My Peace Corps Tonga Experience

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kingdom of Tonga, a Polynesian island nation lying several hundred miles south of Fiji. I was there from 2018-2019, and spent most of my time living in a small village called Tufuvai on the island of ‘Eua. I worked as a primary school English teacher, but on the frequent days when other teachers didn’t show up I also began teaching math, science, and even Tongan. Here are some thoughts and stories based on that experience:

The initial training experience of a Peace Corps volunteer was a whirlwind, an absolute firehose of information. My fellow volunteers and I were each given a host family for the first two months in a village called Kolovai, located on the capital island of Tongatapu. We began intensive language training that occupied most of each day, alongside trainings about Tongan culture, our role as volunteers, and some basic training on how to manage a primary school classroom. Along the way we learned how to scare off packs of stray dogs, how to dress, act, and attend churches so as not to offend local communities, how to play rugby, and many other things. We attended feasts, performed traditional dances on Tongan national television, and participated in a private event attended by Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and the king of Tonga.

While living on Tongatapu I had a chance to visit a number of incredible archaeological sites, including the Ha’amonga a Maui, a megalithic trilithon, as well as Lapaha, the earliest known site in Polynesia. I met an archaeologist named Shane who had a little beach resort and personal museum, which he maintained, as far as I gathered, because the current government was not interested in housing artifacts associated with previous royal dynasties in the national museum. At Shane’s beach house I saw petroglyph specimens, war clubs edged with shark teeth, and potsherds associated with the Lapita, the first culture to settle within the Polynesian Triangle. I was even shown spots along the beach where limestone blocks had been carved out and carried away to build megalithic tombs.

After the training period was over, we were tossed out into villages across the archipelago, suddenly living alone in communities where few people spoke English, while our own skills in Tongan were still rudimentary. I was sent to ‘Eua, accessible by ferry from Tongatapu across a relatively narrow strait. ‘Eua is a makatea island, formed out of the uplifted limestone of ancient reefs. It’s shaped like a sloped mesa. The west side sits at sea level, with rocky reefs giving way to wide, shallow tidal flats. The east side of the island is the high side, and ends in sheer cliffs, many of which are hundreds of feet tall. A few small almost-mountains fill the eastern half of the island, and giant caves and sinkholes provide ravenous banyan trees with an endless flow of water. My first day in Tufuvai I remember being welcomed warmly, and walked over to my new cinderblock shack at the edge of the primary school grounds. Primary schools are loud and chaotic places, especially when you only understand maybe a quarter of what anyone is saying. I remember one kid running up to me and presenting a wasp - clutched between his index finger and stump of his missing thumb - and plucking it’s stinger out with great care while saying something I couldn’t follow. Kids would periodically sprint of their classrooms to chase pigs out of the field. The first day of school was for cleaning up the schoolhouse and grounds, and dozens of kids as young as 4 or 5 were running around hacking at weeds with machetes. My domain was the little school library, from which I’d bounce between classrooms for daily English lessons.

Tongan is a Polynesian language, and a very interesting one to learn coming from English. It lacks many of the structural elements of English, such as gendered pronouns or verb conjugations. But it also possesses some new structural elements, like a tense word at the beginning of many sentences to establish whether one is speaking about the past, present, or future. For instance, “I am running” is “‘Oku ou lele”, “I was running” is “Na’a ku lele”, and “I will run” is “Te u lele”. ‘Oku means something like “presently”, Na’a means something like “pastly”, and Te means something like “futurely”. Tongan is a beautiful language, with easy open vowels and a quick, drum-like rhythm. Since learning Tongan I’ve also been surprised by how close Polynesian languages are to one another. In Samoan, Hawaiian, or Rarotongan Maori, I find that I can understand snippets here and there.

I attended church multiple times a week. To be accepted in my community this was non-negotiable. There were three churches I had to balance: the Church of Tonga, the Free Church of Tonga, and the local Catholic church. In each case, this was a three step process: First, spend either the morning or the night before church drinking kava with the men of the village. Then, church services, mostly consisting of hymns, impassioned, holy roller style lectures on immorality, and awkwardly adjusting my tupenu. Finally, joining a different family after each church service for umu or tunu puaka.

Island dogs were one of the big culture shocks. Most dogs aren’t pets to Tongans, they’re garbage disposals or livestock. Kitchen trash is usually tossed out to get cleaned up by dogs. People eat dogs on the outer islands, and I witnessed plenty of animal abuse. I remember one time on the beach seeing a kid tossing a puppy out into the shallow water as it howled in fear. Luckily the landing on the rocks didn’t seem to seriously injure it, and I stopped him before he could grab the puppy for a second throw. I started taking care of two puppies I named Big and Little. Little was killed by a drunk driver after a few months. I found out when one of the school kids ran over from the road while I was coaching Rugby and tossed Little’s top half at my feet. Big disappeared a few months later (eaten by one of the neighboring families, I was told). I kept an emotional distance from island dogs after that.

Aside from teaching, I also took on a side project organizing and funding the restoration of the dilapidated village hall. This became a serious adventure, involving multiple village council meetings, writing a grant, going to Tongatapu to acquire quotes on materials and shipping costs, and then eventually escorting everything back by ferry. Once back in Tufuvai with the equipment, there were local family disagreements to navigate around who would be the lead carpenter, and who would be hired on the work crew. Ultimately though, we did get the hall renovated.

At one point, while climbing around in the sea caves on the East side of the island, I found a scatter of potsherds. I sent photos to Shane, the archaeologist I had met on the main island, who said they were prehistoric, but clearly later than Lapita given their lack of stamping or other patterns. I learned about multiple cave expeditions that had come to ‘Eua in the 90s to map some of the bigger caves, and my wife Paige and I explored a few caves ourselves when she came to visit. I also learned a story about one of the sea caves on Tufuvai’s beach. One of the local men named Sunia had attempted to dive into the cave, and had been sucked in by the currents. He allegedly found a pocket of air with a small spot to lie down, but was too exhausted to swim back out against the current. Meanwhile, his friends on the surface presumed he was dead. The village entered a state of mourning. After a few hours, and a short smoke break, Sunia was finally able to swim back to the surface. He walked back into the village to cries of horror that his ghost had returned to haunt them. I’m told it took a lot of pounding on locked doors as panicked villagers begged him to leave them be that people began to realize he was, in fact, not dead.

Tongan education is not in a good state, it was a hard thing to be around, and I found myself in periodic conflict with the teachers over these issues. The school had a colonial era strictness, and used corporal punishment with a focus on memorization and performance rather than real knowledge acquisition or critical thinking. Kids who were slow to answer would find a ruler smacking them. Beatings were common. Kids who were behind were largely ignored, while the kids who were ahead were allowed to answer every question. Kids were, on the whole, not taught HOW or WHY something was true, but just made to memorize it. This was especially frustrating when co-teaching English with the Tongan teachers. They’d write a long list of phrases or sentences on the chalk board, and make the kids start repeating the list to them. No breakdown of grammar. Assignments were written versions of the same. Kids with special needs (for instance, one of my neighbors’ kids who suffered from Post Polio Syndrome). I did what a could to model a different kind of education, but never felt like I could do much at any scale that could contribute to change.

When people ask me if I would recommend the Peace Corps, I usually say “yes, but”. If you want to really make a change (the Peace Corps is not a very effective aid organization), or if you want to have a positive experience without any trials and tribulation, the Peace Corps may not be for you. However, if you want to learn an interesting language that there are few other opportunities to learn, the Peace Corps can deliver. As a diplomatic program, as an exchange program, as a place for young people to have a formative experience, it’s great. If you want to make friends from a different culture, overcome tough experiences, have your worldview challenged, and have an adventure, I’d recommend it.