"Alright, ladies night!" sang the Australian volunteer sitting next to the driver.
"Whoo!" I cried, hopping into the back-seat.
Three glasses of wine and one night later, Ema tapped my shoulder with her foot.
"You still want to go to yoga?" she yawned. It was dark out.
"Yeah," I said, rising from my foam mattress on the ground.
Yoga was held on the deck of the American woman's restaurant, overlooking the harbor of Vava'u's capitol. As I stood holding the tree pose, I watched the sun rise over the water, turning the sky from pink to blue. A summer rain began to fall. The empty yachts bobbed on the water, waiting for their owners to return for the sailing season. What an exciting life, I thought. I wonder what kind of people come sailing in the South Pacific?
After briefly talking online to my over-seas love interest (a boy I had met once five years ago), I signed off from fantasy land and headed up the hill, back to Ha'akio. A girl from my village was having her wedding today, so I would not be working at the high school in town. At the top of the hill, I saw a procession of cars and trucks, all honking their horns and singing, making as much noise as possible. I started to run.
"Hey!" I called out, waving my arms.
"Vaiolupe!" they called back. "Hifo ki lalo!" Get in!
I grabbed the moving truck bed and climbed inside. They handed me a pot and a stick, which I started to bang in time with their singing.
After circling through all the villages in Vava'u, which took half an hour, the wedding procession ended at the church. During the ceremony, the light rain turned into a torrential downpour. At the end of the service, everyone crowded at the doors, eyeing the feast waiting across the field. The tables were set, grilled pigs prostrate on top, their mouths and anuses stuffed with flowers. The DJ had even begun to blare Tongan hits.
Suddenly, a middle-aged woman ran out into the rain, climbing to the top of a hill between the church and the feast. She started to dance, gyrating her hips in a ridiculous and lewd manner. Everyone howled with laughter and clapped. Four other women ran out to join her. Soon, the five of them were dancing on the hill, their clothes beginning to stick to their ample bodies. After a short internal debate, I sprinted out to join them.
Soon, half of the wedding party was on top of the hill, soaking wet and dancing. The original women had ran back to the church, grabbing protesting family members. Holding onto flailing arms and legs, they lifted their victims and carried them to giant puddles, dropping them in with a great splash of mud. As the women carried one man, he struggled to keep his tupenu (a long wrap-around skirt that Tongan men wear)shut; when he inevitably flashed the crowd, everyone cheered. Another woman was stuffed into a giant cooking pot, which was hauled to a puddle by six strapping men. After being dumped into the mud, she shrugged her shoulders and tried to sit on the pot. It crumpled with her weight. A shriveled old woman, the groom's grandmother, jumped face-down into a puddle. She began to raise her arms and kick her feet, pretending to swim.
Not to be out-done, I grabbed the hand of the Tongan woman next to me. "Ready?" I shouted, hauling her down. At the top of the hill, I laid out flat, my arms clasped over my head. "Here we go!" I called, rolling down the hill of grass and mud. The woman rolled after me, knocking into me when we reached the bottom, our muddy skirts raised up over our knees.
"Toe!" Again! she squealed, grabbing my hand. We sprinted back up to the top.
"Oh, it was good," I replied.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Sports Day
We had been training for two and a half months and today was the big day. As the coach, I had instructed my long distance team on the basics (form, pace, breathing techniques), along with a few extras (leave the coconuts on the ground, don't run in dime-store flip-flops, no hitch-hiking on the long runs).
All five high schools were gathered at Vava'u High, the one government school. The other four represented each prominent religion: the Wesleyans, the Mormons, the Free Church of Tonga, and the Catholics. The track was a grass field, the first lane no longer available because of the rain that morning. Although the pigs had been chased to the side-lines, a feral dog managed to lope across the field. Some soldiers nearby picked up a rock, but as the dog passed out of range, they returned to leaning against their truck. They did not carry any formal weapons, but one slapped a medium sized stick, whittled to a point at the end, against his thigh.
I gave my team a pep talk before they lined up for the four hundred.
"Ok, remember what we learned. Don't swing your arms everywhere, don't slow down at the end, and try to run around the mud if you can. Ready to win?"
They nodded; either they were nervous or my Tongan speech had made no sense.
"Okay! Good luck!"
They filed out barefoot to the starting line, the first runner wearing the only pair of tennis shoes. The first heat got into their prospective lanes.
"On ya mah!" called out a Tongan man.
"Geh seh!"
He lifted two pieces of wood over his head and banged them together. The runners were off. To my chagrin, I noticed my student running with the cross of her rosary between her teeth. I yelled in Tongan "Oua e kolosi!" but my voice was lost in the cheering.
Even though the other coaches had remained standing in the shade, I jogged down to the beginning of the last stretch. As my student approached, I started yelling general encouragements from the side-line. Then I remembered something my coach had said to me before a race. I screamed, "Nonu, oku ke he havili! Oku ke he afi!" I meant to say: Nonu, you are the wind! You are a fire! What I actually said was: You are windy! You are a cooking fire!
Despite the language error, I saw her glance up at me, then her eyebrows furrowed and her legs picked up. She ran through the ribbon.
I ran through the mud to congratulate her. Her team members had already crowded around her, two supporting her weight, the rest slapping her back.
I was reminded of track back home.
All five high schools were gathered at Vava'u High, the one government school. The other four represented each prominent religion: the Wesleyans, the Mormons, the Free Church of Tonga, and the Catholics. The track was a grass field, the first lane no longer available because of the rain that morning. Although the pigs had been chased to the side-lines, a feral dog managed to lope across the field. Some soldiers nearby picked up a rock, but as the dog passed out of range, they returned to leaning against their truck. They did not carry any formal weapons, but one slapped a medium sized stick, whittled to a point at the end, against his thigh.
I gave my team a pep talk before they lined up for the four hundred.
"Ok, remember what we learned. Don't swing your arms everywhere, don't slow down at the end, and try to run around the mud if you can. Ready to win?"
They nodded; either they were nervous or my Tongan speech had made no sense.
"Okay! Good luck!"
They filed out barefoot to the starting line, the first runner wearing the only pair of tennis shoes. The first heat got into their prospective lanes.
"On ya mah!" called out a Tongan man.
"Geh seh!"
He lifted two pieces of wood over his head and banged them together. The runners were off. To my chagrin, I noticed my student running with the cross of her rosary between her teeth. I yelled in Tongan "Oua e kolosi!" but my voice was lost in the cheering.
Even though the other coaches had remained standing in the shade, I jogged down to the beginning of the last stretch. As my student approached, I started yelling general encouragements from the side-line. Then I remembered something my coach had said to me before a race. I screamed, "Nonu, oku ke he havili! Oku ke he afi!" I meant to say: Nonu, you are the wind! You are a fire! What I actually said was: You are windy! You are a cooking fire!
Despite the language error, I saw her glance up at me, then her eyebrows furrowed and her legs picked up. She ran through the ribbon.
I ran through the mud to congratulate her. Her team members had already crowded around her, two supporting her weight, the rest slapping her back.
I was reminded of track back home.
Friday, February 27, 2009
The Devil and the Road
I raise my arm and slice it down, an action equivalent to sticking out your thumb in America. The battered van groans to a stop a little ahead of me.
"Where are you going?" I ask in Tongan, jogging up to the passenger window. A man sits at the front, his belly squished against the wheel. The front seat is empty, a large woman, probably his wife, sitting behind him. Next to her stands a spindly child with a dirty shirt worn inside out.
"To Koloa. Where are you going?" the large woman responds.
"To Ha'akio. Can I ride with you?"
"Yes. Come." She shifts her bulk, making room on the torn seat beside her. She shouts at the boy, who has been transfixed staring at me, his snot running into his mouth unnoticed. His mom hisses and lifts her floppy arm to slap him, but before she can lean over far enough, he has scrambled over the seat to crouch down in the back.
I climb inside. I turn to slide the van's door shut, but the woman stops me.
"It's fine. Cooler."
I agree, taking my shirt collar to wipe the sweat from my forehead. The van creaks then lurches forward, smoke coming up between the passenger and driver seat.
"Peace Corps?" the wife asks.
"Yes. I live in Ha'akio but I work at the high school in town," I reply, justifying my presence in town. Her suspicions gone, the woman gives me smile with two gold teeth.
"You speak Tongan very good!"
"Thank you. I try to practice a lot. I hope maybe in two years I will be very very good."
Perhaps I don't say the last sentence right, or she wants to show her own language skills. The woman repeats, this time in English, "Your Tongan is very good!"
I thank her again and repay the compliment, asking if she has learned English by living overseas. She beams.
"No, I learn English in school."
I emphasize my astonishment at this accomplishment, which seems to satisfy her. She slaps the driver's shoulder.
"He speak no English," she boasts. The husband half turns and nods, grinning. Her superiority established, the conversation turns back to Tongan.
"How long will you work here?"
"Two years. A long time. Thanks for giving me a ride. It's too hot to walk and my bag is too heavy."
"Of course! It's bad to walk on the road. The devil lives on the road."
"They have a bizarre sense of humor. I was talking to these two Tongan men, and they were joking that the best way to get a woman is to hit her under the jaw so that she'll pass out," the older volunteer gives a half-chuckle and nods her head from side to side.
"They joke about rape!" I exclaim. "That's terrible!" She shrugs and grows serious.
"Yeah, it is. But you'll hear them joke about it all the time, about a man dragging a woman out off into the bush. They say the devil lives in the road, but that's what they mean."
"The devil?" I ask, even though I've heard this phrase almost every time I hitch rides.
"Yes. The Tongan people are good people." The woman sits up straighter. "We go to church. But, sometimes, the unmarried men, they see you, and they have not seen you before."
I walk with Lupi every day. This evening, two teenage boys from the village follow behind us; I ignore their attempts to flirt with me. However, when they ask Lupi, a former female boxing champion, to punch me then leave me in the bush where they can come find me later, I whirl on them.
"I can hear you," I say in Tongan.
At first, the boys are startled I speak Tongan. Then they start whooping with laughter. Lupi is laughing too. I start walking faster. Lupi, seeing my anger, touches my arm.
"Jenny, you know I would never do that. It's a joke."
"They don't know you. They have no wife and they see you walking."
"You have read the bible?" my Tongan neighbor asks me as he and his wife drive me to school.
"Yes," I reply without lying.
"You remember Eve? She is to blame. She tempted Adam, that is why man fall. It is her fault. The woman is evil."
"But he took the bite! He knew better, but he did it anyway," I argue. Before the husband can reply, I add, "If woman is evil, than man is stupid."
The man and his wife begin to howl with laughter.
"But, the Tongan men, they are not bad. It is the evil in the road. That is why I ask my husband to drive you all the way home."
I am standing in her doorway, my muddy tennis shoes keeping me from entering the house.
"How come you can't walk with me to town today? We can go swimming again," I ask Lupi. She is holding a long spoon.
"I would, but my dad told me I can't walk with you anymore. He thinks a man with a knife will grab us, so I have to stay home and cook. Maybe my brother can drive us Friday?"
"You can stop up here," I interrupt the woman.
"Here? Really?"
"Yeah, this is fine. It's not far and I like to walk."
The van coasts to a stop. I jump out the open door, slinging my bag onto my back. The shade of the jungle around us provides a little relief from the sun. A bird calls above me and the ghost moan of a cow comes from the field behind me.
The woman looks down at me, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"But aren't you afraid of the devil?" she pleads.
I smile.
"No. He's afraid of me."
With that, I wave and start down the road.
"Where are you going?" I ask in Tongan, jogging up to the passenger window. A man sits at the front, his belly squished against the wheel. The front seat is empty, a large woman, probably his wife, sitting behind him. Next to her stands a spindly child with a dirty shirt worn inside out.
"To Koloa. Where are you going?" the large woman responds.
"To Ha'akio. Can I ride with you?"
"Yes. Come." She shifts her bulk, making room on the torn seat beside her. She shouts at the boy, who has been transfixed staring at me, his snot running into his mouth unnoticed. His mom hisses and lifts her floppy arm to slap him, but before she can lean over far enough, he has scrambled over the seat to crouch down in the back.
I climb inside. I turn to slide the van's door shut, but the woman stops me.
"It's fine. Cooler."
I agree, taking my shirt collar to wipe the sweat from my forehead. The van creaks then lurches forward, smoke coming up between the passenger and driver seat.
"Peace Corps?" the wife asks.
"Yes. I live in Ha'akio but I work at the high school in town," I reply, justifying my presence in town. Her suspicions gone, the woman gives me smile with two gold teeth.
"You speak Tongan very good!"
"Thank you. I try to practice a lot. I hope maybe in two years I will be very very good."
Perhaps I don't say the last sentence right, or she wants to show her own language skills. The woman repeats, this time in English, "Your Tongan is very good!"
I thank her again and repay the compliment, asking if she has learned English by living overseas. She beams.
"No, I learn English in school."
I emphasize my astonishment at this accomplishment, which seems to satisfy her. She slaps the driver's shoulder.
"He speak no English," she boasts. The husband half turns and nods, grinning. Her superiority established, the conversation turns back to Tongan.
"How long will you work here?"
"Two years. A long time. Thanks for giving me a ride. It's too hot to walk and my bag is too heavy."
"Of course! It's bad to walk on the road. The devil lives on the road."
"They have a bizarre sense of humor. I was talking to these two Tongan men, and they were joking that the best way to get a woman is to hit her under the jaw so that she'll pass out," the older volunteer gives a half-chuckle and nods her head from side to side.
"They joke about rape!" I exclaim. "That's terrible!" She shrugs and grows serious.
"Yeah, it is. But you'll hear them joke about it all the time, about a man dragging a woman out off into the bush. They say the devil lives in the road, but that's what they mean."
"The devil?" I ask, even though I've heard this phrase almost every time I hitch rides.
"Yes. The Tongan people are good people." The woman sits up straighter. "We go to church. But, sometimes, the unmarried men, they see you, and they have not seen you before."
I walk with Lupi every day. This evening, two teenage boys from the village follow behind us; I ignore their attempts to flirt with me. However, when they ask Lupi, a former female boxing champion, to punch me then leave me in the bush where they can come find me later, I whirl on them.
"I can hear you," I say in Tongan.
At first, the boys are startled I speak Tongan. Then they start whooping with laughter. Lupi is laughing too. I start walking faster. Lupi, seeing my anger, touches my arm.
"Jenny, you know I would never do that. It's a joke."
"They don't know you. They have no wife and they see you walking."
"You have read the bible?" my Tongan neighbor asks me as he and his wife drive me to school.
"Yes," I reply without lying.
"You remember Eve? She is to blame. She tempted Adam, that is why man fall. It is her fault. The woman is evil."
"But he took the bite! He knew better, but he did it anyway," I argue. Before the husband can reply, I add, "If woman is evil, than man is stupid."
The man and his wife begin to howl with laughter.
"But, the Tongan men, they are not bad. It is the evil in the road. That is why I ask my husband to drive you all the way home."
I am standing in her doorway, my muddy tennis shoes keeping me from entering the house.
"How come you can't walk with me to town today? We can go swimming again," I ask Lupi. She is holding a long spoon.
"I would, but my dad told me I can't walk with you anymore. He thinks a man with a knife will grab us, so I have to stay home and cook. Maybe my brother can drive us Friday?"
"You can stop up here," I interrupt the woman.
"Here? Really?"
"Yeah, this is fine. It's not far and I like to walk."
The van coasts to a stop. I jump out the open door, slinging my bag onto my back. The shade of the jungle around us provides a little relief from the sun. A bird calls above me and the ghost moan of a cow comes from the field behind me.
The woman looks down at me, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"But aren't you afraid of the devil?" she pleads.
I smile.
"No. He's afraid of me."
With that, I wave and start down the road.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
January 23rd, 2009
In front of me, a Ziploc baggie now holds the remains of a six inch long by one inch wide molokau (centipede). It’s bright orange with black stripes, and is not half as friendly as James and the Giant Peach would have you believe. If this entry seems disjointed, it’s because I’m writing this at 5:30 in the morning.
The half-hour story begins, well, I’ll let you guess. What I’m sure were pleasant dreams (they always are in cases like these) were interrupted when I felt a slight tickle moving across my gentle cheek. What I didn’t know until four seconds later, was that this agreeable sensation was in fact caused by the many sinister legs of the molokau, out for a leisurely stroll along a low impact surface. Fortunately, in the four seconds it took me to become cognizant, the molokau had moved on to the slightly less warm, but no less soft, surface of my pillow. My subsequent scream startled us both: me jumping (well, pushing than falling) out of the bed, him (if I may assume that gender) ducking under the pillow. After a short but effective mantra of “holy shit”, I realized what I, an independent woman living alone, must do: find someone else.
Propelled on this purpose, I stumbled out to the road (having changed first, but still to shocked/harried to remember/care to put on underwear), the picture of white-man incompetence wearing an REI flashlight on my head.
All the village houses were dark (yes, I can see every house), the only light coming from the town hall. Maybe desperation blinded me, but I could have sworn the lumpy huddled figures were women weaving. Alas, as I approached (slowly: see above detail and note I’ve gained ten pounds) I realized the lounging figures were the male village youth, finishing up a long night of kava drinking. Fear fighting better judgment, I approached the sprawled circle.
“Excuse me?”
The element of surprise (mixed with mild narcotics) went in my favor. Before anyone even had the wits to make a joke or a pass, I had pulled the town officer’s son out of the group, insisting he help me kill the fiendish creature.
“I he taimi’ni?” my reluctant (and slightly drunk) knight in shining armor asked.
“Um…Io, now,” I replied.
He stumbled to his feet, making me wonder if I had made a smart choice after all. Still, his hands and legs were his, and not mine, which made him a better choice by default.
Walking to my house, I debriefed him on the situation.
“And this is the second time! The first time I was in the shower, but that one was much smaller; this one is huge, almost as big as my arm (I exaggerated), and it was in my bed! My bed! (I was especially indignant at this last invasion of privacy).”
The boy chuckled.
“Maybe he wants to see you.”
This was followed by something in Tongan about a beautiful girl living alone; it didn’t really matter, the molokau being the more immediate threat. Still, upon reaching the house, I decided to be culturally sensitive.
“He’s in the bedroom, inside my bed,” I said, standing safely outside. Nasili started searching the “living room”, which confused me and indicated how much kava he’d consumed, seeing as he had helped build the three room house.
“No, no. In here,” I cautiously stepped inside, showing him the molokau’s new lair.
“Oh.” After a pause, perhaps to gather his bearings (which he seemed to do): “Maybe you have something I hit with?” He grabbed a poster tube.
“Is this okay?”
“Sure.”
We marched (he walked, I crept) into the room, and with the hand not holding a can of Mortein, I pointed. “He was under the pillow.”
After lifting all three pillows, the sheet, and the mattress, I began to feel like an idiot.
“He was there, I swear!” I searched the ground.
“Oh. He’s right here,” Nasili said calmly.
“Where?” I asked, jumping to attention.
“Here.” Nasili nodded to his shoulder, where the molokau now coiled and wound itself down his arm. I screamed and raised the can towards my villain and savoir.
“No! Don’t hurt him now!” Nasili urged, showing fear for the first time. He flicked his shirt, hurling the molokau down to our feet.
“Now we kill it.” I sprayed while he beat. The thing curled up in its last death throw. Nasili picked it up.
“Yes, it is dead,” he stated with his Hemingway simplicity.
“Should I throw it outside?”
“Yes…Well, actually?”
In front of me, a Ziploc baggie now holds the remains of a six inch long by one inch thick molokau.
The half-hour story begins, well, I’ll let you guess. What I’m sure were pleasant dreams (they always are in cases like these) were interrupted when I felt a slight tickle moving across my gentle cheek. What I didn’t know until four seconds later, was that this agreeable sensation was in fact caused by the many sinister legs of the molokau, out for a leisurely stroll along a low impact surface. Fortunately, in the four seconds it took me to become cognizant, the molokau had moved on to the slightly less warm, but no less soft, surface of my pillow. My subsequent scream startled us both: me jumping (well, pushing than falling) out of the bed, him (if I may assume that gender) ducking under the pillow. After a short but effective mantra of “holy shit”, I realized what I, an independent woman living alone, must do: find someone else.
Propelled on this purpose, I stumbled out to the road (having changed first, but still to shocked/harried to remember/care to put on underwear), the picture of white-man incompetence wearing an REI flashlight on my head.
All the village houses were dark (yes, I can see every house), the only light coming from the town hall. Maybe desperation blinded me, but I could have sworn the lumpy huddled figures were women weaving. Alas, as I approached (slowly: see above detail and note I’ve gained ten pounds) I realized the lounging figures were the male village youth, finishing up a long night of kava drinking. Fear fighting better judgment, I approached the sprawled circle.
“Excuse me?”
The element of surprise (mixed with mild narcotics) went in my favor. Before anyone even had the wits to make a joke or a pass, I had pulled the town officer’s son out of the group, insisting he help me kill the fiendish creature.
“I he taimi’ni?” my reluctant (and slightly drunk) knight in shining armor asked.
“Um…Io, now,” I replied.
He stumbled to his feet, making me wonder if I had made a smart choice after all. Still, his hands and legs were his, and not mine, which made him a better choice by default.
Walking to my house, I debriefed him on the situation.
“And this is the second time! The first time I was in the shower, but that one was much smaller; this one is huge, almost as big as my arm (I exaggerated), and it was in my bed! My bed! (I was especially indignant at this last invasion of privacy).”
The boy chuckled.
“Maybe he wants to see you.”
This was followed by something in Tongan about a beautiful girl living alone; it didn’t really matter, the molokau being the more immediate threat. Still, upon reaching the house, I decided to be culturally sensitive.
“He’s in the bedroom, inside my bed,” I said, standing safely outside. Nasili started searching the “living room”, which confused me and indicated how much kava he’d consumed, seeing as he had helped build the three room house.
“No, no. In here,” I cautiously stepped inside, showing him the molokau’s new lair.
“Oh.” After a pause, perhaps to gather his bearings (which he seemed to do): “Maybe you have something I hit with?” He grabbed a poster tube.
“Is this okay?”
“Sure.”
We marched (he walked, I crept) into the room, and with the hand not holding a can of Mortein, I pointed. “He was under the pillow.”
After lifting all three pillows, the sheet, and the mattress, I began to feel like an idiot.
“He was there, I swear!” I searched the ground.
“Oh. He’s right here,” Nasili said calmly.
“Where?” I asked, jumping to attention.
“Here.” Nasili nodded to his shoulder, where the molokau now coiled and wound itself down his arm. I screamed and raised the can towards my villain and savoir.
“No! Don’t hurt him now!” Nasili urged, showing fear for the first time. He flicked his shirt, hurling the molokau down to our feet.
“Now we kill it.” I sprayed while he beat. The thing curled up in its last death throw. Nasili picked it up.
“Yes, it is dead,” he stated with his Hemingway simplicity.
“Should I throw it outside?”
“Yes…Well, actually?”
In front of me, a Ziploc baggie now holds the remains of a six inch long by one inch thick molokau.
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