|
A
Tongan feast we were told - spitroast pigs and great big
chiefs, we expected. We left Soren at 4pm and motored
across in the Avon to the village.
Many greetings of carvings, weavings and we were greeted
by the calls of various natives encouraging us to buy
their wares; on offer were wooden carvings, weaving and
various forms of jewelry. After haggling away for a few
dollars less we finished our shopping spree with Edwina
and Mike having bought about half the market.
While
the less energetic ones stood around pondering, a few
of us pulled out the trusty frisby and got going. It only
took a couple of minutes before we were surrounded by
children who enjoyed themselves almost as much as we did.
The thing that surprised me the most was the speed at
which they picked up the 'art of frisby' - after a few
throws the 8-10year olds had already become proficient
and were catching and throwing as well as the seasoned
pros.
We
were called to watch the men at work cooking the food,
with their amazing asbestos hands. Many photos were taken
and then we were ushered to the the table.
The
food looked very strange but at the same time very appealing
with the odd unrecognisable dish. Dinner consisted of
battered chicken and fish, lobster salad, octopus, squid,
sweet potato, a kind of bread, pork rib, beef, corned
beef, banana and watermelon. Most if it was very nice
but a couple of pieces weren't to our tastes -however
we made an effort to try everything to avoid any offense.
After
dinner we were moved to a V shaped seating area. The floor
was concrete with a suspiciously thin layer of sand. We
were then entertained with Tongan dancing. Adjoin this
was not quite what we were expecting - as far away from
the haula dancing that we expected as was possible; the
movement came from the arms and the hips while the legs
stayed relatively still. They wore banana leaf grass skirts
and had sticks involved in the dance. It was great fun,
specially the sticking of Tongan dollars to the ladies
bodies as they danced!
The
final dance involved almost everyone with sticks and feet
flying.
We
were gathered up and danced alongside the Tonga's with
the band playing throughout.
An
exchange of cultures included the "hokey cokey"
and the Macarena as our offering while we were taught
the great stick dance. Few gifts were offered to a number
of us including the grass skirts, flowered necklaces and
assorted jewelry.
More
dancing and laughing followed and the fantastic evening
was polished off with a final rendition of the stick dance
with four from the Westerners group and their clumsy jerky
movements indirect comparison to the tongans fluid, well
practiced dance.
Not
wanting to outstay our welcome we decided to start ferrying
the 22 strong group back to the Soren.
I
genuinely believe they were as great a time as we were
- demonstrated by their obvious disappointment when we
left.
The
cultural exchange was the most valuable thing that I will
take from this and I am sure the feeling was mutual.
|
