(experienced in late November with my amazing host family in Ha'apai.)
Setting: Ha'apai, Tonga, November 2010, I am eating at the kitchen table, my host mom, dad, and brother are in the living room. A wall separates us.
I am eating a delicious concoction of french fries (with Del Monte ketchup) and a wonderful bowl of pele (like spinach) and moa (chicken), cooked in a coconut sauce. It's one of my favorite meals, and I am feeling sleepy, though I'll soon go to another Trainee's house for a movie night. I won't make it through the movie, as usual. In fact, I think I fall asleep after 20 minutes. We attempted Lord of the Rings at 9pm and we were conked out by 9:30.
I digress. So I am quietly enjoying my meal, not paying attention to high-pitched hehe's of my Tongan father, a massive policeman with arms twice the sighs of my thighs, covered in tattoos. He's ripped and looks like a total bad-ass. But when he laughs, as all Tongan men do in their girly hehe's, he always reveals a slight gap between his teeth and looks nearly adolescent. It's funny.
Anyway, so they're all giggling, I'm off in Jamie-land, vainly wishing that Heinz would ship to Tonga and that the toilet would flush better, since all this oil and root crop gives me lots of poo pains. I've only walked in on one family member using the bathroom. Apparently Tongans have diarrhea a lot--someone asked, when a Trainee complained about diarrhea, "Don't you have diarrhea all the time in America?"
The volunteer replied, "Uhhh, NO...diarrhea is like a sickness."
"Oh," the Tongan replied, "Really?"
Anyway, so there's giggling, Del Monte ketchup, and I'm feeling full already. I slowly chew my lukewarm french fries, and suddenly. It happens.
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
Incessant giggling, and I cannot help but laugh my obnoxious laugh that I try to never let escape. I can't hold it back. After all, I didn't fart, and up til now, I hadn't heard anyone in my family fart, so it was a big deal.
I laughed. They laughed more. Then I laughed more. Then they laughed louder and louder until I walked in and we all collapsed with laughter. I looked at the gap-and-all-gaping mouth of Manase, my Tongan dad, and I knew he was the guilty party.
My mom explained that my brother, 13, and my dad were play-fighting and Manase decided to fart on my brother.
A few weeks before, my brother commented on a little girl's accidental fart as we watched TV, and since he couldn't think of the English word for fart, and I didn't hear the poor girl, he said, "Her back....her back SHOUTED!"
So this whole gas thing in Tonga is pretty funny.
Then, my mom says, "Sound like THUNDER!"
"OhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I said, "Mui mana!"
For all intents and purposes, my dear friends, mui mana means "butt thunder." People don't usually talk about arses here, as its impolite, but in an intimate family setting, I decided to take a chance and pull out the Fart-joke card.
Card well played, because from then on, Manase became "Mui mana."
On my next-to-last day with my family, we went to town to eat our last ice cream cones together and buy groceries. We stopped by Manase's work at the Police Station, and as we left, my mom and sisters said, "Say it Shay-mee, say it!"
In Tonga, when you leave and everyone else says, you say, "Nofo 'a!" (Nofo means stay). When you stay and someone else goes, you say, "'Alu 'a!" ('Alu means go.) If you say goodbye to someone in particular, you say, "(name) 'e! and the person replies, "Io!" (yes). It takes a while to learn.
So anyway, I swallowed my courage, and as the flatbed truck pulled onto the dilapidated road, I shouted,
"Mui Mana, 'e!"
and I heard guffawing, high-pitched he-he's from the police station as we females giggled all the way home.
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