Tau'olunga!

The typical Tongan way is to put off...well, everything. So for example, our ward's talent night is this Wednesday. When did they start teaching April the dances? Last Tuesday. They taught me one. On Thrusday, they taught me another two. So if you haven't guessed, this post is about Tau'olunga, or the Tongan dancing.

The fact is, it's absolutely beautiful to watch, and I can't figure out how they look so graceful. I feel so awkward, epecially when I watch the older women, who are of no insignificant size, do it so flawlessly and gracefully. I asked the girls in my ward casually as we were walking home, "So you just all know how to dance?" Their reply was equally casual in the affirmative. They just all know how to do it, not to mention Samoan, Hawaiian, and Fijian dances as well. They can pick up dances after watching them just a few times.

The first dance I learned (ever), is the Laka-Laka. It's the one our stake is preparing for the Temple dedication in November. The cool thing about it, is they're dances that involve a ton of people, and they all have the moves synchronized. They also sing during it. I'm nor sure it that's exactly the definition of a Laka-laka, but so far those are the differences I've noticed.

The second dance is a dance specifically about Ha'apai, one of the main island groups. It's definitely the hardest one I've learned, but the Young Women president seems optimistic and wants me to do it on Wednesday with the other Laurels. Then in the summer when we go to Ha'apai, I can perform it with the other two laurels who come from Ha'apai.

Next, is the Samoan dance we're doing with the combined YW and YM. The girl who taught us was kind enough to teach us some of the moves backwards, so when we added in the boys, I kept turning away from my partner, and not towards him. Lets just say I am a very reliable source of entertainment to these people. (And myself, to be honest.) Then we do a Hawaiian hula with the combined YW.

The fun thing about preparing for this talent night is that I'm learning a new talent. It's fun, and it's a way to get closer with these people. I'm better friends with the kids in our ward now because I've allowed them to laugh at me, and teach me something that means a lot to their culture. It's also nice, because like everything else that's difficult in life, it gets easier the more you do it. I can pick up the dances much faster than I could when we arrived here almost three months ago. Not that that's saying much, but it's comforting.

Well, I could go on telling about the fun costumes and such, but hopefully we'll get some cool pictures this Wednesday of the talent night, and then we can post them (in theory), and you can see it for yourself. And after that, we'll probably start taking formal lessons, so then we'll really know what to do!(sort of) Until then...'Ofa atu!

Technical Difficulties

If you were thinking we dropped off the edge of the planet, you're wrong. However, we aren't responding to any emails because we can't actually access email. Beats me why we can access almost every webpage (some of the time), but not hotmail. Anyway, we're not ignoring you, we're just internet-less. I promise as soon as I can I will email you all back. In fact, since I'll be lucky if this message even up-loads, I'll tell you now, too, that we can't figure out how to put pictures on our blog, so right now, it's kind of boring. Anyway, check up on it every once in a while and maybe you'll get lucky. (Hopefully we will too.)