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January 22, 2014

Finally back at site! After a long training and a very long ferry ride (22 hours) we are finally back in Vava’u at our sites! On our way up to Vava’u we stopped in Ha’apai, some of us got off the boat and walked around, the devastation is incredible. Ha’apai was severally hit by a cyclone and almost ever structure is felled or has some sort of damage. Are hearts go out to all those suffering and rebuilding.

From Ha’apai it was about another 14 hours before I was able to get off the boat and see my island. My best friend and his family came to pick me up and it was great to see them all again. After a quick hug and uma (Tongan kiss which is actually a sniff on the cheek) it was off to the hospital to go to a church service for the recently deceased pastor of the Free Church of Tonga in my village. What return, not even half an hour off the boat and I am back in a tupenu praying. After the service we went back to my village and without trying I saw all of my favorite kids right away just playing around. We dropped my bags off at Hepi’s house and went back to the wharf to load stuff on to the boat for its return to Tonga. When I finally got to get back to my house it was after 8 pm and I had to get the key from my principal who I had found out let one of my teachers stay in my house while I was gone...

I tracked down my key and walked into my house with my friends Hepi and Suli. I was shocked. The house was a mess. It was dirty, all my stuff was moved around and I found a dirty diaper in the corner. As i walked through the house speaking only profanity and assessing the damage, Suli pointed out my room was locked, my key ring didn’t not have the room key on it so I had to break down the door frame to get into my room. In my room things were piled in boxes and just thrown around. I thought i was going to explode from anger and I had to keep apologizing to my friends because I didn’t like that they were seeing me so angry. I ultimately straightened up enough to keep myself sane and then put the rest off for the following day so I could try and salvage the night with my two best friends.

A Farewell to a Good Friend

January 27, 2014

Beside what will only now be know as “the incident” (see previous blog post) my return to site has been wonderful. I have already been on village wide beach days, I have drank a fair amount of kava and I started living with my best friend because he was going to be moving to the main island to study. We enjoyed the last days of summer doing what Tongans do best, nofo pe (just hanging out at home). For about a week we slept, watched movies and that’s about it.

Hepi kept going back and forth on whether or not he was actually going to go or not and then we found out on Monday he was leaving on Friday. I told him I wanted to take him out for a goodbye dinner so on Wednesday night I took him and his brother out to one of the tourist restaurants in town. After a bit of back and forth he went to pick up his girl friend and brought her and her sister to eat with us. I embarrassed them ruthlessly so it does not need to be mentioned that the dinner was quite fun for me.

The next night we had the kalapu for Hepi (kava fundraiser) where I learned that all my other friends my age in my village were going to be leaving within the week as well. I hate the main island.

The day Hepi was supposed to take off the weather was really bad so the seas were very rough. Hepi’s family decided to use the money they were going to use for Hepi’s dad’s boat ticket and buy Hepi a plane ticket since he gets sea sick. This meant he wasn’t leaving until Monday so I invited him out with the peace corps that night for a birthday party. We had a blast! We ate and went out to the bar and Hepi even got to share a kiss (and then some) with the birthday girl. It was so fun being able to show my best Tongan friend a little bit of my life with other volunteers, for once I got to be the one surrounded by friends and speaking my first language. Unfortunately, what should have been a sign of great nights to come was the last big night I would spend with Hepi.

That sunday we packed his things his leaving starting to hit him. I tried to cheer him up telling him about how in America it is common for kids to go to college and it’s scary at first but after a bit you really enjoy it. Monday morning before the first day of school I went with him and his family around the village to say goodbye to the prominent people to him then to a couple other villages to say goodbye to his best friend and some family members. When we got to the airport we waited for a bit and then the time came everyone started crying and final goodbyes were said as he boarded the plane and took off.

From the beginning Peace Corps has been about goodbyes. I have had to have more goodbyes in the past 18 months then in the rest of my life combined. I always joke with people that I am very good at them by now, truth is, they never get easier. The farewells here are almost harder because there is no guarantee i will ever be able to see these people again, when it comes down to it, saying goodbye in Peace Corps could mean saying goodbye for good and when you take out the possibility of a goodbye being a see you later it makes it all the more difficult.

Camp GLOW and GROW

December 9th-12

After almost 9 months of planning and fundraising Camp GLOW and GROW debuted in Vava’u. For 4 days we brought 12 boys and 17 girls together for 4 days of women’s rights education, health, environmental and domestic violence education, as well as working on goal setting, and creating awareness for educational and vocational opportunities after high school.

Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a long standing international Peace Corps project and is not new to Tonga. Harrison, Sean and myself thought that in order to have a successful chance at tackling some of these issues we also had to educate young men. So for the past months we have been developing a boys version of Camp GLOW which we decided to call Guys Reshaping Our World or GROW.

Of course the camp was not without it’s setbacks, for instance on the starting day of the camp our boys dorm (donated to us by the Wesleyan High School) was heavily under construction thanks to a grant received with the help of Sean. Luckily we were able to procure lodging at the local branch of the Red Cross. Another hiccup was our numbers, originally we had offered spots to 16 boys and 23 girls, but this is Tonga and of course people had last minute reasons why they couldn’t come....

All in all we had a blast at the camp and with our awesome councilors (one of which was my best friend here). We all worked hard and enjoyed our time together. The camps had some sessions together and it was hilarious watching all our young boys prepping themselves to go and meet the girls at the girls dorm across town- so much body spray!

Unfortunately, Harrison and I had to leave the camp on the last day to make our flight to America. We didn’t get to see the closing ceremony and i got to say i was a little bit distraught, saying goodbye to our boys and to my best friend (who moved to the main island to study) was a lot to handle for me. I realized just how hard it will be to leave this place for real, and just how excited I am for year 2.

Sifa Does 'Eua

October 8 -17, 2013

I finally got to go to 'Eua! I had a blast going to see my good friends Katy and Chiara and seeing the island of 'Eua, which is very different than Vava’u.

The whole trip was kind of spur of the moment. After planning on going weeks before during the school break but then being foiled and then again because of the fact that Vava’u volunteers can not really fly on the plane (it is a plane from China that is deemed unsafe). I had to request 2 separate weeks off to try and catch the 26 hour ferry ride. On Tuesday I called the women who knows when the ferry leaves and she told me that it was going to leave later that night! I had expected her to say that Wednesday or Thursday so I had to ask my principal if that was okay and then I had to quickly pack everything and get into town. I had a meeting with the high school principals for a secondary project and then after that I went to get snacks and pay for my ticket. I went to get money for the ticket to find out that both the items on the island are not working so I have no way to get money. I didn’t know what to do so I went to a nearby restaurant to talk to Sean (another volunteer who happened to be there) and luckily the owner of the restaurant lent me money to pay for the ticket (go small towns!).

I took the boat, which wasn’t that bad, and met up with Mike the next day on the main island! It was so weird being at the PC office without everyone else. Mike took me out and the next day we met up with Steph (another volunteer) and all 3 of us took another ferry to the island of Eua!

Eua is beautiful, very hilly and foresty looking. Once we got onto the island it didn’t feel like we were on an island at all! The first night we just all caught up and made dinner at Chiara’s house. The next day we went to this amazing spot to camp. The spot is on a clif side and there are wild horses and natural rock formations- it was absolutely breath taking and we just went there and sent up camp no questions asked. We roasted chicken on a fire we built and had a blast. The next day Mike and Steph left back to the main island and I stayed for another few days.

We went hiking in the beautiful national park that had pine trees! We explored Chiara’s village and Katy’s village. I met their people and saw their lives. We went out to dinner at one of the only two resorts on the island (and when I say resort I mean bungalow type things- that is what the resorts are in Tonga). It was just so great getting to catch up two of my best friends in PC, it was comforting to know that we are still close even though we live so far away from each other and don’t really ever get to see each other. We are planning a South East Asia trip after our close of service and after my trip to Eua I am reassured that it is going to be so rad!

Lu Cook-off!

17/11/2013

Lu is a traditional Tongan meal typically using taro leaves, coconut milk, onions, and some sort of meat. The taro leaves are used a pocket to hold the rest of the ingredients and then that is wrapped in banana leaves and the put in the underground oven (umu) for about an hour. This is the meal that pretty much the entire country eats on Sundays after church. The Peace Corps decided to get together and have a little competition to see who could make the best lu, with a palangi (western) twist. We all got together with some of the new volunteers to prepare our own lus and umu from scratch.

I decided to try a chicken curry rice lu, that in my opinion was the best. Mandy ended up with the winner, with her eggplant soy lu. The judges were Don and Nori, they graciously let us use their house to have the event.

In reality all the lus were really good and we had a lot of fun trying to cook them ourselves. Even though I didn’t win the trophy I have high hopes for next year!

After the event i took the left overs back to my site to my friend Hepi and his family. He took one bite of Mandy's lu creation and announced that it was ta'eoli (gross), then he tried mine and said it was good but he was full (lie of course). His mom still chastises me about putting rice in lu because apparently that is just wrong. I told her it's lu fakapalangi (white people lu) to which she replied yeah well lu fakatonga (Tongan lu) doesn't use rice.

They're Here, They're Here!

12/11/2013

After a year of Group 77, team Vava’u got the new recruits from Group 78. 6 new PCVs arrived on the boat wide eyed and overwhelmed. The new group is all girls and the are all spread out around the main island. At first we (Harrison, Mandy, and I) had a lot of talks about how we feel about the new group with Harrison and I decideing we were some what abivilent and Mandy practically drooling over the opportunity to finally have girls to hangout with. It turns out Harrison and I are not as ambivalent as we thought, in fact we are quite excited to have some new blood around. It is nice to see some new faces and be able to share some of our knowledge.

The arrival of the new PCVs could not have come at a better time, I am feeling great about my service, school is coming to an end, and I have never felt more integrated in my community. It is so awesome to have new volunteers come at a time when i feel like I am at the top of my time here. I wish them the best of luck and can only hope they have as amazing a time as I have had so far.

Examination Day

September 29 – 30, 2013

The day had finally come. The big test day that all of my volunteer group have, in some way or another, been working toward- the Secondary Enterence Examinations for the class 6 students to determine what high school they will be attending next year. There are 4 exams spread out over 2 days. I personally don’t take too much stock in these exams because I don’t see the end result, if the kids do not make it into the best high school- the government school Tonga High, they go to one of the religious schools, but in the end I do not see a big difference in career choices from those at the different schools…

  The test starts in the morning after we (I mean me and the teacher who came to proctor the exam and the replacement principal) had morning tea. The first day was English and science, I decided to take the English test myself to see how many mistakes were on the test (this is very common, most of the time the tests are so poorly written you can’t even answer the questions) and to see how difficult I thought it would be for my students. It turns out the the test was not too bad at all, I had high hopes for my students. Of course my ¾ teacher, who is crazy!, was telling me the whole time “don’t worry they did this with Ela.” I kept responding that I had done it with them as well to which she assured me “but don’t worry ,they did it with Ela so they should be okay.” After I asked my kids how they thought they did, the same teacher mocked “ oh Sifa there’s no do now section on the test, no do now so you won’t get it! HAHAHA” (she thinks the fact that I do a do now everyday is a ridiculous notion and tells me the kids hate my class because of it).

After their first exam we all had a big feast with the parents, Mike, who was still staying with me at the time also got to join in. I gave my fakamalo (thank you speech) and gorged myself on all the amazing food. Of course after the big meal all the students have to go and take another 3 hour long exam...

The second day was pretty similar to the first. They took their Tongan and maths tests. The second day’s feast was even better and I tried to redo my speech from the day before because I had forgot to thank certain people that I culturally should have mentioned. I know I am pretty decently integrated because after I had spoken for a bit some of the fathers called out for me to be done (this was in a joking matter so I didn’t take offense). All the men came the second day and had a kava circle in one of the classrooms. I went with Mike to drink some kava and The Proctor of the exam was so impressed by how much kava i could drink, (roughly translated)"I have never seen a white person drink kava like that" of course this tempted the men in my village so they responded with "He can really drink watch" they handed me huge shells after that and so as to not disappoint I drank them. It was also a funny experience for me because with Mike there it was probably the most English they have ever heard me speak and They kept looking at me with weird faces- normally you are not supposed to speak English at kava circles.

Now that the test is done school will be a lot more relaxed for everyone.

Class 6 with some parents they all have new clothes on for the test

my class 6 boys and me

me with the class 6

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The feast!