Friday, February 25, 2011

Overheard in Ha'ano

People here talk. About everything. And nothing. Here are some things I’ve overheard Tongans saying about me. They aren’t taken out of context. There is no context.

“Hey, look, Pele has a wooden spoon!”
“Where? Oh! Look at that spoon!”
“Yeah! It’s wooden!”
- Two of my students, standing outside my kitchen watching me cook

“Pele’s taking a shower at night.”
“Really? At night?”
“Yeah, she’s showering right now.”
- My neighbor and her mom, at their house which is next to my shower

“Lile asked Pele to come over so Lile could ask her something, and Pele was like, ‘Oh, I have to go over there!’”
- A woman in my village, telling other passengers in the bed of the truck what I’d said an hour earlier

If the most mundane details of my life are comment-worthy, imagine if I did something interesting.

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