The Good and the Bad

Let's start with the good. This week, our community got their new bus from New Zealand! This is such a blessing as the current bus is akin to a hospice patient waiting for the inevitable. There have been many days as of late where kids have had to walk to school and try to hitchhike for rides. The Scholarship Committee here in the village has been working hard for the past year to come up with the funds for a new bus. This committee is dedicated  to providing strong educational opportunities for the children in the village. This was one of the main reasons they asked for Peace Corps volunteers to work in their school.

Luckily, there are many people from our village who live in New Zealand. They have been fundraising on their end and worked with the City of Auckland to procure one of their retired buses. So, after a year of hard work and one long ass boat ride, Saturday was a day of celebration! This new bus means all the high school students will have a reliable way to town for school every day! It is also much bigger, so students will not have to ride as cramped as they have been. A bus is really one of the most important things a village has to be able to transport to town and back.

First, the new bus was paraded through the village dressed up Tonga style!

 

 

These women led the charge all day. Their job was to keep the energy level of the crowd at 100% for the duration of the event. They all came over for cold water and a rest at the end of the event. They danced and banged on pots for almost 5 hours!

Then, it was time to feast and dance. Every single community member was present to celebrate.

After the dance, the bus went to "eva" around to all the neighboring villages and show off the new bus. Anyone who wanted to go for a ride could. It was neat to see so many of the younger kids and the elderly go for the first spin as they are probably the people in the community who will ride it the least.

I was so proud of Ryan this weekend. He went to the big event all by himself because I got terribly sick (what else is new) :) My immune system seems to not fight anything off. With a bad head cold and a touch of the flu, I decided to hang back on the sidelines so I could stay close to bathroom facilities. Many of our students came over to hang and chat with me. One student told me her mom was throwing up too. She said her mom was drinking a bunch of water and eating a bunch of food fast and throwing it up. When she stops, she is all better. Taiana couldn't understand why I would choose to stay in the house and miss all the fun when there was such an easy solution to my problem :) Gotta love it. One of my class 6 boys told me I was looking really thin because of all the throwing up. I laughed so hard at that I may have accidentally thrown up some water on his feet. He responded by telling all the kids to go away because Epi is  "mei mate." (almost dead) Oops :)

 

Ryan was such a hit at the event, that Monday our neighbor came over to bring me watermelon and pineapple to eat. When she saw I still looked a bit rough, she told me she would take care of our food for the day. She came back an hour later with an amazing vegetable beef stew for me and root crop for Ryan. The soup was incredible. Later in the afternoon, the scholarship committee came to get Ryan to come eat and participate in closing celebrations for the bus. They wanted to make sure he was fed since his wife was still sick. This is why we continue to love living here so much.

Now, for the bad. And its a doozie. We had to say good-bye to our very best friends, Mark & Alissa, as they were moved to the main island of Tongatapu. These are two of the most incredible people we have ever met and we have come to cherish our time with them. In their absence, Ryan and I were reflecting how deeply close we are to both Mark and Alissa. When we spend weekends in each others village, we do nothing but eat, have a few drinks and talk. We talk for almost 48 hours straight. No internet, no t.v., no place to go and be entertained. We sit on the floor and talk. How cool is that? I would have never imagined we would make such wonderful friends here. The Coops are two of the best volunteers we have seen and we are so sad to see them leave this island. But, we know they will do amazing things wherever their travels take them in the future. We already have plans for the future, we will see them in Nuku'alofa soon, plus Ryan & Alissa have planned many a reunions for the four of us, primarily taking place at Outback Steakhouse. Go figure!

The countdown for New Zealand is at seven weeks. We absolutely cannot wait. Now all we have to do is wait and try to get back in shape. We aren't optimistic... :)

Va'inga Akapulu (Playing Rugby)

Hey everyone. Just a quick update from here. This week has been a return to (relative) normalcy. The post-exam school day consists of eating at least two pieces of cake (teachers only) for breakfast at 8:30, recess until 12:30, lunch (root crop, always root crop) until 1:30 and then recess to finish it off.

Interspersed between are English review games and computer classes, which we started this week. It is most of our student’s first time touching a computer and besides an irrational fear of the cursor, they are all doing great!

                      

The real action during the day begins around 2:00, where rugby practice starts for the boys and the girls play netball.

The action begins…

Coach looks on…

Sometimes play stops because the ball is stuck in the mango tree (this is also a possibility whereas pineapple plants and banana trees are concerned)…

And sometimes it just hurts…

The girls netball practice is a bit more civil…

…or not.

Big Klob Turns 30

Well, the big day finally arrived. Ryan is officially 30 too! It was an awesome weekend! Mark and Alissa came to spend the weekend with us to make Ryan's birthday special. We talk all the time about how lucky we are to have met two such wonderful people. They are so kind and so thoughtful. This experience would not have been the same without them. We are so blessed to have made two such awesome friends. Ryan was so excited that they were coming for his birthday. He went to town on the school bus early that Friday morning to run some errands and meet Mark and Alissa. I was drinking my coffee and went out to see if Ryan had left at and I saw this. Cutest thing ever! At this point, I am 100% sure Ryan loves Lucky more than me. This picture is just further proof.

Ryan returned home with Mark and Alissa to begin the big 30th celebration. Mark and Alissa bought Ryan steaks, potatoes, salad with homemade croutons, ice cream, cookies, whiskey, beer and wine. (Sidenote: who else but my husband requests all three of his favorite drinks-beer, whiskey and wine) on his birthday as opposed to sticking with just one?!) We sat down to a birthday dinner that looked like it came straight from Outback Steakhouse.  Ceasar salad, garlic bread, baked potatoes...oh dear. Mark is the most amazing cook. I am still reeling that we actually ate a STEAK dinner in Tonga!!! It was soooooo good. But the worst part was poor Mark was suffering from dehydration. We had the bright idea to hike 6 km to the next village over that day to get some exercise. We went to chat with some people and see our principal. We wanted to work up a big appetite to make our feast even more rewarding. The weather is getting warmer here and the heat really sneaks up on you. After doing ALL the cooking, Mark had to drink rehydration salts and eat crackers while we feasted. How sad is that?!! It made for a night I shall never forget.

 

Ryan got what he told me later was "The most kick ass birthday present ever!" For awhile now, Ryan has been convinced that his life in Tonga will only be complete with a straw cowboy hat. Every store we go into, he finds one and tries to persuade me to buy it for him. I tell him to grow up we are not buying him a stupid cowboy hat. When Coop appeared with one for his birthday... I thought his happy burst was going to kill us all :) I am not sure what normal adult goes ballistic for a cowboy hat on your 30th birthday, but then Ryan has never been normal. You all know. 

All in all, Ryan's 30th birthday was a wonderful time to just be with the people we love, eat ourselves stupid, and talk about life in Tonga. We could not have asked for more.

 

A Tale of Two Feasts

It was a big week here in our tiny village. Two weeks ago our 15 class six students took their high school entrance exams and my husband turned 30. We have not had this much action in a long time!

We have talked quite a bit about this test our students had to take, the importance of it, and the impossibility of passing it. So I will not bore you with further details about it. Testing started on a Tuesday. Ryan and I had heard that testing days were pretty special, but we had no idea how big of an event it was going to be. On our walk to school that day, we were stopped by numerous families taking pictures of their class 6 child. The kids were squeaky clean and wearing new uniforms and shoes. Some girls even had had their make-up done! Many of them had candy kahoas strung around their neck in honor of the special day.  Ryan and I just looked at each other and said, "Oh man, maybe we should have thought to take a bath!" When we got to school, feast tables had already been set up. The first feast of the day was platefuls of cake, cake, and more cake with tea and soda. This was to fuel the kids for their first test. Ryan and I were pretty darn happy. Best breakfast ever... especially after a week of particularly crappy food. Kids put their sugar high to good use and went in to take the hardest test of them all... English. Ryan and I followed the lead of the proctors and laid on benches to take a short nap.

The Tongan breakfast of champions:

 

Hangin' before the test. It was crazy to see how nervous all the kids were!

 

We awoke to the sound of another feast table being set up. This time... Tongan pie and ice cream! Ice cream is SUCH a rare treat for families and kids here. It was so cool of the PTA to do this for them. The kids were having such a great time. Over ice cream, the kids told us all about the English test. Some of them even remembered the sentences they wrote to ask us if they were good. It was giggling and silliness at it's finest. 

  

Kids were then let loose to "hang" for two hours. This, as they say, was nuts on cake! The combined effect of eating so much sugar and sitting for a two hour test lead to some pretty hardcore play. Yikes!  Eventually kids were corralled back into the testing room for their next session. At this point, Ryan and I were starting to think eating so much sugar in one day was not such a good idea. But, we shrugged it off and thought, "Oh well, it is a special day. It's not like we will ever do this again." Oh the stupidity.

After the kids finished their second testing session, our community sat down to the largest feast of the day. The class 6 parents and many other members of the community went all out to prepare a celebratory feast for the kids. It was so wonderful. We ate the most amazing food! This was truly village feast food at it's finest. The only snag is that right when we broke into the meat, they brought us out each a special dessert of cookies and cream ice cream. The flavors were NOT compatible! In the end, Ryan and I ate so much we literally got home, laid on the floor and groaned. But, it was sooooo worth it! This was one of the coolest community events we had been to since moving here. 

 

 

Two hours later we decided we better eat all the food we got sent home with because it was not going to keep. So, we ripped into crabs and fish and told ourselves we wouldn't eat much the next day.

The next day we arrived at school to repeat day one of testing all over again. Ryan and my pact to go easy was broken early on with the appearance of actual cinnamon rolls WITH FROSTING on our breakfast plate. Needless to say, we ate just as much the second day as we did the first. When in Tonga.....

Ryan was trying to make the boys play X-Men with him. He truly is just a big 12 year old. Here is Tukuafu as Wolverine.

Testing is over and the children rejoice!!!!

And some are just plain pooped :)

Our Class 6 students. Ryan and I are going to miss them so much next year! It is sad to think of not being with them every day. They really are an amazing group of kids with so much personality. We love them so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life's a Breach, then you Dive...

Don't call it a comeback! In her hungover state, Abby left the computer on for about 8 hours in its vegetative state. On the eighth hour, to our surprise, the computer started rebooting. It was nothing short of a miracle! The bad news is that it has died several times since then and when it is working the noises it makes are akin to a super-powered, badly damaged lawnmower. However, we are able to use it for the time being and that has been nothing short of miraculous. So here is the promised blog...enjoy!  

This week (September 23-27) is school break down here in Vava'u so Abby and I decided to join Mark & Alissa and our other fellow PCVs in knocking out our Vava'u bucket list in terms of adventures, tourist ventures and general palangi activities here in the Kingdom.

The weekend started off with a visit to our buddy Jeff, a PCV who lives in Ofu. Ofu is a small island village off the coast of Vava'u mainland. In a word, it is gorgeous. The village is the most well thought out, organized and clean place we have found in the entire Kingdom. The houses are lined along the ocean, the beach sands are perfect and they have even built a walkway along the beach. LIke Mark & Alissa's island, it is all powered by solar power donated from the Japanese. We were all struck by the island's beauty and cleanliness and a smidgen jealous that a PCV gets to live and work here. 

Our weekend in Ofu featured sea kayaking and snorkeling. The fly in the ointment was that there weren't any two seater kayaks, so Abby and I had to share a one-seater. In the steady calm of the beach, we found our balance and congratulated each other on our teamwork and lack of bickering. This was short lived, as an errant high five was the catalyst for our first flip and with that the floodgates opened. We just couldn't stay up on the damn thing in ocean open water. Nevermind the wind making the day wholly inappropriate for sea kayaking, it was a mess. The good news is we had another activity planned.

Just across the way from Ofu is the tiny, and I mean tiny island of Fetoko. Fetoko is owned by an American couple named Ben & Lisa who have lived in Vava'u for over a decade. After opening a series of successful businesses, they found the island and constructed a resort which is still in progress. The island and the resort are breathtaking. Ben is so talented with woodworking and has built a treehouse as one of the guest rooms. The whole place is so impressive and will be incredible when its all said and done. The rest of the day was spent snorkeling a reef, sea kayaking (toko taha--one person only) and drinking cold beers/playing drinking games with the group. My highlights included finding Mark & Alissa's missing snorkel gear (from their own two person kayak disaster) in a random reef while snorkeling and hitting a buzzer beater in an ancient viking game we played with Ben & Lisa. Abby's would probably be her mastery of the kayak and beating me in a race. The whole day was one of the highlights of our time in Vava'u and we hope to spend a little bit more time in Fetoko throughout our service when we need a break.

Ofu, in all its beauty:

 

Fetoko:

 

 

After returning to the main island, it was time for the main event. In terms of tourism on the island (Vava'u gets about 5,000 tourists a year-mostly Aussies and Kiwis) there is only one game in town. Along with the Dominican Republic, Vava'u is the only place in the world where you can swim in the wild with humpback whales. The whales come here every June-November with their babies to enjoy the warmer water. If you've ever seen Animal Planet/Discovery Channel documentaries on humpbacks, they were invariably filmed here as legions of camera crews are here every year. 

Swimming with the whales was simply the most intense, incredible experience with nature any of us could ever imagine. The day started off loading up on the Australian's boat with our Tongan crew. We were with another group of 4 Aussies who was super grumpy, so our affability + ability to communicate in Tongan endeared the crew to us immediately. This paid off dividends later. The morning was partly cloudy and calm, which we thought was perfect. On our way we boated next to a school of dolphins which was unreal as they leaped out of the water alongside our boat.  However, once we passed the main island we realized that the winds were coming to a peak on this day and the ocean was wild. The biggest swells any of us have ever boated in. The crazy part was that we actually spotted a mom (cow), her baby (calf) and an escort (a male-known as a 'singer'). So even though our boat driver Sione was on the radio advising other boats not to come out to this area because it was 'hako auptio' (much too wavy/windy to boat in) we were off in hot pursuit. The experience was unreal. We thought we were going into a calm whale-watching trip, instead we became cast members of Deadliest Catch.

The boat was going crazy, rocking off of swells. Sione, was on top of the boat, driving with his feet so he could see out the top (we learned later this was his preferred method of driving) and the rest of us were glued to the sides trying to keep our eyes glued to the family. The cool part of the waves being so crazy was that the bottom of the swell revealed much more of the whales then we would ordinarily see. Finally, when the boat team got into place, we got to go in. Again, we thought this would be a relaxed thing but it was more akin to Seal Team 6 getting in the water than tourists. After the first group of grumps got in and didn't get to see anything, Henry, our other guide, kicked them out of the water and shouted at us to dive. Appropriately, in these intense conditions, it was my wife's second time using a mask and snorkel in the ocean. The first being Mariner's Cave which, with whale swimming, are about the two most intense snorkel experiences even veteran divers could embark on, well played Abbers. When we got in, the ocean was wild. But right under us were the cow and calf, just chilling in the water below us. Their size, their presence and their beauty were just unreal. WIth one flick of their tail they were then gone. 100 meters with just one flick. Unreal.

We followed the family for another half hour until we reached unsafe waters. Here we had to kill the engine and bid adieu to the whale family. Unfortunately we were stuck in this water and spent the next hour sea sicker than any of us had ever been as our little boat waited to get to the cove. In true Alexe Froment Mericle style, I leaned over to Coop at one point and said: "yep, I'm going to puke" to which he laughed, to which I puked. Abby managed to keep it all together while being dreadfully sick, but I sure felt better! We finally made it out of the water, all of us miserably sea sick. Fortunately the cove we found was calm and beautiful. After an amazing snorkel in gorgeous water and a fantastic lunch, we were back playing the waiting game. The boats here work together and triangulate the whales so everyone gets a chance. Tongan law only allows for 4 people + a guide to be in with them at a time which makes for an amazing experience. In other places in the world there can be dozens of people all crowing around a whale or a dolphin for a peek, but here it feels like such a singular experience.

After waiting and snorkeling all afternoon (including at the island where they filmed the original Treasure Island) we were back in the game. This time the waters were much calmer. The frustrating thing was out of two boats, the 4 of us were going to be the fourth group to go, which means our patience was tested to its limit. When Henry finally got us in, he whispered to us to stay together and he guaranteed success. He was especially determined after the other group had ignored his requests in the water and he kicked them out early. When we got in, we were again right on top of a cow and her calf in much more clear water. Then, as we were swimming and watching, the cow decided to breach. Watching her swim completely vertical to the surface, 10 ft. from her with our snorkel masks on was maybe the most awe-inspiring experience of our lives. To see a mammal, the size of 3 school buses, gracefully and powerfully swim to the surface in perfect full view was unreal. I can safely say that all 5 of us in the water were screaming at the sight of it.

With one more go, our guide Henry waited for the exact right moment to bring us back in the water. When we got in, we literally plopped 15 feet over the cow, which was incredible. But this was nothing compared to the action that was happening 8ft. in front of our faces. The calf (still the size of a bus) was at the surface doing flips and being incredibly playful. We sat there for ten minutes and watched the calf do flips, show us her fin and wiggle around. It was unreal. Henry was interacting with it and when he would do a turn the calf would also do a turn to mimic Henry. This is common when calves get really friendly. Whale watching is a cool activity, but it seems so incredibly paltry to what is happening under the water. The views were breathtaking. It honestly felt like your heart was going to jump out of your chest it was so beautiful and I'm sure our screams of delight under the water could be heard miles below. There really aren't words to properly describe it. All in all, it was one of the most exhilarating adventures Abby and I have ever experienced. An incredible day. 

Sighting the whale:

 

We wait impatiently for the signal to dive:

We swim towards the whale. Look closely to see how close we get! You can see the whale's hump poking out of the water. Nothing compared to the sheer mass below the water.

We are right on top of the whale watching the most amazing show in the world underwater. If you look close, you can see the top dorsal fin of the whale poking out of the water next to us.

 

Total exhilaration afterwards:

 

 

Our little mini-trip concluded Thursday night with the rest of our Peace Corps group. We went to a Tapas restaurant called La Paella which is on a private island owned by two sweet, old Spanish expats. To get there you have to drive out to the furthest tip of Vava'u Lahi (the main island) and wait for two mini boats to come pick you up. After the twenty minute trip over the ocean, you arrive at the place where old Spain meets the South Pacific. Eating at La Paella is only by reservation for groups of 8 or more and its easy to see why. But the journey is worth it. Sitting down for a family style meal, featuring 10 different types of tapas, a massive plate of paella and dessert served to you as fast as you can drink your wine, while the old Spanish couple plays 'la bamba' style music is a trip worth experiencing. The food is the best we have tasted in 13 months and the night was nearly perfect. After a while we successfully cajoled Coop to get up to the stage to perform some of his favorites: '5 Years Time', 'Wagon Wheel' and 'Stand by Me'. After we were stuffed to the brim, drunk off wine and had relived the whales as many times as possible, we took another boat ride under the stars to finish off the evening. All in all it was another fantastic experience.

 

 

 In case you were wondering what we did with our down time between these activities, lets just say before the week began our buddy Coop did NOT have dreads, but thanks to an expert in town, Coop's wife Alissa and some extremely amateur help from the Klobs, after the week Coop DID have dreads...sorta:

 

 

 

It is very weird (and even more expensive) feeling like a tourist here in Vava'u. It makes the experience more full, but also motivates us to ensure the kids in our village are getting some of the amazing opportunities available to them here on the island. That said, it was very nice to have a break from village life and definitely a week worthy of our poetic memory.