Election Day 2013

It's been a busy week around here. Now that we are safely in Tongan Winter, Mother Nature naturally decided to deliver us the most stifling heat we've experienced to Vava'u thus far. It's been brutal. Without a breeze our library becomes an oven that brings out the most wonderfully curious smells. Same goes for our house, where our beloved dog Lucky continues to park his smelly self wherever he damn well pleases, regardless of the "rules". While Ms. Lilly is certainly the neediest dog North of the Equator, Lucky definitely claims that title for those dogs South of it. Here's hoping the breeze comes back soon!

School has been going great. Earlier in the year Abby received a wonderful present from her sister Emily. It was a 'Wreck this Journal', which is a journal that has hundreds of pages, each with an instruction to do one crazy thing. Its contents demand you rub dirt on one page, collect bugs on another, etc. For someone who pretty much lives to journal, Abby has had a ridiculously fun time doing hers. So it was our idea to make 'Wreck it Journals' for our students. For students who have spent their entire life being educated by copying lines into a notebook, they could NOT believe they were being asked to rub dirt on pages, poke holes through pages and draw silly pictures. It was a great time. Of course, I was all prepped to take pictures to share with you, dear reader, but Crazy McTeacherson told me to put down the camera and get back to work. Life is not easy when lived under a dictator.

Our last bit of excitement was the Elections held in Tu'anuku. That's right, even here in a Constitutional Monarchy we elect town officers and district officers. The town officer liaises with the government, while the district officers comprise the lower level of Parliament in Nuku'alofa. We will elect the higher level of Parliament next year, but only members of Tonga's 33 noble families are allowed to run for that house. But don't fret too much, the Parliament has no power of taxation and only recommends laws, so the King and the Royal Family are still running the show down here!

Our election day did not consist of debates, CNN or yard signs. It was pretty much one large kava circle with our principal, Tevita, serving as the election official. They came, they voted, they drank kava while the women sat out on the stoop and gossiped. When I brought cold lemonade over for everyone in the heat, there was serious consideration for making me the town officer. Tevita kept yelling, 'its okay, its okay he is already the principal of our school'. Instead of that honor, Abby and I were invited to eat a 'light lunch' with the polling officials. Since this only consisted of us plus two other people, our normal feast tricks did not work as our plates were too visible. This ended in us pretty much eating our body weight in food. I have seriously never seen Abby look so sick at a meal. But, we held our own and really enjoyed the lunchtime conversation. At one point Lucky decided to come in and try to sit next to us at the table. Big Tongan no-no. Tevita kindly told us we could eat him if he was being 'fakahela' (tiresome). Abby and I nervously laughed at this... while Tevita was confused that we thought it was funny. They definitely do eat dogs here in the Kingdom. But since Lucky is now known as the  'Peace Corps’ dog, he will live to scratch fleas another day. So in summary, kava, feasts and fakamalos (thank-you speeches) all held at Church for Election Day 2013, or in other words the same celebration as every other in Tonga.

That's it from us in the South Pacific, be well and we'll catch you on the flip side.    

Inactive Shots from an Active Week

Its been pretty busy around these parts lately. We went from tropical storms to blazing heat, but the mornings and evenings are starting to become very mild and very enjoyable here.  We have been dragging our mat to sit in the back yard and watch the sun go down just to enjoy the amazing weather. This is a nice change for sure! Here's hoping you over there in Amelika start to get a little bit more sunshine and warmth in your life!

Things at work and in life are good. Half the time we feel content, happy and proud to be working in Tu'anuku. The other half we spend crying over the lack of turkey sandwiches, ice cream shops and Starbucks in our life. Its a delicate balance to say the least.

Ryan had a great experience working with the Tongan government and the Red Cross on Disaster Management Training. He was able to help Vava'u plan for disasters at the highest level of government (the Governor's Office) and the smallest level of government by working with individual village leaders. He was also asked by the Governor's Office to submit some DM proposals on their behalf to His Majesty's Government, which was exciting. Putting that MPA to use! Disaster Management has really emerged as a passion for Ryan and he hopes to continue making it cornerstone of his service with Peace Corps.

We leave for Fiji in less than two months and could not be more excited. Its been eight months said we've had a vacation and it will be nice to leave Tonga, if only for a week.

Last Sunday began faka'me in the Weslyan church. This is a month long celebration of the family unit. It started with a celebration of the children. We were so happy to be able to go to the celebration because many of our students were part of the services. The kids presented the Bible readings and lessons in the form of skits. It was really cool to see them do their thing and they were really happy we came. After the 4:00 church service, we attended a tea hosted by the congregation. It was really amazing. It was a cool night, and the hot tea, cakes, jelly sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, and cookies were incredible. Somehow I ended up leaving the event with pink frosting streaked all the way down my white puletaha. Weirdly enough, Ryan's white shirt emerged intact. Loser.

We returned from the wonderful event to a house that literally smelled like it was rotting. We figured our luck with the rat poison had run out and one had died in the roof. After having the door shut for a few hours, we were unable to breathe because of the awful stink in the house. Unsure of what to do as crawling into the creepy depths of our roof was NOT an option, I decided the only way to handle this situation was with the "sniff test." We stood on chairs and walked all around our house to see if we could find the source of the permeating smell. We finally narrowed it down to the area behind the fridge, but, seeing as how that wall was a single piece of drywall, we were confused. Ryan had the idea to move the fridge and dig around in the back of it. Bingo. He found the dead, rotting carcass of Rat #4. After bludgeoning Rat #3 on Monday night and having to dig Rat #4 covered in flies and maggots out of the fridge, I will no longer ever accuse my husband of being "girly." He has earned the full title of manly. :)

Not much else is new. Classes are going really well. We have our kids working in differentiated learning centers to try to help them have more autonomy in the classroom and build collaborative communication skills. This has been going really well. It is cool to see them interact with English in lots of different ways. We just benchmarked our class 5/6 kids and almost all of them have grown a full reading level! Exciting stuff. I also had all of the kids come to our home this weekend to participate in an English interview with me. These also went really well. Our students are really starting to try to use their English language outside the classroom to talk and engage with us. No words can describe how cool and awesome it is to do this work everyday.

My 16 year old friend Mele came to our house on Saturday to bake muffins with me. Somehow, she turned out with a pan of beautiful muffins made with fresh oranges that are plentiful in our village this time of year. Mine were small and a bit burnt. Mele thought that was funny :)  Ryan did not.

We had a nice visit with our Peace Corps Safety and Security Officer. She came to conduct a routine check of our standing in our village to make sure we were doing okay. It was fun to chat and hear word from the main island. She told us that ten new volunteers have accepted their invitations to serve in the next group of volunteers here in Tonga. We are excited to have 15 new PCVs join us in the field this September.

That's about it here. We wish we had some  cool pictures to share, but since we didn't think you wanted to see our dead rotting rat, we don't have much new to show you. But here are some "action shots" from life in the fast lane:

Ryan has let Lucky breach the perimeter. Ryan often smells as bad as the dog. Man, am I one lucky girl or what?

We found this bug in our house one night, It was truly the biggest bug I have ever seen. The picture does not it justice. No one has yet been able to tell us what this evil, mutant moth is and no one will, because I made Ryan kill it.

Our class 5/6 kids finished their American pen pal letters this week. I was so excited to see them taking risks and straying from just copying the template. This was one of my favorite in the"strong voice category." Or, maybe one for the "most inappropriate pen pal closing" category. 

     

Finally, Ryan and I started a night class with our class 6 kids. Getting Ryan to stay at school until 6:30 one night was feat enough. After a crazed night of trying to teach the kids how to make paper airplanes and having them test fly them, Ryan may never come back. Who doesn't love mobs of kids screaming and throwing airplanes?

 

           

 

 

Training

A week ago Abby and I headed to Tonga for our annual Peace Corps In-Service Training. The training was held at the Catholic Theological Institute in Nuku'alofa, which is on the grounds of a large tropical plantation. It is one of the most serene and beautiful places in all of Tonga. We were hosted by a sweet old Tongan Nun named Sister Katy, who was truly the embodiment of compassion and faith in this world. She was also fluent in English, Tongan, German and Italian and had studied at the Vatican while getting her PhD. She is quite the person and her cooking was amazing.

The training itself took on a much different tone from previous trainings, because for the first time PC Tonga utilized current PCVs to lead sessions. Abby was the lead trainer and led several afternoons of training in all types of teaching methods. It was incredible to see her up there leading the sessions. She is truly in her element. After the week, the PC bosses pulled her aside and said her sessions got better feedback than they had ever had in peace Corps Tonga. Abby has really found her calling as a teacher trainer and its inspiring to see her in that role. She is planning on pursuing teacher training as a career after Peace Corps and we both believe it is the right path for her.

Some pictures of Abbs, in her element:

 

The rest of the week was great as well. Nuku'alofa is a developing city so it has restaurants, a couple of bars and much more variety in terms of food and entertainment. While Peace Corps does not serve in the city (PC Tonga series exclusively in poor, rural villages) it was a nice change of pace from village life.

This week Abby is back to school while I work in Vavau's capital of Neiafu on disaster management training. I will be co-facilitating sessions that bring together representatives of the 30 major villages of Vava'u. We are expecting over 120 people and our goal is to establish 4-person Emergency Response Teams in each village who will be in-charge of assessment and response if/when a cyclone or tsunami hits Vava'u. They will also be first aid certified so they can assist those injured. After the devastation of recent Pacific Ocean cyclones in places like Samoa and Ha'apai, its imperative we prepare our 16,000 person island in case of natural disaster. I am incredibly excited to be working on this project and really enjoy working alongside the Vava'u Red Cross.

Of course, its not all work here. So I'll leave you with some pictures of me in my element, a.k.a. The Bilfish Bar in Nuku'alofa, where all Group 77 went to celebrate the end of training. The beers are expensive, but sneaking in Tongan whiskey is free :). Enjoy!

                                     

All of Group 77:

  

Shameless Self Promotion (again)...

A couple months ago Abby and I were approached by her hometown paper, the Lakefield Standard, to do a story about our adventure in Tonga. We had a great time chatting with the reporter via email and just found out the article had been published in the paper on April 4th.

Let's be honest, I think Wes is just so damn proud of his daughter that he walks around town bragging about her. The press was bound to pick up on it at some point!

Here is a link to the article. I think you might have to purchase it if you want to read it. I am guessing there are more interesting things to read on the Internet but its linked for those of you who would like to read it!

http://www.lakefieldstandard.com/Stories/Story.cfm?SID=41633

Mariner's Cave

Hey everyone. Ryan here. Its true, I've re-surfaced from reading Game of Thrones...but mostly just to email Flood and Matt about Game of Thrones, which I don't think is what Abby had in mind :).

Now, I hate to jinx a perfect game by talking about it, but we are two weeks rat-free after our slaughter. Food remains un-eaten. Floors remain un-pooped on. And our heads haven't even witnessed the horrors of a rat falling from the ceiling on to them. Its truly paradise!

Last week we visited our best friends in Tonga, Mark and Alissa, on their island. Now our fellow PCVs like to poke fun at these types of "Couples Retreats", but if they only knew the joys of spending every. single. second. with your spouse, they too would be in need of a good group counseling session. Plus Mark is an amazing cook, so there are fringe benefits too.

The purpose of this week's vacation was to visit Mariner's Cave (or 'Anauku to the Tongans) which is by far the best adventure to be had in the Kingdom. Mariner's is an unmarked, underwater cave that was discovered by Will Mariner, who sailed with Captain Cook back in the day. While its advertised as a tourist attraction here in Vava'u, its actually incredibly difficult to find so most palangis (white folk) don't ever visit it. Like true Americans, Abby and I yearn to feel superior to palangi tourists so the fact we were traveling on a tiny, decrepit fishing boat with our Tongans friends made us feel all the better.

The weekend began on Friday evening when said fishing boat took the four of us from Neiafu to Nuapapu, Mark and Alissa's island. Unfortunately there was a mix-up so instead of sailing during the day, we sailed in the darkness of light. Without lights on the boat, our boat driver had to use the stars to map out our course and use the moonlight to guide us. It was incredibly cool. It was great to finally arrive in Nuapapu and after a 30 minute tractor ride (again, with no lights!) we got to see where Mark and Alissa live. They have done this entire experience without electricity and are much more isolated, given that their island is a two hour boat ride from Neiafu. It is incredible to see how they have thrived in such conditions. The island itself is beautiful and very welcoming.

Matamaka, one of the two villages on the island of Nuapapu and the village where Mark teaches:

The next day we went back to the wharf, got back on the fishing boat and headed for Mariner's. After an hour ride, we found ourselves staring at the same island formation we had. Only this time, the Tongans told us that behind this particular formation was a glorious underwater cave. We were still skeptical.

         

 

The "front" of Mariner's Cave:

.

 

At this time we all jumped off our rickety old boat, put on our snorkel gear and prepared for our descent into the great unknown. That's when my dear wife thought it wise to inform us that this was her first time ever using snorkel equipment or flippers and really wasn't sure what to do. This was just about the last thing any of us or our Tongan guides were expecting to hear and definitely did not reassure anyone that this would be easy! This is definitely NOT an experience for beginners. That said, we soldiered on for our dive into the cave. Now, the cave itself is only about a 7-10 foot dive down, followed by a 4 -6 foot tunnel you have to swim through before you can enter into the cave. While it sounds doable, the choppy ocean water, the high tide and the ocean waves made it much more of a daunting task than we envisioned. 

The mouth of the cave:

 

After a couple of false starts, my wife was beginning to lose her resolve. The issue with the cave is that you have nothing to push your legs off from but open water. So those first few strokes down into the mouth are slow and arduous, making you believe you can't hold your breath that long. After the false starts, our Tongan guides took over. These are actually just buddies of Mark and Alissa's who took us out on their boat. You simply cannot imagine their strength. Two of them grabbed my wife's arms and pulled her the entire way through the cave. Most of these guys are still young and I am definitely recruiting them for the Valley swim team. I am guessing they will have an easier time making Varsity than I ever did! After the girls went through, Mark and I went at it. I swear I thought my lungs were going to burst but I kept hearing my swim coach Wags in my head (shouting "hoo, hoo") while I swam my way through a school of zebra fish through the tunnel and finally made it inside. It was glorious.

A photo from the inside of the cave. (Note: this is NOT us, we don't have the technology for such pictures so I just googled it)

 

After that, Abby and Alissa tried their hands at jumping from the cave walls while Mark and I went outside to try our hands at spear-fishing. We caught nothing, but watched as our Tongan buddies took one breath, swam 20ft. down and thrust a spear through fish that would become our dinner. It was incredible. Afterwards, we all gathered outside the cave for our boat to come get us. Unfortunately all we saw was Nuti, our hilarious old Tongan boat driver, waving his hands for us to swim to him. So we went on our way, swimming another mile in the ocean while enormous bats (we're talking eagle-sized here people) swooped over our head. This allowed me to live out one of my nerdier fantasies by shouting "I'm Batman" during the swim. My wife was very impressed. When we finally caught up with the boat. we learned that the rickety old motor was broken and we were in a bit of a pickle. So while the Tongans worked on repairing the motor, the palangis helped out anyway we could. Nope. Actually, while the Tongans worked on repairing the motor, the palangis fell hard asleep on the roof of the boat. Faka 'ofa! (how sad) 

After about an hour of idling on the mighty Pacific, we finally hit a stroke of luck and saw a sail boat in our midst. Remember those palangi tourists I was so uppity about earlier? Yep, well they saved our ass. It took some cajoling but we convinced the four people from Wales to drag our boat the two hours back to Nuapapu. I can't say they were extremely excited to be helping us, but they definitely dragged us all the way into the wharf. During the interim, our group had just the most fun time as I taught a mini-social studies lesson about the differences between England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom (Abby's note: my husband claims he did not like teaching social studies, yet he never stops trying to teach us all his useless knowledge! Don't worry, we all just ignored him anyway)!

Here are pictures we took of the boat that pulled us home:

        

All in all, we had an amazing weekend visiting our friends and exploring Mariner's cave. It was great to get out and spend some time in the Ocean which does not happen as often as we would like. It was truly an adventure worthy of noted explorer Alexe Froment Mericle...although I heard he retired and became a leasing agent or something like that.

 

 

Happy Easter

Ahh, Easter. A time for church, candy, and good food with family. Ryan and I were not quite prepared for how much church we had coming our way. We really should have known better. For weeks now people in our village have been saying, "Oh, Easter is REALLY important to you Catholics huh?" But after January's uike lotu (week of church) we thought the worst was behind us. Well, in the immortal words of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet". After a total of 12 hours of church in the span of four days, we now understand better.

There was no school on Maundy Thursday, so we went to town to have lunch with our Peace Corps friends and re-up on supplies for the coming week. We came home, bathed, and got picked up at 8 p.m. for church. After a two hour service, another 40 minute children's service and 30 minutes spent in diligent prayer, we were ready to go home. Enter the scariest car ride of our life. Dark jungle road + driver who thinks he is practicing for Nascar + driver being old and hard of seeing = scary. This man got so close to taking out a dog walking right next to man on the side of the road Ryan actually screeched, I mean, gave a manly yelp, in preparation for impact. We barley missed the dog and the man in the front seat took it upon himself to warn our driver of upcoming hazards. The next incident was moments later where the side-seat driver started screaming, "Horse, horse, do you see the horse?" Throughout the drive we almost killed a cow, a goat, the dog, the horse and a chicken, all of which were obstructing the road at some point or another! Oh dear Lord. But, We made it home safe and exhausted.

Day 1: smiling and ready to go.

Friday: Yep, turns out this was another long one as well. At 3:00 p.m. we stood on a large rugby field preparing to participate in the stations of the cross. We made our way parade like along a route set up to take us through all the stations. Everyone was dressed in full funeral garb. The main road in the capital had to be shut down for us to do our march. It was strange to see tourists in their beach wear along the side of the road taking pictures of us. Being the only white people amongst hundreds of Tongans, I guess we did sort of stick out. I thought this was actually pretty cool. We finished the last station at the church. Here is where I lost it a bit. The stations of the cross took about and hour and a half to complete. This was walking in full church wear in the baking sun, kneeling in the middle of the road for most of the time. I was hot, sore, and ready to go home. But, we then participated in a full mass with communion AND every member of the church having to walk up and kiss the cross. 2 1/2 hours later, we were done. Ryan and I arrived home beat beyond belief. But, some care packages had come our way so at least we got to finish the night with some Easter candy!

 

Saturday: The Easter bunny decided to deliver to us the best gift of all on Easter Saturday: our rat poison was working! While on the phone with my sister, Ryan discovered a rat that had fallen from a beam in our shower and broke it's legs. Yes! Kill #1. We were so happy to know that all the poison the rats had been eating like cat food was starting to disorient and do it's thing to the rats.

 

  

 30 minutes later, another rat appeared on our porch while I was on the phone to my mom. He too was a bit slow and stupified. Ryan took to arms and trapped him in the grass with a broom. He then savagely bludgeoned the thing to death with a tree branch. I am not sure when we turned into the couple where the wife is cheering on her husband while listening to the squealing cries of the rat he is desperately trying to kill. But, find rat poop over all your dishes and cooking surfaces, see their teeth marks in your soap, their poop on your toilet seat, and watch one fall on your head and I think you will understand. So, needless to say, we were pretty happy to get kill #2 of the day.

              

On Saturday when it was time to be picked up for another church service, here is what I did:

 

Don't judge. Everyone has a breaking point. Poor Ryan had to tell them we couldn't go because we really needed to talk to our family. Thanks all. 

And finally, the grand finale: Sunday Easter mass. We got dressed up in our Tongan finest and attended morning mass with our family. Oddly enough, this was the shortest and most relaxed service of all.  

 

This is the Catholic Church located in Vava'u's capital, Neiafu. This is where we attend church every Sunday since the priest has not been traveling to the villages.

           

 Hope you all had a wonderful Easter holiday as well!! 

Shout-Out to Group 78

First of all, congrats to those of you who already received your invitation to serve in the Kingdom of Tonga! We are so excited to have you all join us here! If you have any questions about ANYTHING... please feel free to email either Ryan or me. We usually are able to check our emails once a week, and we will do our best to promptly reply to you. We are super excited to get to know you!  Huge Congrats again! Enjoy your remaining months in the States!