Navutoka homestay, tongatapu

Well we're staying alive and surviving our last homestay in Navutoka, Tongatapu! We only have 2 more nights, and leave on Saturday back to Nuku'alofa the capital city and stay at a guest house for a week before leaving for our site in Ha'apai! On Wed. 12/17 we swear in officially as volunteers so think of us on 12/16 back home!

This homestay has been a lot different, for one thing it's only 2 weeks and you don't really get to know the village or family in that short amount of time. It's a bigger village than where we stayed in Vava'u, so it has a different feel to it, a little more urban but still no internet or large stores or anything. There's a lot of little falekoloas - stores that you walk up to and order through a window what products you want from the couple of shelves inside. This is the standard way of shopping in most places in Tonga. There are the tongan falekoloas and the chinese, the chinese have a lot more products and are open all the time. The tongan falekoloas aren't always open, but people just yell the shopkeeper's name (the stores are always right in front of the person's house), and they come out and open the store. There's a falekoloa in front of our homestay house in this village. You'll usually find chips, candy, water, noodles, flour, salt, ketchup, toothpaste, soap, kava, canned tuna and beef, and a few other things at these stores.

Our house at this homestay is huge (by tongan standards), 2-stories, lots of bedrooms, and a nice big wrap-around porch. But there are three families living in it - the mom and dad (Sia and Pauli) and their 5 kids, and their two older boys are married and have their own kids and also live in the house with their families. So it's a little confusing and chaotic at times. But this is a normal set-up in Tonga, once a young couple gets married they move in with the husband's family. One of the host sisters wove me a really pretty kiekie. And this time it was me that got really sick and not Brett, I think I'm over it now though, it was pretty bad earlier this week. It's definately not fun having a temp over 101 in the heat and humidity here! It was something probably from the food our group all ate, there were about 5 or 6 of us sick with the same thing. Not fun.

It was nice though that our village here is right on the ocean, with a little beach and benches lining the road along the ocean, it's a really pretty bright turquoise color and very shallow for a ways out. One day last week we went with Micah's host family out to one of the tiny islands you can see from shore. We thought it would just be a couple people from his family and us, but when we got to the water there was a tiny boatful of about a dozen tongans and Micah, it was already sitting really low in the water and Brett and I and Monica all squeezed in! This is how tongans normally travel, they squeeze as many people in as can fit, even sitting on laps at times on buses. It was fun, they made an umu so we all ate chicken and they had root crops too. They handed us sticks with roasted chicken, and a huge hunk of watermelon with a bush knife to cut it with. On the way there and back in the deep area between the island and main land the waves were huge like a roller coaster.

We've had more language classes here, and center days, soon to be done! Yesterday we had an interesting speaker from the center for abused women and children here in tonga and some of the statistics shocked us. In Tonga the land act/bill that is still being used was writen in 1875, and women have no right to own any land. Even if they're a widow, if they start a new relationship they then have to move off the land/house because they didn't stay true to their dead husband. (tonga's working on a new land bill now). And only first-born sons have a right to claim land. There's also a lot of domestic abuse, and they're just now starting public awareness on it, the only abuse center was just established in 2000 I believe. And for child abuse, they can't do anything about it if it's the parents. I think they're trying to get signed onto some UN child act, but don't have anything yet. In the local laws, there are none against child abuse or rape. Just some interesting facts on the topic here. We've also had more business and education sessions.

A couple more days and we'll be back in town, and will have more internet access again, and we have a lot of shopping to do for our house. I heard we might have to take the twelve hour boat ride to site in ha'apai, they're trying to work things out, so I hope it doesn't work and we can take the plane instead!

Beach house!!

So we had good news yesterday, after talking with some of the PC staff about our housing situation, we will get the house we wanted between the two houses that were open for us in Ha'apai!! We'll be living in a good sized house (2 bedrooms, indoor kitchen, bathroom and shower), and it's RIGHT on the ocean!! We'll be facing west in Pangai so we'll see lots of sunsets, and the cone-shaped volcanic islands are right on the horizon. Also, during the whale season in their winter (june-sept-ish), we heard you can see whales from the house swimming by! I'm excited about the location and the house sounds really nice too. Just pray that there won't be any big hurricanes or anything!

We're about to go grab lunch in town here, then we leave in the afternoon for our last 2-week homestay on the eastern side of tongatapu. Probably won't have much internet access during the homestay.

Thanks for the letters and packages we've been getting to those who've sent!

Tongan Thanksgiving feast

We had our first American holiday in Tonga! A bunch of us got together for a Thanksgiving meal, probably close to 20 of us at a current volunteers house. We had all the normal palangi food - turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, stuffing, bread, and watermelon, it was so good! Before we ate someone said a prayer and we all went around the room and said what we were thankful for - mine was being done with our first homestay and closer to being done with training! It was a lot of fun hanging out with current volunteers here, and there were 4 other trainees from our group.

It really has been like a vacation week this week staying with a current volunteer, eating normal food - we even had mac 'n cheese one night! And being able to do what we want when we want, not having a schedule. And more access to internet and stores in town. I just got three new kiekie's today from a volunteer that had a lot and was getting rid of some (thanks Karen!!)Now we just have to survive a 2-week homestay, then we're basically done with training! We're getting our housing figured out hopefully today, I think it's between two houses in Pangai.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home, enjoy the cold weather for us. Keep in touch - email, facebook or mail us stuff we love to hear from you all and keep up with what's going on with your lives!

Nuku'alofa, the big city

We made it back to the capital city of Nuku'alofa this morning, it's amazing how different it feels/looks this time to us! When we first flew in here it seemed so small, hot and humid. Now it feels like a big city compared to our training village in Vava'u. And where we're staying we're just down the road from the peace corps office and free internet!! And lots of stores and restaurants! We went and ate at the Friends cafe for lunch when we got here, the toasted sandwiches and iced vanilla latte were so good!

When we left Vava'u it was pouring sheets of rain out, they gave us umbrellas to walk to the plane and up the stairs to board. Brett and I, and the other volunteers were surprised at how hard it was to say goodbye to our host families. It was definatley a challenge living with them - not having the freedom we're used to, eating whatever they cook, and difficulty sometimes understanding eachother. But we were really touched by how much they really cared about us and all they did for us. Our family roasted a pig the last Sunday we were there, we think it might have been there little pet pig!! I hope not! And our host mom cried at our last dinner together, saying she was sad they won't see us anymore to say good morning and good night and look after us. She also made us kaloas - flower lei necklaces like she usually does for any big event. They were really pretty! The kids were pretty sad too. Our host brother asked us to name his new puppy something that would remind them of us, I think they'll name it "snow" for the minnesota winters. They all loved the little presents we gave them too. And we were given carved bone necklaces and woven fans, and I got shell earings and a woven purse. (yes I'm still collecting purses even here!)And if we don't have a woven mat at our house in Ha'apai our host mom said she'd make one and ship it to us. They came to the airport to see us off this morning.

So now it almost feels like a vacation week, we're staying with a current volunteer in town and shadowing current volunteers for a few days. We're all getting together, I think almost 20 of us in town here for Thanksgiving on Thursday.

Sad Days in Tonga

On Wednesday and Friday we had to say goodbye to our good friends Trent and Bronzie. They decided to leave Peace Corp service early for personal reasons which all of us here in Group 74 support. Trent was a great teacher who was planning on teaching high school computer in the city of Nuku'Nuku on the main island of Tongatapu, which he would have been great at. Trent was an inspiration in our home stay town of Tu' anekivale, he was always playing sports with the local kids and swimming at the local beach with them. Bronzie was planning on running a computer lab in Leimatu'a on the island of Vava'u and was going to try and increase computer usage throughout the village. Bronzie was always seen at kava and got along great with the local men, he might of not always understood the language at kava but he was always able to catch the jokes and throw them back when needed. All of us in Group 74 will miss them both.
It takes a lot to come to a place far from home and give of yourself, many people only think of doing something like this and never act on it. I give Trent and Bronzie a lot of respect for come here and trying Peace Corp, and even though they were only here for a month and a half they were both able to make a difference and do things they would not of been able to do if they had not come to Tonga. We wish them the best and hope they find their nitch in life after experiencing Peace Corp Tonga.

Good Luck Guys,

Brett
Here's our Tu'anikivale crew with our two teachers Paea in the front and Tasi in the back. The two guys that left are Trent in the gray wifebeater in front and Bronzie in the red shirt in back. This is the porch we had morning and afternoon tea at everyday in language class.