We met the King!

Liahona Farms won the blue ribbon at the Royal Agriculture Fair 2018. Tevita Makihele, the farm manager, who we work with and our friend, asked if we would accept the certificate. YES! It was an honor to shake hands with King Tupou VI and accept the certificate.

One must bow when they approach the King

Royal Agriculture and Fisheries Fair 2018

 We had been told not to miss the Agriculture and Fisheries Fair. That was great advice. This was an event not to be missed. All the kingdom comes together to show their works. The fair actually began a month ago in Niua, then moved on to Vava'u, Ha'apai, Tongatapu, and next week to 'Eua. The King also travels to each of the islands.

Agriculture

Great looking vegetables

Capsicum

Ufi, Casava, Kumala 

Man beside his ufi

Big Bull - I fed it some melon

Handcrafts 

The ladies were having fun as they waited for the King to come by

Prosperity and safe travel at sea

The ladies show much creativity in their handicrafts. Much time is spent in making these beautiful crafts. The mats are handmade and painted with oils from plants. The ladies weave the kiekie and kafa, and make the tupeno and ta'ovale. This traditional dress is worn as a sign of respect. The wood  carving seems to be done by the men.

Liahona High School students 

The Liahona High School students displayed their talents in fashion design at a booth. They also did a fashion show Friday night.

Cake decorating included taro leaves cake, pineapple cake, apple cake, and carrot cake.

Fashion design students modeled their work. Even the drum major outfit was made by the students.

Tevita Makihele's son had paintngs. Artwork also included sculpture and wood carving.

Fisheries

Squid

Tonga is known as a hotbed for fishing... Marlin, sailfish, mahi-mahi, tuna, wahoo,shark, and giant trevally, and other. Fisheries industry also includes octopus, squid, crab, mussels, and other crustaceans. 

       

  

Fishing is for livelihood as well as sports fishing. It is a huge tourist activity. 

HIKE down trail at Land Bridge

There is not much you can call a hike on Tongatapu. It is very flat. We were very happy to find this trail. It goes down about 100 feet from the Land Bridge to the ocean below, and the trail is rather hidden. We found it, and boy are we glad we did. 

    

We found the trail!

     

The beach as we finished the hike down

  

Waves crashing onto shore

A couple love birds

The land bridge is up above

             

The waves can get pretty large with the incoming tide. There seemed to be about 10 average size waves, then a much bigger one. More than once we got splashed unexpectedly. But it felt good on a warm day.

We spent quite a bit of time walking the rocky shore, looking for hermit crabs which we were told were abundant, but found none. It was still a great day. We will return.  

No one else was on the beach. We had it all to ourselves. 

We found an interesting sea creature. It looked something like a sea cucumber lying on the sea floor. We tickled its back and it opened up and swam around very gracefully.

Karen Fetzer and Sister Thomson

It was a fun to spend the day with Karen Fetzer, from the Amanaki Fo'ou group who we picked up at the airport a day early. We loved spending the day with her! Karen lives in Hawaii with her husband. She has been a long-time friend of Andrea Ferguson who along with Rob Ferguson, podiatrist, and Kendall (another podiatrist) and Tiffany Shumway put this program together. Karen is a trained physician assistant. She helped in many ways including nutrition, cooking, zumba, etc.

Tide is coming in!

We walked out along the rocks to the reef edge. We arrived at low tide and when the tide started coming in it came in fast. Looking at this picture, we were out beyond where the wave is crashing a few minutes before.

Starting up

Where is the trail back to the top?

   

In His hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Psalms 95:4

Amanaki Fo'ou Cooking Demonstration

Amanaki Fo'ou (meaning New Hope) is a group from US including Eric Shumway who are promoting healthy living to help the Tongans combat diabetes. They come yearly for a couple weeks. The podiatrists in the group and nurses teach wound care at the hospital when they visit. The others lead zumba, make keyhole gardens with Tevita Makahele (manager Liahona Farms), diabetes screening, and demonstrate healthy cooking. Sister Thomson was asked to help with the healthy cooking along with Sister Huni and her daughter Latu.

Sister Thomson, Nunia Huni, Kay Lotulelei

Front: Uini Hosea, Tiffany Shumway, Latu Huni

Sister Huni makes a wonderful talo stem salad. Amanaki Fo'ou group were a bit leery of talo salad as they know it has to be cooked. They thought stem salad would not be. But they agreed to let Nunia and Latu make this salad. It was a BIG HIT. They asked her to make it the second session as well.

To make the salad:
Cut stem from the fresh cut talo. Save leaf for lu.
Peel off the outer skin - like cutting strings of celery.
Cut in 4-inch pieces.
Boil.
Peel stem into sizes as at left.
Mix with lemon, a little sugar, tomato, lime.

We also served lettuce wraps with chicken, sweet and sour chicken, soup, sweet potato (kumala). We had a lot of fun working in the kitchen together.

Karen Fetzer (from Hawaii) discussed healthy eating with the group before we ate. She was very interesting and answered questions from the ladies.

I will not feel deprived when I bypass junk food. I will feel empowered because I made the RIGHT choice.

Nukunuku Free Wesleyan Primary School Delivery

Great fun was had today when we delivered school furniture, balls, and hula hoops to Nukunuku FWPS.


Principal Vincent Tupou said “I told my teachers you were coming with school furniture and they said ‘you are an answer to prayers.’ We are one of many schools in Tonga. We are a very poor school. We have been praying for help and you came. You are angels. Now the students who have been sitting on the floor will have chairs and desks."

HULA HOOPS
Remember the first time you tried your luck at hula hoop? We laughed as we watched these girls learn to keep the hoops go round and round. On the first try, the hoops went straight to the ground. I showed them to wiggle their hips. Several students succeeded! Smiles were aplenty – laughing at their attempts and laughing at their successes.

SOCCER AND RUGBY BALLS
The boys ran for the balls. Many groups played soccer and rugby. All the boys know both sports.

Sister Thomson even got to play.

 
At the handover ceremony, Sister Thomson told the students we hope this school furniture will help make your learning easier.

She told the students they are young but they will one day be big. She told the children to dream of what they want to be. They can be a teacher, a farmer, a doctor, a banker, a rugby player. Do not let anyone tell you you can’t live your dream. Work hard on your studies so your dreams can come true.

                                      Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching.

Fun Day in Fiji -- Navua River and Magic Waterfall

We stayed an extra day after the conference to experience part of Fiji. We miss the mountains so our choice was to go inland, up river in a motorized canoe to a waterfall. We boarded the canoe for about a half-hour ride up the Navua River to a small village passing rainforest and farmland along the way.

A Fijian warrior guided us to the village meeting house. We learned about local customs and traditions and participated in a welcome ceremony where we could try kava, a sedative drink- we abstained.

After the kava was passed around, we watched a war dance and then joined in the snake dance, weaving around the meeting house.

Snake Dance

War Dance

We walked across the village to where lunch was being cooked lovo style, food wrapped in banana leaves and cooked underground. Village men removed the food from the ground and took it to the meeting house where we returned for our lunch. It was delicious traditional Fijian foods.

Carrying lunch to meeting hall

    

Uncovering the lovo lunch

          




















We toured the village. The preschool children sang to us. Women demonstrated weaving, mat braiding, and painting tapa cloth.

We made our way to our canoes and continued our journey to the waterfall. We passed by more rainforest, gorges, rapids (we had to get out and walk past one set of rapids), and waterfalls. We saw many native birds, ducks, and heron.

Motor canoeing up Navua River

Heron flying by bamboo trees

Our canoes glided onto shore and we began our "hike" (10 minutes through forest) to the "Magic Waterfall," the tallest falls on the Navua River.

We took a dip in the clear pool beneath the cascading water. It was so refreshing, a bit cold to get into but we quickly adjusted. We swam to the falling water. It was tricky because the current was so strong but we did make it and let the water cascade over our heads. We stayed in the water until time to depart, about an hour.

Sister Thomson waving in yellow life jacket

Part way back to the village, we climbed from our canoe to a bamboo raft for a peaceful glide down river aboard this traditional form of river travel. Just above the rapids, we climbed back into our canoe for the rest of the river trip to the village.








Once at the village, we asked some boys if there were coconuts. One of them climbed up the coconut tree and knocked down coconuts for each of us. The other boy used a bush knife to open it up for us to drink. We love to drink the water from the coconuts. We then made our way to the bus for the trip back to our resort.

We so much enjoyed being able to get into the mountains, on the river, and swimming in the pool beneath the waterfall. Great choice to spend our extra day in Fiji.
                                    
                                         “Oh the places you’ll go.” -Dr. Seuss