Australia Day!

January 26, 2013

My new favorite holiday is Australia day! This is a wonderful holiday similar to Thanksgiving and Fourth of July in the US. The Australian volunteers invited Peace Corps and others from around Vava’u (mostly the strange palangi population that live here) to celebrate the day the white people came to Australia. We got to eat Australian food and desserts (if you are wondering what Australian food is, it is a lot of desserts with coconut, Anzac cookies, sausages and Fosters), there was even a meat pie-eating contest! We partied from 11 am until past 3 am (well I went to sleep but others stayed up that late). We had set up our slip n’ slide made out of the tent tarps and had a lot of fun going down it in our costumes. Oh that’s right, it was a costume party! I borrowed an Australia shirt and hat from kids in my village so my costume wasn’t too impressive but the Ausy volunteers went all out, dressing up as Australian Icons, one volunteer went as some Australian comedian’s drag character- she painted her wig with purple drink flavor and then had to spray it with Mortiene to keep the bugs off it (probably wasn't the safest thing to have on her head for several hours). There was dancing and a lot of general merriment to go around, overall it was really awesome and I will be looking forward to the holiday in the future- I hope I will be able to make the Ausies proud when I celebrate in the future!

Tria is the Australian volunteer who dressed up as the drag character, the other one in the picture is Sean, he went as an Australian shark attack victim

all the Ausaid volunteers and me

the pie eating contest, I guess the pies were right out of the oven so everyone burnt their mouths trying to eat it quickly

Holonga Walking Club

February 14, 2013

Last Thursday I attempted to start a walking group with women in my village, after telling them during a PTA meeting to meet me on Thursday in front of the church. I went and no one showed; this was after I went to the weaving hut and they told me they would be right there, I even tried yelling at people from the front of the falekoloa… This time I was on a mission, with the help of the PTA chair, Sina, I went around my village and I to the weaving huts, I also went up to every women/ yelled to every women on the way and waited in front of them until they agreed to come. After a bit I had gathered a pretty sizable group without even counting the elementary school kids (almost all of them) who decided they wanted to come too. I took the women walking along the main road for about half an hour, by the end we decided we would all go walking 2 days a week- I hope I don’t have to parade around the village

My First Week of Teaching

February 14, 2013

Our first official week of teaching was this week and I am happy to say that, excusing a few bumps, things went well… for the most part.

The first day of school was pretty rough, but not because of my classes, more because my principal decided to come give me her usual 6 am wake up call but this time she crossed a line. She came in and smelled the coffee I was brewing and told me to give her a cup, now I am trying to become a better sharer and everything but with my coffee, come on, that's just too much too soon! But what was I to do?I had to hand her the cup, with a single tear slowly falling down my face. After the cup of coffee she, told me to clean out my fridge and put this humungous watermelon in it- umm sure I guess. When I walked, the two feet, to school with my materials the teachers asked me when I was going to teach, as if I have any idea the school’s schedule or when English period is- but sure I guess I will just start now, oh I should also mention that they told me to just take however much time I needed be it 15 minutes or 2 hours….I go into class and try the lesson I had planned a month ago and very quickly realized that this is going to be a learning process for all those involved (while planning ahead of time may have seemed like a good idea, it was pretty useless). Overall I was pretty satisfied with the first class though (class 5 and 6). It was, and still is, class 3 and 4 that is making me struggle with every fiber of my frustration control. I was trying to teach the alphabet (after realizing that they didn’t recognize the letters nor the sounds) meanwhile the teacher was yelling at them the whole time and giving them the answers- it is hard to explain, but imagine trying to ask a kid a question and when he doesn't answer right away an angry Tongan yells at them and tells them the answer...

When I got done teaching my principal told me that we were getting some visitors from Tongatapu (the main Island) and we needed to cut up the watermelon for them, so we went to my house. While cutting up this watermelon (it is getting everywhere in my house and I don't have running water anymore so clean up is a b+#$h) she decides she needs to borrow my floor mats, my stapler and my plates… and then my chair and a handful of napkins and all the water, then she said the words every Peace Corps wants to here: “I am glad you are here” oh wait, oh no, what was that? The full statement was, and I quote: “I am glad you are here because now I can use all your stuff” well if I didn’t feel super useful before!

Luckily the week got better and I have decided that the cheesy statement “the kids make it all worth it” is kind of true. On Wednesday class 4 didn’t understand anything I was doing and was not getting anything I was trying to teach, but luckily for me, the teachers were late coming back from lunch so I took the class again and tried to teach them a completely different (way easier more realistic) lesson and after they started understanding it I got so excited that started laughing at me. Then I did some PE with them and made an obstacle course and had them do some rolling at a certain part, it was pure hilarity. I guess I will just have to remember those moments when I am so frustrated I begin to understand why they hit these kids (like today with a certain class 4 that decided they were over learning of any kind and thought it would be fun to just repeat anything i said and blurt out wrong answers to any statement)… As long as they don’t try and drink my coffee though, I am sure I can handle them…

  

First Week of School!

February 8, 2013

The first week of school went well! In the traditional Tongan fashion we really didn’t start with classes this week, it was more just cleaning the school and cutting the grass. I was trying to figure what I was supposed to do and when I was supposed to teach so I talked to my principal, who a few months ago said I would be teaching 3 hours a day classes 3- 6, after I talked to her the first day she told me I should probably only do some group work with class 5 for about 20 minutes when the teacher needs me to… After our talk she told me to go home and rest, I got really frustrated and went to my house but then decided to just go and talk to the teachers I would actually be working with (the class ¾ teacher and class 5/6 teacher), they told me I can teach the whole time and they will help me translate when needed- crisis averted.

Friday was absolutely absurd. I guess the kids are supposed to have religious instruction and listen to some radio broadcast so I we don’t really teach on Fridays. Their religious instruction took all but half an hour and while the teachers were listening to the teacher’s radio broadcast the PTA chair was with the kids. She actually had them get in a line and march around the school to kill time- this was after trying to organize them by class and size… Since I couldn’t really teach and I don’t understand the radio broadcast, I joined the kids just playing around and started making them give me piggy back rides (it’s called fafa here). They loved it, each took turns and some buckle under my weight, which made me way more happy then when a few of the kids (okay maybe 5) could actually carry me…

Even thought we spent most of the week pushing the lawn mower over the acre or two of grass field in front of my school, I did get a chance to do some benchmark testing with the 42 kids I will be teaching and it was quite eye opening. Some kids have trouble with letter recognition and few know any phonics and even fewer know any site words past the pre-primer level. I thought this was going to be hard but I don’t think I was prepared for teaching kids letters… I will need way more than an hour of English class a day to help these kids and I will definitely need to get better at Tongan, that’s for sure. I guess I really wont know much until next week when I start actually teaching but things are definitely getting more real now.

Turning 23

February 6, 2013

Since I was to spend my birthday in the village I thought I would spend the day doing things that I liked, this pretty much meant I planned on making myself good meals. I made tortillas and had breakfast burritos with coffee to start the day and ended it with a Coke and chicken and rice "burritos" (I desperately miss Mexican food and I wish the burritos i made where anything like what you reading this are thinking). I thought I would go to school and then spend the rest of the day watching my favorite shows, reading (I am so close to finishing the Count of Monte Cristo) and then end my night drinking kava with the guys. Of course I am in Tonga, so not everything can go as planned… I went for a run and somewhere along the way I dropped the keys to my house, I retraced my steps, so basically had to do the run over again, and still didn’t find them. I had to borrow a screwdriver and break into my own house (if you are counting, this is the 3rd time I have had to break into my own house...). Finally after breaking into my house and discover I didn't have any water (bucket baths are so great!) I got to sit down to my burritos. Halfway through my meal Imy town officer shows up at my house and asks me if I want to go with him to drink kava in another village. I thought I would celebrate, it being my birthday and all so I through on a tupenu and hop in the fan. On the way we almost died driving into a herd of cows in the middle of the road. We got to the hall and I ended up having a blast, my Tongan was on and the tou’a was attractive, plus I thought since it was my birthday I would shamelessly flirt with her. As I was conversing with the server a molokau almost bit me but luckily my minister saved me by burning it with his cigarette. I was having so much fun we ended up staying until after midnight. Even though it was vastly different than my birthday would have been in the states, I still had an awesome day, which gives me high hopes for future celebrations here.

Teacher's Planning Week

January 28, 2013

It was the first official day of work today; this week is Teacher’s Planning Week on the calendar and then next week we start school! The ministry of education holds a planning week/ presentation week were all the elementary teachers from around Vava’u get together and work out the year. I went with my teacher’s into town where we met all the other teachers and Peace Corps at a hall. Of course this is Tonga, so instead of starting at 8:30 the meeting started around 11 and it was actually a church service rather than a meeting. They had also put all of us Peace Corps on separate benches in the front of the room… The next 2 days were a bit more of a meeting but still all in Tonga so not of much use to us.

On Thursday we were supposed to be done with the meetings in town and we were told to just meet at our schools and work. I missed this day of teacher planning because I had arrange to go out with the Micro Finance group on the island to see what the meetings are like and to learn more about the organization. It was really neat getting to go around and meet with all the women and see how a Micro Finance org works on the ground. At each meeting I was offered a bride as soon as I walked in, one of the meetings offered me a bride and lunch! I got to learn a lot though and I think I will try and to do more work with the group in the future.

On the last day of the week I had accidentally talked myself into making breakfast for my teachers while we met. After breakfast (I made scrambled eggs with onions and hot sauce, then to make it fakaTonga I put it into bread bowls) instead of doing planning I helped my principal mow the humongous field that is in front of our school- this was done with a push lawn mower not a ride-on one… I am just assuming I didn’t get much out of the week because I don’t speak Tongan, but it also just seems like an interesting way to start a school year and I am not sure if it is better for us outer village schools or inefficient.

I know it is kind of lame but I am proud of this food invention so I had to take a picture of it

Some Tongan Medicine

February 1, 2013

I have noticed I have been blogging less because things that would have been kind of interesting before are becoming more normal to me now but this last eva I felt was blog worthy so here it is:

I went eva today and got to see a little bit of Tongan medicine. I was with some young women in my village, we walked to this house and then I realized we were there for another women to apply some medicine to one of their kids. The medicine was some sort of herbs wrapped in a cloth and then squeezed into a small bowl of water. First the lady massage the kids throat and mouth with a bit of the herb water and then she got a higher concentration of the herb water and poured it into the kids mouth. The kid (he must have been 3) didn’t like it at all but what kids likes medicine? I couldn’t really figure out what it was for but I think it was a toothache because the kept saying he ate too much candy…

I continued on my walk and ran into some of the local teenagers and went with them to a house to find hair clippers. One of the guys was getting his hair cut and I have never in my life seen someone so detailed and precise when giving a haircut (especially with clippers). The kid’s hair wasn’t long to begin with (he was more getting it cleaned up rather than cut) and the whole process still took over an hour. The guy who did the cutting made sure every single hair was cut perfectly, he even brought out a razor to get the hairs the clippers missed. I couldn’t believe how exact this kid was being (I should have know because it was the same kid I ran into cleaning the pig a few weeks ago); Corey if you read this, your competition for haircuts lives in my village! I know that when I cut my hair I am going to this kid!

Evaing is the best, you never know what you are going to end up doing or what you might find...

Back to the Capital for Training

January 25, 2013

We all had our In Service Early Service Peace Corps training last week on the main island. Even though we all had our doubts about this training (because it seemed thrown together in an effort to please our new country director), it turned out to be pretty solid. It was really great getting to see everyone again and hear about all of their experiences settling into their sites. It was also super great getting to eat Chinese food! The training wasn’t half bad either, even though it was a lot of discussion without much action, we had some really great guest speakers, like the minister of education, and Abby and I got the ball rolling on one of our secondary projects, which will be to create a teachable curriculum for TEFL in Tonga. We stayed at Sela’s Guesthouse again, it is strange going back there because it reminds me of our first day in Tonga and how different things are now.

The highlights of the training, besides the food, was getting to go back to Nakolo and getting to say goodbye to Meredith and Dominica. Chiara, Katy and I went back to our home stays the Sunday of training. It was so cool getting to see everyone again and be able to speak better Tongan. My family was having a big family reunion and I got to meet their family from overseas in Australia and New Zealand. We also had a big feast that Katy ended up coming to and I got to try dog meat (which was surprisingly good, it tasted a lot like pig). I had a lot of fun getting to see my host brothers again and seeing some of the guys from the village, of course we got talked into drinking (Katy serving not drinking) kava so we stayed in the village until past midnight. I am excited to go back again and hopefully be able to speak even better Tongan and see my host brothers again.

the feast

my first experience eating dog meat

How To Build an Emu:

Step 1: dig a big hole in the ground and fill it with rocks and coconut husks and set them on fire.

Step 2: remove rocks and place food into the oven.

Step 3: cover hole with banana leaves and scrap corrugated tin

Step 4: cover with blankets.

Step 5: cover area with dirt.

Step 6: uncover after an hour and a half; eat right away.

Dominica’s and Meredith’s send off was an awesome night! We went to this restaurant and basically were the only one’s there. All the current volunteers plus some Ausaid volunteers and some of our staff came, we had a lot of fun owning the dance floor and basically requesting any song we wanted (of course the DJ’s selection was some what limited). I really hope that when my time comes, I will be able to have everyone around too.

Dominica, Meredith and me

all of us, the one throwing up the gains signs in the front is Lose, she is our Language Coordinator

The training was really fun and I was very pleasantly surprised that getting back to site was not a hard adjustment at all. I really thought I would be a bit bummed for a day or two but as soon as a got back and unpacked it was actually kind of nice to come home (after I cleaned up all the dead bugs of course). Now it is just getting the last things prepared for the start of the new year in about a week! Service is about to get real and I am excited for it.