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.