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
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