The Mr Felefonu song

mr-felefonu-song.m4a

Above is a painting done by the father of a Spanish restaurant owner which shows the jolly scene from his restaurant come bar in Vava’u. The painting hangs on the wall of the dimly lit bar which serves as a dance hall on Fridays and fills up with Tongan locals, tourists and sailors. The food on the menu is ‘Tapas’ but with a Tongan flavour and limited produce makes for some good experimentation. Fatima the very charismatic Tongan wife of the owner runs the joint. Here is a perhaps less jolly or tinny ditty which the cat and friends sort of wrote at sea on the voyage from Aotearoa to Tonga. They sang this song at sea to cheer themselves up and I fear there were many better arranged melodies then the one remembered now. The song tells of the excitement of arrival to Tonga and meeting the customs and immigration agent Mr Felefonu- also known as Toni…