September 22 – 28
It all started when I was sitting in church and felt as if I was about to die. Now I didn’t think too much of it at first because this is a not too uncommon feeling when you are sitting in church here, and the weather has been warming up recently. I was sitting in the pew trying to mop up the copious amounts of sweat coming from my body when the service finally ended. I went back to my house and got out the PC med kit, found the thermometer and begin the test- just as I suspected 103. Now this worried me because it was the start of our school break and I had plans to go swimming with the whales that upcoming Tuesday. With my phone close to my side I spent the next 3 days in bed, drinking rehydration salts, texting the PC doctor in Tongatapu trying desperately to bring down my temperature. Unfortunately for me, the temp was not budging and I was becoming very agitated spending my break in bed. I think all the church hours racked up and gave me a stroke of good luck because the whale company called and said there was actually room to go on Thursday, which was the day the other PCV group was going- score and extra 2 days to beat the fever and intestinal problems…. Tuesday morning I finally got the ward to go see the doctor here and see if there was anything to be worried about- my cab driver Vava (who is such a great guy) came to take me into town. He was telling me that when the PC Doc called him to pick up Joey he was very confused and he didn’t know what she meant, he had thought maybe there was a new volunteer staying with me. He didn’t know it was me until I got into the car, see every Tongan knows me as Sifa and it can get confusing if Tongans have to contact Joey. I made it in to see the NZ Doc, she was really nice and told me there was not anything to worry about but she gave me some extra strength antidiarial medication just in case I wasn’t completely cured by Thursday and was worried about scarring off the whales with some sort of intestinal explosion.
Tuesday was also the day our volunteer friend, Mike, came up to visit from the main island (Tongatapu). As I was starting to feel better I decided to stay in town and hang out with the group. Everyone decided to come in and a few volunteers (the married couples) rented a little room for the week. So we had a lot of fun all getting together and hanging out.
Mike, Mandy and me
Thursday came around and I was defeintely recovered and stoked to see some whales. The trip was absolutely amazing! Jeff, Mike, Harrison, Mandy and I went down to the boat at 7 am and spent the whole day out on the water jetting around the islands in search for whales. Tonga is actually one of only 2 places in the whole world you can have this experience. The humpback whales travel thousands of miles to come to Tonga to have their babies. People can go with trained guides and actually swim with the whales and the babies. Our crew found a mother whales and her calf. It is all super intense because you get the word from the guide and you have to jump in the water really quickely and swim to the whale all in attempt to catch it before it dives. Luckily after the first few times of just seeing it glide past we got to spend a good amount of time swimming with the the calf in front of us playing around in the water. We got so close to him it was almost scary, I thought at one time he would fin slap us! As captivated as we were by the calf we looked down and saw that we were directly over the mother and it was perhaps one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. There is no way to actually describe just how awesome the experience was- truly amazing.
Harrison, me, Mandy, Jeff and Mike
Whales!
More whlaes!
me
After the whale swim we met up with the married couples and we all went out to the little “Spanish” island for the special tapas dinner. This place is maybe one of my favorites in the world- it’s just so unique. We had an amazing time all eating and catching up and sharing stories about our whale swims. We sperated after dinner; Harrison, Mandy, Mike and I went to Mandy’s place and the couples with Jeff went back to their room. When we got to Mandy’s we got a text from Alissa telling us to come out and so Harrison, Mike and I decided to sieze the moment and set off toward town- luckily it didn’t take long to catch a suto (hitch hike) and we met the couples at the only bar in town. It just so happened to be karioki night and our group plus 3 tourist were the only ones in the whole place.
Mandy, Abby, Ryan, Alissa and Mark on their way to the island of Tapana to have the tapas dinner
The next day Harrison, Mandy, Mike and I went with Jeff out to his Island, Ofu, to spend the weekend out there. We had an awesome time taking an epic kayaking journey to remote unpopulated islands, hiking to a fresh water deposit at the bottome of a cave and just enjoying Jeff’s slice of paradise.
Despite the rocky start it was one of the best weeks I have had in Tonga.
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