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January 22, 2014

Finally back at site! After a long training and a very long ferry ride (22 hours) we are finally back in Vava’u at our sites! On our way up to Vava’u we stopped in Ha’apai, some of us got off the boat and walked around, the devastation is incredible. Ha’apai was severally hit by a cyclone and almost ever structure is felled or has some sort of damage. Are hearts go out to all those suffering and rebuilding.

From Ha’apai it was about another 14 hours before I was able to get off the boat and see my island. My best friend and his family came to pick me up and it was great to see them all again. After a quick hug and uma (Tongan kiss which is actually a sniff on the cheek) it was off to the hospital to go to a church service for the recently deceased pastor of the Free Church of Tonga in my village. What return, not even half an hour off the boat and I am back in a tupenu praying. After the service we went back to my village and without trying I saw all of my favorite kids right away just playing around. We dropped my bags off at Hepi’s house and went back to the wharf to load stuff on to the boat for its return to Tonga. When I finally got to get back to my house it was after 8 pm and I had to get the key from my principal who I had found out let one of my teachers stay in my house while I was gone...

I tracked down my key and walked into my house with my friends Hepi and Suli. I was shocked. The house was a mess. It was dirty, all my stuff was moved around and I found a dirty diaper in the corner. As i walked through the house speaking only profanity and assessing the damage, Suli pointed out my room was locked, my key ring didn’t not have the room key on it so I had to break down the door frame to get into my room. In my room things were piled in boxes and just thrown around. I thought i was going to explode from anger and I had to keep apologizing to my friends because I didn’t like that they were seeing me so angry. I ultimately straightened up enough to keep myself sane and then put the rest off for the following day so I could try and salvage the night with my two best friends.

A Farewell to a Good Friend

January 27, 2014

Beside what will only now be know as “the incident” (see previous blog post) my return to site has been wonderful. I have already been on village wide beach days, I have drank a fair amount of kava and I started living with my best friend because he was going to be moving to the main island to study. We enjoyed the last days of summer doing what Tongans do best, nofo pe (just hanging out at home). For about a week we slept, watched movies and that’s about it.

Hepi kept going back and forth on whether or not he was actually going to go or not and then we found out on Monday he was leaving on Friday. I told him I wanted to take him out for a goodbye dinner so on Wednesday night I took him and his brother out to one of the tourist restaurants in town. After a bit of back and forth he went to pick up his girl friend and brought her and her sister to eat with us. I embarrassed them ruthlessly so it does not need to be mentioned that the dinner was quite fun for me.

The next night we had the kalapu for Hepi (kava fundraiser) where I learned that all my other friends my age in my village were going to be leaving within the week as well. I hate the main island.

The day Hepi was supposed to take off the weather was really bad so the seas were very rough. Hepi’s family decided to use the money they were going to use for Hepi’s dad’s boat ticket and buy Hepi a plane ticket since he gets sea sick. This meant he wasn’t leaving until Monday so I invited him out with the peace corps that night for a birthday party. We had a blast! We ate and went out to the bar and Hepi even got to share a kiss (and then some) with the birthday girl. It was so fun being able to show my best Tongan friend a little bit of my life with other volunteers, for once I got to be the one surrounded by friends and speaking my first language. Unfortunately, what should have been a sign of great nights to come was the last big night I would spend with Hepi.

That sunday we packed his things his leaving starting to hit him. I tried to cheer him up telling him about how in America it is common for kids to go to college and it’s scary at first but after a bit you really enjoy it. Monday morning before the first day of school I went with him and his family around the village to say goodbye to the prominent people to him then to a couple other villages to say goodbye to his best friend and some family members. When we got to the airport we waited for a bit and then the time came everyone started crying and final goodbyes were said as he boarded the plane and took off.

From the beginning Peace Corps has been about goodbyes. I have had to have more goodbyes in the past 18 months then in the rest of my life combined. I always joke with people that I am very good at them by now, truth is, they never get easier. The farewells here are almost harder because there is no guarantee i will ever be able to see these people again, when it comes down to it, saying goodbye in Peace Corps could mean saying goodbye for good and when you take out the possibility of a goodbye being a see you later it makes it all the more difficult.

Camp GLOW and GROW

December 9th-12

After almost 9 months of planning and fundraising Camp GLOW and GROW debuted in Vava’u. For 4 days we brought 12 boys and 17 girls together for 4 days of women’s rights education, health, environmental and domestic violence education, as well as working on goal setting, and creating awareness for educational and vocational opportunities after high school.

Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a long standing international Peace Corps project and is not new to Tonga. Harrison, Sean and myself thought that in order to have a successful chance at tackling some of these issues we also had to educate young men. So for the past months we have been developing a boys version of Camp GLOW which we decided to call Guys Reshaping Our World or GROW.

Of course the camp was not without it’s setbacks, for instance on the starting day of the camp our boys dorm (donated to us by the Wesleyan High School) was heavily under construction thanks to a grant received with the help of Sean. Luckily we were able to procure lodging at the local branch of the Red Cross. Another hiccup was our numbers, originally we had offered spots to 16 boys and 23 girls, but this is Tonga and of course people had last minute reasons why they couldn’t come....

All in all we had a blast at the camp and with our awesome councilors (one of which was my best friend here). We all worked hard and enjoyed our time together. The camps had some sessions together and it was hilarious watching all our young boys prepping themselves to go and meet the girls at the girls dorm across town- so much body spray!

Unfortunately, Harrison and I had to leave the camp on the last day to make our flight to America. We didn’t get to see the closing ceremony and i got to say i was a little bit distraught, saying goodbye to our boys and to my best friend (who moved to the main island to study) was a lot to handle for me. I realized just how hard it will be to leave this place for real, and just how excited I am for year 2.

Sifa Does 'Eua

October 8 -17, 2013

I finally got to go to 'Eua! I had a blast going to see my good friends Katy and Chiara and seeing the island of 'Eua, which is very different than Vava’u.

The whole trip was kind of spur of the moment. After planning on going weeks before during the school break but then being foiled and then again because of the fact that Vava’u volunteers can not really fly on the plane (it is a plane from China that is deemed unsafe). I had to request 2 separate weeks off to try and catch the 26 hour ferry ride. On Tuesday I called the women who knows when the ferry leaves and she told me that it was going to leave later that night! I had expected her to say that Wednesday or Thursday so I had to ask my principal if that was okay and then I had to quickly pack everything and get into town. I had a meeting with the high school principals for a secondary project and then after that I went to get snacks and pay for my ticket. I went to get money for the ticket to find out that both the items on the island are not working so I have no way to get money. I didn’t know what to do so I went to a nearby restaurant to talk to Sean (another volunteer who happened to be there) and luckily the owner of the restaurant lent me money to pay for the ticket (go small towns!).

I took the boat, which wasn’t that bad, and met up with Mike the next day on the main island! It was so weird being at the PC office without everyone else. Mike took me out and the next day we met up with Steph (another volunteer) and all 3 of us took another ferry to the island of Eua!

Eua is beautiful, very hilly and foresty looking. Once we got onto the island it didn’t feel like we were on an island at all! The first night we just all caught up and made dinner at Chiara’s house. The next day we went to this amazing spot to camp. The spot is on a clif side and there are wild horses and natural rock formations- it was absolutely breath taking and we just went there and sent up camp no questions asked. We roasted chicken on a fire we built and had a blast. The next day Mike and Steph left back to the main island and I stayed for another few days.

We went hiking in the beautiful national park that had pine trees! We explored Chiara’s village and Katy’s village. I met their people and saw their lives. We went out to dinner at one of the only two resorts on the island (and when I say resort I mean bungalow type things- that is what the resorts are in Tonga). It was just so great getting to catch up two of my best friends in PC, it was comforting to know that we are still close even though we live so far away from each other and don’t really ever get to see each other. We are planning a South East Asia trip after our close of service and after my trip to Eua I am reassured that it is going to be so rad!