Island Explorer Extraordinaire

July 31, 2013

  Here’s the thing about Tonga, it is made up of over 177 different islands. There is a lot of islands with in a short distance from the main island in the Vava’u group- so basically if you have access to a boat you can have a lot of adventures; I was invited on one such adventure yesterday by a few Australians and one of their Tongan boyfriends (the one with the boat). I got the day of from school (a request that was sadly all to easy) and we took Po’uli’s boat to the outer island of ‘Eua Kafa.

      We had such an amazing time snorkeling, fishing, hiking and generally just hanging out on an unpopulated island. The snorkeling was pretty awesome, I thought anyway, and fishing was rad (by fishing I mean I used a net once and caught some small sardine looking fish while Po’uli caught some puffer fish and needle fish with nylon attached to bamboo and a speargun). We made ‘ota ika (my favorite Tongan dish) from scratch with the fish we had caught and some onions and limes that we had brought. We even got our own coconut milk from gathering coconuts, breaking them open, grating them on a stick and squeezing the milk with the coconut husk. We also built a fire and cooked some of the fish and toasted the coconut. The food came out awesome and plentiful.

       After eating we took this crazy long hike through the bush up the mountain to get to this old burial ground and lookout point. We tried to find the supposed path but we kept getting lost so instead we took the bush knife (machete) and made our own path. It was actually really fun just trying to find a way to the top all the while walking through spider webs and over fallen trees (all barefoot by the way), I felt like Indiana Jones. We finally made it to the look out and it was beautiful. The hike down however, was a bit more precarious than the hike up and we ended up having to use a lot of hanging tree branches and vines to propel down the sides in some places. We rewarded our efforts with another short snorkel and some cookies. As far as Tuesdays go I would say it was pretty solid, above average even…

a squid that Po'uli ha d got on our way to the island

'Eua Kafa

Po'uli and I at the ancient grave

chillin' in the old grave

the view from the look out

the crew

It's From The Sea It Has To Be Delicious!

July 25, 2013

  Feeling board with my Tongan language I’ve started a new goal- to learn 6 new words a week. I have also been more diligent about my village strolls; in a flash back to life when i first got to site, I took my flashcards on a walk last Saturday and found myself in an interesting situation.

    I was walking and chatting with various people and passers by when I came to a family eating outside there house. Since one of my favorite things is free food on an eve pe I called to the family-

ko e ha me’a ‘oku mo kai? (what are you eating?)

The answered back kolukalu. I had no idea what that meant so I went in to investigate. My first impression is the word kolukalu must mean some sort of animal mucus because it appeared to me that they were slurping up grayish colored snot.

I asked again- ko e ha? (what is this?)

Again they responded kolukalu.

I asked mei fe? (from where?)

mei tahi, ifo (from the sea, delicious). It is a rule of mine to try everything in Tonga so with an apprehensive face and anxious onlookers I slurped up the offered spoonful of goop. Nothing about it was pleasing to the pallet, not the texture, the flavor or the rank after taste.

I wanted to know what I had just put in my mouth so I questioned more-

mei fe? (from where?)

Mei tahi (from the beach)

Io! Ka mei fe, mei tahi?! (yes, but where from the beach?)

Mei tahi, ifo (from the beach, delicious) seeing as I was not getting anywhere I decided to write the word down and look it up later. I stayed with the family for a while and we laughed at my confusion and dislike for something they thought of as a delicacy.

      In case you were wondering what I ate was jellyfish and it was not delicious.

Call Me Doctor Sifa

July 31, 2013

  I came into Peace Corps and to my village with some ideas of what I thought would be good to try and accomplish while I was here, it is pretty safe to say I was idealistic… Not only was idealism the issue but also importance or lack of. For instance, one of the projects I wanted to start was community recycling- not to say I won’t try and do this later on, but the community would not really rally behind it since there really isn’t anything to do with the recycling once you collect it unless you can convince someone to drive across the island to the aluminum only recyling place.

      About a month ago during recess I saw one of my kids out of the corner of my eye. What made me double take and call the kid over was I saw he had about a three inch wide, and very deep hole in his arm near his elbow. Apparently, he had fallen off a horse a week prior and was just letting things work themselves out. By the time I saw it, it was already pretty infected and an unnatural yellow color. I took him to my house and cleaned it out and bandaged it with some of the medicine from my PC medkit (shhh don’t tell anyone, we aren’t really supposed to do that). I have been taking care of his arm since then and have talked to the PC Docotor to get help with what I should be doing, I even went to talk to the kid’s mom to inform her how to keep the wound clean. This not the first time I have had to put on a docotr’s cap and it won’t be the last, Tongan kids play hard and cry for about everything else but pain.

       This incident made me realize that the need for first aid knowledge at the school and in the community is pretty dire. A lot of the cuts, sores and burns could be treated with first aid skills. I am now working to bring those skills to my school and community. I guess the worse thing and the best thing about PC service is time- it takes so long to feel like you are doing anything (if ever) yet you have a lot of time to try new things and start things, the things that you have seena real need for in your community not just the things you thought would be a good idea before you lived at site.

School's Out For...2 Weeks

July 8 , 2013

Last week was an American invasion in Vava’u. We were on school break for two weeks and so many volunteers had family and friends visit from the states. Katy came up to Vava’u with her best friend and her friend’s mom and sister, Chiara came up with her parents, Harrison had his girlfriend in, and Mark and Alissa were hosting Alissa’s parents. It was so much fun to meet everyone and get a dose of America. After over 10 months abroad it was nice to get a small break from my daily Tongan routine. We all had a lot of fun doing some of the touristy things that Vava’u has to over like a day sail and staying in the “resorts” (I put resorts in quotes because they are not exactly resorts- more so little rooms on a small portion of beach). I had a great time getting to see Tonga from the angle of a visitor and as an extra bonus the place Katy stayed in had air conditioning! We all spent a lot of time together, which was nice since I haven’t seen Katy and Chiara since training.

It was really interesting hanging out in a family dynamic again, I didn’t even realize that it was something I was missing until I was having dinner with Chiara and her parents. Even more of a bitter sweet moment was when I was eating with Katy and her friends and they were talking about all of this stuff I wont be able to care about for so long like apartments, new dogs, new places to go in their town. As I was listening to them talk about their excitement to get back and meet the new dog I was a little bummed knowing that it will be another 17 months before I can even begin to think about anything of that nature. Not that I am in a rush to leave Tonga, but I guess it was the first time I realized what I am delaying by being here…

Those thoughts aside, it was a really amazing break filled with a lot of good times. We even went to this one Island right off the main island that is run by a couple from Spain. The only thing on the island beside their house is a very small restaurant where they do a tapas dinner upon reservation. It was so peculiar, but one of the coolest things I have seen. It was like a little slice of Spain on some small island in the South Pacific. It was even a trip getting there, loading all 16 of us on two small boats in the dark- one of the boats ran out of gas half way to the restaurant and was slowly taking on water (even though the restaurant wasn’t Tongan we couldn’t escape Tonga and their bizarrely inefficient boat travel)…

The last night we all had a great conversation, facilitated by Alissa’s dad who played the role of the question master, about Tonga and our experience. I thought it was interesting that all of us had such different opinions about the experience and life in Tonga yet we almost all had similar ideas for things we would change or we thought could be better. Saying goodbye wasn’t easy but when I finally got back to my site I felt ready to get back to real life (if that is even what it is) and get back into school. I was actually surprised how much I missed my kids, even though they drive me crazy we really do have fun together and after a much needed two week break I was excited to get back in the classroom.

Katy and I at the resort

from the left: Harrison, Katy, me, Chiara, Alissa, Mark

our whole group after our day sail

Katy, Chiara and I

Katy and her friend Kelly and I having fun on their last night