Nutrition Class Faka-Tonga

I awoke yesterday morning to the sound of my name being repeatedly called from outside my window, “Alisi! Alisi! Alisi! Alisi!” My neighbor was standing outside and he wanted to get the vegetable seeds from inside my house to soak in water before we planted them this afternoon. I gave him the seeds, and he informed me that in school in the morning we were going to have a nutrition class about eating plants, and invited me to attend. Now, in conjunction with the garden we’re planting I’m working to create lessons/presentations about healthy eating and tie that into environmental issues. So, I was a bit upset that no one had told me about this before, or asked if I wanted to help. Nevertheless, I told him I would love to come, and brought along a notebook and pencil to take notes. This proved to be both foolish and an indication of the fact that I am still not totally immersed into local culture.

However, as it was Friday, we first had our weekly teacher’s meeting and Ministry of Education radio broadcast first. Apparently there is an influx of pirated DVDs of “Prison Break” and “24” in circulation at the moment, and we spent a good hour and a half discussing these captivating shows in surprising detail. Sadly, as I have seen neither, I wasn’t able to contribute a whole lot to the discussion, but I did put in a plug for “Heroes” (yes, I just finished season 1, and while I didn’t really like it at first, I am hooked now) and “Lost” (I got season 4 and part of 5 from Kate and Brett this week…this only spells trouble and a loss of productivity- all of my London girls can clearly vouch for this).

As our “meeting” was winding down I noticed a large number of mothers driving into the school yard and unloading truck-loads of food. They all came and sat outside the classroom with what amounted to a huge feast. This, of course, should have been another clear indication that a Tongan nutrition and plant-eating class may not be precisely what I had in mind. Still, I was completely taken by surprise when all the kids from classes 5 and 6, along with their siblings in other classes (so, practically the whole school) came into the classroom and sat on the floor around large lengths of table cloths that stretched across the entire room.

One of our teachers then walked up to the front of the room to begin the lesson. First, the children named every different type of food that was on their plate. Then, the teacher stated that eating food was good for you, and eating food from plants was also good. After that, she explained that black people and Chinese people were usually very skinny because they don’t have enough food. Also, they eat a lot of vegetables. But, the Tongan people are sino lelei (sino means both “fat” and body”, lelei means good; thus sino lelei is a good body because one is fat) because they have plenty of food and they eat meakai fakaTonga (Tongan food). Then she named some Tongan food that she particularly liked, mostly various root crops. Finally, our principal came to the front, blessed the food and said a prayer, and then everyone commenced literally stuffing their faces. And that was it. That was the school’s nutrition class, and it lasted maybe five minutes.

Of course the mothers jumped into a frenzy because I wasn’t eating and began snatching food away from their children and piling it in front of me, but, as soon as I was able to pick my jaw up off the floor, I jumped down and sat with the kids to eat. And eat we did; these kids meant business. Many of them started unbuckling their pants and untying their dresses. One kid even ate so much he threw up. Looking around at the array of fried foods, fatty, processed meat, and simple carbohydrates, I tried to spot some vegetables, as this was also ‘eat plants time’. The closest thing I found was pele (a leafy green that tastes like kale) mixed with kapa pulu (canned grade-D corned beef) and smothered in coconut cream.

Once I got over the initial shock and twinge of anger, I had to admit it was pretty funny, and periodically burst into laughter which the Tongans loved, even if they didn’t understand what I found so amusing. And yes, I am definitely rethinking how to conduct my nutrition classes, if I am able to do them in the future.