The Prince's Funeral

A Tongan Prince and Princess were killed in a car accident in the San Francisco area just before we arrived here. Their funeral was today and we were allowed to go in lieu of our usual class time.

Our host mom, prepared Amanda & I for the funeral. All black clothing is required for any funeral as well as these mats, called a tauvala.


















Here is our whole group (minus Alex who was fighting a sickness) ready to depart for the funeral.

















We were a little early, so our trainers stopped along the coast to let us relax for a little bit. I love this picture of our group in our funeral garb running down to the water.

Here are some women in traditional funeral mats. The larger the mat, the closer to the family a person is.

Here is the procession for the casket and the casket being carried into the church. You can see girls in school uniforms sitting alongside the road with their faces averted...they lined the streets for the entire length of the procession, which would have been for miles and miles. Their face are averted to display that they are not even worthy to look at the casket of the prince.