Lockdown

A received an email last week from a Tongan-American who had recently spent time teaching in Tonga to experience her mother’s country. She had been following my blog because:

“I can very much relate to what you share and it brings back many fond (and not so fond) memories of my time there.”

That I had been fair in showing both the happy and the frustrating aspects of Tongan culture was one of the greatest blog compliments I had ever received. A blog reader wouldn’t know what it’s like to live in Tonga or get a good grasp on Tongan culture if I only wrote about the positive things.

Most PCVs don’t write so honestly online. Most PCV blogs show smiling students, sandy beaches, school graduations, and lavish feasts. For honesty they write more privately. Juleigh kept 3 different written records of her experience: a private journal for her personal feelings, monthly emails to America for what might be offensive to Tongans, and a public blog for what wouldn’t get her into trouble. It was safer that way. But it also means Juleigh would tell you different things in private conversation than blog followers would read online. People asking me about Tonga privately would hear about the same feelings I wrote.

Such honesty can be offensive. So can jokes, facts, and exposing corruption and incompetence. I’ve been told that my “you know you’re in Peace Corps Tonga” posts are offending Tongans, as well as my recent description of Tongan love and marriage. I don’t know what the offenses are specifically, but I imagine it’s the way I’m so blunt in publicly discussing what Tongans don’t publically discuss. Tongans don’t talk about sex, relationships, politics, governance, customer service, education, or a host of other topics publically. And from my own experience, employees witnessing bosses mismanage funds don’t dare report it; and employers witnessing employees shirk their responsibilities and come persistently late to work don’t report it either. No one wants to rock any boats. My blog, then, might just capsize the boat.

And that’s why, I think, Peace Corps has asked me to password protect my blog.

Not everything is “offensive”, and I didn’t want to block every post, but Blogger doesn’t allow password protecting individual posts. I instead used a JavaScript trick by editing the HTML code. So now about a third of my posts from the past 2 years require a key to decrypt them. The key shouldn’t be difficult for Chicagoans, or anyone else knowledgeable about American sports. The hint below the “show encryption” link should help immensely. If anyone non-Tongan still has trouble figuring out the key, send me an email and I’ll give it to you (I apologize that this encryption system ruins some of the formatting of my posts).

Not every post from here on out will be encrypted, but I imagine now my blog following will drop off the cliff. That’s alright, it’s been a good run. With 2300 pageviews, November was my biggest month yet. And I only have two more weeks to go when it would all be over anyways. I glad so many of you enjoyed following my blog. This has been the happiest two years of my life, and I enjoyed Tonga immensely.