Tau’olunga

This week my school had a konserti, a fundraising “concert” of sorts to raise money for the school. This money will go towards paying for the power bills from last year, general maintenance and supplies for the classrooms, and, excitingly, hopefully paying the bills on my house from before I moved in (the power company has definitely come to shut off my power a few times already because of bills that have remained unpaid for almost a year…oh Tonga), installing a bathroom door in my house, and possibly even a tap inside so I don’t have to walk out to the water tank with a bucket every time I want to bathe or do dishes…these things may not happen, but we can hope! Anyways, because I may benefit from some of the money raised and because the village has a Peace Corps I was solicited to tau’olunga (traditional Tongan dance) in front of the whole village at the konserti.

Now, let’s take a little trip down memory lane at Alicia’s dancing career…Middle School/ St. Joe’s dances (throwback reference!): Alicia stands in the corner of the wall with friends and watches teenagers dance to such great hits as Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” and Will Smith classics. She makes no attempt to embarrass herself by actually joining the dancing. High School: with her self-confidence slightly improved, Alicia allows herself to be dragged onto the “dance floor” (read, cafeteria) by friends on the condition the Miss Lindsay Foley, aka “security blanket” not leave her side and teach her how to move slightly in time to the music. College: it is only after a fair amount of illicit substances that Alicia dances at college, but when she does it is usually quite enthusiastically…”what’s that you say? Time to dance? Give me another beer and a hit of that joint…” you get the picture. Cohen Bar Mitzvah’s: Alicia needs no inducements to be persuaded to dance, but I think the general congenial Jewish vibe and open bar had something to do with that. Also, the inspiration Miss Cohen played a large role in my dancing over the last several years.

Still, to the point that the previous paragraph tried to illustrate: I do not dance. And when I do, it is by no means gracefully. So, as you can imagine, I was less than thrilled about performing for the whole village, but, I tried, gamely, to suck it up and have some fun. Lupe, my neighbor, worked with me all week to teach me the dance, and was a bit discouraged at how difficult teaching me proved to be. What was the most difficult was learning the basics of Tongan dance: standing with your legs bent and feet at a 45* angle, rotating your hands, but not your arms, while keeping your fingers together and pulsing your palms (I look nowhere near as graceful as Tongan women) and the quick head nod to the side know as a tiki.

But, after a week of dance practice every evening I finally got it…almost. My school is comprised of kids from the villages of Koulo and Holopeka, and consequently there were two konsertis- one in Koulo on Thursday night, and one in Holopeka on Friday evening. I had planned to dance only on Friday, mostly because I still did not know the 3rd verse to the song on Thursday, but as the time drew near the other teachers and parents insisted that I dance in Koulo as well as in Holopeka…oh dear. Lupe made me a costume by gluing sand in flower patterns onto a piece of cloth, and we carried that along with a giant jug of coconut oil into the concert that night.

About halfway through we went out back to get me ready with a half a dozen women, and behind the hall in the middle of a field I had to strip down to my underwear while women lathered me in oil and pinned the costume on. Sand, by the by, is very heavy! The oil serves several purposes: to make you look beautiful and attractive, to perfume you in such a way that the scent takes days to wear off, and in my case gives you quite a headache, and thirdly, to allow money to stick to you during the dance. Whenever someone performs in Tonga, people come up and stick money on them or down their clothes as a means of thanking them- hence dances are good fundraisers. With the tau’olunga it’s even more so. Also, the general consensus is that if the money does not stick to a woman dancing, it’s because she’s not a virgin, and therefore all unspeakable sorts of insulting things, so it’s important to really lather on that oil!

The dance in Koulo went well, despite my not knowing the 3rd verse at all, and in Holopeka it went fine (I managed to learn the whole song by then!). I was very nervous, and definitely messed up several times, mostly when I’d lose a step or two because people were sticking money on my, but all in all I think it was a good experience and an honor that I was asked to learn and participate in the Tongan culture. Although, as Robin noted, being lathered in oil and dancing a la “Golden Banana” (ok, only Becca and Marianne are going to get that reference…oh Rt. 1) wasn’t exactly what I had in mind in terms of cultural exchange. But, I’m glad I did it, and that when I need to dance again, I’ll already have a routine I know to fall back on!