My cousin Amy lives in Tonga, a tiny kingdom in the South Pacific. After she graduated college, she was stationed there during a stint in the Peace Corps and met Toni, her now-husband and a native Tongan. They lived in San Francisco for awhile, but eventually decided to return to Tonga for an easier and different pace of life. It wasn’t a bad idea, really, as it’s an island paradise and everyone in the family now has a beautiful and exotic place to visit. http://www.thekingdomoftonga.com/
It’s a very different lifestyle, but Amy has adapted well, immersed herself in the culture, figured out how to build a house, and gave birth to two children in a third world country without batting an eye. I’m not sure how she’s done this, but she’s smart and resourceful and I’m proud to be related to her.
My aunt and uncle and her sisters visit every year at least once, and Amy is usually able to come spend a month in the US near the holidays, with her two children, ‘Iva and Melino. A few years ago, in preparing for Amy’s visit, my cousin Sara bought two goldfish as pets for her niece ‘Iva. Sara’s plan was to just have them for her niece to enjoy during their visit, then release them into the fish pond in her front yard. ‘Iva was two years old at the time, so naturally, she named the fish “Eat, and “Poop.” Eat and Poop were fun for her during the visit, but after they returned to Tonga, Sara became a little obsessed with taking take of them.
Sara’s an animal lover and natural care-taker so she started researching water temperature, filtration systems, and though her plan was to put them in the fish pond immediately after Amy’s visit, she got attached and Eat and Poop became members of her household for much longer than she intended. One day, she finally decided it had gone on too long, and she was ready to release them into the pond. She did, but because they were used to being confined in a small space, they stayed huddled together in a tiny corner of the large pond while adjusting to their new habitat.
This made them much more visible to predators. And shortly after their release into the pond, and in a strange twist of their names sealing their fate, Eat and Poop were quickly scooped up in the beak of a Blue Heron circling overhead who took a fresh shit next to the pond immediately after swallowing them and flying away.
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