Tuesday 21 July 2009Liuaki Room 2

On Day 2 the kids and adults had to get up by 7:30 am, brush their teeth,

have a shower, get dressed into mufti, clean their sleeping area

and have breakfast.

We were getting ready to go to have a look

around Tongatapu. One place we were looking forward to visiting is a

famous place called “HA’A MONGA ‘A

MAUI”.

After breakfast everybody loaded up onto the bus. As soon as we got on the bus the music started pumping – as we were moving along it got louder and louder. Once the last person finally got on we started going to the capital city of Tonga, which is called “NUKUALOFA”.

It took us all of 15 minutes to get to the city centre. We went

to the market, everybody got off and started shopping up large for our families

back in NZ.

After everyone finished loading up with goodies for

their families the driver took us for a ride around. We went on a long as ride - it was very far, it was so long that most of

the kids and some of the adults went to sleep. While we were cruising around we went past different villages -

like about five of them.

The windows were very dirty, we wanted to look out and see what the villages were like. So

the adults started cleaning them. Our local “Music Man”

told the bus driver so he turned off at his shop, they cleaned the

windows and while the kids helped them wash the bus some

of the adults went and got us some lollies and that.

When the bus was fresh and clean we left again. We went

for another long ride, we were almost at Ha’amonga. We went by this beautiful area and stopped. We all

looked out, saw this old as coconut tree and took

pictures of it. Then we left again.

While we were going along in the bus it was like being in a nightclub. The music

was on loud and the ladies were dancing in the middle of the aisle. Most of them

were dancing like real nightclub people. But they

were cool and funny dancers to.

Finally there it was - a big rock known as “HA’A

MONGA ‘A MAUI”. It’s on the “east side” of the island (like us in NZ) in a village

called Niutoua. It was built by the King of Tonga named TU'I TATUI in 1212 A.D. It was used as a gateway to

the Royal Compound.

What's special about the HA'AMONGA? We didn’t know until Toa (one of the mums) told us that it was a gateway and that there were

some strange carvings on top of the stone that tells the Tongan people when the shortest and longest day of the year occur. On those two days the sun is

centred in the arch of the stone.

We started taking pictures and videos. Everyone wanted to climb up. Some kids were

struggling to climb and some of them made it up. Then our D.J. just came out of the blue and

climbed it like it was nothing and everybody was amazed. Then Mrs Tafea took the ones that

didn’t make it all the way up to this area where it had another

rock - but it was smaller.

Everyone started taking pictures of it. There were coconut trees near it and coconuts were lying on the ground ready to eat. Some took the coconuts, smashed them against the tree, drank the milk from them and then ate them.

The ones that missed out on the coconuts were complaining and then the next thing we know our D.J. was at it again. He climbed up the coconut tree, dropped some coconuts down, then he came down the tree. That was awesome. He turned upside down like spider man and crawled down the tree. Then it was time to go back, everybody walked back to the bus to get a seat and the ladies were dancing under the tree. We started to laugh and laugh – this was a really cool day.