Sorry I'm not writing much. We have gotten to know a Tongan family a couple doors down from us and they have been a big help. They have 3 daughters (18, 17, 14) and 1 son (12) at home. Yesterday we went diving and we asked the 17 year old to babysit (by the way, Tongan labor wage is about $0.80/hr). Caleb has gotten comfortable around the girls and they love him.
As a side note: Race / color is not much of an issue here, other than it indicates wealth status. Locals think all whites on the island are rich and from their perspective, this may be true. A lot of the girls want to marry white men, just for the wealth. Arranged marriages are common and the father tries to marry the girl out to a man that has land. By law, land is passed from father to eldest son for the Tongan families, foreigners have to lease the land. A "white" baby around here is treated like gold- literally.
The dive was great, we saw thousands of fish and the coral was pretty good (not as good as say... Cozumel). 7 years ago a hurricane wiped out a lot of the shallow corral above 30 feet and a lot of the fish population went with it. We saw lion fish, sea snakes, groupers, tuna, etc.
When we got back to the house, Caleb and the babysitter were gone and we were locked out (the only key given to the babysitter... the one door to the house remains permanently locked). I walked to the babysitters house and nobody was there except the old grandma that could not speak one word of English. I found another neighbor to translate and Rachel started to think the worst... he's in the hospital... The grandmother knew nothing and as I was searching for the phone number to the father, the babysitter and her mother pulled up in a taxi. They had taken him into town and showered him with gifts and ice cream. Rachel told the girl she should not have taken him and at the very least she should have left a note. Well that's Tonga for you.
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