Plane Gone East

On the album ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’, Dylan writes about a ‘train gone west’. The imagery has always stuck with me and given the impetus to seek out adventure. Two years and some months ago that imagery helped inspire Abby and me to accept our invitation to Peace Corps Tonga. It also helped me make my case for this blog’s name, which, after much cajoling, my wife finally agreed to. (BTW, her suggestion of ‘It Takes Two to Tonga’ was summarily dismissed, although she did get points for alliteration.)

It excites me, pains me, and mostly just weighs heavy on my heart to now write about a ‘plane gone east’, as in our return to the States. We will touchdown at Des Moines International around 10:30ish on November 6^th, completing a journey that took two years, two months and about 4 days. I am not sure Abby and I are wholly prepared for what’s to come, but I can tell you we are damn excited to find out.

Before I get too mushy about this whole to-do, let’s first take a walk through out last week in our beloved village of Tu’anuku.

It started on Saturday, when I went to town to run some errands and help our local women’s committee clean-up the bridge (it was Tu’anuku’s turn). Person after person from town, most of which I did not know, came up to me, shook my hand and wanted to say hello. It was very nice, and a little weird.

Then came Sunday, our final Church service. It was attended by Tonga’s Minister of Finance and his wife, which was exciting for everyone. At the end he came up to Abby and me and said ‘Oh, so this is the famous Peace Corps in Tu’anuku, so glad I finally got to meet you.’ Again, very nice, but a little weird!

Finally I grabbed Tuki and asked her why on earth someone in the Tongan cabinet would be calling us famous. “What? You don’t know?” she asked, “You were on the radio!” This we did not expect. It turns out that our village’s noble, no one less than the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Tonga, decided that it was time Tu’anuku got a little shout out on national radio. Every Saturday the national radio does a ‘Get to Know a Village’ hour and Tu’anuku was the first village ever from the island of Vava’u to be featured on it. What did they talk about? Apparently us. Well, mostly Abby. The people of Tu’anuku wanted to explain how happy people were here and what a happy village this was. To make their point, they told the story of us. Our work in Tu’anuku, our work with the kids, our time at church and in the Tongan culture. Then they talked about our goodbyes and how Abby could not stop crying because she didn’t want to leave! They said there wasn’t anything better than a blubbering Peace Corps Volunteer to describe how happy of a village this is. It was very touching!

Our farewell tour continued on Sunday when we were invited to eat with our Tongan family. After church we were escorted to Tuki’s house by all the young girls and women of the congregation. We were blown away to see Tuki and Lolohea had made a full- blown feast for us! We were thinking it would be a quiet family lunch! All the women kissed and clucked but then decided we should eat with the young ladies and Tuki’s family only. Lunch was a roller coaster of tears, words of thanks, and jokes about us bringing men back to Tu’anuku for all the girls to marry.

We spent the next few days carefully sorting all our belongings to try to give the people what we thought they would want and need. This ended up being a very personal and quiet affair. We were able to thank families individually one last time, joke with their kids, and show our overall love and appreciation for all they had done for us. And before we knew it, our house was empty and everywhere we walked we saw kids sporting our clothes.

And then came our second to last day. Tevita called us and said to come up to school at 10:00. We figured we would say good-bye and that would be that. We arrived to see the kids all sitting in one classroom with two thrones up front. They had Mark and Alissa’s CD ‘Hiva a e Fanau’ blasting from the player so we could remember our friends as we took our seat. Over the course of the next hour, we were showered with beautiful thank you speeches from the kids and the teachers (in English)! Then came the singing. Oh the singing. Viola wrote a song for us in English to the tune of a Tongan farewell song. The song was slow and sweet….the words so touching. And the kids, oh the kids. They must have practiced this song a hundred times, because they sang it perfectly. And all the while tears streamed down their face. I looked over at my wife and out came that famous blubbering. But I could barely hold it in either. After we said our good-byes to the kids, we ate. The teachers had roasted a pig for us. It was a wonderful lunch, eating our last pig with our staff.

Our last morning started at 5:30 a.m. People came over to sit and pray with us. It was emotionally exhausting to have so many personal, heartfelt good-byes. Tevita and Taniela and 5 of our favorite girl students escorted us to the airport. Right now, I don’t have the words to describe how Abbs and I felt as we drove out of the village the last time, a whole community waving in the rearview. A part of our hearts (and our poor baffled dog) will always be in Tu’anuku.

A big malo (thank you) and even bigger ‘ofa atu (love to you) to all of you, dear readers. In the highest of our highs and lowest of our lows, all of you—family, friends and causal readers—have given us the strength to endure during this journey. Your love, your thoughts, your prayers, not to mention your care packages ;) have fueled us at every turn. We honestly could not have done this with you and your blessings mean more than you will ever know.

Hard to think we won't be watching Ine walk by our house each Sunday...

Or Loa.

Our last mean at Tuki's house.

Tuki's daughter Ane made this for Briel!

Kaloni brought over our dinner for our last night. They were still alive when we got 'em straight from the sea  and so, so ifo.

The teachers.

The song, part 1

Part 2

One last pig.

And one last face-stuffing faka-Tonga!

The hardest goodbye of all. Wish they would smile as their tears almost broke us! We will never, ever, ever forget them.

It’s hard to know what to say to close this thing out. There simply aren’t words to capture the sheer, unmitigated love and gratitude that Abby and I feel for this place, these people or our Peace Corps experience.

Given my lifelong desire to be seen as an American cowboy, I thought about channeling my man Roy Rogers and letting loose a ‘happy trails to you, until we meet again.’

Of course my favorite band, Gaslight Anthem is in play when they say something like ‘turn the record over, I’ll see you on the flip side.’

And Mr. Sinatra always makes a good point when he sings ‘thanks for the memory.’

But I think a job like this is best left to the old raggedy beer sign that sits outside of the Fua’motu airport in Tongatapu:

Farewell thy Kingdom.