Late night Niafu

I went out to some of the bars/clubs in the main town here with my host sister and one of her friends last night (and I brought another PC friend for good measure). It's the first time I've been out at night with members of my host family. It was pretty fun but different than being out with palangis (word for white people here). First, splitting the bill is not really a Tongan practice. Usually someone just picks it up and pays it, so I had to keep that in mind when ordering drinks. Also, women in Tonga don't typically drink alcohol and might be looked down on when they do. Seeing how I was around numerous Tongan women from my village at one point in the night, I realized my decision to purchase a beer might not have been the best one. I just made sure that was the only one I had in their presence.

Luckily, western style dance is basically accepted here. The songs might be very dated at re-made pacific-island style and the dancing has to be somewhat subdued (not such a bad thing), but I do have a lot of fun dancing to it. We started at a rather deserted bar that employs a bartender who just so happens to be the most attractive man I've met in Tonga. Then we moved to a few other bars that had a nice mix of palangis and Tongans dancing, so that was fun. I get tired of the locations that are over-run with palangis (there are a lot of those in this town). The last place we went was the most sketch. When we got there, it was basically deserted. Finally, it was 2am and the place was still deserted so my friend and myself started pressuring my host sister to get a taxi to go home. At some point in this process, a bunch of men and boys from my village started piling in and many were clearly drunk and kind of pushy. It was at that point that my friend and myself became very uncomfortable and demanded we leave. I felt bad being demanding but I also think trusting instincts (and a tired body) can be important. Anyway, interesting experience...but fun.