Moving To Our New Home

Well..... it has been less than a week since Ryan and I stepped foot off of the main island of Tonga to move to our new home on the island of Vava'u. Both Ryan and I have moved to many new homes in our lifetime, but we both agreed no move will ever match this one.
To get to our new island with all of our many belongings, Peace Corps had us take the barge. This was a 24 hour ride on a boat through the windy seas of the South Pacific. Super fun for the first few hours. We spread our mats on the floor, made a large comfy space with all our bags, ate snacks and played cards. We thought this was the coolest way to travel.  Four hours later most of us were huddled on the floor in what little clothing we had, desperately trying to stay warm as strong ocean winds whipped across the deck and quell our seasickness. At that point, the entire barge looked more akin to a ship carrying refugees and I am pretty sure I stayed huddled in this fetal position for the next 18 hours. On the upside, the stars were beautiful in the clear night sky and Ryan got to view several shooting starts from the top deck!
Here are some pictures from our lovely boat ride.
     
At last, we see land!!!! This was undoubtedly the coolest part of our trip...driving right next to beautiful exotic islands of Vava'u. We even saw the one where Survivor was supposed to be filmed. It is a long story about why it actually wasn't filmed there (I will bore you with this another time).
                                                                                      

Our amazing new principals Fine and Tevita came to pick us up at the wharf and take all our belongings to our new home. Fine's wife also brought us a pizza to share for dinner! When we got home, many people from the village came over to make sure everything was okay with our house. Water and electricity still weren't totally working, so many men jumped up to fix it. The women fed us an amazing feast... Ryan mostly ate pizza (shocker) while I did my best to put away a two person share of Tongan food. While we ate, all the Tongans brought all our stuff into the house for us. The PTA did an amazing job on our house. We feel so fortunate to have such a wonderful place to live. After a few days, we have settled in and made our home work for us. Let's begin the tour!
Here is our very first house we will live in as a married couple! Dream starter house.... I think so :)
 

  
 
           
    
   
 

Without running water, this is the source of all our H2O! Its one of the few tanks in the village, so our yard is quite popular!

 
 
Well, that is all for now. Ryan and I will spend the next few weeks getting acquainted with the people in our village and the people at our schools. Summer break begins on December 7, so after that we will be spending a lot of time preparing our lessons, running summer school, and helping with any other projects in our village that we can. We are very much looking forward to all of this! Toki sio (see you later)!