Fakatonga

Originally posted on August 17, 2014, by cruisingrunner

Fakatonga means “the Tongan way.” It is slow paced here, and people are very laid back. Things that are unexpected are taken without angst or stress, and church, family, and friends take a higher priority than work or material wealth. According to the guidebook, it is not a commercial culture, and a large percentage of the population doesn’t even participate in the cash economy, but rather they grow and make what they need, and trade and share within their community.

We have yet to try to conduct any business here such as boat maintenance or repairs, so I can’t yet speak to this firsthand, but the information in the guidebook has caught my attention, because it so reminded me of the Mexican culture. Apparently, time and schedules are very loose concepts here, and “later today” might mean “tomorrow” or it might mean “next week” or maybe “not at all.” Also, Tongans dislike saying “no,” and when they say “yes” it may actually mean “I don’t know” or perhaps “maybe.” This is just like Mexico, where we found the people valued making you happy and telling you what you want to hear over saying no or telling you something that may disappoint you. This can be extremely frustrating for those of us that come from more of results-oriented culture rather than a people-oriented culture. We got used to it in Mexico, and even started appreciating the sentiment. We just sort of stopped expecting to get anything done quickly and we simply went with the flow rather than pushing the issue or getting frustrated. I suspect we will draw on that experience and it will help us while we’re here in Tonga if we ever try to get anything done.

My run yesterday was slow and hilly. We were anchored in a nice, sheltered location on the north side of a small island called Tapana. The anchorages here in Vava’u are numbered, so this was anchorage #11. I picked up the road behind the beach on the north side of the small bay (the beach is actually on the south side of the island of Pangaimotu). The road leads north back to Neiafu and I turned around just short of where I turned around when I previously ran south from Neiafu. I passed through a small village and being a Sunday morning, I was greeted by the sound of the harmony of church hymns. I was a bit self-conscious huffing and puffing past the church, since I don’t think running on a Sunday morning would be considered “Fakatonga,” but I can only hope I wasn’t perceived as being too disrespectful.

-D