Adventures in Tonga!

Highs and Lows

2009-10-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

Ready to go!

There's a pool table in 'Eua!

Back by popular demand- It's Tonga Moments:

- I was riding in a van with my neighbor, Tevita and his sister. It was dark. We could see something ahead on the road, but couldn't quite make out what it was, we thought maybe it was a loose cow or something. We were all kinda joking about it, but as we got closer, it became clear. It was two very large pigs trying to make baby pigs. The female pig's eyes were about to pop out of her head. I laughed, but quickly realized I was the only one laughing. In Tonga there is this brother/sister stigma and anything remotely sexual in the presence of siblings is EXTREMELY uncomfortable and inappropriate. Once boys reach puberty they may no longer sleep under the same roof as their sisters. If a boy is at a dance club or party and his sister comes in he has to leave. If a guy starts dating the sister of one of his buddies, they can no longer be buddies, and the brother will avoid his sister's boyfriend at all costs and will even give him dirty looks. Anyway, it's something that is deeply rooted in the culture, and there's more to it than even I understand. But the rest of that car ride was spent in really awkward silence.

- So as you may have read in my last blog, all my students were convinced I was going to die when I went out scuba diving. The last day of my certification course we were doing two open water dives. It was the Saturday before the class 6 exam, so class 5/6 had school. As I was heading out that morning, they were all waiting around for class to begin when I left. They ran out of the classroom and asked me where I was going (typical Tongan greeting). I told them I was going diving, and once again they tried to convince me not to go. When I made it clear again that I WAS going, we said our goodbye's:

Pita: Bye Jennifer!

'Ana H: See you manana!

Hingano: See you later!

'Ana L: See you in Heaven!

Lopeti: Bye Jennifer!

Me: Bye guys...Hey! 'Ana, the closest I will be to heaven this weekend will be in church tomorrow, I will see you there.

'Ana L: (looking skeptical)

Scuba diving was amazing, and I can't wait to do more. It's something I have always wanted to do, but the amount of equipment and planning involved was kind of a turn off. It's not something you can go out and do on a whim, but I've concluded that it's worth the preparation. Also I think the diving here is probably among the best in the world, the water is relatively warm , crystal clear, the fish are abundant...it is a world apart under there. And one of the coolest things is that here it's relatively untouched. Scuba diving in 'Eua began just a few months ago except on special dive trips out to the island, so it's not a place that gets a lot of human traffic. OH! One of the coolest parts? We could hear the humpback whales singing. They were quite far away, but it was neat to hear them. I finished the dive course and made it back safely to go to church on Sunday, much to the surprise of my students.

Two weeks later I get a call from Arisa, the dive instructor on the island, saying hey if you want to go out and swim with whales this week we can go Monday or Tuesday. Um...yes, please. There are only three places in the world where it's still legal to swim with Humpback whales, and Tonga is one of them. This fact did make me stop and think for a bit about WHY there's only three places in the world left where it's legal to swim with these whales...but it was an opportunity I wasn't going to pass up. We went out Tuesday afternoon- it was a beautiful day and the water was exceptionally calm. Within twenty minutes we had spotted whales breaching in the distance. We caught up to them and realized there were at least seven or eight all swimming together, which is unusual. They were spy-hopping, breaching, and really it looked like they were just playing and having a little whale party. We slipped in the water. At first I was a little apprehensive- they're just so big!- but as soon as I got in the water and saw them underwater I immediately felt at ease. Any trepidation I had was gone; there is just something supremely calming about being in the water with these giants. From the underwater viewpoint we counted at least nine of them. They were moving through at a leisurely pace, and at times it seemed almost as if they were showing off for us. At one point I was pretty close to this whale and I dove down and was swimming eye-to-eye with him for as long as I could hold my breath (we were snorkeling). It sounds cheesy, but looking into the eyes of a humpback whale, you get the feeling they hold all the answers to the world. It was a profoundly moving experience, and probably the coolest thing I've ever done. I know we hit a really good day, because Arisa was super excited about it and she does this every day. I had in fact been putting off writing this blog because I knew how difficult it would be to do this experience justice with words, and I knew I wasn't nearly talented enough. But there it is.

So those have been the highs, now for a few lows...

I currently have tonsillitis for the third time since being at site, and am now in Tongatapu being treated. But getting here was not easy. Yesterday I woke up and my tonsils were a little swollen and painful and I maybe had a little fever, but I went to my teachers meeting, and after that I went hiking with another PCV (Ashley), my neighbor Tevita, a couchsurfer, and Arisa, the dive instructor. I almost didn't go, but it was a beautiful day, I hadn't been on this hike in a while, and I love showing new people around the island. Ashley and I were the only ones who had been on this hike before, and it's about an eight-mile loop that would take us to two caves, two lookout points over the rain forest, and a giant banyan tree. It was a great day, a great hike in great company even though I wasn't feeling one-hundred percent. When we finished, we were on the opposite side of the island from my house, and I had planned on staying at Ashley's house last night so I didn't have to walk the additional two and a half miles home. Ashley was tou'a-ing (serving kava) that night in another village, so she just left me with her house keys. I took a nice bucket bath and started watching a movie on Ashley's computer. Almost immediately I started feeling crummy. I called the PC medical officer who told me to come in to Tongatapu today to see a doctor. Okay, that was good. But I started feeling worse and worse, I was feverish, I couldn't eat and could barely drink because my throat was so swollen. I decided I needed to go home, especially so I could get my house ready to leave today and get packed up. So I called my neighbor, Lupe, and she sent Tevita to come get me in her van. Ashley was still gone. Her door to her house is funny in that you cannot open or close it without a key from the inside or the outside. She had left me with the spare key, but when I went to open the door to get out, it didn't work. I slid the key under the door for Tevita to try it from the outside. Didn't work. Dang. By this time I was feeling REALLY crummy AND tired. After trying the key for ten minutes we concluded that it really just didn't work. At which point I pulled out my leatherman from my backpack and dismantled the doorknob. It worked. I was finally free from the house. Tevita and I reassembled the doorknob...and then were face with the problem of how to close the door. It won't close without a key. And I wasn't going to leave it unlocked. I had been trying to get a hold of Ashley, but predictably was unable to reach her (it's bad form to have your cell on while tou'a-ing) and you usually tou'a until one or two in the morning. I just wanted to get home. I was in tears by this point, which I mostly blame on the fever. I ended up calling another PCV on the island who has another spare key to her house, running to his house to get it, then coming back and locking up Ashley's house. I felt a wave of relief as I climbed back into the van to head home. Tevita turned the key. It wouldn't start. The engine was barely turning over. Cue more tears. Tevita gathered five Tongan boys to push the van until it was going fast enough that somehow it started. Okay, finally on my way home, but...as we passed the wharf I realized, with much despair, that all the flights off the island had been cancelled for today. I would have to take the boat, which leaves around five in the morning. I would have to be at the wharf around 4am. And the last seven boat rides I've taken between 'Eua and Tongatapu have found me hanging over the railing retching. Cue more tears. I wasn't even sure how I was going to be able to throw up considering my throat was nearly swollen shut. Does it get backed up? Would my head explode? No doubt it would be painful. By the time I made it home it was nearly midnight, I would have to be on the boat in four hours. I wasn't packed. My house was a disaster. I collapsed in my bed, thinking I would wake up early to pack and get my house ready, when I heard a knock at my door. It was my neighbor Lupe. She came in, sat on my bed, and rubbed baby oil on my throat for an hour and a half. Her sixteen-year-old son, Viliami got out of bed and came and washed my dishes and cleaned up my table. Tevita stayed up and fixed Lupe's van so that I could get to the wharf in the morning and catch the boat. I tried to tell Viliami that he didn't have to wash my dishes, but it was no use. Finally I just relaxed and closed my eyes and let Lupe rub my throat. It felt really really nice.

I woke up this morning not feeling any better and not having slept much or well. Luckily, the boat ride in was as smooth as it's ever been when I've been on it, and I was actually able to sleep a little. I did not throw up. The PC medical officer saw me, got me some medicine and went and got me some soup (on her day off). She is also putting in the paperwork to DC (again) to get my tonsils removed. I'm crossing my fingers they approve this time, because being sick here really stinks.

Once again I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support from the Tongans surrounding me. They don't have much in terms of material things, but whatever they have they share. Even more than that, however, is how giving they are of themselves and their time. They're never too busy, too tired, or too self-involved to help someone, and that doesn't just go for me, it goes for anyone who needs help with anything, ever.

On a different note, class 5/6 took their exams two weeks ago, which means no more night school (And early morning school and Saturday school)! It also means from here on out school winds down pretty quickly. After their exams every day the village had a feast for the kids, and I gave my first impromptu fakamalo (thank-you speech) in front of the whole village. Everyone kinda smiled and nodded, and I thought it went pretty well, then the lady that went after me stood up and explained to everyone what I had been TRYING to say. Haha, oh well, they seemed to appreciate that I tried.

The weather's warming up finally, and the village and island seem to be coming to life again; the youth are more active, people are out of their houses more, and there's just more going on. I decided that I wanted to build a fale-Tonga (Tongan hut) and so the past two weeks I have been working on that with the help of my neighbors. It is nearly finished, the only thing left to do is weave all the coconut fronds for the roof and sides. When the new group of trainees goes through attachment, I will have three of them come stay at my house, which is too small for four people, so I will sleep in the fale. Also when my family comes I will sleep in the fale because (like I mentioned above) culturally it's not appropriate for me to sleep under the same roof as my brother. Also, now that it's warming up, it'll be a nice place to hang out and read a book as it will be cooler than my house.

Speaking of books, I've read a couple really good ones recently: Ishmael and Papillion. Ishmael I think should be required reading for human beings; it makes you look at things from an entirely different perspective. It's a little abstract, and I had to read it slowly to process it, but it was well worth it. Papillion, on the other hand, is a terrific story terrifically told. It's a true story of a guy who unjustly got sentenced to life in prison and how he finally escaped after many failed attempts. I highly recommend both books if anyone is looking for something to read next.

Tsunamis, swim lessons, and scuba certifications (how's that for some alliteration?)

2009-10-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

Tevita juggling
Class 5/6 one night after poako
I was cleaning my house and found a molokau, which Tevita captured, then proceeded to de-fang and play with (must be a guy thing?)
I was cleaning my house and got distracted and decided to practice juggling...

I've received a lot of e-mails, facebook posts, and even a few phone calls inquiring as to my safety after the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. I want to let everyone know that I am all right, my island was basically unaffected by the tsunami. Also I live on the highest coral island in the South Pacific, so I feel pretty safe here in terms of tsunamis.

I spent the last week in Tongatapu (a main island) for a week of training on how the incoming group of Peace Corps Trainees should be trained. A few days before I got there I was contacted with an opportunity to teach swim lessons while there to women who don't know how to swim. Many Tongans, despite their inevitable proximity to the ocean, have never learned to swim. This was an issue that was thrust into national attention after the Princess Ashika boat tragedy in which every woman aboard perished. Last I heard it was illegal to talk about in public- so enough of that, eh? Okay, one more thing, it has been interesting to note the different approaches that the governement has taken in dealing with the Princess Ashika tragedy and the recent tsunami which killed 9 people in Niua Toputapu. They seem a lot more sympathetic and proactive towards the tsunami situation, whereas with the boat sinking they seemed to spend more time and effort denying any responsibility or even trying to avoid the subject all together. Okay, that's it, really.

When I got into Tongatapu on Friday, I met with a representative from the Red Cross to solidify the plans for lessons the next week. As it turns out, not many plans had been made. We didn't have a place to do the lessons, and when I asked what her goals for the lessons were, she explained to me that she wanted to teach the women life-saving techniques, and how they can help other people who are in trouble in the water. "Huh. It was my understanding that these women don't know how to swim...?" I asked. "Oh, no, they don't." She replied, matter-of-factly. "Um...do you think that might be our first step...?" I suggested. She thought about it, then agreed that we probably ought to teach these women to swim before we teach them to save others in the water. With that cleared up we set about figuring out where we were going to hold these swim lessons. There is one swimming pool in Tonga that we had contacted, but they wanted to charge us $50 a day to use it. We decided on trying the Navy base, even though it is a deep wharf, but it is protected and close by. Well, come Monday morning we still hadn't confirmed that we would be able to swim at the navy base, but at about 10:30 it came through that they would allow us use of the wharf area. That was a relief, but I still wasn't sure anyone was going to show up.

As it turns out, we had plenty of people show up- they were all fifteen minutes late (which was difficult because I was trying to fit the lessons in during the lunch break of our training sessions), but we had 14 women show up. I introduced myself, and talked a little about what we wanted to accomplish that week. The women all seemed on board...until it was time to get in the water. Apparantly they hadn't been expecting to have to get in the water, and that was a deal-breaker for some. As it turns out, the lady from the Red Cross had made all the Red Cross workers come, and most really didn't want to be there. As it was, we got nine in the water that first day, and we actually ahd a really good first lesson. I was optimistic about the week. Tuesday rolls around and at the lunch break I rush to the Navy base...and no one showed up. Not one person! We called the Red Cross, and they said since it had rained at 9am that morning they couldn't make it. Another lady had a stomachache. Wednesday I had three: Lavinia (a Peace Corps program manager) a doctor from an outer island and her daughter. Lavinia and the doctor didn't know how to swim at all, they started out in their life jackets, while the daughter (she was about my age) was already a pretty proficient swimmer. By the end of Wednesday, the doctor had a breakthrough and swam across the entire wharf without her life jacket. She was pretty athletic and once she had the confidence she took off. By Friday, Lavinia was also swimming without her life jacket and able to float and tread water. So it turned out t be successful, at least for those two, and we had a good time with it. I think it's a really important skill to have, especially in Tonga, and hopefully I can do it again and plan a little better next time.

A scuba dive business just came out to 'Eua, and they run scuba dive certification course, so a few of the other PCV's and I decided that this would be a great opportunity to get scuba certified. Our certification course starts on Saturday, and we're all pretty excited about it. We received our books last week and were instructed to read them and answer the questions at the end of the chapter. One night I was sitting on my steps reading my manual when my class 5/6 kids came for night school. They saw a new book in my hands and their eyes lit up. I let them look at it and explained that I would be diving on Saturday. When they heard this a few of them started frowning, then one boy blurted out, "But you're going to die!" The rest quickly agreed, that yes, I would defnitely die if I tried to do that. One boy suggested I would be eaten by a whale. (I've been seeing whales on a daily basis the past month) They went as far as to tell me not to go. I assured them that I was NOT going to die, and that I had already paid for the course and was definitely going. They looked at each other, then one boy turned to me and said, "Well, can I have Tahi (my dog)?" They proceeded to argue amongst themselves about who would get what when I died as I sat there staring, mouth agape. Finally I said, "I AM NOT GOING TO DIE! Time to start class, let's go."

After night school that night my neighbor Elizabeth came over to get help with her homework and saw my dive manual sitting on the table. As she flipped through it I told her I was going to do that this weekend. She looked at me, then back at the book, then up at me and said, "But you're going to die!" "I AM NOT GOING TO DIE!!!" I replied, as calmly as possible, which was not very. She was quiet for a while, then said, "Well, when your family comes in December I'll make sure to take them to the place where you died so they can see where you died." I assured her again that I really, really wasn't going to die. She remained unconvinced. So, if I DO die this weekend while scuba diving all these kids are going to look pretty prophetic, eh?

I have a little problem that I don't know if anyone can help me with. It's about my dog. The neighbor's dog had puppies, and several times now I have seen Tahi drinking this other dog's milk. Is that normal? Should I try to stop this, or just let nature run it's course? In my defense, I am feeding Tahi plenty, he's probably the fattest dog on the island (not saying much).

As far as day-to-day things, school is almost finished, the class six exam is next week. School doesn't ACTUALLY let out until December, but after the class 6 exam, things wind down pretty quickly. By that I mean, the kids come to school and play cards all day. After the class 6 exam there will be no more poako (night school), so I'm kinda looking forward to that. It's warming up here, which I'm really excited about, but that also means probably a return of the rats in force. There've only been one or two a night lately :) The new training group arrives in less than a week, and I will be heading to Ha'apai to help with their technical training. I'm pretty excited about that, Ha'apai is pretty much a perfect opposite of 'Eua. Whereas 'Eua is covered by rainforest and perfect for hiking and exploring, Ha'apai is the place to go for pristine beaches and snorkeling. I'm hoping to get out scuba diving while I'm there (If I don't die first). So a few things to look forward to :)

Live Music and Soccer

2009-09-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

Lia getting down with the girls Dinner is served

Lopeti and Heather are still feeling each other out

Pita and Arisa dancing

Ashley getting down at the dance party Pita taking it away on the drums

Jordi, Lopeti and Siale

I'm skipping the "It's Tonga Moments" segment for this installment due to lack of good material. Sorry.

In other news, another couchsurfer came to 'Eua last week. His name is Jordi, he came from Spain and had been living in New Zealand for a year. I met him at the wharf and was (pleasantly) surprised to receive the greeting of a kiss on each cheek. Of course the wharf is a bustle of activity when a boat comes in, so everyone there saw and reported the "scandal" to their respective villages. I still get asked about my "moa" (boyfriend) walking down the road. There are three ways to respond to this, you can say, "What? I don't have any chickens" As the word for chicken is also "moa." Or you can say, "Which one?" which never gets old. The third option is to lie, deny, and counter-accuse. Someone told me this strategy during training, and I think it should be included in the formal training curriculum. Your relationship status here is always a hot topic of discussion, and usually comes up within five minutes of meeting someone new. They need to know if you have a Tongan boyfriend, want a Tongan boyfriend and if you will get married here in Tonga. After all, (according to Tongans) I'm getting pretty old not to be married yet. So when I am seen talking to (or REALLY risque- WALKING with!) someone of the opposite sex, I get harassed about it for weeks. I get asked how my boyfriend is by people I don't even know. Last week I went on an early morning jog with one of my neighbors and we came back into the village right as the morning church service let out. That was a pretty awful walk of shame. The only thing worse would have been if it had been on Sunday, because then it would have been illegal too! My neighbor didn't seem to think it was a problem, and it is clear that that universal double standard exists here in Tonga too, where because he's a guy he'll get props from all the other guys about going on an early morning jog with me, whereas I will be seen as the village hussy. Part of me thinks it's crazy to be embarrassed about something as innocent as jogging with a friend, but I know how the people in my village see it and how they will report it to others. It's kind of a bummer about living here.

Back to Jordi. He seemed like a really neat guy and joined us for our weekly palangi tea meeting. He didn't seem too into hiking, which is about all there is to do on 'Eua, so I invited him and everyone else over to my house the following evening for dinner and soccer with my students. I've been playing soccer with class 5/6 in the afternoons before night school, and Jordi had mentioned that he's a soccer player so I thought it would be fun for him to get to hang out with Tongans and I knew my kids would be thrilled. The next afternoon I made a huge batch of tortillas, Ashley brought over some beans and fresh veggies, and we made chicken burritos. Heather brought homemade salsa, Arisa (a Japanese dive instructor living on the island) brought some homemade sushi, and Lia brought ice cream. Jordi and I got a big game of soccer going with the kids which was a lot of fun. When I play with them I usually don't enforce rules, but Jordi tried hard to teach them all the rules and how spreading out would be more effective than everyone chasing the ball. After a while I think he realized that his attempts were futile.

After soccer he spotted my guitar in my house and asked if he could play a little. I gladly let him have a play on the guitar, which before long turned into a big outdoor concert, complete with barefoot dancing and some of my boys breaking the sticks that make my fence to use as drumsticks. My fence suffered, but it was well worth it. Jordi is an extremely talented musician, singing songs in both English and Spanish. The kids were ecstatic, and they are still talking about Jordi, asking when he will return and where Spain is. It was one of the more fun nights we've had here in 'Eua.

There's a boy in class 5, his name is Sunia, and I adore him. He is the smallest kid in the class, and just a genuinely sweet kid. I've talked quite a bit before about the teachers hitting the kids in class, but one thing I may not have mentioned is that the kids also hit each other a LOT, and this is perfectly acceptable during class, playtime, and whenever. It seems like after kids reach the point where they're kids and not babies anymore, they're pretty much raised by the older kids in the village and their siblings. These older kids discipline the younger ones by hitting them, because that's exactly how they were raised. When a kid is not paying attention in class, the teacher tends to ignore it to a certain extent and the kid will get smacked upside the head by another kid for not paying attention. One interesting thing is that this never escalates into a fight, and the kids don't get mad or hurt very often from being hit by one of their classmates. Anyway, the point is the kids hit each other quite a lot here, and I don't like it much. I tell them that when I am teaching their class, I don't want them to hit each other. Unfortunately it is pretty much instinctual by now for them to hit each other, so they slip up quite often. When they do, I ask them to apologize to their friend which they always do. Well, one day I was playing soccer with the kids before night school, and Sunia jumps over my fence. As he's doing this his tupenu (man skirt) flies open briefly. No one saw anything, but another student, Pita begins to give him a hard time about it. pita is the biggest kid in the class, and I wouldn't call him a bully, but he does have a tendency to give other kids a hard time sometimes. Pita continues on teasing Sunia, and I watch as Sunia walks over to Pita, gives me an apologetic glance, then says, "Sorry, Pita." And just DECKS him. I tried hard not to laugh, Pita had it coming, and Sunia didn't hurt him. When I composed myself, I thanked Sunia for apologizing to Pita, but told him that usually apologies come AFTER you do something wrong and not before, and that maybe you're not REALLY sorry if you apologize then decide to do it anyway.

One of the things I've noticed here as my grip on the Tongan language has gotten better is that sometimes it is difficult to express yourself in Tongan due to a lack of adjectives that can describe how you feel. I was listening to the radio with a my neighbor yesterday, and we couldn't find a station that was playing music, they were all just talking. I go, "Well, that's annoying." Then I try to think of what annoying is in Tongan, and my neighbor doesn't know, so I look it up in my dictionary. It's not there, so I look up irritate, which is in the dictionary, but the Tongan word for "irritate" is the same as the Tongan word for "mad." Huh, I tell my neighbor, well, no, I'm not mad exactly....that's not the right word for it. He tells me then I am either lotomamahi (sad) or faka'ita (like mad). Well, no, not exactly, I tell him.

This situation got me to thinking about how many ways there are to express discontent in English. You can be mad, but you can also be irritated, upset, annoyed, bothered, perturbed, and countless other adjectives that all mean something a bit different. In Tongan you are mad, sad, or like-mad. Another distinction that is seen as fairly important in English is the difference between "want" and "need." They mean two very different things to us, but in Tongan, the same word covers both- fiema'u. this can be really frustrating when you're trying to tell someone you NEED something, but you know it can be interpreted as you want that thing, or, the more likely scenario, you're trying to tell someone that you want to do something that is not a pressing need, but it will be attended to as a pressing need for you.

This lingual difference again got me thinking about what that says about our respective different cultures. In English, it is important for us to tell others how we feel in a very specific manner, but here in Tonga, personal feelings don't hold much value. Especially if that feeling is anger. The Tongan way of dealing with anger towards someone else is to do it very indirectly. Take the generic scenario of living with a roommate who is a sloppy. In America, we would tell that roommate, "Hey, slob, pick up after yourself." Well, in Tonga, that situation would be handled very differently. The offended party would tell the other roommates, the neighbors, the landlord, and the household pet about her irritation with the expectation that it would get back to the offending party, and it would, because talking and gossipping is a big part of the culture here (Gossipping tends to have a bad connotation to most westerners, but it is not seen as a bad thing here at all). Once the offending part heard that the roommate was upset with the mess, she would clean up, and not a word about it would ever be exchanged between the person that was upset and the sloppy roommate. Another thing I noticed right when I got to Tonga that Tongans start most of their sentences with "Mahalo pe," which means maybe. They usually use this when they are stating a personal opinion, which leaves room for everyone else in the discussion to respectfully disagree without causing confrontation. They also always pose suggestions as maybes, as in, "Maybe it's too sunny for you to walk to Mata'aho today."

This culture of indirectness can be frustrating at first, like when you hear through other people that the neighbor is upset with you because your dog has been chasing her pigs (purely hypothetical...i wish). Or like the time when I went to school thinking it had started an hour late and asked the principal why school had started late which was answered with a sincere and profuse apology from the principal, only to find out later that school had in fact started right on time, it was I who was an hour off.

So why all the indirectness and avoidance of confrontation? Well, Tonga is a really small country (~100,000 people) and most people live in small villages where all their neighbors are their relatives and lots of people live in each household. They can't afford to argue because it could tear a family, or even an entire village apart. The culture here is far more people-centered, and a high value is placed on interpersonal relationships, and Tongans take really good care of their relationships. So, while it can be frustrating, and sometimes seem unusual, there is a sort of virtue in being indirect, gossiping, beating around the bush and sometimes even lying.

Tetris!

2009-08-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

Windy day
Climbing on the cliffs
The wind was in my eyes.

It's Tonga Moments:

- I was teaching night school, in the middle of a good class, when all the sudden there was a commotion outside. The kids jumped up to look out the window, said something in Tongan I didn't quite catch, then every last one of them took off out the door, leaving me standing at the chalkboard mid-sentence. "Well," I thought "THAT'S never happened before." I follow the kids outside, and find them all chasing after a cow which had wandered into the schoolyard. After a ten-minute intense cow-hunt, the cow was back across the street where she belonged, and the kids came back to the classroom and resumed their work.

- I've been working on a story writing unit with my class 5/6, and last week I was reading them beginnings of stories and having them write their own endings. The stories I got said a lot about Tongan culture:
- One story was about Duke, a dog who got in trouble for digging up the neighbors garden and the town. I had three kids write that at the end of the story Duke was killed, cooked in an umu (underground oven) and eaten.
-Another story was about Froggy, whose mother was trying to teach him how to swim. Two kids wrote that Froggy just couldn't figure out how to swim, so his Mom took him home and beat him.

-Whenever I cook I tend to have leftovers because it's tough to cook for one person, and occasionally I will give my leftovers to the Class 5/6 kids who have come early to poako (night school). Usually they really enjoy whatever I give them (french toast, pasta, curry, etc.). Well, this night there had been tofu at one of the chinese falekaloas (shops) which is rare, so I bought some and made a stir fry with some veggies, eggplant, and seasoning I got from ramen noodle packets. It was pretty tasty. I took the leftovers out to the kids and they dug in eagerly. Then they got these strange looks on their faces. I asked if they liked it. "Yes, yes, delicious- here you go we don't want anymore, we're very full." Haha, they have NEVER handed my back a plate with food still on it. So tofu is a no-go here. Oh well.

Like I mentioned above, I have been working on story-writing with class 5/6. This has been difficult for everyone involved, because creativity is not something that is practiced or even really accepted in Tongan schools. Unfortunately story-writing is a big part of their exam at the end of the year. The first story they turned into me was a story they wrote about a picture I had cut out of a magazine. Each student had a different picture to write about. We had been working on story writing together for about a week at this point. I have nine students in this class now, and I got nine papers that started "It's was a beautiful day and it blew from the West." I looked at the papers and scratched my head, then asked them who had told them all to write that. Well, their teacher had of course. After reading through the stories I realized they all ended the exact same way as well: "That day he learned an important lesson." Doesn't matter if the story was about a girl, or that she really didn't learn anything at all, every story ended that way. It was especially frustrating because I couldn't exactly tell them NOT to do that without undermining their teacher.

One of my main frustrations with education here in Tonga is that the kids aren't EVER expected to think for themselves, to be creative, to find a solution to a problem. All "learning" here is rote memorization, chanting in unison, and copying off a blackboard. When I ask them to come up with a unique answer they STARE at me as if I'm from another planet. All their lives they have been given the answers and expected to copy them into their notebooks and memorize them, and believe me, they are REALLY good at memorizing. When it comes to writing a story from their imagination, they are lost. It's like pulling teeth. They are sure there is a right and a wrong answer, and sure that they have the wrong answer. It doesn't help that they are used to teachers hitting them if they get the wrong answer. It makes me want to pull my hair out, but we're working on it, although this unit is taking far longer than I had planned.

I feel like I've actually been making a lot of progress with the kids, especially in class 3/4. Unfortunately the class 3/4 teacher hasn't been helping much. When you ask any kid in tonga how they are doing, they will invariably switch on their robot voice and say, "I am fine thank you how are you." It drives me crazy, so one of the first things I did with my students was to teach them different words to describe how they are doing. Now every morning we sit in a circle and I ask the students how they are, and I hear 19 different responses, it's great. At first they just stared at me. Well, last week the class 3/4 teacher came in and decided to join our discussion circle and proceeded to ridicule the kids if they said something wrong. You could see them regressing back into wanting to say "I am fine thank you how are you." It was frustrating. Later that week I did an art project with them and she went around taking kids projects and saying, "Ugly, ugly, REALLY ugly." I just wanted to send her far faraway.

In other news, I met up with a couple of couch surfers ( an online organization connecting travelers worldwide) last week and we went for a hike to Fangatave beach. One of my neighbors, Tevita came along because he wanted to go fishing. We were lucky for a beautiful day, and when we got to the beach, Tevita and I went out in the ocean and had a kai tahi, which basically means you go out and pick up anything alive out of the sea and eat it all raw. Mostly shellfish. The couchsurfers were pretty good about trying everything, and most people find if they just TRY it, they usually like it. Once you get past the texture most of it is pretty good and considered a delicacy here. Fangatave is a beach that not many Tongans get out to, so everything is plentiful and ripe for the picking. While we were out picking stuff off rocks, the whales swam by. We heard them at first, their spouts, then we saw them. They were playing maybe 200 yards off the coast, and we stood there and watched them for ten or fifteen minutes before they moved on. That was pretty neat. We were hoping to see them from the cliffs above the beach, but we had no such luck.

I also went to the cliffs on the Southern end of the island last week, which was a place I hadn't yet been. One of the PCV's had a birthday last week, and she decided she wanted to go to Lakufa'anga for her birthday, so after school Friday we all got together and headed down there. It was beautiful, there were wild horses on the cliffs and we were able to climb down a little and do some exploring as well which was fun.

So last week I broke down and bought a new cell phone from the bookshop on the island. "Did my cell phone break?" you ask? Well, no. Truth be told...I bought it for the games. It has Tetris! I know, it sounds silly, but really, since buying it my quality of life has improved, and that's what's important. I chose not to bring a computer, personal DVD player, or really much at all for that matter with me to Tonga. My iPod speakers just broke, my shortwave radio is busted, and I was finding myself sitting around after night school, just waiting for 9 o'clock to roll around so I could go to bed. The dishes were done, I had pretty much planned for school through the end of the school year, I've read all my books a few times over. I filled an entire journal. So I bought this cell phone, it cost me $30, and I think it will be well worth the investment.

The library project has been stalled for the past month or so, the grant we are applying for was put on hold because money hadn't been allocated to the fund yet, but I just got news today that the money came through and they are accepting applications! Our application has been completed, but not without a little frustration of course. I am working with the class 5/6 teacher on this library project, and he had agreed to get letters of support from the town officer, the head of the PTA, and a few other key people. A few days later he came to me with all of the completed letters. I was very impressed with the speediness with which he was able to get the letters. I read the first one. It was great! It had everything in it we needed to say and it was even in English so we didn't have to translate. I looked at the second one. Wait a second...it was the same letter, word for word, but signed by a different person. As were the rest of the letters. "Tu'amelie, " I said "who wrote this letter?" He said that he had written the letter and just gone around and gotten signatures. "Um...I can't send these in." I told him. He didn't understand. I tried to explain that the letters of support should actually be written by the town officer, the ministry of education, the principal, and the PTA. I told him our application would be far stronger that way, and that it was all right to help them with the letter, but not to send in the same letter from all these different people. He didn't understand, he thought I was being too particular (which I certainly can be sometimes), but he finally agreed to get seperate letters from everyone. A few weeks later I got all the letters, and they were all at least different. I found out later that the letter from the ministry of education was actually written by a teacher at another school who likes to try to practice her English, but I let it go. The application will be sent off tomorrow, and we're hoping to hear back within the next month or so about whether we will get funding or not.

I had a great night last week. Well, by Tonga standards anyway. I woke up (fully clothed, knew where I was)...and found that I had caught TWO rats in one night in my kitchen. Doesn't get much better than that (here). I did a rat dance.

Tragedy in Tonga

2009-08-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

As many of you have already heard, a ferry traveling to Vava'u capsized and sank last week. Last I heard, 96 people are still missing, assumed dead. There were no Peace Corps Volunteers on the boat, nor was there anyone I knew personally, however Tongans have so many relatives and are so interconnected that everone seems to have known or been related to someone on the boat. It's very tragic, but somehow I feel like no one is very surprised by it. I have heard many things, including that this is not the first, or even the second boat to go down in that area. It was reported that the boat was not deemed seaworthy by safety officials, but put into use anyway. It was also reported that the King left for a vacation the day after it happened and has not yet released a statement about it. I know that Tongans are very upset with the King and the government and the way this is being handled and the fact that it happened in the first place. It is illegal to speak or print publicly anything criticizing the King or the government, and it is something that is just never done, but since this has happened, I have heard a lot of negative things coming from Tongans which is interesting. Anyway, just a little insight as to how Tongans are handling the situation here. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

"It's Tonga" Moments:

- I wanted to buy milk from the agricultural farm/college across from my village, but I can never seem to catch the milk truck as it goes out in the morning. My theory is that this is because it never goes out at the same time every morning. In pre-service training we are taught to vary our routines every so often so as to be "unpredictable", and someone must also have told this to the guys at the agricultural college because they follow this advice strictly, much to my frustration. Or they just go out whenever they wake up. But my guess is the former. I digress. So I can never catch the milk truck as it goes out, so I gave my class 5/6 students a few bucks and my pot for the milk and asked THEM to try and catch the milk truck as it went out. (Tongans just seem to instinctively know these things- when the milk truck will go out, when church will start, when the boat will leave/come in-whereas I have been programmed to assume that they happen on a schedule, which I think is my downfall, I have to let go of that idea, get past that mental block.) Anyway, sure enough, my kids show up on my doorstep the next morning with a pot full of milk.
"So when did the truck go out this morning?" I ask the kids.
"It didn't, Sameu didn't wake up this morning to deliver the milk, so we just went and milked a cow." One boy said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Really? Huh. Thanks. Now come wash your hands."

-I went to Tongatapu last week to see a doctor because I've been a little sick lately (fine now) and told my students that I would miss Friday because I would be in Tongatapu. Thursday evening, the entire class (8 students) showed up on my doorstep, telling me that they had decided to come have a prayer for me since I was going to Tongatapu. It was very sweet, they sang a hymn and had a group prayer for me.

-After the prayer they hung around and looked at my magazines that I had recently recieved in the mail. There were a few mountain bike magazines, an Alaska magazine, and a People magazine. One boy looking at the mountain biking magazine seemed to be deeply confused by something, so I asked him, "Lopeti, what's up?" He showed me the picture he was looking at of a guy hucking himself off a 15-ft. cliff on his mountain bike, where there was obviously a path down that didn't involve leaving the ground with the bike. He couldn't figure out why the guy didn't go around. I tried explaining that some people think it's fun to throw themselves off cliffs on their bikes, but that's a pretty tough concept to explain, and when I had finished, I could tell he still couldn't quite wrap his head around it. I like looking at situations like that, where I do something Tongans find extremely weird or don't understand or where they do something I find weird and don't understand, and thinking about what it says about our respective cultures that we come from and were raised in.

-On my way back from Tongatapu I took my usual place on top of the boat above the wheelhouse. Fifteen minutes into the three-hour boat ride it became clear that I would have to pack up and sit inside the boat. I usually sit on top for the freash air and the view, but it was extremely rough and I was soaked before we even left the protected cove of islands and made it into the open sea. So I go inside the boat and in the middle there's a whole bunch of Tongans sprawled out on mats sleeping. They are wearing black, so I assume they are either going to or coming from a funeral. That assumption was correct. In my defense, none of them looked particularly alive at any point on the trip, and I spent much of the boat ride hanging over the edge of the boat puking or sitting in my seat with head in my hands thinking about puking and not falling out of my seat. It wasn't until we made it to 'Eua and were getting off the boat and I saw a van, with all it's seats and the back hatch door removed, covered in woven mats but empty, that I realized that the (dead) body had been on the boat. And not just on the boat, but lying with the Tongans in the middle, not five feet from my seat. A large part of me is glad I didn't realize this before or during the boat ride, as that would have raised numerous concerns (mainly about how it (?) would stay in place, while I was having trouble holding onto my seat) and (if possible) more nausea.

I think have the coolest dog ever. He does this relly awesome trick and I didn't even have to teach him. I have lots of wild chickens and roosters in my yard (which is also the schoolyard). One day I was sitting in my open doorway reading a book when Tahi came up to me with something in his mouth, clearly pleased with himself. As he came closer I realized it was an egg. Fully intact. Since then he has been bringing me eggs a few times a week. He never breaks one. It sure beats silly dog tricks like rolling over!

But on a different note, Tahi ahs also been causing some headaches. Yesterday he chased and killed a neighbors chicken, which is a big faux pas around here. It could have been worse, it could have been one of their pigs (which he's gone after before, but enver killed), but still, I don't think they were pleased, not that they'd ever tell me if they were pissed off, but I could kinda tell. So Tahi bought himself a ticket to get snipped pronto, hopefully that will take care of the problem, because if not, we're in trouble...

Beach cleanup/ tourists/ whales

2009-07-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

Feasting after the cleanup
The boys taking a rest with some coconuts
Some of the group

Pasa and Heather weaving baskets to collect trash
Paea digging a "burn hole" for the trash we collected
Taniela, Tevita and I collecting rubbish
Making the umu
From camping last month

It's Tonga Moments:
- My neighbor Tevita (25 yr. old male) came by yesterday with lipstick on. Bright red lipstick. It was applied sloppily.
I looked at him confused, and asked, "Um...Tevita, are you wearing lipstick?"
"yes" He replied.
"Um....why?"
"Because my lips are dry."
"But....lipstick is for girls"
"I know, but my lips were dry" He said this as though I was crazy to be disturbed by him wearing lipstick. I made him wipe off the lipstick and gave him some chapstick.

-I went to buy a tray of eggs from the agricultural college last week for the first time (usually I just buy them a few at a time from the falekaloas) and the guy gave it to me for $2 off AND took out all the small ones and replaces them with big ones. I could look through the screen window and see the hundreds of chickens in their coops, and it's kind of a nice feeling to know exactly where your food comes from. Most of the time, sometimes it's better not to know. But I mean it is nice to know that the food hasn't been fortified or preserved or artificially colored. Anyway.

I think I mentioned in my last post about camping on the beach then spending the next morning trying to clean it up, but not being able to finish the job because there was too much trash and it started raining. Well, last week we ended up organizing a bunch of the Tongan youth from our villages to come out and help us, which ended up being a huge success. We talked about it at tea Wednesday, and decided to try to pull something together for Friday. Putting something together two days in advance is very Faka-Tonga (like Tonga; Tonga-esque). So we each went back to our villages and gathered as many youth as we could to come out with us. I gotta say, my village really pulled through; there were 9 people from my village and like five from all the other villages combined! We bought food to cook in an umu (underground oven) on the beach, then set off on our way.

One of the really cool things about the day was that none of the Tongans had ever been to this beach and it is one of the most beautiful places on the island. They just didn't know about it. The hike is a lot of fun, you walk along a cliff overlooking the ocean, then you have to climb down the cliff to the beach, and it was especially fun because we were trying to do it carrying shovels and food. Also, on the hike, the a few of the boys disappeared into the bush for a few minutes and came out carrying a few huge kape (root crop- not sure if there is an English translation) which we lugged down the cliff and cooked up in the umu.

One we made it to the beach we talked quickly about what the plan was then set off. Most of us walked up and down the beach, hauling the rubbish to a central location to be burned. Some wove baskets out of palm fronds to carry trash in, and a few worked on digging the umu (underground oven) and preparing the food. We worked hard for about two and a half hours, then it was time to play. I had brought a frisbee and football which we were tossing around on the beach. Then Ashley and I came up with the bright idea to teach them American football, which quickly turned into wrestlemania as soon as the ball was snapped. We didn't get far teaching them football, but yy the time we decided to go open up the umu and eat, my stomach hurt from laughing so much.

By the time the food was done, everyone was pretty well worn out. The food out of the umu was delicious, everyone chowed down, then it was time to head home. It was a really successful day, and everyone had a great time. We're hoping to do it again about once a month at different beaches on the island.

The next week, Jason- a business volunteer on the island, had a project with the tourism industry on 'Eua which all the Peace Corps attended as support to him. Basically all the guest houses on the island (2.5 really) worked together to do a cultural day for the tourists who were staying in their guest houses where they get to help prepare a Tongan feast and participate in everything Faka-Tonga. The tourists were able to participate in a traditional kava ceremony, learn how to weave baskets from palm fronds, husk coconuts, make coconut cream from the coconuts, and prepare a Tongan feast from start to finish. And by start, I mean, we rode out there in the back of a pickup truck with a live pig, which ended up being cooked over the spit. That was a little traumatic for some of the tourists I think. One actually commented, "Well, at least you know it's fresh!" Which I though was a really good attitude. But it was a fun and successful day overall, Jason's been doing some really awesome work with the tourism industry here in 'Eua, so it was a great day for him.

The next day I ended up doing the same thing all over again (preparing a Tongan feast) because my neightbors were having the faifekau (pastor) from the main village on the island over for dinner, so I helped them roast the pig and make 'ota ika (raw fish dish) and lu all day. And then the pastor didn't come, so we got to eat it too! Two days in a row of roasted pig is pretty lucky.

Whale season has officially begun! Whales have been spotted off the coast for the past week or so, and although I haven't seen them yet, I hear that soon they will be hard to miss. In fact, they say that I will be able to see them from the front steps of my house, which I'm pretty excited about. They come to Tonga every year to breed and they swim and play right off the shore.

School is coming along, we're getting close to the class 6 exam, which is a pretty big deal here, so class 5/6 has been working really hard, coming to school in the morning before school starts and in the evening after they eat dinner. Way too much if you ask me, but they don't complain. There are only seven students in class 5/6, and five of them will be moving on to high school next year which will be sad because they're a lot of fun. But then again, I'll see them every day after school I'm sure. Class 3/4 is my biggest class, and the class that I had a little trouble with at the beginning, and I have to say that now I look forward to seeing them every day; it is my favorite class to teach. They are superstars and are learning so quickly.

OH! I successfully made cottage cheese a few weeks ago, which was very exciting. I live across from the agricultural college (Lots of cows) and am able to get raw milk, which is really good for making cheese (which is unavailable on the island). I'm looking forward to trying other cheeses and yogurt once I can get into the main island and buy some yogurt to start it with.

Overall, life is good here, haven't had any rat issues lately, I think because it has been so cold (for Tonga- it's relative). I have no doubt that they will be back, and when they come I will be ready to stage an attack of epic proportions. I have had provisions sent, and while I don't want to give away all my secrets here, I'll just say that rats will be introduced to the power of electrcity and booby traps throughout my house. Muahahaha.

"Everyone needs a fakaleiti"- Krystal

2009-07-03T19:21:00.001-07:00

Tahi looking guilty (above)
A cave on the beach (below)
Ahhhh
On the cliffs above the beach
We brought a pot to cook mussles and/or snails in

The group on the cliffs
Katie, me, Ashley
This one's from the hurricane actually, it flooded the yeard of the guesthouse we were staying at, but we had fun with it
In a cave

It's Tonga Moments of the Week:

-I attended an HIV/AIDS workshop that was held in my village. Because my village is so small, the workshop was just held in someone's living room. In the middle of the condom demonstration, I look up to see one of my class six boys sitting in the doorway, watching the whole thing. There are two more of my students (classes 2/3) looking in through the window. No one else seems bothered by this, and they sit in and watch the entire thing.

-I was sitting in my house with my neighbor Elizabeth last week and I asked her what she had done the day before. She told me that she had made tuitui with her Mom, Lupe. Not sure what that was, I asked. She ran next door and came back with a lumpy, paste-y mass and handed it to me. She instructed me to rub it all over my face. I was skeptical, but it smelled really good, so I figured why not? As I was rubbing it on my face (it felt great!) I asked her how she had made it. Again she ran next door, and this time returned with some roots and leaves. She peeled on of the roots and stuck it in her mouth, along with a few of the leaves. "oh, neat!" I thought, "it's edible too!" I went to taste some of the root, but Elizabeth stopped me with an alarmed look on her face. "Watch" she instructed. She finished chewing thoroughly, then spat the mashed up root and leaf into her hand and began to rub it on her face. My stomach sank, I couldn't breathe for a second. I looked at the lump in my hand, "Did you chew this?" I asked. "No!" she replied. I let out a sigh of relief. It was premature. "Lupe did!" I just started laughing, because what else can you do? Elizabeth joined in, but she didn't seem to understand what was funny, she was just being polite. After Elizabeth left, I washed my face. It did smell really good.

It's been a busy month here in Tonga; although the last two weeks have been school break, things haven't seemed to slow down at all. A couple of friends, Katie and Chad, came down from Vava'u (the northernmost island group in Tonga) and stayed with me a few days. While they were here we tried to stay on out feet as much as possible. We went hiking in the rain forest one day, then the next two days we went camping at my favorite beach, Fangatave. As it turns out, they are excellent cooks, so I got to eat really well for a couple days! One night we made veggie pasta, and another night we made fish tacos.

Camping was a lot of fun, in addition to Katie and Chad, there was a couchsurfer here from New York, a scuba dive instructor from Japan, another PCV from Ha'apai, and Ashley, Jason, and I. When night fell we went on a nighttime cave-exploration adventure which was neat, there are really neat caves to explore all over the island. The next day we all rallied and spent the morning cleaning up the beach, and made some really interesting finds. One time at the base of one of the cliffs Jason actually found a human jawbone, but nothing that interesting this time. We ended up with piles of rubbish all along the beach that we had planned on burning on our way out, but it turned out to be too wet to burn anything. So now there are piles of trash all along the beach which looks worse than when we got there and it was all spread out. We're trying to get something together where we work with the youth to get a beach cleanup program started, so hopefully more to come on that.

Katie and Chad took off back to Vava'u Monday morning, but the rest of us got together and had a little birthday dinner for my birthday. Jason made pizzas- a sea bass pizza, a fried egg pizza, and an eggplant and cabbage pizza. I'm usually a cheese and pepperoni-type gal, but it's been so long since I've had pizza, they were amazing! I hadn't really been too excited about my birthday here (I would have just as soon forgotten about it) and I definitely wasn't planning on doing much, but it turned out to be a great evening with everyone around. One of my neighbors also knew it was my birthday and brought me a cake, which was a nice surprise. So overall a really great birthday.

The next day I went horseback riding to the cliffs on the northern coast of 'Eua which was beautiful. Pretty soon the whales will be coming through and you can see them playing right off the coast, so everyone's looking forward to that. We are all planning on going out when the whales come and swimming with them which sounds pretty exhilarating. Ashley and I are considering investing in a horse to ride around the island for the rest of the time we're here, so we're asking around about that. We both think it would be worth it!

The week before school let out was especially busy, I tested all my kids on their progress so far, then had to write up report cards for all of them. I only have 37 students, but I had to write the reports in Tongan, which made it tough. The first week of break I still taught class 5/6 (they continued to have class in the mornings in preparation for their exams at the end of the year) since their regular teacher went to Tongatapu for a conference. It was pretty informal and fun, one day I took them on a walk to town with their notebooks and we wrote down all the things they didn't already know, such as: barbed wire, litter, fence, etc. and practiced using the words in sentences. It was fun. School starts again on Monday, which I'm actually looking forward to. After testing the kids I've identified a few things I really want to focus on and hit hard this next term, especially for the kids that will be taking the class 6 exam.

Things are going really well here; there are definitely bouts of missing home and those modern comforts which I used to take for granted like a hot shower, but just about every day I feel like I've lucked out getting to be here. I am learning new things on a daily basis, which I think is fun. Staying busy has been key, although that's not always the easiest thing to do around here! It's always exciting to hear news from family and friends, so shoot me an e-mail! Cheers!

Training in Tongatapu, staying busy

2009-06-03T01:50:00.000-07:00

"It's Tonga" story of the week:
- My counterpart didn't come to school one morning, one of the other teachers told me she was at the hospital. Unfortunately, she had the only room key with her. So how do we solve this problem? Dismantle the window of course. After taking the window off, a kid crawled through and opened the classroom. Problem solved.
- Later that day, I ran into the counterpart on the road and asked her if she was feeling better. She said she was, but she had a hole in her tooth. I asked her if they were able to fix it at the hospital or if she'd have to travel to Tongatapu to get it fixed. She told me they gave her antibiotics for it. I was confused, so I asked her what she was going to do about the tooth with a hole in it. She told me she tried to pull it out herself, but that didn't work, so she had to cut it off. Now I was really confused, and I think it must have showed on my face, because she opened her mouth and showed me the gaping, bloody hole where her tooth used to be. Up to this point, our conversation had been in Tongan, but I had to switch to English to sort this whole mess out. It didn't help. What I took from the conversation was that the tooth went bad, and she used scissors to cut it off. I'm pretty squeamish about teeth anyway, so I couldn't take the conversation much further than that. Make of it what you will. I'm just praying that I don't get any holes in my teeth while I'm here.

I've officially been serving as a Peace Corps volunteer six months! And I'm busy as ever, but really having a good time as well. Last week was the final week of the second term of the school year, so the high school kids were taking exams and got out of school early, and the primary school kids were generally getting out of school a little early as well. For night school one night I taught my class six students how to make pancakes at my house, and on Friday I had my high school girls in my village over for lunch and we spent the afternoon playing cards. I've found since being here that Tongans tend to play cards a little differently than Americans. When we play, we follow the rules strictly and the point is to win (and to have fun, but really to win, and it's only fun when everyone plays by the rules). When you play cards with a Tongan, the point is to cheat and goof off and not follow the rules and see hopw much cheating they can get away with. I don't get it, but every Tongan I've ever played with plays that way, and they even mentioned it in our training cross-cultural manual. I just didn't believe it when they said, "They point of playing cards in Tonga is not to win, it's to cheat." I now believe it, but still am trying to wrap my head around how that is fun. Like I said, I just don't understand the appeal of not even playing right, but I've learned to just go with it.

After school every day all the kids have been getting together to play kick the can, which sometimes I partake in or watch when I'm around. It's a lot of fun though, they call it "bunny" instead of "kick the can," and they use twenty old tin cans which they have to stack in a pyramid before the other team gets everyone out by pegging them with a flat basketball. This can be especially tricky because all the cans are rusted and bent and of different size. But it's a lot of fun, kids from class one all the way to the high school kids play all together.

The proposal and cost estimate for the library has been finished, and the project is still coming along swimmingly. Now a counterpart and I are working on filling out and sending of grant applications to get the money to build it. My village has volunteered to provide all the manual labor to build the library, and I think we want to let the kids paint it, so that all has helped cut the cost quite a bit. Still working on getting book, but overall the project is doing great!

I was brought into Tongatapu this week with one of my counterparts to complete a training workshop about conducting service projects with our students within our communities. It was a good workshop, and it was nice to make it into the main island again. While here, I went to a salsa dancing lesson put on by another volunteer, as well as a yoga class put on by another volunteer. I washed my clothes in a real washing machine, watched half a movie in the volunteer lounge, and drank real coffee at a coffeeshop. And...after three days here I'm defenitely ready to get back to 'Eua. I miss playing "bunny" and the sound of waves crashing against the shore lulling me to sleep every night. And I miss my puppy, Tahi. He's doing great; he's a really, really good dog. He's always gentle with the kids, even when they're not so gentle with him, and he loves cuddling in my hammock, but he's also really protective and gets all "tough" when strange dogs or people come around. Although this past week or so, he's started hanging out with a rough crowd of dogs around the neighborhood and chasing the neighbors pigs, which will get him eaten in these parts, so I have to get that situation under control.

I went hiking and camped on the beach last weekend, looks like that's probably on the slate for this weekend too since a couple of Austrailian volunteers are on their way out to 'Eua. That'll be a good time. I'll head back on the boat tomorrow, hopefully it will be a smotther ride that the boat we took coming in (there was a line of palangi's hanging over the edge of the boat puking for most of the ride).

Hopefully I'll be getting my camera back soon, and it'll be fixed, so pictures to come soon!
I started making a list of things that have broken since I've been here in Tonga, and realized that every single thing I brought that required battery or electricity is toast (good thing I didn't bring too much of that stuff) including my iPod, camera, fan, water boiler pitcher, and headlamp. Faka'ofa (pitiful). Good thing I like to read :)

I know it's getting to be summer back in the states, so here's hoping everyone is having a good start to their summers and warming up. It's "dry" season here, and actually getting really cold, at least on my island. No telling how cold, because no one has a thermometer, but I think it's really cold, and I am, after all, from Alaska, so that's saying something. Take care everyone!

Only in Tonga...

2009-05-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

As you can see, I added some things to my blog, a list of books I've read here, links to my friends' blogs, and some other things. I rated the books on a scale from 1-10, ten being really super and one being barely readable. So if you're looking for a good book to read, there are some pretty good ones on that list! I actually just finished this book, I Know This Much is True which was really excellent, I highly recommend it. I also recommend checking out Sarahs Faka-Fabulous blog; she posted a Peace Corps Tonga Top 25 list which explains a lot about life as a PCV in Tonga, it's pretty funny. Also the latest Mo'ui Nonga blog- kinda took the words right out of my mouth, I couldn't have said it better myself. Malo, Saskia :)

So last Thursday my phone broke; it just turned off and wouldn't turn back on. It was only then that I realized that my phone was the only way I had of telling the time. My iPod isn't set to the correct time, and my little alarm clock got broken when it was thrown at the walls in an attempt to scare off the rats in the middle of the night. So Friday I went to school when the bell rang. Then on Saturday I realized that my shortwave radio had the time on it. Great! I walked to the other end of my island Saturday, had dinner with a few other PCV's, and by the time I got back to my house it was 10 o'clock. I hadn't realized it was that late! Sunday I went to church when the bells rang, and didn't do much the rest of the day. Monday I woke up, checked the shortwave radio and realized it was almost 8:30, when school should start. I rushed to get ready, then looked out my window and saw that there weren't that many kids at school yet, which is strange. Also none of the teachers were there. I assumed there was a reson school was starting late that I hadn't been made aware of, because that wouldn't be unusual. By the time the principal showed up it was 9:30, and I asked her why school was starting late today. She looked confused for a second, then apologized profusely and explained that it was cold out that morning. Uh, okay. After school I tried turning my phone on, and it worked again! I set it to my shortwave radio time, and set off to go use the internet. After being on the internet for an hour, I realized that my phone and the time setting on the computer were an hour off. That got me thinking. Then I asked someone what time it was. It was then that I realized I was an hour ahead. Not only was I an hour ahead, but I had been an hour ahead for three days. That was a little disorienting. That got me to thinking about how long I could possibly go in America being an hour off on the time. I concluded that it would have to be no more than an hour before I would figure out my mistake. Even on Sunday, there would be football which starts at a specific time. All the other days I would go meet with friends, go to school, work, there was no way I could get through an hour thinking the time was an hour off from what it actually was.

Speaking of disorienting, I saw the big dipper the other night. It was upside down. Then I realized that I was the one that was upside down. Then I got dizzy and had to stop thinking about it.

The library is coming along swiftly, I took a trip to Tongatapu a few weeks ago where I met with the Ministry of Finance about funding the project and got information on some grants as well as some possible sources for donating books. When I got back I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the PTA had met about it, found a builder, and he should finish his plans and proposal withing the next week or so. Things usually don't happen this fast in Tonga, and I'm excited that the whole community is really supportive of the library and willing to work to get it done.

I had a great teacher moment today. When I first started teaching here I had a little trouble controlling class 3/4. Their teacher used corporal punishment almost exclusively as the form of classroom management, and when they realized I wasn't going to hit them they took advantage of that a little. A few months ago I had to start doing something different with them. Now every day instead of sitting at their desks where they tend to play with things and hit each other, we sit on the floor in a circle and have our lessons there. When they come to the floor or return to their desks, I tell them, "When I say go, please quickly and quietly return the desks to where they belong and take a seat. Go." At first I timed them to see how quickly they could do it, but now they are pretty expert at it, and having that routine with them has worked wonders. I have almost no classroom management issues anymore, and class runs much more efficiently. The icing on the cake was that when I walked into the classroom today, the calss 3/4 teacher had them sitting on the floor for that lesson and when she saw me walk in she asked them to quickly and quietly return to their seat so I could begin. They did so perfectly, and no one was hit. She smiled at me and told me I could begin now. My heart swelled with pride :)

A Week in the Life....

2009-04-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

Class 5/6 (above)
At a lookout with PCV Heather
Teaching

Climbing on a huge banyan tree
At one of the lookouts over the rainforest
Stopping for a snack
Tahi- good-looking dog, eh?

It has come to my attention that all my blogs to this point have been event-centered and don't necessarily represent what my life here is about. My experience here hasn't been ENTIRELY camping trips and boat rides :) To that end, I decided it was time to describe what a "typical" day is like for me.

But first, back by popular demand- It's Tonga Moments of the Week:

- Last week I set off on a hike with a few of the other PCV's. We came upon a huge road grader sitting alongside the road. It was running. It was even beeping, as if in reverse. The guy behind the wheel? Fast asleep. Sprawled out across the front seat, feet on the steering wheel. We kept walking.

- On our hike we ended up bushwhacking part of the way looking for a beach we had seen on our boat trip a few months ago. All of the sudden we stumbled upon a huge chest freezer. There were no real trails around it, and there was no way a truck could have gotten through...we all just kinda stopped and looked at it and scratched our heads.

- I got back from the hike and walked up to my house, where someone had left me a bunch (about 100) of bananas hanging from my roof (that's not unusual, they come off the tree in bunches of anywhere from 50-150, and you hang them from the roof to keep the bugs off them). I still haven't figured out who it was.

-The next day I open my door to find a horse skull in my yard...probably a dog dragged it there.

- I was getting a ride back to my village with one of my neighbors the other day, and as I was opening the sliding door to his van the entire thing fell off. Then he picked it up and tried to put the thing inside the van. That didn't work. Finally he got it back on enough to make it back to the village. Now they just don't open that door, they climb in and out through the windows, back hatch, or front seat.

-I was on my way to akome'a (practice of things- more on that later) when a truck pulled alongside me. Out the window popped a hand...with a huge, cooked lobster in it. The guy in the truck handed it to me and drove off. Yum.

-A kid had a fish bone stuck in his throat. To remedy this, they got another kids to start running in circles around him really fast. And it worked.

A day in the life:

Well, a typical weekday for me starts between 6:30 and 7 with a cup of instant coffee and a cold shower (no hot water). School starts at 8:30 (roughly) and I spend all morning teaching English to 40 elementary school students split into three classes. In Class 1/2 we are working hard on numbers, the alphabet, and colors. Class 3/4 we are working on sentence structure and parts of speech. In Class 5/6 we are working on story writing, reading comprehension, and getting them through the Class 6 exam, which is what determines which high school they will attend. With classes 3/4 and 5/6 we are working on conversational English as well.

Teaching here is quite different than teaching in America for lots of reasons. Some I've touched on in past postings, such as corporal punishment, but it's also very rewarding in many ways. There are only 40 kids in my school, so I get to know them really well. They of course, are also the kids in my village, so I pretty much am around them ALL the time. Luckily for me, they are really great kids, and I enjoy being around them. I see them at church, before and after school, and at all the akome'a's. They are excited about learning English and always try to talk to me in English when I walk through the village, which is rewarding.

After school I usually spend the afternoons walking down to use the internet and working on secondary projects or going for a swim in the wharf. (Although it recently came to my attention that the entire islands waste probably drains straight into the wharf, which MAYBE could have contributed to the golf ball-sized thyroid gland issue I experienced last month. I haven't swam in a little while.)
Some of the projects I'm currently working on or hope to start soon include:
- Building a library at my school. We don't have a room for it or books, so this is an ambitious project. The ball is actually rolling on this one and I have the support of my community to build a library on the school campus. I am working on getting books now.
- Working with the other PCV's on the island who teach to put together a workshop series on topics such as: Positive Discipline, Classroom Management, Making and Maintaining Resources, etc.
- Working with the Youth Group in my village to create a sustainable way for them to raise money to fund musical equipment and various activities.

Around five we usually have akome'a (practice of things) where the youth group gets together to practice singing, action songs, and skits. Right now we are doing all of the above for a Children's Day program (I think). Every night this week we have had akome'a from about 5 or 5:30 to 10pm. I can't complain about being tired though, because all the kids from my school are right there alongside me, even the five year-olds. The entire village has been involved in some capacity, so it's actualy been a lot of fun.

After akome'a, I have poako (night study). (Obviously not this week- this week has been dedicated to akome'a in my village) I usually go three nights with Class 5/6 and two or three nights with the high school girls in my village. This usually lasts about an hour and a half, and it's pretty fun because it's not as formal as regular school (the kids aren't wearing their uniforms, I'm not wearing my kiekia). The high school girls come to my house, and we always start with any help they need on homework. After that they just really want to be able to speak English better, so I'll have an activity set up for them and then we will talk, play games (jeopardy, etc.), and listen to music. With Class 5/6 the goal of poako is to practice for the Class 6 Exam, so we still play games pretty often, but for example, the jeopardy clues are taken straight from the exam. By the time that's finished I'm usually pretty exhausted and fall into bed around 9:30. There's not much of a night life around here :)

On Wednesdays all the PCV's and JICA (japanese volunteers) on the island (8) get together for tea. This is a huge sanity saver, as it is an opportunity to share ideas, frustrations, successes, issues, or simply just to talk in English! Friday nights I sometimes tou'a (serve kava) because I have found it's a great way to practice my Tongan and get to know people in my village that I otherwise wouldn't be able to talk to.

Weekends are usually pretty quiet around here. Rugby season has started up here, and every Saturday the villages compete against each other. They play in a field behind the hospital, which, after watching one Saturday, I am convinced in no coincidence. Either Friday or Saturday a few of us usually rally for a hike. Other than that, Saturdays are for doing laundry, burning trash, and other household chores.

Sunday. Oh, Sunday. Sunday's are for church, and church only. It is actually against the law to do any work on Sunday (this includes exercising, swimming, and even playing cards). At first this was maddening. Coming from America, I saw it as: there goes 1/7 of my productivity, probably more, because Sunday's are a great day to get things done and prepare for the week. Not in Tonga. I have actually come to appreciate Sunday's here most of the time. If I am feeling stir crazy, it is acceptable to go on a walk (as long as you don't walk too fast- seriously, you can't walk as if you have a purpose) or I can close the doors to my house and do whatever I want. Church happens three times on Sunday, I go twice (I skip the 5am service, for obvious reasons). There is only one church in my village, so it is a great opportunity to see everyone and of course everyone is dressed in their Sunday best, so it's really nice. There is nothing open on Sunday, so you have to make sure you buy everything you need on Saturday. My neighbors always bring me lu on Sundays, which is taro leaves wrapped around fish, corned beef, or mutton chops, doused in coconut cream, and cooked in an umu (underground oven). The entire Kingdom eats lu on Sunday after morning church, and my neighbors always make sure I am included. Last Sunday I tried to recipricate, and when my neighbors brought me lu, I gave them a bowl of jello. Ten minutes later I get a knock on my door, and it is my neighbor, with a bowl of ice cream topped with jello. I briefly considered eating a few bites and sending it back with bananas sliced over the top...but who knows what they would come back with?

That's pretty much what a "typical" week looks like for me, although there is never really a "typical" week. Here are some other interesting aspects of my life here:

'Eua is a really unique island for a few reasons. To get to 'Eua, you take the shortest commercial flight in the world. Really- it's only seven minutes. Or you can take the boat, which I still have not done- it's a three-hour boat ride, and from what I've heard it is pretty tumultuous. Also, 'Eua is 30 millions years older than the rest of Tonga and geologically completely unrelated. It is the highest coral island in the world, and it is also the fastest moving chunk of land on earth, moving about six inches closer to South America every year.

One of the things about Tongan life that I have yet to fully embrace is the food. I read a book about the first people that came to these islands 3000 years ago and realized that since then, their diet really hasn't changed. Root crop, fish and coconuts. On my island we don't get a lot of fresh fish because the seas are too rough for the fishing boats. Also, there's a whole season where we don't get any vegetables. We're in that season now, and I'm not sure how long it lasts. As a result, the diet here ('Eua) consists mostly of canned fish and corned beef, root crop, and fried dough balls, called keke. I don't care very much for of any of that. I have become an expert at homemade tortillas, and I eat a lot of eggs and oatmeal, in every way imaginable. I feel a little like Bubba Gump, but with eggs instead of shrimp. Hard-boiled, scrambled, omlette, quiche, breakfast burrito....if anyone has any good egg recipies, let me know!
One of the things that is constant here is fresh fruit. It's seasonal, but it can always be found, which I am thankful for. Bananas are pretty much year-round, and right now oranges and avocados are in season. I'm not seeing much papaya anymore, which is sad, but guavas are plentiful and really good.
I've talked a few times in previous postings about kaipola's, or Tongan feasts. These are very common, held at every wedding, funeral, holiday and special church service. Roasted pig is served at every kaipola, along with sometimes horse (funerals), dog, chicken, lu, root crop, lobster, chop suey, canned spaghetti on buttered crackers, canned spaghetti snandwiches, canned spaghetti on fried eggs...you get the idea.

Some of the challenges I've come across so far:
-Constant attention from everyone. Especially the boys and men. (I know, what a problem to have, right? But it really does wear on you trying to fend off constant advances, 95% of which are unwelcome) I don't necessarily like being the center of attention, but as one of six PCV's on the island, it's unaviodable. This is also a culture renowned for it's gossip. Everyone knows where I go all the time, what I buy at the shop, who I hang out with, and even the current balance in my bank account (you have to ask the teller, who will tell you aloud, thus everyone in the bank knows, thus by the next day everyone on the island knows.) They feel this gives them a right to ask for money.
- The language barrier is another issue, albeit one that is getting much easier as time passes. When I first got to my village, no one really spoke English, and I didn't really speak Tongan well enough to communicate. This is extremely frustrating, and I can now sympathize with two-year olds, as a few times I really felt like throwing myself on the ground and kicking and screaming as well. My language has come a long ways, but at first the only meaningful and effective communication I would have was at tea on Wednesdays with the other Peace Corps. I've never been a huge chatterbox, but that was challenging.
-Taimi Tonga. Tonga runs on its very own, very special time table. If someone tells you something will begin at 3, it means that they hope it will begin by 3:30, and it will actually begin around 5. This was really frustrating at first, because I am kind of a stickler about time and hate being late to anything. Now I am used to it, and I still show up on time (usually the first one there) but I have discovered the snake game on my phone, and I am proud to say that I am now a snake master.
-Whenever I go anywhere, I have to make sure that I am back by dark or my village worries about me. They don't worry about some strange Tongan guy hurting me however, what they're worried about is the Tevolo (Devil). If you walk anywhere alone after dark the Devil will get you. They really believe this, and so I always make sure I am back by dark. I even heard about one volunteer who was trying to tell the story of Cinderella to his class. His counterpart, however, insisted that the fairy godmother be called the Tevolo, because anything with supernatural powers that isn't God is the Tevolo. Well, that just confused the kids, and the story of Cinderella will forever be lost on them.

All in all, I am having a terrific experience here. I am enjoying living in and being a part of my village, speaking a new language, trying to understand and respect the culture, and learning new things every day. I am really looking forward to my next few years here, getting the library built and running, working with the youth group more and getting to know everyone here better. It's exciting!

A hectic few weeks

2009-04-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it's been too long, and I apologize. Shortly after my last posting, I found myself sick again, and was sent to a main island to see a doctor. On the flight there, I got to see the underwater volcano erupting which was pretty neat. I don't know how many of you heard about that, I guess it was pretty big news though. Two days after I got to the main island we had a 7.9 earthquake, followed by a tsunami warning. I ended up having to spend an entire week recovering on Tongatapu (main island) before getting to head back to 'Eua. I was able to spend three days in 'Eua, then I had to return to Tongatapu for In-Service Training. It consisted of ten days of training, with one day off. On our day off we had all planned on boating out to a remote island to spend the day, and naturally, there was a cyclone. By then I was really ready to get back to 'Eua, but they cancelled the flight I was supposed to be on, so I had to stay another day. Ugh. I finally made it back last Thursday, just in time for Api Tonga, which means three days straight of church. (My house had also flooded during the cyclone, and by the time I got back it was moldy, so I spent a few days cleaning that up)

When they told me about Api Tonga on Friday, my first instinct was to try to get out of it, unfortunately I ended up being voted as the noble for the entire event. Which I actually agreed to, albeit unwittingly. I was at the youth group meeting, being a space cadet like usual, when I heard my name and came back to eath to find the entire youth group staring at me. I said, "yes?" to everyone's approving looks. And thus I had committed. I had meant the "yes?" to be as in, "Yes, how can I help you?" or "Yes, you're talking to me?" It was instead taken as an affirmative response. It turns out that all being a noble meant was showing up for everything and sitting at the head spot during the feasts. I proved myself a capable noble. I also got to give my first fakamalo speech (thank-you speech). It was at the first feast, in front of the entire village. These speeches tend to be really long-winded and teary. I opted to keep it short, and they said I did all right, but it would have been better if I had cried. I told them I would work on it for next time.

Api Tonga was capped off yesterday by a final feast and a trip down to the sea, where we all picked the roots of this grass that grows near the sea to make coconut oil with. After that we ventured into the sea at low tide for some fishing. I got stung by a sea urchin. Twice. It really hurt. All in all, it was a great few days though, it was really nice to be able to reconnect with my village after having been gone so long.

The other big news in my life is that I acquired a puppy in Tongatapu. His name is Tahi ("ocean" in Tongan) and he is going to be a big dog. I was a little worried about bringing him back to my village, because in general Tongans don't treat dogs very well. My fears were all dispelled the day after I got back and walked out of church to find Tahi sleeping on a mat, being spooned by one of the twenty-year old rugby players from my village. The next day a boy from the village walked around the corner with Tahi sitting on his shoulders like a two-year old. Everyone slipped him food from the kaipoulas, I could tell by how gaseous he was every night. It seems my village is as smitten with Tahi as I am. He does have a way of finding trouble though; his first day in town he took it upon himself to streak through church right before the service started, causing quite a commotion. I hid around the corner. He also likes to dash right in front of people's feet then stop dead. This is actually pretty funny, until the time he almost laid out one of the oldest ladies in my village. Okay, that was a little funny too. He doesn't listen to a word I say, and when he gets tired he'll find a spot of shade and refuse to move until he's ready. I'll have to work on that.

I was really hoping Tahi would take care of my rat problem, unfortunately I don't think Tahi would move if a rat ran over his nose. And now I can't use the rat trap because I don't want to catch Tahi in it. So I've been up half the night every night since I've been back chasing rats through the tapa cloth, and last night I was so fed up and sleep deprived that I took to the walls with my machete. I missed the rat barely, and put a hole in my tapa, but I did scare him out of the house for a few hours. So I need to get more creative in my rat control techniques.

So it's been quite an eventful month (especially by Tonga standards) between going to the main island, volcanos, earthquakes, tsunami warnings, cyclones, and new puppies. I'm looking forward to things settling down again and returning to teaching. I hope this one finds everyone well, and next time I won't wait so long to send out an update! Toki Sio!

Tongan Falemahiki: BYOTP

2009-03-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Oiaue, it's been an interesting week. Let me begin by saying that I was in the hospital, but I am absolutely fine and it wasn't anything serious. Okay, got that out of the way...

So it all began with a routine sinus infection (not uncommon for me), but of course everything gets amplified by about ten in Tonga, and pretty soon my throat was so swollen I couldn't swallow...anyways, having had recurring stomach problems since I've been here, I got dehydrated quickly and wound up taking a little visit to the local falemahiki (hospital; actually literally translates to: house of disease) That's when the real fun began.

My neighbor was gone and so I had to get a ride to the hospital from my counterpart, the principal at my school and the class 1/2 teacher, Sulia. Unfortunately the class 3/4 teacher was out that day so Sulia was teaching all four classes. Sulia couldn't be gone that long, so after some discussion between Sulia and the remaining 5/6 teacher, it was decided that we would all pile into her car, drive to town, where his car was, then he would drive me to the hospital and she would go back and attend to all six classes at once. Yes, this does mean that 40 kids were left completely unattended at school for 20 minutes. No, this is not unusual.

I got to the hospital, the doctor took one look at my throat and asked me if I'd like to stay the night. Thinking I actually had a choice in the matter, I naturally responded, "absolutely not." To which he replied, "Okay, so maybe a night." Why ask? So he sends me home to pack some overnight stuff. I pack the normal: a toothbrush, change of clothes, book, and I'm ready to go. This time it is determined that Sulia will take me back to the hospital and the 5/6 teacher will stay with all the classes. I tell her I'm ready to go. "Did you pack sheets?" She asks me. "uh...no?" "How about food? And toilet paper? And water?" "No..." "Yeah, they don't have drinking water at the hospital, they are very poor you see" I am not sure I see, "Yeah...did you say toilet paper?" "Yes!" So I go repack and we're off.

When I get back to the hospital they put an IV in right away. The nurse tells me proudly that she's using a clean needle (really! No one used it before!), which does not inspire confidence. She gets my vein the first time, however, and gets it good. Blood squirted and dripped onto the floor, which she ignored and left for Sulia to clean up, using our own toilet paper, of course. Sulia leaves to get back to school, and I take a look around. The "in-patient" ward at the hospital is really an open-air room with seven (naked) beds and a banner over the doorway that reads "Merry Christmas" One of the previous PCV's had gotten the youth in her community together to paint the hospital, so the room is adorned with palm trees, flowers, and underwater scenes. Bless her soul, it makes the place almost bearable.

Lights went out at ten, and that's about the time I got dive-bombed by the first cockroach. I say the first because there were very, very many that night. I jumped, and all the other ladies in the room asked what was wrong. "Mongomonga" I gasped. The lights went back on, and a mongomonga hunt ensued. Everyone who wasn't hooked up to an IV (and one lady who was- she had her fluids bag in one hand and a flip flop in the other) grabbed a projectile to launch at this mongomonga. We got that one, but after that I was quieter when the cockroaches hit me. Cockroaches are awful fliers, they run into everything, I don't know why they don't learn to fly better. It was a long night of mosquitoes buzzing in my ears and biting me and more cockroaches, but I made it. I got so many mosquito bites that I was sure I would end up with dengue and have to stay in the hospital an additional two weeks.

When morning finally came I immediately packed my sheets, pillows, and of course, toilet paper. By the time the doctor came around I was ready to go, and I told him as much. He checked me out and said, "Maybe this evening." I was appalled. I didn't even think I needed to stay the night, and I felt much better, I was even thinking I could catch some of school that day. I convinced the nurse to take the IV out (she took it out, then put the needle on the leg of the sweatpants I was wearing) and I proceeded to inform them that I was healthy and leaving. I was finally granted permission. I started for home and made it about 100 yards before the nurses came running down the street after me. Apparently I could go home, but I couldn't WALK home (it was only about 2.5 miles). So I had to call Sulia out of school again to come get me.

All in all, I'm just glad that I wasn't so sick that I couldn't see the humor in all of this. It might have been pretty scary if I was really sick, but I wasn't, so it was funny. One cool thing that came out of this was the outpouring of love from my community. My neighbor came and brought me milk and juice. Some of the ladies from my church brought me food from a kaipoula (feast) which included the Tongan classic: canned spaghetti wrapped in a fried egg. Yum (uh, not really). One of the old guys from my village brought me bananas. And most of all, my counterpart, Sulia, was incredibly supportive. She drove me to and from the hospital, came back when school ended, and even stayed the night with me in the hospital. Several times during the night I awoke to her re-tucking me in; I think she slept less than I did.

One of the funny things I've noticed in Tonga is that whenever you get sick, Tongans will blame it on something you're doing that they don't necessarily approve of. For example, this last time when I was sick, the people from my village told me it was because I swim too much. (2-3 times a week, for an hour) Others suggested that it was because I walk down the road too much when the sun is out. When I was sick during homestay my host mom suggested it was because I put butter on my toast in the morning. She told me this while eating pineapple-slathered in butter.

Also if you go to the hospital, I found it must be custom for people to give you a carton of milk and a carton of juice. Sulia got me milk and juice. My neighbor brought me milk and juice. I looked around the room, and everyone had milk and juice, a carton of each, at their bedside. I think it must be like flowers in the US.

Just a little sidenote on the milk here. I don't know what it is. It comes in a carton, doesn't need to be refrigerated, and has a six month shelf-life. I guess it tastes like milk, maybe I don't remember what milk should taste like though. A little worrisome, but I'm intrigued.

So, that was the hospital. It was an experience, and God-willing, I'll never go back.

In other news, I have recently killed my fifth rat in my house, the latest was one that had been terrorizing me every night for more than a week, so I was particularly excited to get him. Unfortunately, I didn't get him as well as I had hoped, he somehow got out of the trap in the middle of the night and started flopping around my kitchen. I turned my flashlight on him, and saw that he was pretty severely crippled, so I figured he wasn't going anywhere and went back to sleep. In the morning he was gone. I looked everywhere and finally found him under a bench across the house, seemingly dead. I realized he had to go right under my hammock to get there. Gross. But I get a plastic bag and get ready to dispose of him. As soon as I touch his tail, he comes alive- and chases me. So what if he has no use of his two front legs, he rolls after me with surprising quickness. I leap onto my bench and assume the fetal position, where I call out the window to one of my class six boys to come get rid of the rat. He comes in and grabs it by the tail, and of course, because he's a 12 year-old boy, chases all the girls with it. Five rats down, countless to go...

So I went on a boat trip with the PCV's on 'Eua yesterday. It was a little treacherous, but overall fun. We were set to leave at six am, so when the guy that was taking us wasn't there at 6:15 we called him and ended up getting him out of bed, he had forgotten he was taking us. Our plan was to go all the way around the island. The guy who owns the boat, Keiko, got to the wharf, and spent twenty minutes pounding on the boat with a hammer (fixing the holes presumably) and we were off. Now this boat didn't exactly look like an open ocean-capable vessel (It was maybe 15 ft. long, powered by a single outboard motor) but I assumed it was all right. About two hours later I am bailing water out of the bottom of the boat as no less than four of my friends are losing their breakfasts over the side. The sea had gotten pretty rough and the waves were crashing over the sides of the boat. We were all looking at Keiko nervously; we have learned in these situations to look at the locals and see if they're freaked out to really assess our danger. He looked petrified too. Dang. No one said it at the time, but we talked about it later, and we were all thinking about what we were going to when the boat sank. We were at a particular spot where we could probably all swim to shore, but unfortunately the waves were crashing into a sheer rock cliff, making getting onto land impossible. My plan included untying a length of rope from the bow of the sinking boat and tying everyone together and trying to swim around the point of the island until we were at a place where we could safely get out, then living off the land for ten days catching fish and eating coconut until we were found and rescued. I even though about what I would say when I was interviewed for the Reader's Digest story. Something along the cliched lines of, "It was scary, but I knew we'd make it" I have an active imagination. In these situations I also tend to think of the dirty dishes I left in the sink that my Mother would find if I died right then. Morbid, but motivating.

We made it through and five hours after getting onto the boat we stepped back onto slid land, where I promptly vowed to name my firstborn after our "captain." I don't think he understood me, so I don't feel too obligated to stick to that. Although Keiko's not a bad name...maybe I'll name a dog after him...Four out of the seven of us that went ended up puking, although afterwards everyone agreed that it was pretty cool to see the island from the sea. We saw a few beaches that we didn't know about that we're going to go try to find, so that was neat. Overall it was a cool experience, but not one that I'm eager to have again anytime soon.

Visit from the outside...

2009-02-25T16:15:00.000-08:00

"It's Tonga" Moments of the Week:
- The following conversation took place in the post office last week:
Me: "Uh, hi, can I mail this?"
Mail person: "You have to wait until Lupe returns from lunch"
Me: "Oh, okay, when will she get back?"
MP: "At 1:30"
Me: "Uh...it's 1:45"
MP: "Yes."
Me: "So... when do you think she'll be back?"
MP: "1:30"
Me: "Right, I'll come back later."

-I was riding in a van with some other of the PCV's on my island, and they were talking about someone who got married the week before. I didn't know who they were talking about, and asked. I got the following description: "The girl who's brother drives way too fast down the road in the blue car." And knew exactly the girl they were talking about.

Last week a few PCV's from other island groups came to visit us out here on 'Eua, and what a treat! It was really interesting to see how different their lives are from ours and hearing updates on everyone. The volunteers from Tongatapu (the big island) referred to it as "sin city" because you could get a beer there, among other things. We all got together and went to the Hideaway, a little resort on our island, and the only place that has a menu you can order food off of (you have to do it the morning before you actually want the food, but still). Once the food got there, someone observed that of the eight of us PCV's eating, seven of us had set our napkins and silverware aside and were eating with our hands. Haha.Napkins are kind of a foreign concept here, although during the attachment phase of training the PCV I stayed with found that the tissue paper that our toilet paper rolls comes in works well as napkins. That's not something I've picked up yet at my house.

Like I said before, it was really interesting to hear how different everyone's experiences have been so far, one guy from Tongatapu commented, "I spend more money on ice cream than Peace Corps pays me!" Which was hilarious and sad at the same time because the ice cream shop is across from his house and we rarely get ice cream in 'Eua. Here in 'Eua we spend hardly any money at all because there's really nothing to spend it on. Our neighbors tend to bring us food from the bush, we don't have any shops or restaurants, and there's just not much we need out here. Although, one thing I have been living without the past few months is a mirror. (It's amazing what not having for a mirror does for your vanity, although I used to sometimes take a picture of myself with my camera before going to school to make sure I didn't have food on my face, but then my camera broke.) After dinner I went to use the restroom at Hideaway and saw a mirror for the first time in two months. It blew my mind. I must have stayed in there for ten minutes making faces at myself.
We learned that the volunteers on the main islands are able to go out to bars, wear pants ( I could, theoretically, and I do when I go hiking, but it's pretty traditional out here), and buy things like mirrors. One even has internet in his house, while I have to walk an hour to use the internet. But on the other hand they don't get to watch the whales breaching off the coast from above on a cliff, or explore caves and hike through the rainforest. And I would definetely choose 'Eua over Tongatapu. But it was very interesting to hear the differences from volunteers who are a seven-minute plane ride away! And it was great to see them again, because we don't get visitors too often! We showed them around the island for the weekend and a good time was had by all.
I'm officially more than two months into my actual service, and still going strong! Wahoo!

School, Camping Trip

2009-02-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

The hike to the beach
Poako (night study) at my house for the high school kids
My front yard
Playing with exposures on Ashleys camera

Sunset
Climbing down to the beach
Jason filleting our dinner (Aaron- that's your knife!)_Raw fish- ifo aupito (very delicious)
Um...maybe been on a little island too long

Sleeping arrangementsAshley and I on the beach

"It's Tonga" Moments of the Week:

1) In my studies of the Tongan language I came across the word for hospital, falemahaki, which literally translates to: House of Disease. If that weren't comforting enough:
1a) The hospital is currently out of tylenol. Yeah, that's right, they just ran out.

2) I got ready for school Monday, and no one showed up. Not one kid, nor any of the teachers. Apparently there was a teachers conference (I wasn't supposed to be there) and no one bothered to tell me there would be no school Monday and Tuesday.

So school started three weeks ago. Kind of. I was really excited about school starting and got up early to get ready for before the first day of school, and I showed up, and as it turns out, the teachers didn't have anything for the students to do. They didn't even try to make up anything for the kids to do. They sat 30 kids in front of the radio, then ignored them all day. Kids were spitting on each other and rearranging desks to set up boxing matches in the middle of the room. The teachers were just sitting there, ignoring them, and trying to tell me their life story. I was kinda shocked, the whole time I was thinking, "That's great that your brother has been to America...but those kids are HITTING each other right there!" After sitting through two days of this, I pulled the principal aside and told her I needed to have a meeting with her. The next day there was a tropical storm and there was no school, which was a much-needed mental break for me, I was a little distraught after the first two days of "school." I met with the principal on Thursday of the first week of school and told her that I thought it was unacceptable that the students are showing up to school on time ready to learn and the teachers have absolutely nothing for them to do. She said she understood why I was upset, but the planning books hadn't arrived from Tongatapu yet, so the teachers couldn't plan anything. These are not planning books that tell the teachers what they're supposed to be doing, these are just the blank books where the teachers write their plans. And apparently they cannot plan anything without them. On Friday no one showed up to start school until 9 o'clock. (school is supposed to start at 8:30). The students were there in their uniforms ready to go, but no teachers, no principal. Finally I got the chance to talk to some of the other PCV's on my island about the situation at my school, and was shocked to find that it's not just the situation at my school, it's what happens the first week of school throughout Tonga. I was a little appalled. I guess it's just a much different environment that school in America, where a lot of importance is placed on the first days and weeks of school. School in Tonga apparently takes a while to get moving.

Since then, things have been better in some ways, the teacher have started teaching (novel, I know), although with that has come the emergence of corporal punishment. It just really doesn't make a lot of sense to me, I watched a a teacher stand over a 3rd-grader trying to read aloud to the class. Every time he mispronounced a word she smacked him with a ruler. He was so scared he was mispronouncing most words. It was difficult to watch. In our teachers meeting Friday I told them that when I was teaching if they hit a kid I will leave the room. This is another thing I had to discuss with the PCV's who have already been here a year and they said its another one of those things that happens in every Tongan school, and the best thing you can do is show them by example that there are other, far more effective ways of managing a classroom. Well, at least there's a lot of work to be done.

Well, after two weeks of school, I was ready for a little vacation, so a few of us (PCV's) decided to go camping last weekend. We hiked to a remote beach where we hoped to be alone (read: able to show our knees!). Then we set out into the water to explore a little. Jason and I came across an outcropping of sea urchin, which he picked up and assured me were delicious. We carried them to the beach where he cracked them open and dug out their meat, then rinsed it in the ocean and handed me some. Alas, it was delicious. It has the consistency of butter, which is a little strange, but it tastes great, so if you ever get the chance to try raw Tongan sea urchin, you really should :) Then Jason wandered off to climb some rock face, and Ashley and I were exploring the beach. A Tongan fisherman walked by and handed us two fish. We were so excited we had a little photo shoot, then we went off to find Jason and show him our prizes. We told him that we had gotten hungry and wandered into the sea and caught the fish. With our teeth. For some reason he didn't believe us. Then Jason filleted the fish, which we dipped into the ocean and again, ate raw. Delicious. The sunset was gorgeous, although with it came the mosquitoes. We set up camp on the beach, but had to take cover from the mosquitoes under out towels, and no one found much sleep. Then at 6:15 it started raining. It was a long, early, and wet walk back, but we had a great time. It was a good to get away for a few days.

I came back refreshed and with new energy and ideas for working with my teacher counterparts. Of course, no one showed up for school on Monday or Tuesday. There was a teachers conference to discuss a new math and science curriculum. I was not involved since I teach English, but I also wasn't informed there there would be no school. So it ended up being an extended vacation.

Ako hiva (singing practice) has started again, so every night I go there and sing with the youth group, which is really fun. It usually also involves kicking around a rugby ball, dancing, and/or eating coconuts. Between that and school I've been keeping very busy, which has been good. But enough about ME, how are YOU? I'd love to hear updates on everyone!

"It's Tonga"

2009-01-22T20:25:00.000-08:00

My living room, the hammock unhooks and can be stored out of the way, making my bed, Tonga-style

guitar-lesson

Inspired by the "It's Tonga" -moments in my last post and really the amount that I say that phrase on a weekly-basis here, I've decided to start a segment in my blog called the "It's Tonga" Moments of the Week. These are times when something that seems completely absurd or funny or wonderful or new happens, and I rationalize it by saying, "It's Tonga." These are the top ones this week:

- I went to a feast on the beach with the youth group last week, and as we were leaving I was gathering my things. I couldn't find my frisbee. A small search party set out to find it, and a few minutes later it is discovered, covered in food. Someone thought it was a plate. They finished eating, then returned the frisbee.

- The entire island I live on is currently out of gasoline. I had a lot of company walking along the road to the internet today!

-About three weeks ago I dropped few letters off at the post office, one being a birthday letter to my Mom, hoping it would reach her by her birthday. I went into the post office yesterday, and the letters were still sitting there. They were supposed to go out on the boat today, but the boat wasn't running today, maybe because there's no gasoline. Sorry, Mom.

In other news, the one-clawed crab from my last post is sticking around. I still have no idea how he got to my house from the ocean...the first couple of nights he came in I thought about killing him and eating him raw, which is apparantly a Tongan delicacy, but then I thought that maybe his life has been far too interesting and it would be a shame to kill him now. I mean he made it all the way to my house from the sea somehow, and somewhere along the way he lost a claw...so I decided to name him instead. Scully. He comes in a few nights a week, and I try to be okay with it, as long as he doesn't start to think he owns the place. As long as he stays out of my hammock... Okay, in truth, another reason I didn't kill him is that I'm waiting for the night that Scully and a rat show up in my kitchen the same night. I think that would be a fascinating showdown, kinda like celebrity boxing. My bet's on the crab, again, based on the fact that I think he has a lot of interesting life experiences from which to draw. I get kinda easily excited around here, especially when it's been raining a lot and I've been spending a lot of time in my house.

School starts Monday, and I've spent the past week planning with my counterparts and creating handmade resources to use in my lessons. There's not a lot to work with, although my school does have a few sets of reading books, but most of the things I use in my lessons I will have to make myself. This is a little daunting, but so far it has proven to be actually pretty fun! It allows for a lot more creativity in lesson planning, whereas when I student taught in California there was so much structure with the standards and testing that there really wasn't a lot of room for creativity. Most lessons were pre-planned from a teacher handbook, where entire units were already given complete with accompanying worksheets, homework and tests. Boring. Here I am given a list of broad topics, such as personal introductions, and that's about as much structure as I have. It's great. So the last week or so I've been coming up with games and activities, making posters and puzzles out of cardboard, then laminating everything with packaging tape so it doesn't get wet and moldy (which is as tedious as it sounds). It's kept me busy at least. I'm excited for school to start so I can use all the things I've made!

OH! I have a new address!

Jennifer Danielson, PCV
P.O. Box 24
Ohonua, 'Eua
Kingdom of Tonga, South Pacific

Again, if you want to send anything, any updates from your life are great, as well as pictures. Other ideas of things that I would like are: instant oatmeal packets (in a ziploc so the ants don't get to it before me!), granola bars, dried fruit, crystal light packets, etc.

Actually one of the things that would be most appreciated right now is CD's. I accidently deleted most of my music from my iPod the night before I left, and what I put back on has quickly gotten old. Any type of music, maybe your favorites! At this point even the Wiggles would be a nice change of pace. (Please don't send the wiggles). I don't yet have a CD player, but next time I make it to a main island I'll be able to find one. Probably before any packages get to me :)

Just as a heads up, it'll probably cost more to ship anything than what whatever you're sending is worth, so you might think about trying to keep it pretty light or sending really expensive stuff :) just kidding.

Uike lotu

2009-01-14T18:44:00.000-08:00

The dreaded molokau
Sunsets, Tonga-style

On a hike in 'Eua; at the right time of year you can sit up on the bluff and watch the whales playing just off the coast down below

My first ta'olunga, complete with being drenched in coconut oil. Yum.
My house!

My room
The view from my front steps, that's the school I will be teaching at the next two years, with the Pacific ocean in the background. Not bad at all.
Sitting shotgun on the plane out to 'Eua

Pretty happy about being sworn in. (In the aforementioned leopard-print puletaja)

Getting ready to head to the swear-in ceremony

Lazy afternoon on the porch at Sela's guesthouse
Coconut frond hat

Well, I just completed my first uike lotu (week of church) here, which basically entailed going to church twice a day every day the first week of January to pray for blessings for the year to come. I wasn't dreading it too much, as there's not a whole lot else to be doing areound here right now until school starts.

The Sunday before uike lotu began, I asked my neighbor what time the first service was on Monday morning. "Six am" he told me. Hum. OKay, a little early, but I'm no stranger to six am after swimming so many years, so I set my alarm for 5:30 and went to bed. At 4am, I hear a banging on my door. I get up to answer it, and there is my neightbor, Fefite, dressed and ready to go to church. The following conversation ensues:
F: Are you ready to go to church!
J: Huh?
F: It is time for the church to start!
J: But...you said church started at 6...
F: Yeah!
J: But...it's 4...
F: Yes!
J: But church doesn't start until six...
F: Yes... (looking at me like I'm dumb as a rock)
J: So church doesn't start for two hours?
F:Yeah
J: But what to we do for two hours before church begins?
F: We go up over there and sing! (Duh)
J: But...it's 4...
F: (blank stare)
J: ...I'll be ready in ten minutes....

Well, church actually ended up starting at 5 and ENDING at six, so I was pretty confused. Then On the way home I made sure to ask when the afternoon service began. Six o'clock, I was assured. For some reason I believed that. I took a little nap that morning then went to ako hiva (singing practice) at my neighbors house and tried my best to blend in and not bring the whole group down with my voice. I'm not sure how successful I was. I spent the afternoon swimming at the wharf, then returned to my house and showered and was about to settle into my hammock to read a little before the afternoon church service when there came a knock at the door. It was around 4pm. I answered the door to see my neighbor standing there, fully dressed for church. Repeat conversation above, only this time, I was told that the singing group I had practiced with that morning were all at the church waiting for my to arrive so we could begin singing. I was a little peeved. I was ready in ten minutes, and once again church started at 5pm and was done by 6pm. Still confused. On the way home I told my neighbor that maybe it would be best if he told me what time we were leaving rather than what time church began, and he agreed that that would be a good idea. He said that we would leave around 4:15 am the next morning. Okay, great, see you then. 4:15 am rolled around much too soon, but I rolled out of my hammock and was ready to go. I walked over to Fefite's house to find the entire family still asleep. Naturally. I didn't want to wake them, so I went to church alone. They showed up at 4:45. It was one of those situations where I've learned to just laugh and say, "It's Tonga"

As the week progressed, I started to think I was understanding the schedule and on Tuesday I left for church around 4:15 pm to find that I was just about the only one there. That day church began around 5:30. I still don't know why, but I figured out that they ring the bell three times before each service, so that's when people know when to go. I also figured out that whenever I begin to think I have anything figured out around here, I'm usually way off.

I also endured my first tropical storm last week, not a huge deal, just a lot of rain and wind. But I didn't get out of my house much besides to go to church, and one night as I was lying in my hammock, I heard something in the kitchen. I sat up and looked over and saw a single-clawed crab sitting in the middle of my kitchen. As soon as I made noise he scrambled under the door and out of my house. The next morning I wasn't sure if it had actually happened, but alas, that night he came back. He wasn't a tiny crab either, his body was about the size of my palm. This time I had to sweep him out of the house. Now I'm really not THAT close to the ocean, and I'm not sure how he got all the way to my house. I mean I walk to the water every day, it's only about a half-mile, but I certainly wouldn't crab-walk there. But, it's Tonga.

I swim in the wharf every day (except when its storming) and the first day I went alone, but every day after that people from my village have gone with me and they seem to really like it. I think it's about 150 yds. across, and some days there's quite a few of us swimming back and forth across the wharf. Also one of my neighbors, Pasa, has been teaching me to play guitar. He's really good, although I've never seen a piece of sheet music here in Tonga. So that's been a really fun way to pass the time as well.

Next week is planning week for school, and the following week school begins again, so this is probably my last week of goofing off all day until school starts. Actually I've felt like I've been pretty busy, just living really. Between retrieving and boiling all my drinking water, hand-washing my clothes, getting my house ready, going to church, and getting to know the people in my village, I haven't been close to being bored. I do a lot with the youth group here, they get together every day to play volleyball, have singing or dancing practice, or just to go to the beach, so that's been a lot of fun.

I'm also beginning to have ideas for secondary projects to begin, but more on that later. I hope this finds everyone well back home.

'Eua! Senifa: Slayer of rats, molokau, and all other creepy crawlies that dare invade my little Tongan fale!

2008-12-28T19:47:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm finally all sworn-in and at my site here in 'Eua...and it is better than I ever could have expected! It is a nine minute plane ride from Tongatapu to 'Eua, and as I was walking out to the plane I realized it was going to be the smallest plane I had ever been on by far, a twelve-passenger I think. The upside is that it's only about six miles between Tongatapu and 'Eua, so if I had to I could definitely swim it! (In fact I was thinking about swimming it at some point because I WANTED to, but Peace Corps staff nixed that idea due to shark-infested and sometimes very rough waters.) Then came the clincher...the pilot invited me up to sit in the co-pilot's seat! So that was a pretty scenic nine-minute plane ride; I got my first view of 'Eua sitting shotgun in a tiny airplane!

I was greeted at the airport by my counterpart, the principal at the school I will be teaching at. I had met her a few days earlier when she had come to Tongatapu for a counterpart conference, and had asked her if I should stock up on fresh fruit and veggies since I heard they can be hard to get a hold of at certain times on 'Eua. She told me not to worry about it, my house is right across the road from the agricultural college, so I'll have easy access to fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, and milk. During our conversation I had mentioned that my favorite fruit here in Tonga was lesi (papaya), and I don't think it's a coincidence that just about every day I've been here a neighbor has shown up at my door in the morning with a fresh lesi.

My house is absolutely beautiful. It's brand new since I'm the first peace corps volunteer at this site, and by peace corps living standards, it's pretty big. It is on the primary school campus, and it sits on a hill overlooking the school and the ocean. The inside walls and celing are covered in tapa cloth, which is a type of bark they pound out then stain and paint designs on. It is very beautiful, but unfortunitly, it also attracts rats, and it didn't take long for them to make themselves at home. They come out at night and chew through the tapa cloth, which is pretty loud. Even worse, they were chewing the cloth right above my bed, so for a few nights I was laying there in fear of them chewing right through the cloth and falling on my face. As a result, I have been up at around three or four am every night throwing my shoes at the walls and celings trying to hit these rats. It probably looked funny, and really was not that effective, I haven't hit them yet and they didn't go away. After a few nights of this I set up my hammock in the living room and started sleeping in that. (Also because I'm pretty sure I had bed bugs- I woke up the first few mornings with bites all over) That also did not solve my rat problem, as I realized the first night spent in the living area that they were chewing through the tapa cloth above my hammock in there as well. You may be thinking, why not just get a rat trap? Excellent question, and the first thing I thought of as well. The reason that plan wasn't put into effect right away is because they don't sell rat traps here. Which seems like it could be a pretty lucrative business, but who am I to say? Finally word got around that I was having rat problems and one of the neighbors dug out their rat trap and set it up for me, and I'm proud to say that last night, a rat was trapped in it. Now as happy as I was about this, it created a whole new set of problems. First, the trap didn't kill the rat, and if you didn't know before, rats can scream, and this one was a screamer. And a jumper (he got some pretty good vertical for having his neck caught in a huge trap). It was 1am, and I had no idea what to do, I would have swept him outside, but I was afraid that a dog would come and get the rat and take what was seemingly the only rat trap on the island with him. At one point, I felt bad for the rat and even thought about taking him outside and letting him go, but then I remembered that the morning before I had walked into my room to get dressed and seen my leopard-print puletaha (poo-lay-ta-ha: a puletaha is traditional Tongan formal wear, usually consisting of a wrap skirt and top made out of the same material; this one was made for me by my host mom in Vava'u and was the one I wore to our swearing-in ceremony) halfway hanging out of a hole in the tapa cloth celing. Now I would understand if I had left food out and he had gotten into that, but seriously, leave my leopard-print puletaha alone. So letting him go was not an option, and even if I had felt enough mercy to let him go, there was no way I was going to touch him. So I read. The entire rest of the night. And he screamed and jumped around in my kitchen the rest of the night. It was a long night. In the morning I asked my twelve-year-old neighbor Elizabeth if her Dad would come help me get rid of it (still not dead!) and instead she marched right in and grabbed him, then took him to the yard and proceeded to beat him with a wood plank. Problem solved. (Okay, so I wasn't exactly the brave slayer of the rats, but I was there, and attendance should count for something)

I wish I could say that rats were the creepiest thing I've found in my house, but one morning I awoke to find a molokau in my sink. Molokau are centipedes that grow up to a foot in length, are extremely quick, and sting (apparantly far worse than a wasp sting). They tend to be found between sheets and in folded clothes, but this one was in my sink. My first instinct was to go get Elizabeth, but I was afraid that by the time I got back he would be gone, lurking in one of my folded skirts. I knew I was on my own for this one. I grabbed a fork from the clean dishes and jabbed, with the idea of pinning him down, but as soon as he started writhing I dropped the fork and ran. Miraculously, he stayed in the sink, so I crept back a grabbed another fork. Long story short, 35 minutes and about 12 utensils later I carried him out pinned between a spatula and yet another fork, still not dead, and threw him over my fence. (Okay, so I didn't exactly slay him either, but I would say I came out on top of that battle)

On the upside, I went on two really great hikes my first few days here. The first was to the southern part of the island ('Eua is only nine miles long, 3.5 miles wide). The hike took us past a giant banyon tree, to a huge hole in the earth that seemed bottomless, and to a high lookout point where you could see over the entire rainforest. The next day we headed up to the northern part of the island where I live. We hiked along this ridge that runs the length of the island, north to south. From the ridge you can see over the rainforest and over the western coast of 'Eua. At the right time of year, you can sit up on the ridge and look down over the water and watch the whales playing. We then climbed down the face of the ridge through some caves, and picnic-ed on the beach. Both hikes were beautiful, and I'm looking forward to exploring more of the island coming up here soon. School is on vacation here, and doesn't start again until February, so my primary tasks now are getting settled into my house and community, preparing for school, and ridding my house of creepy-crawlies.

My first Christmas here was really nice, I went to church in the morning with my neighbors, then we all packed up and headed to the beach. I did a little swimming, and of course there was a roasted pig. The neighbors made me my favorite Tongan dish, 'ota ika, which is raw fish in coconut milk with chopped onions and tomatoes. It's an acquired taste, but I really like it for a few distinct reasons. It's not canned, it's not fried, and it's not a root. Those three qualifications comprise %95 of the Tongan diet. They actually have made me 'ota ika three or four times since I've been here (9 days). Everyone in my village has gone out of their way to make me feel really welcome and comfortable here, and I feel very lucky to have been placed here. I participated in my first ta'olunga last week, about four days after I got here. Elizabeth (neighbor) was supposed to teach me the dance, but every time she came over to teach me, we'd go through the dance once, then we'd end up playing cards. As a result, she got pretty good at cards and I did not get very good at ta'olunga-ing. But I donned the traditional attire, complete with being drenched in coconut oil and got out there and did my best with the girls from my village, and it was pretty fun. On Christmas eve I went caroling with the church, which was also really nice and fun. I know I've mentioned it before, but Tongans are amazing singers, and I take any opportunity I get to be around when they are singing. Really they sing all the time, whether they're doing laundry, riding on a bus, or hanging out in a kava circle (probably why they're such great singers). That has rubbed off, and I've found that it's hard to be in a bad mood when you're singing! (Try it!)

Goodbye Ha'alaufuli; Thanksgiving; Weaving school dropout

2008-12-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

How I spent Thanksgiving (top)
Girls performing ta'olunga (bottom)

Me and my language teacher 'Ofa and Tulu
At culture day. I think I get a lei just about every day from someone or another
Boys watching the girls at Culture Day

Culture day
Bays goofing off at one of the schools

Two weeks ago we left our homestay villages and spent a week in "attachment" where we follow around a current volunteer for a week. I, along with three other trainees, was attached to a volunteer named Phil. He is an older guy (50 maybe?) from Santa Barbara and he is really into surfing and paddle surfing. He is an education volunteer, but the school year is winding down here and he wasn't doing much, so we basically had a pretty free week. I went out paddlesurfing with Phil a few times, which is harder than it looks.
Most of the week we went to the schools on Phil's island group (Ha'apai) in the morning morning and played with the kids. It's hard not to be in a good mood playing with these kids because they are so enthusiastic and happy all the time. They don't have much in terms of toys; at one school Keiti (another trainee) and I spent the morning playing Moa with the girls. All you need is five small rocks, picked up off the street. You go through a series of "plays" where you toss them up and try to catch them on the back of your hand, then try to toss one in the air while you pick up a certain other rock then catch the rock that you tossed in the air. It's pretty tough, and Keiti and I weren't too good at it, but these girls were awesome. Also it was a lot of fun. It's amazing how resourceful these kids are.

At another school a little boy ran off and climbed up a coconut tree and we lost him in the palm fronds, but next thing we knew coconuts were falling. He climbed down and the boys husked the cocnuts for us and opened them and we feasted on coconut milk and meat. It takes some getting used to, but once you do it tastes pretty good.

At another school the girls tried to teach us a traditional ta'olunga, and I was really bad at that. It consists of so many really subtle hand and head movements...the Tongan girls who grew up learning it can do it really beautifully (they have a lot of natural grace, something I lack) but most of us weren't too good at it.

The last school we went to on Friday was having its Culture Day, which was pretty neat to watch. They dressed up in these really intricate handmade costumes, some looked like they had to take months to make, and they performed traditional dances (ta'olunga) and the boys did some war dances. I will try to put up pictures of that because it was really great.

We spent Thanksgiving in Ha'apai with Phil, and ended up having a very multi-cultural Tahnksgiving. Besides us volunteers from American, we invited the JICA volunteers from Japan, Viliami (the head of our education program) from Tonga, a couple one from Germany one from Ireland, Jacinta (one of our medical staff) who is from Fiji, and the owner of the resort Dave who was from New Zeland. I think in all there were seven nationalities represented at our Thanksgiving, which was great fun. We went to a resort on the island and they let us use their kitchen to cook out turkey (provided by the Peace Corps!) then made some of the turkey into turkey pizza which was absolutely divine. We spent the rest of the day snorkeling and playing cards.

Also that week we had a little time so Keiti and I headed to this little place where you could learn to weave thinking we'd make a little something to send home as a Christmas gift. We went in and asked about it and the lady said we could make something quickly in an hour. So we got to work. I began thinking I was going to make a large potholder. Four hours later I was on my second attempt and had regressed from wanting to make a large potholder to a small potholder to being completely satisfied if I just ended up with a coaster. It wasn't pretty. Keiti was making a purse and was doing a little better than I was. We both kinda ended up giving up, we were hungary and the lady said she would finish them and we could just come and pick them up the next day, so we jumped at that opportunity. Haha, I don't really think weaving is going to be my thing here in Tonga. When we returned the next day we hardly even recognized out projects, mine had turned into a small basket and Keiti's into a real purse. It was kinda like magic. (Merry Christmas Dad!)

I've found that as my Tongan language is progessing my English is getting worse and worse. Keiti and I spent probably a good fifteen minuted trying to think of the word "coaster" while we were in weaving school. (So forgive me for spelling/grammatical errors!) But, I'm loving learning to speak another language and I am now able to hold conversations pretty well in Tongan, which is good because my new homestay family does not speak much English at all. I am now satying with another homestay family in Nuku'alofa (Tongatapu) for two weeks before I get to head off to 'Eua. There are two five-year-old girls at this homestay, and they threw a spider on me my first night there. I miss Sepi!

I will be swearing in as a Peace Corps Volunteer December 17th, and usually I don't much care for ceremonies (graduations, etc.) but I feel like this one is pretty important and I'm quite excited about it.

"Tonga is like a perpetual screensaver" -Regina

2008-11-16T17:38:00.000-08:00

Sepi and I on our way to schoolMe getting ready to take the plunge...
Our boat
Getting ready to head out on the boat

I officially found out Saturday that I will be spending the next two years on a small island South of Tongatapu called 'Eua in a village of 162 people. I will be teaching English to Classes 3,4,5, and 6, which for all I know may be one big class put together. I don't know much about 'Eua, except that the temperature tends to be a little cooler because it's further South and it is supposed to be the most beautiful island in Tonga! I hear that there are not many beaches (although I think my village is right on a few) but it is covered in rainforest and has amazing hiking all over the island. It is also supposed to be pretty conducive to camping and other various outdoor adventure, which sounds up my alley. I'm pretty thrilled about it. I think I will have electricity, although running water is still up in the air. I will swear in with the Peace Corps December 17th and head to 'Eua shortly after that.

Saturday turned out to be quite the eventful day; after finding out our site placements, we loaded in a boat and headed out for a day trip which had been canceled the week before due to strong winds. Spirits were high after finding out our site placements and everyone was excited to hang out together after being separated into our villages for five weeks. The first stop we made was at this cave where you had to swim through an underwater tunnel to reach it. Of course I had to be the first one to try it (along with a guy named Scott) , and I didn't realize, but I timed it pretty poorly and went while water was coming out of the tunnel. I was swimming against the current for what seemed like forever, and when you're down there its so dark that you can't tell when you're actually in the cave so you don't know if when you come up you're going to hit air or if the water is still to the top of the tunnel. Oh, and the other factor? It was close to high tide. Needless to say, it was a little scary, and also needless to say, I made it. Only a few of us actually went in the cave, but once you made it inside it was incredible. It was the size of maybe a movie theater, and water would come in and crash against the back wall and the entire cave would get so misty you couldn't see your hand in front of you. Then, seconds later it would clear up and you could see clear across the cave no problem. It felt like the cave was breathing and we were in its stomach, it was a highlight of the trip.

After that we went to another cave that was much more accessible. In fact, the boat drove right into the mouth of this cave. It was also pretty neat, we were able to climb the walls and jump off these stalagmites (or are they stalactites? The ones that grow up.) So that was neat. We spent some time there then moved on to this beach with a small resort on it. We spent the rest of the day playing frisbee on the beach, snorkeling, and drinking a cold beer at the resort. I know, I know, this Peace Corps stuff sounds really tough, right? Haha. It was a pretty amazing day.

Last Friday I had a day that I feel really epitomizes my experience here in Tonga so far. We had just topped off the busiest, most stressful week ever with a language test that I was sure I had bombed (I actually found out today that I didn't do too bad at all) and so a few of us from my village decided to try to walk into town. (About an hour and a half walk) Less than five minutes out of our village, a flatbed truck pulled over and the driver leaned out the window and asked "Alu ki fe?" (Where are you going?) We told him in our broken Tongan the we were heading into town, and he told us to hop in the back. As we climbed in the back we realized there was a hole in the bed of the truck absolutely big enough to fall through. But it was behind the back axel, so if we fell through we wouldn't be run over also. We steered clear of the hole and found a place to sit among the people already in the back of the truck and made it safely to town.

Once there we all decided we definitely needed some ice cream, so we went down to the one place we know sells ice cream. She was standing outside of her falekaloa (shop) locking it up, but when she saw us coming she asked what we wanted. We must have sounded pretty desperate, because she opened everything up and got us all neopolitan ice cream cones. Ice cream has never tasted so good. Then I had to run by the bank to pick up my debit card that was waiting there for me. As we were walking up to the bank, we saw that they too were locking up for the evening (it was 4:10 pm) I started running because the next day was our boat trip and I needed my debit card to pull some money out for that. The bank lady saw me running, and she had to think about it for a second, but she opened up for me and let me get my debit card and some money. I just thought of how many times I have gone somewhere in California ten minutes BEFORE its supposed to close and caught someone locking up and refusing to consider even the smallest request.

We spent a few more hours in town, and by the time we all got back together and ready to go it was getting late and we were quickly losing daylight. As we started walking the first vehicle that passed us pulled over and asked us where we were headed. We told the couple the name of our village, and they said they weren't heading there, but they could take us to where the road parted and they were heading the opposite direction. We happily accepted; that would take us about halfway home. We piled into a minivan this time, the wife got out and opened the sliding door by sticking her hand through the window and banging on the door while jerking on the outside handle. We piled into a minivan that had one bench seat leaning up against one side of the van. I ended up sitting on the metal wheel well, leaning my hand against the back hatch door. Soon after we started moving I realized that the back hatch door didn't latch and leaning against it was a little treacherous. As we were driving we started talking to the couple and told them we were new Peace Corps volunteers (in Tonga the word for volunteer is either Pisi Koa for peace corps or ngaue ofa, meaning work of love.) Pretty soon the wife was slicing up a watermelon in the front seat and passes us back a huge chunk of juicy watermelon with a butcher knife sticking out of it. We drove along the pot-hole filled Tongan road cutting off hunks of watermelon that were delectable. As we got to the pace where the road parts, the couple called back that they wanted to take us all the way to our village, it was their way of ngaue ofa. They took us all the way back to our bus stop, where the wife got out, banged the door open and thanked us for riding with them and wished us God Bless.

This afternoon was so typical of our experience with Tongan people, we all kind of looked at each other and said, "Well, it doesn't get much more Tongan than that." Peace Corps has been in Tonga for forty years, and it is easy to tell how well-represented we've been by previous Peace Corps Volunteers. Everyone here has had some experience with a Peace Corps Volunteer, whether they were taught by one or had one as a homestay brother or sister or just had one in their village, and their experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. This means we get treated exceptionally well, but also that we are responsible for carrying on that tradition. I can't wait.

Well, I'd love to hear updates from everyone, I hope all is well. If anyone wants to write me or send me anything, that would be so awesome and so appreciated. My address here is:

Jennifer Danielson
PO Box 147
Nuku'alofa
Kingdom of Tonga
South Pacific

Ideas of what to send include, but are not limited to: letters and updates! pictures! Crystal Light single serving drink packets, Quaker oatmeal On the Go bars, magazines, stickers (I found out that Tongan student will do just about anything for a sticker), or anything else you can think of. Thank you!!!

2008-11-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

View from the water

Husking a coconut
Tongan guy explaining what the facial expressions and carvings symbolize
Tongan version of school drinking fountain: All the students use the same cup wihch they dip inot the bucket of water to drink.Everyone jumped into the water when it was announced that Obama would be our next president

Jumping off the rocks at the beach
Coconut survival Training: Saskia shaving the coconut "meat" to make cocnut milk, a staple ingredient in many Tongan dishes
Basket-weaving from palm leaves. This took my language teacher Ofa about ten minutes.
Opening the cocnut with a machete
Some of our boys trying to climb the palm trees
Tongan boy on his way back from the bush with root crop and a little puppy
puffer-fish!
Beach Day!
Saskia and a local girl

My sister Sepi snorkeling for the first time!

Tongan boys playing in the sand

Locals making Tiki dolls to be sent to and sold in Hawaii

Tongan pencil sharpening. It's a miracle they all still have their fingers

Dancing at our Kalapu

Right: Serving kava as a tou'a

A quick update

2008-11-04T20:50:00.001-08:00

Well, We just finished watching the presidential elections from a yacht-ee establishment in town. I, along with about 90% of my fellow PCV's, am thrilled.

It has come to my attention that I may not have been completely clear in my last blog; I do get to go to the dances at the Mormon church because my homestay family attends the Mormon church and since being here I have gone with them. Religion is a huge part of the Tongan culture, and Sundays are reserved for going to church and resting. Sepi and I were hungry last Sunday, so we walked to my language teachers house and asked if we could pick some mangoes. Unfortunately, we were informed that you are not allowed to pick mangoes on Sunday. So she went inside and got us mangoes that she had picked the day before to stock up for Sunday. My Sunday's are spent reading a lot, walking with the other PCV's (we're not really supposed to, but we can't stand laying around all day), and studying. They tend to be pretty dull days. Once we are given our placements, we won't have to go to church every Sunday, but most volunteers do and I probably will because that is such a huge part of the culture and the entire village comes every week, so it is a good time to meet people and make connections.

As for the kalapu, it was overall successful, with a few minor incidents on my part. Within the first ten minutes, in true fashion, I dropped the serving spoon into the bucket of kava and had to fish it out. We can pretty much only stand up once during the ceremony (4-hour!), and when I did I proceeded to kick over a can that the men were putting their cigarette butts and ashes in, as well as extra kava. I made a mess. To top off the night, we were praying and I opened my eyes and saw my baby sister try to sit in a chair on the ground, which almost tipped over, and I started laughing. Haha, after the prayer the guy next to me asked why I was laughing during prayer, and I tried to explain, but he didn't find it as funny as I did. But, I did get asked to come back and tou-a for another kalapu this coming up weekend. Also, we raised 335 pa'anga for the elementary school in our village.

On Friday this week we have an ocean survival course, so that's something I'm really looking forward to. In addition, on Saturday some of the current volunteers planned a boat trip for us on a local whale-watching boat. We will spend the day on the boat, stopping to do some snorkeling and hang out on a beach. All of the current volunteers we have met are so nice and caring; they are willing to answer all of our questions (and there are a lot!) and most importantly, they really seem to love Tonga, which is encouraging. Yesterday we all had class together and the current volunteers cams and handed out "care packages" because they know how good it feels to get a care package. They had sudoku, the funnies from a New York newspaper, candy, and personal notes. It was super nice.

I'm still working on being able to put some pictures up, the internet is very slow here in Tonga, and I always end up being in a big rush to catch a bus! Hopefully soon though. Hope all is well with everyone! OH and a special good luck to Jeffrey and the rest of the Lathrop swim team at State this weekend!

And the beat goes on...

2008-10-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, the dance. Nothing like any dance I've ever been to in America. The dances are held at the Mormon church on the basketball court around back. People who are not a member of the Mormon church aren't allowed to come into the dance, but they sit outside the fence and watch; the whole village turns out for a dance, whether they're allowed to come in or not. The basketball court is enclosed by a few rows of folding chairs, and between each song everyone clears the dance floor and finds a chair to sit in. Now to the good stuff. When a guy asks you to dance, he'll walk over to where you're sitting, stand in front of you and nod his head. Then he'll turn and walk out onto the dance floor. When you dance with him, you stand a good two feet apart, and he won't look at you. There is no eye contact, and it's way too loud to try to talk. When you dance, you just kind of rock back and forth, there is never any hip action going on at all. As soon as the song ends he thanks you and you both go back to your seats, where inevitably another guy will come and nod his head to dance with you. OH! The best part? Most of the music played is American hip-hop. Completely vulgar stuff, some of it. I'm not sure they quite understand the meaning behind some of the music they play... It was a lot of fun though, and I'm sure I'll be going to quite a few more dances while I'm here.

My homestay sister Sepi has acquired a taste for some of the music on my iPod as well. Her favorites? Shakira, Gloria Estefan, and My Chemical Romance. Very ecclectic, I love it. I am not allowed to walk alone here, so whenever I walk anywhere, she usually goes with me. This has turned out to be really great for me, because whenever anyone calls out to me or stops to talk to me on the street in Tongan, she stands next to me and feeds me all my lines in a whisper. Haha, I usually have no idea what she's telling me to say, but I'm beginning to figure out that she's very protective and doesn't like boys talking to me, so I'm not sure I've always been too friendly with the boys around here. But I always smile, and they usually laugh. Tongans love to laugh, and they are always joking, so if you laugh with them you're pretty much okay in their book.

It's funny for me to think about how much I've changed already in the past three weeks. Not fundamentally, just my perceptions and habits. One of my great pleasures here in Tonga is a cold shower in the middle of the afternoon. Back in the states, I probably wouldn't even consider taking a cold shower; if we didn't have hot water, I'd wait until we did to take a shower. I haven't taken a hot shower since I got here. I get really happy when I hear a lizard chirp in my room at night, because that means I don't have to worry about the other bugs that night. When I come to town, I usually stop at the store and buy an Otter Pop for 15 cents, and that pretty much makes me really happy for the entire day. Yesterday I used a little more conditioner than usual, and I thought to myself, "Whoa, I'm splurging!...Wait, did I really just think that? Yeah, I did." Also, something I would never do in America: I often have to pick bugs out of my food before I eat it. It's pretty unavoidable. On that note, I was really sick for the first time since being here last week. It was a stomach thing, and it only lasted 24 hours, but it was not pleasant.

I entertained the idea of outlining a typical day in Tonga for me, but as I thought about it, I realized that there really isn't a typical day, each one has been pretty unique. We usually start each day with language class, where we all meet (there are five of us in my language group) in a little open-air shelter down by the water. This lasts until about noon. Usually at ten or ten thirty, we take a tea break where we drink tea and eat mangos that we pick from the mango tree in the yard. The afternoon is filled with some type of training, either culture, safety, health, or technical. Sometimes we travel to another village for this training, usually taking a vehicle or bus that operates on a little cultural phenomena they have here called Taime Tonga, or Tonga Time. All that really means is that if it is supposed to come at 1:15, you can usually expect it between 1:00 and 2:15.

Yesterday afternoon we had a special training session called "coconut survival." We all headed out to the bush and learned how to husk coconuts to drink their milk and eat the meat, start a fire without matches, and weave baskets from coconut leaves. Some of the guys attempted to climb the coconut trees, without much luck. Then a little Tongan boy (he was seven years old) scrambled up the tree like it was nothing, holding a machete in his mouth. Pretty soon he was hacking away at the tree and coconuts were falling out of the sky. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures soon, it was a pretty neat day.

Tonight should be another exciting and new night. My village is having a kalapu, which is a kava fundraiser that we are putting on to benefit the local elementary school. I will be tou'a-ing, which means I will be serving the kava to the men. (Traditionally women aren't a part of kava drinking except to serve the kava) As a tou'a, I will be responisble for making sure everyone's cup is full, as well as fending off unwanted attention from guys on a mild narcotic in a language I don't understand. One of our language teachers will be performing a traditional Tongan dance, which entails dressing up in traditional dance attire (one of the few times it is appropriate to show your shoulders in this culture; although still not your knees) and drenching your legs and shoulders in coconut oil. As you dance, people will come up and slap money onto you, which sticks because of all the cocnut oil. Tradition goes that if the money sticks to your legs, you are a virgin. Draw your own conclusions...Anyway, it should be a very interesting night, and I will hopefully be able to post some pictures of it next time I come to town!

The adventure continues...

2008-10-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

I have officially been in Tonga two weeks now! It does feel like much longer, still. Our days are filled with training, and our nights with our homestay families and talking to everyone in the village. I feel like we are famous here; as we walk down the street, I hear "Senifa!" (my Tongan name; they don't have "j's" or "r's" in the Tongan alphabet) and "Palangi" (white person) constantly. Everyone says hello, and I think I've met the entire villiage after being here only a week. We were even invited to a dance tonight! It's at the mormon church, and I hear not much like a dance you might attend in the states. I'll let you know how it goes.

I went to the beach with a few other PCV"s (Peace Corps Volunteers) last weekend for the first time and it was incredible. The water was perfect, and it was about waist-deep for 150 yards out from shore, which provided for some excellent snorkeling. Within the first ten minutes I probably saw more fish than I ever saw diving in California for two years. The colors of the fish were incredible, and the setting couldn't be beat. We stayed out for hours and kept discovering new things. It was hard to leave, but it is only a 20-minute walk from our villiage, so we plan on going back this weekend also. The Tongan people don't go to the beach for fun or just to hang out, and most cannot swim. It blows my mind...

As part of our training we had our first school site visit yesterday. I went to school with my sister, Sepi, which was only a ten-minute walk. As school started, we realized that her teacher hadn't shown up to school that day. (Apparantly this is very common in Tongan schools, and also accepted.) Usually when that happens, the next-door teacher just hops back and forth and teaches both classes for the day. Well, we were there that day, so some of us took over the class. It was Class 4, they were all eight and nine years old, so not too far off what I was teaching last year (in age, I mean). I ended up teaching them English parts of speech. It went well, but it is very different from schools in America. At one point after recess, a few boys were goofing off, so I asked one to move across the room. I don't think he exactly understood me, because he went across the room and took out a stick and handed it to me, apparantly for me to hit him with. I didn't. Corporal punishment is a common practice in Tongan schools, but you may only use one ruler or three coconut sticks at a time. Sort of a rule of thumb if you will. Resources in Tongan school are also very limited, there are no textbooks, handouts, art supplies, and the books in the classroom library are mostly photocopied. This was my first visit to a school, so I'll keep everyone updated on the situation as I visit more schools and when I get placed in the school I will be teaching at for the next two years.

The fruit here is hands-down the best fruit I've ever had. I eat fresh pineapple and bananas every day, as well as papaya, mango, and watermelon. I was never a big fan of bananas back in the states, but here they are small and delicious. The pineapple is so sweet, it's undescribable. Beyond the fruit though, I've had kind of a hard time finding thigs I like to eat. There's a lot of canned fish (mackeral) and canned beef...I tend to stick to eggs and toast for a lot of meals.

Well, I should be getting to a computer once every week or so, so hopefully more updates soon. I hope everyone will let me know what they are up to also, I would love to hear updates from America!

Departure, arrival, first week in Tonga

2008-10-17T15:28:00.001-07:00

Okay, I know it took a little time, I meant to set this up before I got to Tonga, but life got a little hectic in the days and week before I left, so I apologize to all of you who have been wondering whatever happened to me...I made it to Tonga!

Before I left I was lucky enough to travel around Alaska a bunch, blueberry picking in Denali National Park, kayaking the Kenai River, going 4-wheeling with my brother (who, I'm pretty sure, tried to kill us both) and rockclimbing in a little piece of heaven called Cooper Landing. I also got to help coach the Lathrop High School swim team, so if any of you are reading this, tell everyone hi, and good luck at regionals and state!

I have been in Tonga a little over a week, but we have been so busy and learned so much that it seems as though I have been here a month! The culture is very unique and the people are amazing. I have never met more genuine, kind people in my life. They are extremely family and community oriented, and not at all interesting in accumulating THINGS which to me makes this culture so refreshingly different from America. They find joy not in possessions, but rather in each other, in the personal relationships and bonds they form, and in helping each other.

We spent almost a week in the capital of Tonga, Nuku'alofa, where we were greeted out first day with a pig roast and a traditional kava ceremony. Kava is a traditional tongan drink made from the root of the kava plant. It tastes like dirty water, not bad, but not particularly strong one way or the other. You don't get drunk off of it, but it is a mild narcotic. It numbs your mouth a little and makes you relaxed...we didn't have enough of it to notice anything. We spent the week training pretty intensively in safety, health, culture and the language. On the third day we had our water safety training, which involved jumping off a navy ship and swimming around in a small bay. It was awesome; the water felt great, and I felt in my element for the first time since being here. On Monday we were supposed to take a 25-30 hour boat ride to Vava'u, but the boats were both broken down, so we got very lucky and hopped on a 45-minute plane ride instead. This is where we will be spending the next six weeks, living with host families and getting intensive language training. The language is completely phonetic, so once you understand the sounds all the letters make, it is pretty easy to learn. My favorite word so far is Oiaue! (Oy-ya-way: an expression of grief, excitement, or concern) It's pretty fun to say, and you can say it for just about any situation.

My host family consists of my "mom" Kaloni, my sisters Sepi (9 yrs old) and Nani (1.5 yrs old) and my brother Tevita (30?). The are kind and open, and have been wonderful about including me in their family and helping me with the Tongan language. I especially enjoy hanging out with Sepi. The first day I was there, she taught me how to juggle, (or at least she tried to teach me, we're still working on it. She's really good!) I brought out a deck of cards, and she proceeded to beat me handily in everything we played, especially memory! She is a very bright girl. I taught her how to play speed, and I'm sure she will be beating me at that soon as well. I was thinking it was going to be six weeks full of juggling and playing cards when, after dinner that night, Sepi busted out a gamecube! We played Need for Speed Underground (she beat me at that), then she came out with NFL Blitz. I was thinking that this was a game I finally might win since I love football and they don't even have football in Tonga. Well, she beat me at that too. It wasn't even close. Oiaue. Alas, a good time was had by all.

So far things have been going great, I love the new culture and people and am excited to continue to learn the language! I hope this finds everyone well back home!