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.
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