comings and goings, still in black

A regular part of the volunteer experience are farewells and welcomes. The last fortnight alone has seen the departure of Intake 14, and the arrival of Intake 17, of the AYAD Program. So we have just gone through another round of farewells and another week of orientation. This is ignoring all the other palangi, volunteer or otherwise, whose time in Tonga has started or come to a close in the recent while. As a volunteer here, you get to meet a lot of people in a very short period of time, which is certainly a highlight of being here.

Our, Intake 15's, orientation overlapped with the final week in Tonga for Intake 13. We had five hectic days that covered both the official orientation program as well as a multitude of opportunities to learn all about life in Tonga from the three guys about to depart. The latest batch of fresh AYADs were not so lucky, they have to rely on our mere six months of experience. Maybe they are lucky actually, as you probably get more out of your time if you learn things your own way.

The mourning period for the passing of the King is well into its fourth week now. Thirty days of wearing black and counting. The attitude towards the tapu period is certainly becoming more relaxed. Last night I rode our collection of tins and cans up to the recycling centre, forgetting that I had changed on arriving home. However, wearing a grey tshirt, I didn't look to out of place. Most of the people out and about were in colours other than black, with a strong showing of red. This probably has something to do with the late afternoon/early afternoon being the favourite time for Tongan teens to wander the streets passsing a football around. Many of "the youth", as they are incessantly referred to in Tonga, have been a bit slack about the tapu all along. Now they are just being joined in the lax attitude.

Part of the reason for a more relaxed attitude towards the tapu is that we have now passed ten days since the King's burial, marking the end of the funeral period. The Star Cinema has chosen this time to reopen and a good thing too as we seem to have entered the early stages of the rainy season. On Wednesday, a few of us went to watch atypical example of Star Cinema fare - Snakes on a Plane. This film would seem custom made for Tongan audiences. Or maybe Tongan audiences are custom made for this film. Anyway, as we learnt, a late session on a Wednesday is not the best time to enjoy the raucous, laugh-as-loud-as-you-can approach to moviegoing preferred by the Tongans.

That said, given you start with such low expectations, Snakes on a Plane is not the sort of film you walk away too disappointed from. I was actually impressed with how many cliches they managed to fit in the one film. Who would have known that a film about snakes on a plane could feature both a dirt bike scene and a girls-in-bikinis running down the beach scene. The producers sure were clever to have the snake infested plane and storyline take off from Hawaii. I guess I can't disagree with the reviewer who rated this the best movie about snakes on a plane they had every seen. Besides, it was not like there was something better on.