One of my new pastimes is to give everything a nickname. To my new friends here, I reference my "awesome liberal aunt", my "liberal Christian best friend", my "conservative Christian friend," my "Nurse best friend," my "Philosophy friend," etc. It's funny how when you go somewhere new and talk about your old life, you label everything.
Well, for your references and my entertainment, I've labeled another part of life here. The first Kava Circle I went to was the Baby Pig Foot Kava Circle. The next night, I went to a younger kava circle, which will now be known as The Pickle Tickle Handshake Kava Circle.
The PTHKC was where I met my new BFF Fedora Hat Boy, and this circle was more colorful, a little more perverted with the younger boys and such. When a kava circle has a female tou'a, the man who sits to the left (or young man, in my case) is supposed to talk to the tou'a to keep her from becoming bored. It's a lot of sitting and it makes my bum hurt. Anyway, the guy to the left is usually flirty if he's single, and this guy definitely was. He spoke no English, but he spoke very quickly and mumbled while the band played, so I could only hear bits and pieces of jumbled Tongan... of course, it sounds like that to me anyway, but he kept asking about my moa. Moa, in Tongan, means chicken or boyfriend/girlfriend. My first technique was to tell him that yes, I love moas. Moa fakapaku (fried chicken.) He kind of laughed a little, but then he persisted more. "Oku ke i ai a e moa faka-Tonga?" (Do you have a Tongan bf?) Oh yes, I said, "Oku i ai moa e nima noa! (I have fifty moas). He looked at me in amazement. I stared at him, thinking, Seriously dude? You can't even get a joke? (Tongans LOVE joking. And lying for entertainment purposes, such as story telling.)
I told him I was joking, rolled my eyes, and started talking to fedora hat boy/new BFF. At the end of the night, around 11pm, I finally left, and some of the men shook my hand saying, "Malo, Seini" (Thank you, Jamie), Malo tou'a. One young man shook my hand and THEN, in a junior-high spurt of immaturity, he took his middle finger and wagged it against my palm.
I stared at him, astounded, as I jerked my hand away and walked out of the door. Ick! Ugh, gross! My 12 year old self came out, wiping my corrupted palm against my skirt, my legs limping in soreness from sitting for 2 hours without moving (basically). Of course, not all men or kava circles are like this. In some cases, this was really bad, and in some cases,this was really mild. It probably sounds terrible to you... please know that I think it's pretty funny. I have told people about the Pickle Tickle Handshake guy just so that people will know what happened-- many of them laughed, some scoffed at the impurity of it all. Haha.
Oh, and I got the "Pickle Tickle" handshake reference from A League of Their Own. Do you remember the part when the crass scout (probably my fav. character) sends the 3 girls on their way and says, "Oh, I'll go home, grab a shower and a shave, give the wife a little pickle tickle and them I"ll be on my way."
Thus, the Pickle Tickle Handshake Kava Circle. (PTHKC)
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