Site Visit Round 2

August 7^th, 2013

I guess we have been here long enough to warrant our second site visit by Peace Corps. As a Vava’u island volunteer, very far away from PC HQ, it is always a big deal to actually have face time with any of the Peace Corps staff so site visits are actually a pretty good thing. For the site visit our Program Manager and her assistant where suppose to come by and observe us teach then give us feed back on our service as of yet. I received a text message the night before they were coming my site, the message was informing me that they were coming along with the Director of Program and Training (essentially the head honcho since our Country Director lives in Fiji), his wife and a high up representative of the Ministry of Education here in Tonga. I was happy because I pre planned pretty decently and felt good about my lesson but I was also a bit overwhelmed by the increased numbers, mostly due to the fact that the room I now teach in (since taking on just class 5) doesn’t have any chairs (my kids sit on mats and use their benches as desks).

The morning of the visit I told my principal about the update to our guest list and she was a little thrown off because we had planned to cook for Ila and Lavinia and she didn’t know if there was enough food for the new people (she also asked me if white people would eat canned beef, my response- “well I eat it, so I guess”).  

While I was teaching I marveled at how amazing my students could behave if people where watching them! They were all perfect respectable angels. All in all my lesson went great, my kids were awesome and I received super flattering feedback. I told them how much of a struggle it has been to find my groove teaching here and that I was very happy to hear that they felt I did a good job. I told them of my idea for a side project- first aid education and training in primary schools, and they really liked it. They also gave me the most flattering comment I think I could have ever received which was that if there was a reward for the most integrated Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga, they would give it to me. I was truly very happy to hear that since I have worked very hard to integrate myself into my community and learn this language. Sometimes it is the smallest comment that can really make you feel awesome about your service, and it’s those comments you have to remember for when the times you feel useless come about.

As a parting bonus when we all took our picture the women from the ministry grabbed my ass, a gesture that I chose to accept as a token of appreciation at a job well done.

Me with Tupou (on the left) and 'Una (the kid in the back) who are class 6ers and little Saane who is in class 3

this is (left to right) Timote class 3, Peesi class 1 and Sina class 4 after a garden clearing work day, the one being creepy in the back is Violeni she is in class 5

this little guy is Vaha, he is in my class 3, and yes that is a bush knife between his legs

'Ofu Island

August 5, 2013

Last weekend Harrison and I went out to ‘Ofu Island to visit Jeff (the Peace Corps out there). ‘Ofu is an outer Island but relatively close to the main island. This was a trip we have been planning for weeks and was supposed to include all of us Vava’u volunteers but every time we planned to go out someone would get sick, we would get rained out, we would receive a no small boat travel from Peace Corps; finally, after a month of being foiled I told Jeff that no matter what I was coming to visit. Harrison was the only other volunteer with my same resolution and even up until a few hours before we actually left for the island we were waiting for the small boat band to be lifted and the rain to stop. The band got lifted but the rain didn’t stop unfortunately so the boat ride over to the island was very wet.

After getting to the island however, any bad feeling was immediately abandon. ‘Ofu is beautiful- a true tropical paradise, no cars and a grass walkway that extends the length of the island. We spent the first night just going around with Jeff and drinking kava with his people. I always love drinking kava with new people because all my old kava jokes become new again and people think I am hilarious and really good at Tongan. I felt a little bad though because I have picked up the language more easily than Jeff and Tongans, being so blunt, kept mentioning that I was better than Jeff and he was lazy with the language…

We woke up and went for a snorkel, basically right outside his front door. After the snorkel we borrowed kayaks from the very small hostel on the island and took an amazing kayak to three separate islands! One of them, we parked the boats at the back and took a hike through the bush and came out in this really small village. I kept think how funny it would have been had the same situation happened 30 years earlier, people would have been so shocked to see three white dudes just pop out of the bush. We walked around the village for a bit and I heard my name called (something that happens to me a lot now but I was a bit more taken aback being we were on a small outer island I had never been to before), I walked up to the little youth hut and realized it was a kid whose family I had gotten a ride into town with a few weeks earlier. After we spent some time walking around the island and getting the village kids to take our pictures, we took our kayaks around to the island of Mafana and then to Fetoko. Fetoko is a very small island that is owned by a couple from California. They built a super nice restaurant on the island and are currently in the works of building a fancy tree house to accommodate guest.

We were pretty worn out after the big kayak so we just spent the night hanging out at Jeff’s place. In the morning after church we got invited to have lu and a plethora of other dishes, I ate to my fill and then some. When we met up with the guy who was supposed to be taking Harrison and I back to the main island they were just finishing up their Sunday meal. They were having otaika (my favorite Tongan dish, it’s raw fish in coconut milk with peppers and onions) so I had to have more food… As we drove away from the island, bellies full, I was imagining Jeff after two years and thinking what a way to go out as a Peace Corps- actually drifting away from you life for two years watching your island get smaller and smaller as you head off back to the “real world”…

Jeff and I with some of his Kids

the beautifully manicured grass walkway the extends the length of the island on one side

parking our boats to go for a bush hike

talking to the guy who called my name in his hut

a village kid trying to figure out how to take a picture with my iPhone

Harrison and I with the kids from the village we hiked to

this is a picture of the restaurant the Californian Couple built on their island- the nicest place i have seen in Tonga yet

us getting our picture taken after church

the sunsets here are incredible