Potluck, Reload, Timeout

Our Next few days were a rush of learning the ins and outs of what our training would look like and how we were to be integrated into the community. I got to buy my first Tupenu (the traditional Tongan male garment that is similar to a long skirt but with pockets!), I didn’t know how to tie it for a whole day and kept having to readjust it as it fall off every time I got up from my chair /-; Now, I rock this piece of clothing like a champ pretty much on the daily.

                                             This is me trying to figure out how to tie the Tupenu

Here is a picture of the guys in the group (minus Peter) rocking our Tupenus for the first time

I also got to run a Hasher 5k, which was super great because the city of Nuku’olfa is not super beautiful, but the run was on the outskirts of town so I got to see more of the real Tonga. A haasher run is a British thing I think where a bunch of ex-pats get together and set up different runs around a given area. They end their run with a beer and the person who made the course has to chug (they call themselves a drinking club with an exercise problem). On our last night at Sela’s we had a big PC Pot luck at a PC’s house from group 75. It was a lot of fun getting to eat amazing food (there was different ingredients to make-your-own tacos!) and getting to talk to all of the older volunteers.

This is actually their house, not a Peace Corps house. The couple from group 75 got actual jobs in Tonga after their service and decided to stay for awhile.

                           
                        This is most of us being super excited that we got to eat some Palangi food!

This was also the night that one of the older volunteers took, the few of us that were down, out to the 2 bars that are in the city and I got drunk for the first time since America. Now, if you know me, I am a fan a trashing it up on occasion and this night provided me with just such an opportunity. The first bar we went to was called Reload. Reload is a very typical bar, it is like any small bar you would find in America except it had Rugby playing on the TV. Me, Peter and Harrison (two guys from my group) plus Lose (the girl from group 76 that took us out) and some New Zealanders got into the bar no problem, but the Tongans who tried to get in right before us were rejected- this was my first run in with Palangi (white person) privilege in Tonga. After being handed beer after beer and getting way more drunk than I ever expected to get during my Peace Corps service we went next door (literally, right next door) to the other bar called Timeout. This bar was way more of what I expected, it was hot, dirty and full of people trying to get down. There was a fight between a women who was dancing on a table and a guy who tried to hit on her… We were also introduced to many a Fakalati. A fakalati is the name given to the men who are transvestites in Tonga- it started as a cultural thing were families would raise a boy as a female to get help around the house, but is now more of a choice by men. It is strange that in such a religious and conservative culture, where homosexuality is actually illegal, that this would be allowed, but it is acceptable among the people. We drank several more beers (who knows how we got them) and escape a few more fights before we left Timeout. After grabbing Peter from the lips of his New Zealand Moa (term used for non-serious girlfriend/boyfriend) we caught a much-appreciated ride back to Sela’s. When we got back to Sela's we had to sneak in our room and try and pass out because we all had to be up at 7 am for water safety training.

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                     This is a bad picture of me, Harrison and our new New Zealand friend Neo at the bar.

Cave Exploring

My family is Ba’hai, and since there is only a handful in the Village they don’t attend church, which for me meant I got to sleep in and then hang out all Sunday after the Saturday night Kava circle. This particular Sunday my elder host brother Koni wanted to take me cave exploring, or really he wanted me to take pictures of him in the caves…

This is Koni Leka (Leka is the word for Jr.) in front of the entrance to the caves.

Me, Koni Leka, my younger host brother Vita and Tonga (my host sisters husband who happens to only be 21...I feel so like a baby in this house) went through the bush into these amazing giant caves! They took me deep into the caves but before we got to the good parts we had to walk through a pitch black section, which would have been fine (I mean I can handle the dark) except that all I could hear was the sound of hundreds of bats hanging above me. I was thinking that if I fell I would get eaten and then I would be the example Peace Corps gives to its new recruits about wondering around in unfamiliar places. The caves opened up shortly and it was just purely phenomenal after that. The rock was all crystallized from the minerals in the water and there were stalactites everywhere!

Me and Koni Leka

This is Vita (David)

This is an opening at the top of one of the caverns. It reminded me of the cave in the first Batman movie.

Tonga, Koni Leka and me

These were deep in one of the caverns. I wish the picture showed just how sparkly everything was, it was like someone went in the caves and throw-up glitter all over the place!

Tonga is being ver Tongan in this picture- they normally never smile. How sad is my life that I am the oldest one out of all three of us?

After wondering around the caves and crawling into dark caverns, we made our way out of the caves. As we exited back through the bat-infested entrance my host brother decided to show me how if you hit the hanging rock it rings like a gong (this was to accompany his story about how the caves were used by old Tongan Armies for battle)…. As soon as the rock rang all the bats took flight and I was covered in thousands of bat bites!.... Okay so that was only in my head but wouldn't that have been crazy?! Luckily bats must be timid creatures because they only chattered at the sound…

We continued our adventure through the bush on our way to the ocean. About halfway to the ocean they made Vita climb a palm tree and get us down coconuts. Vita obliged by scurrying up the tree and knocked down 4 coconuts. They skinned the coconuts and the poked a hole in the top so we could drink from them all in a mater of 2 minutes- a skill I hope to obtain before my end of service.

This is Vita climbing the coconut tree

As we got within 50 yards of the ocean Koni started telling me that in Tonga when you swim in the ocean you have to take off all your clothes so the witch doesn’t get you…. Now I am not one to just fall for anything but I thought I would play into this a little bit, also I didn’t want to go completely refuse and look like a prissy white boy, so I striped down to my underwear and was waiting until they made the final move to go full monte. Of course they didn’t, and we all ran like crazy people to the ocean in just our underwear. The ocean here is incredible! It is not too cold and it is so clear you can see your feet!  It was so nice I forgot about all of the deadly animals that live in it and can kill you if you step on them (I guess water safety training was as detrimental as I thought).

This is the view from our way back from the ocean through the bush

Frist Week of Class

The first week of class was actually a relief when it came! One, because we all got to meet up again, and two, because we got to start learning Tongan! Our days run pretty much the same around here- get up at 7 (which is fine here because you go to bed no later than 10 every night) have breakfast, go to language class in our respective villages with our village group. After 2 hours of class we have a tea break- I normally make a cup of instant coffee and have some cookies, we have another hour or so of class then we have lunch and get in the van to drive to a nearby village to have TFEL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) training with the whole group. After a couple hours we break for tea again- another cup of coffee and some chips, then a couple hours of class then done for the day. After class we all like to go to the near by beach and hangout for a bit before we all head back to home stay. We normally have great conversations and find out a lot about each other thanks to one of Mandy's many party games (like truth or if you had a theme song what would it be?) I normally end the day by getting back to home stay having dinner then hanging out with the family (maybe we watch a movie in my room, or play cards) then bed. You would think the days go by fast but actually time passes so slowly here! We all feel like we have been here for months but it has just been a few weeks! It’s not a bad thing it is just we all feel so connected and have learned so much to have only been here for such a short amount of time….

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This is Lose (on the right) and some of our language trainers

Mandy (with the coconut), Steph and Abby during a tea time break

Tasi (my language trainer) being fakapikopiko (lazy)

Ryan trying to catch some sun

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We went to search for some puakas (pigs) one day to give our left overs to. We didn't have to travel far to find this bad boy

From left to right: Chiara, Katy, Mandy and Steph in front of our sweet ride. Everyone in all the villages knows when we are around because of this van

The road to the beach we normally go to after class

This is the beach we normally head to

More beach

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Chiara and Mandy

On the walk back to my village one day after the beach. Happened to catch the sun setting (-:

Water Safety Training and Home Stay Depature

The morning after was our water safety training. The training was basically invented (I am convinced) to give the old volunteers a day to laugh openly at the new volunteers. Not to mention making us all petrified of ever entering into the ocean. We learned about every deadly and harmful creature that lives in the Tongan seas from a very serious Tongan Navy officer. After the officers presentation we had to jump off a Tongan Navy ship and do a verity of different water safety positions, including linking to each other by our legs and rowing backwards for several yards. When we got out of the water everyone watched us shiver like wet cats.  

Me jumping off the ship

Our group ass-umping the group HELP position

Our Team winning the team backstroke!

Michael and me hoping the training is over

Thankfully the training ended with us making it into town and finding amazing Chinese food! This was also the big day, the day we all left the comfort of each other, and Sela’s and moved into our home stay villages a.k.a. real Tonga. As we drove to the out skirts of the island things began to get more spread out, more green, and much more rural looking. We each got dropped off in our respective village groups (about 4 per village) we were all overly dramatic with our goodbyes being that this was the first time since we met that we would actually be separated and spend more than an hour away from each other.

My language/village group is made up of Katy, Chiara, Steph, our teacher Tasi and me. My host village is Nakolo and I am staying with the most wonderful family. There are about 6 kids and 5 adults in my 5 bedroom 1 and half bathroom house. Plus there are frequent visits from relatives of all ages, they say that in no one day are the inhabitants of a Tongan house the same- this is proving true for my experience. My host mom, Naomi is awesome, she is caring and super attentive. I have 3 host brothers (tokoua), one who is 16, one who is 20 and one who is 21- this has been nice because I actually have people to hangout with. My house is two-stories on the main road. It is awesome for me because my room is on the second story facing an amazing view of the ocean and one of the other Tongan Islands called Eua.

The view from my window! The island in the background is Eua

This is my house. My room is connected to the balcony on the right

The First Taste of Tonga

Our first 4 nights in Tonga were spent at Sela’s Guesthouse in the capital city Nuku’olfa on the main Island of Tongatapu. Sela’s is essentially a hostel, except our rooms had a private bathroom, which had either scalding hot water or it was ice cold… As soon as we all got to Sela’s we dropped of our luggage and then had Tea Time (a soon-to-be highly anticipated time of everyday here in Tonga). This tea included our own individual coconuts, with colorful straws (a true island welcoming). We got introduced to the PC Tonga Staff (who are amazing!) who gave us a quick run down on the up coming week and some walking around pa’anga (the Tongan Dollar). We had about half an hour after tea to make a few quick calls with our super awesome new Tongan phones! Then we were off to the formal welcome BBQ and Kava Ceremony at the PC office.

                                       This is a good shot of Sale's from the outside

  

What our room looked like, and that is also my roommate for the duration of Sale's, Harirson.

   

                                  

                                              The view from outside our room.

Me and Ryan drinking out of our coconuts. Now that I have been here for a bit I realize that this was not such a special drink...You could literally have this for every meal if you desired!

The PC Office is like a little America, it has wireless internet, a medical apartment and it is gated. The ceremony was held on the second floor were we would have our first PST (Pre Service Training) classes. On this day the room was filled with special floor and we all sat in a circle while we learned the process of the traditional kava ceremony. In an attempt stick with the highlights I will be brief: the ceremony is really fun and interesting, kava is gross, and it ends with a traditional dance that is supposed to be done by a women who is covered in oil and each person in the circle, normally only men, take turns sticking money to her (the origins of stripping?). If the money falls off, then she is supposedly not a virgin. The dance is a special Tongan dance that is mainly hand movements. This specific kava ceremony is the one that is done on special occasions. There are many different types of kava ceremonies and a lot that are way less formal that consist a few men on an afternoon, some that our fundraisers, there are even kava clubs that meet on Saturday nights!.

                                Some of the view on the walk to the office from Sela's

                                 This is the outside of the office headquarters in Nuka'alofa

This is how the kava is mixed and then served to the group. The women who serves is called the To'ua and is typically the only women allowed at the ceremony. It is her job to serve the Kava and provide witty comebacks to the male advances on her.

You can't tell in this picture, but she is more greased up than a pig at the county fair!

Placement Interviews!

September 26, 2012

This has definitely been one of our more exciting weeks of training. We all had our second placement interview this week (I had mine today). We all got the descriptions of all the sites and get to pick our top 4! Most of the sites are on the islands of Vava’u and Tongatapu (which is the main island and the one we are all on now), then there are 2 on Eua. Most of us think we want to go to Vava’u, which is supposed to be beautiful. It is crazy to think we are all going to be separated soon, I feel like Peace Corps is one long strand of goodbyes: first school, than school friends, then home friends and family, then home, then parents and now my fellow trainees… I am happy because a few of my closer friends in training are also looking to be on Vava’u but 3 of my better friends are aiming for different islands so I wont see them for months at a time. It is nice though to get a look at where we will all potential be for our actual assignment and get a glimpse at life for the next 2 years. I think I am leaning toward an outer village of Vava’u because I know I don’t want to be near a lot of internet or anything with too many luxuries, mostly because I feel like if they are there I will use them and I want to get away from all of that. I want to go where the need is and where I will be most present. I definitely don’t want to be to remote however, because I want to have access to other volunteers in case I need help with lesson planning or general support. As a younger volunteer I don’t know if I have enough experience to head an extremely rural location…When it comes down to it though, I am really up for anything as long as I can be of some use to the community. I also asked about coffee plantations anywhere because I figured if a thing like Kona coffee exist there most be real coffee here (not just instant, which is everywhere). Turns out there is one for sure and maybe even one in Vava’u and they said they would put it down that I am interested in coffee farming so they can look for a site if it matches and tell my site! It would be super cool to work with coffee growers as a side project so I really hope that works out!

Along with our site location interviews, we are also lesson planning for our practice teaching that is next week! I am a little nervous but we actually have some good lesson ideas and it is really nice to actually start working. My language group will be going to our village government primary school and teach classes all next week! We will get a real since of what the classroom will be like and we get critiqued so we will have an idea of our strengths and weaknesses, which is a little scary but I guess ultimately nice to know.

We also get to go to the Close of Service retreat for group 76 tomorrow! We only get to go for the day but they will have breakfast and lunch and free beach time at one of the resorts at the tip of the island. It is going to be nice to have a break from training and get to meet the old volunteers and what not. Plus, I think they might have a bar and I would be down to play up the palangi thing and get some sort of beach drink perhaps even a bahama mama?

A Tongan Fale

September 26, 2012

So they are building a Tongan fale (Tongan House) right next to my home stay house. The cool thing about this specific type of house is that it is almost completely made out of different material from the coconut tree. The inside ground is lined with coconut tree fiber made from the dried leaf fibers and then special mats are weaved with the leaves to make a type of soft carpet! My host mom was even telling me that when she was young they lived in a Tongan Fale and used to take it apart and fold it up during Tsunami and storm warnings! They would just wait for the weather to clear up and then put the house back up! These types of houses are now made when construction needs to be fast or there is not enough money to make a more modern house. Even though these houses are basically built out of all free material, I could just image them (or parts of them) being re-marketed by some big company like Ralph Lauren, I could imagine they would say how it is a traditional Pacific Island design and make thousand dollars be selling them to rich white people… It is always funny how a lot of things here in Tonga are made out of the coconut tree (mats, kiekies, tau’ovalas etc.) all for free, but if they were to be sold in the states they would cost a fortune…. I think I may try and bring back a few things and see if I can swing them for a hefty price…

Beside how cool the actual structure of the house is, I also enjoy all the gossip that surrounds the house. I have heard from people in my house that it is being built because a young couple had to get married fast and they will be moving into it soon with their baby. I have also heard, from a different source, that it is being built because there was a family fight in the main house and one of the sons is being kicked out. The best is that everyone gossips about it and the other day there was some arguing going on during the morning building and my entire home stay family gathered around our backdoor (which faces the Tongan House) and tried to listen in on all the fighting. It is pretty funny how when shit goes down you have to imagine that every house within a 100 yard radius has an ear pressed to their door trying to eavesdrop on the action!

This is during the construction a few days ago. My house is the tall one in the background.

This was this morning the general construction is pretty much done by this point...

The Things You Find in the Back of A Pickup

September 21,

I don’t know if this has ever happen to you- you’re enjoying a nice glass of wine on the beach after a wonderful day of class and teacher training and on the walk home you hitchhike in the back of a pick up with 3 dudes and a dead pig missing its head…

Today we got to celebrate one of our fellow volunteer’s birthdays (Happy 29^th Tynesha!). There was an entire fruit spread and cake set out at teatime! We also had a great class on teaching strategies for the 5 basics of learning to read. Afterwards we all thought it would be nice to close out the week with a nice beer on the resort beach (there is a small resort with bar a few villages over from the village we have our TEFL training). When we get to the beach we discover it is around low tide, which means the water had retreated about 50 yards. After some time (and a few glasses of wine) a few of us decided to take the walk out across the part of the beach that is normally covered by water. It was amazing, it was like walking across another planet. The ground was colorful and alive with a host of plant and sea life.

This is Maradeth (one of the extenders from group 75) doing a demo of teaching reading to some Tongan kids.

Michael, Harrison, Steph and me walking across the low tide to the outer rocks!

On the walk back to our village (about a 45 minute journey), my language group decided to try our hand at sutoing (hitchhiking). Before you chastise us for making a stupid mistake let me add that it was getting dark and hitch hiking is a totally normal thing to do in Tonga, plus my Tongan host brother had run into us and was with us. We don’t even have to hail down a car because a pick up pulls over to offer us a ride (a common thing for Tongan motorist when they see palangi walking on the side of the road). Being that it has been Katy’s goal to ride in a back of a pickup since she got here, we waste no time in hopping in the back. We gave our greetings to the other guys in the back and before long I realize that we are not only sharing the back with the three men but also a giant dead pig. The pig’s head had been removed and place underneath its body. I couldn’t help but be excited by this and had to take a quick photo. Nowhere in the US would it be typical to hope in the back of a random person’s pickup and find a slaughtered pig! I explained the situation to my host mom over dinner after and she told me that the men had probably run the pig over and that is why they decided to eat it. It is moments like these that make me realize just how much I am going to enjoy leaving here…

This is what we were sharing the back of the pickup with....Yes I was very palangi and took a picture and yes they all looked at me like I was crazy...

Internet Comes to Nakolo!

September 20,

Internet has hit the village! My language group meets for class every morning in this little library, attached to the village officer’s house, which was set up by an old Peace Corps (Sarah Weiner) a few years ago. It is a small room basically with a lot of different books and a smaller section that had some computers set up. When we first got to the room the computers were out of commission but after Chiara and I spent a couple hours in the “lab” we came figured out that the main computer was actually infected with a various that turned the monitors blue. We scraped the computer and set up the two laptops and convinced the town officer to reset up the internet! After many days of the company saying they would come and then not coming, a few days ago they actually fixed the antenna! Nakolo now has internet access. What this means is that along with the village all of Peace Corps has been stoked to be able to use the computers. Even our language instructor sneak over to our village after class ends to check their facebooks! As nice as it is to have internet, I am trying not to get used to it. We are actually having our Pre-Service Training in the most developed villages in Tonga so I don’t want to get used to things like internet, or running water…. The other issues is that although we got internet we had to essentially pack up two thousand dollars worth of computing equipment that included a mini network system that Sarah had put in place to run four monitors off of one computer. It just makes me sad to think that all her work writing a grant and setting up this center lasted about nine months. It seems that everyone is worried about sustainability, and for the right reasons, no volunteer wants to commit their time and effort to a project and then find out it didn’t last. I guess I will just try my best to make sure that the secondary projects I try and set up will utilize more community effort to insure the people will maintain the projects when I leave.

This is my language group/ village group where we have class every morning! From left to right: Katy, Chiara, me, Steph and Tasi

This is our class from the outside. On the right half is where the computers are set up

Stomach Trouble

I guess I should explain some of the highlights of the week (Rowan and Julian if you are reading this, you will particularly enjoy this story)…. The first Monday of class I ate my packed lunch, which had some papaya. Now, I thought it was good but maybe a little too ripe- mistake one. I should interject here and give a brief overview of what the PCMO (Medical officer) just presented to us yesterday about food safety. The presentation was pretty much two hours of making us all incredibly scared to ever eat anything in Tonga. In Tonga us Palangi cannot drink the water because it has too many minerals or is rainwater collected from the rooftops, which has any number of contaminates. We are also supposed to set up a 3-part food washing method that involves soaking food in bleach-water solution and rinsing with purified water (so again, we are now in belief that we cannot have any water or food). The deep cleaning of the food does not happen at home stay…. not at all. I should also interject here with a side note that Tongan toilets don’t really understand how flushing works, they more just add water to the bowl rather than flush anything down- most toilets take a good 2 or 3 flushings to get anything down- this tid-bit is important later. So back to the fruit, I felt a little rumbly in my tummy after it but nothing to write home about (not including this of course…). I went about the day feeling okay and when I got home to dinner my mom had made amazing fried chicken. Another quick side note on Tongan food- it is a lot of root crops, which I am not about, and a lot of good food but kind of bland and always a few assorted bones. The fried chicken however, was the best meal I had eaten since being in Tonga, better even than the traditional Togan dish called Lu (this is chicken marinated with onion and coconut milk, wrapped in taro leaves all in a tinfoil packet and cooked in the Tongan umu- underground oven). I ate a lot of this chicken to say the least. Cut to me surviving the night but waking up around midnight with sharp pains in my stomach. Here I am thinking to myself- I feel like I am going to have to upchuck/ downchuck my meal. I am thinking to myself- given I puke, should I do it in the toilet or go off the balcony? Now I have mentioned that the toilets don’t flush plus I felt if I went of the balcony the pig would eat it and then my host mom wouldn’t have to clean anything…. So, after a 20 minute debate with myself I decide to go off the balcony, I proceed to pace the entire 7 feet of the balcony to work up the vomit. As I finally feel it coming I start dry heaving off the ledge making what could only be described as the sounds of a dying sea lion. I am successful and as I here my sick hit the ground bellow the sound of a pig comes snorting around followed quickly by one of the many roaming dogs. I return to my bed and try to fall back asleep. No less then 20 minutes later I find myself sprinting to the balcony giving an encore of the symphony of noises that is me barfing. When I finish I turn to find my host my looking shocked and scared for my health, I assure her I am now fine and start to return to my bed. Being the lovely women she is, she brings me a cup of tea and I pass the rest of the night watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and trying to forget the wonderful first impression I just made.

P.S. Now my family is so scared of me getting sick that they a very concerned with all my meals and double check with me every dinner idea. Quote “for now on you tell me what you want to eat, Tongan stomach very strong, we eat anything but you…” Essentially white boy can’t hang….

Here is a picture of the beautiful beach incase you can't get the image of me puking out of your head....

The Book of Mormon- Tongan Edition

September 23, 2012

Last night I was invited by one of the local guys to go to Mormon church. I thought it might be fun to experience church like so many other volunteers have so I took him up on his offer. He said he would pick me up at 10 am and so of course I am waiting at my house at 10 am and there is no sign of my new friend. The church is right next to my house and we heard the singing start so I decided to walk over and slip in and then find one of the my fellow volunteers to sit with (all three of them are leaving with Mormon families and have to endure weekly services/classes). Luckily I was able to slip in and I quickly found a spot next to my friend Steph. Throughout the entire service I was amused at just how Tonganized everything was, from the singing to the dress, it was like church with an island spin. Probably the most different from American services was the fact that no one really ever stopped talking, voices would get lower but there was always some sort of whispering going on at all times. The other major difference, and the one that kept me laughing inappropriately throughout the service was that the kids would always get smacked during the most passionate (or what I can assume where the most passionate since I didn’t really understand anything) parts of the presenter’s speech. A kid would be fidgeting or fighting with the kid next to them and the older person next to them would raise their head from their bowed position and slap the kid and then reassume the prayer pose. Of course this only worked to calm the kid for a matter of minutes before the process would repeat itself. There was also several kids walking from pew to pew, since everyone knows everyone in Tonga the kid would just get picked up and given attention no matter where in the church they ended up. As if this was not enough to try and deal with, I received a text message from my friend Wren who is in another village. Apparently, during her church service the pastor yelled half the sermon and then spent the other half hacking up a lung, the image of a giant Tongan preacher yelling his sermon fire and brimstone status then having a coughing fit was too much for me and I started bursting into laughter. I could not have picked a worse time because as I started to laugh, the women at the podium began to cry… I tried to contain myself, which only made my eyes start to water. I decided to use this to my advantage and act like I too was struck with the Holy Spirit! I hope it worked /:

After the service we went to a youth group glass and the topic was repentance. They asked us palangi to introduce ourselves, and since that is the one thing we can all do in Tongan with no problem, we all got up and gave an introduction. About halfway through the class, I noticed that the girl leading the group had a very suspicious belly, I am pretty sure she needs to repent a sin herself….

This is the Mormon church in my village. It just so happens to be right next tome my house, which means I can hear singing at least twice a day, everyday...

Farmer Joe

September 22, 2012

My friend Mandy and I had made plans earlier in the week to meet up on Saturday to use the internet in my village and then she would show me how to blog (her blog is amazing and if you want a better account of the day by day life here or are looking for really amazing pictures check out her blog!). We meet up around 8:15 and went to the center. After spending a very frustraiting few hours with the internet I realized that internet is too overwhelming here, it is patchy and slow and is more trouble than it is worth. I like being connected to people but I think I could learn to be happy with limited internet access at post. After finally getting an offline blogger app to download I had had enough and the language group walked Mandy to Ha’asini (the next village over) and then jogged back. After getting back I was invited my by host brothers to visit the uta (the word translate to bush but is what we would call farm land almost). Another guy in my house quickly (I mean like maybe 5 minutes tops) weaved a basket out of a coconut tree branch and then we took the walk. Tonga was wielding a machete and wasn’t even wearing shoes. I was being the palangi in the chacos and rain jacket trying not to fall on my ass from the slippery mud. We walked to the way back of the village and eventually got to my family’s land. There were rows of taro and yams with the occasional coconut tree. As we picked that taro leaves for the lu we would be having on Sunday Tonga, Koni and the kid we picked up on the way took turns making fun of each other and trying to get me to say dirty words in Tongan. When we filled the basket with leaves Koni pulled up about 20 yams. We all gathered some coconuts that had fallen and then started heading back. On our way out of the ‘uta we passed a women with a machete and her own basket. This women was probably about 65 and jokingly threaten to sliced up Koni as we passed by. Here it is a wet and stormy Saturday afternoon and there is a elderly women walking into the uta, knife in hand, to gather up dinner….

This is what the basket looks like and it is filled with the taro leaves for the Lu

Saturdays are also normally Kava drinking nights, so after dinner we were going to go to the kava party but discovered there wasn’t a to’ua (female kava server) so Tonga took me to a near by hut instead. Side note here: The hut was actually a guys separated room because in Tonga when siblings of the opposite sex are in their adolescences until about 21 they are not allowed to share the same house. I spent the rest of the night hanging out with the village youth learning dirty Tongan words. It is funny that no matter what country you are in, hanging out with the guys is the same, they all want one of my friend’s (most likely because they are white) numbers and they all make fun of each other constantly. All in all, a pretty good Tongan Saturday…

A Bit More About the Tongan People and Villages

I want to take a moment to explain in better detail the Villages and Tongan people. I feel like I have done a very poor example of describing the incredible generosity and kindness of the Tongan culture. From the moment we got to Tonga the people been nothing but kind. We have been greeted and fed by almost everyone we run into. There has not been a single time I have walked down the street and not been greeted by anyone I come into eye contact with. The greetings are sincere as well, not forced in anyway. People in cars wave and sometimes they even stop to make sure you are all right on your walk between villages. Tongans are very concerned with maintaining their image of “The Friendly Islands,” they share everything among each other. It is even a cultural thing for one sibling to ask another sibling for their children if they want and the sibling has to comply. They are always quick to provide you with food, if a neighbor doesn’t have enough to eat then they can just ask and they will get a complete meal with no expectation of having to repay the family. Their houses are always open and welcoming, never have I felt like an imposition with my host family and I have yet to actually feel hungry since I started living here.

The villages are really rad! There are pigs and dogs of all different sizes that roam around everywhere and on every corner there is a church and a small rectangular cement building called a falekola that sells general nonperishable food and a variety of household items and beverages. The houses are normally very small and built with obvious unfinished walls or roofs. Some are tiled and some are not but most are surrounded by lush greenery. On the inside they are lightly furnished, as a lot of Tongans sit on decorative straw mats placed on the floor. The most amazing thing about the villages, and Tonga itself, is that everyone knows everyone and everything that goes on around the islands. There is a thing called the coconut wireless, which is a name given to the fact that gossip is a way of life here and being such a small country there is very little privacy. You don’t really have addresses you just say who you live with and people figure it out. Life here is very slow paced; most people work in the bush (we would call them farmers) and they make money by selling their crops in front of their homes or in the market. Most of the money to finance building of houses is normally given to families from overseas relatives (in my case, my host mom’s daughter who lives in New Zealand or Australia). In short, the people are awesome and the way of life is very different than anything we could imagine in the US, and as you move further from the main island you only get more rural and less developed, it is in these places that we all will be eventually placed. Hopefully we can all learn how to appreciate life like the Tongans while imparting some of our ideas about life and what we value.

This is Stephen (TV for short) he is one of the kids who lives in my house

This is an example of a flaekola- think of them like mini 7/11- this too have loiters!

My first trip to Ba’hai Church and my issue with Tongan checkers.

September 16, 2012

I went to church today for the first time! As I mentioned earlier, my host family is of the Ba’Hai faith and since there are only 5 or so in our village we do not attend church like rest of Tonga. Before I go any further I will give a quick tid bit on the faith- it is a really cool and interesting faith that is relatively new. In the Ba’Hai religion they believe that we are all one and the same under god, they believe that all the profits from each religion were sent by god to deliver the gospel to the new age. Ba’Haia are super accepting people and have some really thought provoking ideas please look it up because my explanation does not do it justice. Anyway, usually a Tongan family will go to church for the majority of Sunday but my family just holds a small gathering in their home. Today however we went to church or maybe it was just a larger gathering with the Ba’Hais from all the neighboring villages, I was kind of confused because it was at a house I think and I am not sure there was a service, more just a lot of talking…. Of course everything was in Tongan so I have no idea what actually went on. After changing three times because I didn’t know how formal it was supposed to be or if I would have to wear my tupenu I finally made it to the van. About half way down the road we pull over, everyone got our of the van but me the drive and Tonga (the passenger, yes his name is Tonga), then the van started heading back to the house. Per usual I am utterly confused, but I just decide to sit back and let them direct me. I guess the van broke so we drove back and got a different car and then went to pick up the rest of the people who were waiting where we dropped them off on the side of the road. When we got to the church (or house??) we walked in and there were about 30 people all sitting on the floor and as I looked around I noticed that two of the people were definitely not Tongan. This was my first experience with getting excited and wanting to gravitate to whiteish people. I never did get their back-story but they were a couple and she gave a speech to the congregation in Tongan so I guess they had been there for a while. The service (or meeting) was long and when it ended I was happy to get off the floor and start to feel my legs again (I don’t know how they can sit like that for hours!). Sundays are lazy days so we all pretty much just hung out after eating lunch/dinner upon our return around 2 pm.

It was in the kava shed hanging out with some guys that I got introduced to Tongan checkers. This isn’t the most exciting story but I do have to vent because Tongan checkers is ridiculous. For one, you can backward jump whenever, not just if you have a king. For 2 once you get a king, you can slide across the board however many space you want, making jumps in between if you so chose. Lastly, we were playing on a handmade board with rocks and bottle caps; this made it pretty much impossible to keep track of the kings in the game. I played like 4 games of this madness before I got the hang of all their weird rules and even then I feel like they still were making up new rules. Word of advice, if a Tongan ever entices you to game, make sure they spell out the rules for you before you play.

My First Tongan Bus Ride

September 15, 2012

My first experience on a Tongan bus was today! We all wanted to use our free Saturday to hangout and get caught up with the internet since we don’t have it in our villages plus I wanted to buy another Topenu that isn’t black- Katy’s host mom told her that all I wear is black, which is partly true since they made such a big deal about bringing a lot of black clothes in all the blogs a majority of my collard shirts are black. My group all scored a ride into town with our teacher that catch was we were on our own for the ride back. When we got into town we all met up for lunch with some of group 76 at the most developed place I have been to yet. It was very westernized from the fancy leather chairs, a list of blended coffee beverages and apple pie! Eating at restaurants in Tonga is super expensive so I just ate my packed lunch (that my mom made (-: ) and indulged on a coke and some tiramisu. We had planned it so we could all get into town at different times and use the internet at the PC office at different times, therefore not backing up the connection, this plan did not work out as well as hoped. After lunch a few of us went to the office and long story short that is when I realized a blog would be the easiest solution to staying connected with home! Anyway, frustrated, we left the office in a hurry thinking we were going to miss the last bus to the village, we made it and luckily all got seats! Now Tongan buses are not exactly up to the standards of American public transit, which should give you some idea of their operation capacity. The buses are about the size of the short bus and have seats for maybe 15 people our bus tried to leave the stop with maybe 38 people on board… of course we couldn’t just drive off, that would be too easy, the driver had to make boys get off the bus and push it to a start and then run to hop on. At each stop the same thought ran through my head- we can’t possibly fit any more people on here- I was wrong. By the second stop into the ride (maybe 15 minutes) my face was inches away from 3 Tongan’s asses with one resting on my shoulder and all the while Nelly was playing loudly on someone’s phone. At each stop everyone has to exit so the 2 people that want to get off can, then the bus accepts more riders and we move along. As we get to the outer villages one of the “stops” (the quotes are because when you get to the outer villages that stops are more just when people need to get on and off) is by a falekoloa- roadside store of sorts… The guy who rides on the side of the bus out the door (I can only assume his job is to make sure people don’t fall out because I don’t think the door of the bus works) picks up half a fifth of some shitty looking vodka and hands it to the driver. Between the musty air, cackling women and potentially intoxicated driver I could not stop thinking how it could possibly be that I would still take the Tongan bus over ACT transit….

Genesis

September 2^nd was our staging in LA, California. That was a crazy day and a half- the final goodbyes, freaking out over packing and getting bags onto the plane (HA! Shelly, we all made it, without having to pay extra baggage fees! Also Ryan and Tu’anh if you are reading this, it’s kind of a long story but the hot cheatos made it to Tonga!), and meeting the 14 other people I will be spending the next 27 months of my life with. Lucky our group is small and gets a long really well. We have all been able to bond and get close very fast, which has been great since adapting to PC life has been more challenging then any of us initially expected.

                                    This is our group! We are waiting for the final flight to Tonga!

 Pretty much all of us in the group are in our 20’s but there are 3 of us who just graduated from college. Not only do I get to be the smallest, but also the youngest… After a 15 hour plane ride that actually was not that bad, thanks to the generic sleeping pills and Air New Zealand’s wonderful flight accommodations we all finally made it to Tonga! Some of the volunteers have been waiting months for this, but some have been waiting a whole year to get here… As soon as we got off the plane into Tonga’s international airport (literally a single portable building and one runway) we saw up on the balcony of the building a huge American flag and heard cheers. The past group, group 76, along with the PC Tonga staff were all waiting for us. Hands down the coolest way to ever exit a plane- it was like being a rock star almost. 

                                                        Our plane plane landing in Tonga!

      This is Cecelia (A Peace Corps from Group 76) holding up the flag for us as we exited the plane!

After claiming our 100’s of pounds of luggage and got introduced/layed by the people anxiously awaiting our arrival! There wasn't a group last year so they have been waiting a long time for new Peace Corps to hit Tonga! 

After the Great arrival and all the pictures we loaded onto a bus and got to see our first glimpses of Tonga. There were palm tress  and lush green plant life for miles separated only by the occasional church and school. 

On the left going from front to back is Sarah, Cecelia and Charity from Group 76

They drove the whole way with the bus door wide open! 

Some Tongan Scenery 

                                    

This is our group! from left to right and front to back: Tynesha, Abby, Jeff, Mandy, Mark, Alissa,             Chiara, Wren, Ryan, Peter, Harrison, Me, Katy, Michael and Steph