This week was our first week back from break. Ryan was a champ and ended up teaching most of the week solo as I got sick as a dog in Fiji. He did an awesome job and when I returned the kids reported that "Ryan is a fun teacher!"
The weather this week was so strange. Every day we went from crazy rain and cold wind to full sun and beautiful weather. I have never seen weather just switch back and forth from completely overcast to completely clear and back to overcast quite so many times in one day. The result is many people/ kids in our village ended up as sick as I was. Not so fun. One afternoon I awoke from a nap to see this lying in our house:
After giving Ryan the "why the hell is the dog in the house like that" speech, Ryan just looked at me and said, "He was cold, so I made him a little bed inside." Note: that was NOT mud. It was mostly pig crap. A lovely way to scent our house. Stupid boys and their dogs.
I returned to school on Thursday because Ryan came home super excited Wednesday night telling me our students had finally filled their "Good Things Jar." The Good Things Jar is an incentive we use in our classes to encourage students to work collaboratively and try to push their comfort zone with English. It took awhile for them to really latch on to this, but once they hit the halfway point, they really got amped. They have been doing so great trying lots of new things in class. When they fill up a jar, they earn a special gift. Our students had no idea what the gift was, but they found out on Thursday it was a brand new bag made by my Aunt Nina, Aunt Jean, and cousin Lexi. (Emily, I did not include your name because I heard all you did was drink coffee and watch. No credit for you sister dearest!) My aunt Nina had simply made these to give to our students, most of whom do not own anything they can call their own. She had no idea we would milk three months of good behavior out of the kids before they got 'em! Thank-you so much Nina, the bags are truly amazing!
In the bags were large notebooks, candy, pencils and pens, and mini-notebooks. Our students LOVE school supplies and they LOVE being able to have their own stuff. Needless to say, the day they received their gift was incredible. We had so much fun chatting with the kids and watching them revel in their hard work. Here are some pictures from the day!
When you are sick and tired of Polynesia, where do you go to get away from it all? Melanesia of course!
The first day of our travels, Ryan and I were so excited to actually be leaving our island. Upon our arrival at the international airport in Tonga, we realized for the first time how un-citified we are. We spent a good chunk of money buying a bunch of big waters for the trip. When we went to board the plane, we were astounded to see a security checkpoint. They promptly told us we could not take any of the waters with us. Duh. We were just so used to flying our Tongan airline where they write your name on a piece of paper and tell you to go get on the plane. Liquids and food are actually encouraged. After taking our waters, the man directed me to walk through the metal detector. I walked through and it went off like crazy. The man just stared at me open mouthed and said, "Miss, you are supposed to take the metal off BEFORE you walk through." Oops. I know these things, but it just didn't register.
We spent the first day of our trip in the capital city of Suva. Our Country Director met us and gave us a tour of the South Pacific Peace Corps headquarters building. It was really fun to have some time to just sit and chat with him. We had only really met him once before because he was named Country Director of Tonga after our training. After that, Ryan and I hit the streets of Suva. It was so wonderful to be in a city again! So many people, so much noise, so much happening on the street. It was great. Once again, we came face to face with our uncitified-ness. We passed a man who stopped to say hello to us. We chatted with him a bit and he told us he wanted to show us a really neat local craft vendor. Not thinking anything of this, I said "Great!" and we followed him. Within the span of five minutes, we realized we were in a back alley and he had slyly written our names on a craft. So, now he needed to be paid. He started to get really worked up when we said we didn't ask for that, so we just decided to swallow our pride and let ourselves be swindled. After paying for our "hand crafted artifact," we hit the streets feeling violated, but lesson learned. Later, a much nicer Fijian man stopped to chat with us while we were looking at the bus schedule. He warned us of these street vendors who pull tourists into corners and con them into buying something. He told us how to walk and greet people so this would not happen to us. He was so excited to help us I didn't have the heart to tell him we had already learned this lesson the hard way. But, he restored our faith in humanity.
We enjoyed our city day very much. We were able to amble along main street Suva and just enjoy seeing take-away food places, shops, and the ocean. We went to the botanical gardens and Suva museum which was really cool. We learned a lot about the history of the Pacific. After that, we treated ourselves to an awesome lunch of McDonald's. French fries and chicken nuggets never tasted so good. After that, it was on to the movie theater. We saw World War Z in 3D. The best part? Movie tickets, a large popcorn, medium soda, and 2 bags of m&m's was only $25 FJD, which is like $17 American dollars! Righteous. It was wonderful to just sit back and get lost in the world of a movie again. We also realized how much our blood has thinned. We shivered through the whole movie. Air conditioning was more than we could handle. After our movie, we stumbled upon a pub. We stopped in to have a drink. 8 beers, two glasses of wine, and a pizza later, we stumbled out of the pub. It was half off drink and pizza night. The bar was busy, the food was awesome, the music was great. So, we indulged. Total cost: $45 FJD. Not too shabby!
The next day we jumped into a van to trek out to our resort. The resort lies about 2 hours west of Suva. The van ride was really cool. We got to see a lot of the countryside and the small villages. Fiji is really beautiful. The mountains, the greenery, the rivers. Gorgeous. We spent the first 2 hours at the resort lying on the beach. We burned so badly. We forgot that certain body parts of ours had not seen sun in about ten months. Yikes. Spent the night drinking with some huge rugby fanatics from Australia. They were pre- drinking to prepare for a big game. We made it through pre-drinking and dinner, but were in no shape to go watch the game. We had a great time with them and the family who owns the resort.
During our morning breakfast the next day, Juta, a Fijian from the village closest to the resort, came over and asked the group we were chatting with if we all wanted to go for a jungle hike to a waterfall. We all eagerly agreed. We had an AWESOME time trekking with Juta, two Swiss travelers and two German travelers. The jungle floor of Fiji is pure clay. It was interesting trying to scramble up bits that Juta made look so easy. Many times, we all landed in a pit of mud/clay up to our knees because of one misstep. Luckily, we tramped through various rivers throughout the hike, so we had many an opportunity to clean the mud out of our shoes. All in all, this was one of the highlights of our trip.
The picture above on the left shows a PVC pipe that a village runs all the way through the jungle to the waterfall. This is one of the ways they get water into their village. So industrious!
We spent the next few days laying on the beach, having cocktails with various traveling groups, and gorging on local fare. The weather was incredible... cool in the mornings, sunny all afternoon, and cold at night. We enjoyed walks on the beach, lazing in beach hammocks, and hot showers. It was a wonderful, and much needed, vacation.
Some pictures of our resort:
Low tide was so cool. We could walk all the way out to the break! This was a neat way to see some of the creatures lurking at the bottom of the sea :) Creepy and fun all at the same time.
A shot of our resort from the ocean at low tide and a sea snake.
I know my husband said it was a hiatus, but I still have more stories to tell! Just because he is in his pre-vacation grump mode doesn't mean I have to be. Right? Mo'oni (truth).
We now know that the last week of school before break is considered an "optional" learning week here in Tonga. Most days we were finished with school by 10:30 a.m. But, the school got a good scrubbing, we played a lot of badminton with the kids, and Ryan and I tested the limits of patience in our marriage. All good stuff. So, here are some pictures of our last week before our big trip to Fiji.
Ryan and I did a previous blog about the young Peace Corps Volunteer named Tessa Horan who died here in 2006 from a fatal shark attack. Her mother, Kristena Prater, still maintains a foundation in her name called the Tessa Horan Foundation. This foundation continues to help maintain the library built at the school in honor of Tessa's memory. This week, Kristena had a man from America stop by to bring some supplies to the village. His name was Michael. He brought a whole suitcase of books, school supplies, seeds for community gardens, and t-shirts with the Tessa Foundation's logo. The kids were so excited. It is a very special honor for schools to receive American visitors and our school did an amazing job. They prepared a traditional Tongan feast and our students sang a bunch of the songs they had learned in English to him. The kids had so much fun! It was a really great day.
I got a little bored this week and decided I needed a project. Our friends who live on the outer island have a large chalkboard in their house. I love this and think it is a cool way to keep learning new words in Tongan. After cleaning the library, we found an old can of chalkboard paint. So, I decided to paint a chalkboard in our house. It turned out really well! Now Ryan can clearly see his to-do list :) He is oh-so-happy.
In an effort to spice up our Friday nights, we have decided to invite our class 6 kids over to make pizza with us. If they have brothers or sisters in our class 3,4, or 5 class, they come too. So far we have done this with our closest neighbor family and the two girls who are my cooking regulars. It has gone really well and we have a blast with them. .
Below is the family up next, on a recent raid of our orange tree. They are another neighbor family and all the kids have so much personality. They are going to be a BLAST to cook with next weekend!
Yeah, the littlest boy REALLY hates clothes. I mean, really hates them. Rain days are his favorite because he just runs around in all his glory enjoying it. We didn't mean to be lewd putting this picture in, but he always cries when his brother and sister don't let him in the picture. Needless to say, this is what every picture of them looks like. So, go with what ya got!
(Editor's Note: We've blocked out anything lewd, but let's be honest, if we couldn't take pictures in the village where kids are naked, then we really wouldn't have many pictures at all) :)
That's all folks, we are off to Fiji in a couple of hours!
P.S... We saw a really bright light coming into our window, so we went outside to see what it was. We thought something was happening at the resort across the ocean. But, it was just the biggest, brightest, most beautiful moon we have ever seen. A bunch of women came from the other end of town to sit by our house too and marvel at its beauty. It reflected so bright off the ocean it was like a spotlight. It was made even cooler by the slow flying bats that flew majestically into the tree in our backyard. Ryan and I put this in our top five moments in Peace Corps. Wish I was a better photographer... but at least I am better than my husband.
Abby's picture: A beautiful, majestic moonlight night in Tonga.
Ryan's picture: His "majestic" beast, napping in the sun after eating Sunday dinner scraps. Be thankful for my contribution to this blog. Otherwise, it would all be stupid Iowa football stats and dog pictures.
Well, not much new here in Tonga folks. This was one of our quietest weeks here and that is really saying something. Monday was a holiday, so no school. Tuesday was a Ministry-wide school clean-up day, so we worked with the kids to clean up the school and then went home. Our principal, Tevita, got really sick this week, so he did not come to school. Days without Tevita are pretty much a free-for all playdays, which can be sometimes be fun, and other times grind your nerves down to dust.
Thursday night the moms and the children from the Mormon Church in our community came over to do 'ngaue ofa' (a gift of volunteer work) in our yard. After seeing Ryan tear down all those trees a couple weeks back, it seems that the village finally realized we also care about the appearance of our house. With that information, they sprung into action!
The afternoon began with all the kids and the moms coming to our place to get it started. Oh what, you thought yard work was immune from prayers, songs and religious speeches? Oh dear reader, no chance, in fact, MOST of yard work is simply prayers, songs and religious speeches :). After the festivities, the kids sprung into action and oh boy, we've never seen anything like it. Our students were armed with machetes (both boys & girls) and the little ones had Tongan brooms to clear their work. The strength, efficiency and speed with which the kids cut our grass, cut down trees and rid our yard of weeds was simply shocking. We have never seen anything like it. More than that, they just hopped over the pig fence and cleared out our entire bush. To everyone's delight, we found a previously undiscovered orange tree in the bush, which was full of slightly over-ripe oranges. Given that orange season has come and past, it was like Christmas as we all ate our bodyweight in fresh oranges.
Starting it of with a prayer, a speech and a song:
Poetry in motion:
A team effort:
Goodbye 'uta, hello oranges.
Nothing more exciting than finding fresh oranges to pick!
Per usual, he was no help at all:
The afternoon ended with more prayers, speeches and singing. Abby and I provided fruit punch for all the kids (thanks to our dear family and friends who have provided us with enough Crystal Light packets to last us at least 50 years) and they had candies for the kids. It was a fantastic, energizing afternoon. Lots of fun.
Only 17 days until we spend a week visiting Fiji. We have never been more excited for a vacation and can't wait to tell you all about it!
Some random adventures:
-After eating nothing but bread and onions for a month, Ryan and I decided to splurge and buy a kilogram of minced meat. We decided to make hamburgers one night to try to get a little protein in our diet. After an epic fail, we ended up with what Ryan kept calling "a Maid Rite Sandwich." I have no idea what in the hell this is... it must be some ridiculous Iowa thing. I was a little bummed our hamburgers didn't come out as patties, but beef on a bun is still beef on a bun. After about 30 minutes, Ryan and I realized we ate an entire 1/2 KG of meat (a.k.a. 1.1 lbs). This was supposed to be two meals, but we figured, hey we hadn't eaten meat in a month. 30 minutes after that we were laying on the floor groaning in pain. We were surprised to feel so full and sick after only eating a 1/2 lbs. of meat between the two of us. After looking it up, we realized 1/2 KG = 1.1 lbs. So, we each actually about a 1/2 lbs. of meat each. While I groaned in agony over my system's rejection of the meat, Ryan kept repeating: "overdosing on beef, I feel like an American again!"
-Having NOTHING to do with the aforementioned beef overdose, we have also been getting back into shape. On our first morning of running, we woke up at 6:00 am, laced on our running shoes and went out the door. After a couple of overly-strenuous minutes, we began to hear the pitter-patter of four paws behind us. Before we knew it, it became a whole-family workout with Lucky keeping pace with us the entire course. Of course, fatty found a shortcut so he was waiting to be fed by the time we made it home!
-Abby having to go the bathroom when she screams out because a lizard has somehow gotten himself stuck in our toilet and unable to get out. After several erroneous attempts to flush the little guy with our buckets and several shouted curses about his unnatural buoyancy, she brings in the big guns (Ryan) to hold his head under water with a toilet brush until that tail stops moving. At the last second, she stops cheering for his ultimate demise, runs and gets one of our measuring cups and yells: "don't kill him, save him with this" to which Ryan looks at her with disgust. Unfortunately the deed is already done and after a couple of more buckets, he is finally flushed.
-Sitting on our porch, drinking lemonade, watching the ocean on a lovely Saturday afternoon. A man comes out of the kava hall, clearly kava drunk. It's not so much that we hear him taking the #2, its that after he is done he comes over to the fence to ask Abby for some toilet paper or newspaper or something. I feel like that is a great sentence to finish the line: "you know you're in Tonga when..."
Note: Cheap ass Abby gave him the newspaper and saved the precious toilet paper for us. He didn't seem to mind.
-Abby making delicious banana bread for the family that graciously gave us the bundle of bananas (as pictured in last week's blog). When Ryan went up to the front stoop of their house to deliver said bread, he chatted with our sixth grade student Ane about her day at school. So used to having Lucky at his side, he reached down and pat his head a couple of times, only to realize it was a pig instead. The look on Ane's face, as she ran away with the bread in hand, was something we won't soon forget.
