So Sundays in Tonga are the real deal! Literally everyone goes to one church or another. The main churches are the Free Wesleyan Church, The Free Church of Tonga, The Church of Tonga, and the Mormom Church.
My family attends the Free Wesleyan Church ( which is similar to the Methodist church).
Every Sunday each family wakes up early ( we're talking the whole house is up and moving by 6 am!) and starts to make the Lu. ( which is a traditional Tongan dish that consists of chicken, turkey,or beef (usually corned beef) wrapped in taro leaves with coconut cream/milk inside.
Poli jr. Scraping the coconut meat to make the cream for inside the Lu.
Ma'vae gave it a try too!
The boys get the umu ( Tongan oven) ready. Basically they start a fire with dried coconut husks and add volcanic rocks to create coals.
While thats getting heated up the girls are in the kitchen getting the actual Lu ready.
This FanguFangu ( the one standing up, fun fact: it's actually her house we are staying in). Lile ( my host mom) is chopping meat on the right.
Once the meat is chopped a handful is placed on top of about 7-8 taro leaves with chopped onions sprinkled on top.
When it's all ready to wrap it looks like this! All that's left is the coconut milk.
Here Poli Sr. ( my host father) is using the coconut husk to squeeze the cream/milk from the coconut meal.
Here Christopher ( my oldest host brother) is peeling the manioke (cassava).
Meanwhile back in the house Polisi'i ( jr.) is keeping the flies out of the almost ready Lu!
Like pours the coconut milk into each set of Lu leaves, wraps the foil, and voila Lu ready to cook!
The umu right before we put the Lu in!
Everything packed tightly in our umu ( the white things on top is the cassava) it's ready to cover!
It's ready to cook for the next 3 hours while we are at church!
Of course before we get ready for church we had to have our second Tongan breakfast of manioke and left over coconut milk, gotta admit it was pretty tasty!
And finally I got ready to to'a for the kava circle before church ( decked out in some fancy accessories that were supposed to be for Friday nights dance performance but that's a whole other post!)
After our two and a half hour church service we came back to our feast!
Now it's time to rest, possible got to more church, and repeat until the day is done.
Basis summary of a Tongan Sunday is : make the Lu, go to church, eat , sleep , and repeat!
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