Puppy-nappers

On Saturday our puppy 'Ava went missing during the middle of the day. We were home, and hadn't seen her for just about an hour, and went walking up and down the beach and the roads by our house with no luck. We'd planned on going to the Liku (wild/undeveloped) side of the island with Sarah and Alicia for the afternoon, it was really nice out. And on that side of the island no one really goes there so we could wear our swimsuits! I thought 'Ava would be there when we got back, but she wasn't. We think she wandered off a little, and some Tongan stole her. It's common for that to happen. They'll take puppies out of people's yards too, our neighbor had told us that people come and steal the puppies at night. And Alicia took one of the puppies home, and early in the morning while she was sleeping some little Tongan kid stole the puppy out of her yard and cut off the collar she'd made. Someone saw him do it, so she was able to find the puppy. But no one knows where 'Ava is, the neighbor kids just kept saying "'Ava go far, far away", and that she's lost. We walked around after church and the feast yesterday, looking in people's yards but didn't find her. The couple that's running a dive shop here is also missing their dog. They said if you don't find the dog in a couple days it's either dead or in a pot, or if it's lucky maybe someone kept it as a pet. But they don't treat pets like we treat pets here. Tongans feed their pigs a lot, they're worth a lot of money and they want to fatten them to eat them. But the dogs aren't really fed, they get scraps sometimes or they'll look around for food on their own from what I've seen.

Brett's at school on his first day right now (it's Mon. about 10:30am, I don't think the blog post times are right most of the time). The mosquitos have been a lot worse lately, we've been burning coils by our doors and wearing more mosquito repellent.

Pangai - big city to some

On Tuesday the couple from the outer island finally made it into Pangai for a visit! We were all excited to see them, their boat schedule was changed three times before they made it here in the afternoon. That night we went out to the one restaurant in town and had pizza and beer. There was quite the international group of people hanging out that night - america, ireland, germany, poland, australia. We met a few more people that are living in town here, they're fun to hang out with.



Eric and Melanie had to get back for the beginning of school, so had to catch the next boat back instead of staying in town longer. So it was supposed to come through during the day on Wed, then it changed to the middle of the night and Eric had to get up every hour and go out our back door to check for it on the beach. Then it changed to Thurs. morning, Thurs. night, and finally 5:00am on Friday today. So the schedules are constantly changing. On Tues. both big ferry boats came into Pangai and it was a circus in town. People were hanging out everywhere shopping for new supplies that came in. And the gas station had lines of cars waiting to fill up.

On Wed. night we were invited to Mele's house for dinner, her brother is the harbor master in Nuku'alofa and owns the training center I work at, so he wanted to have dinner with us and some other people in town here. Mele is the best cook here!! She cooks Tongan food, but with a more western style, using more spices and flavor. They had a buffet set up on their patio, we had a roasted pig, rice with veggies and little octopus, shrimp, and really good steak/beef. And last night we made bean burritos with Alicia, Eric and Melanie. It was really nice to see them and have them stay with us. On one of the nights it was like a big sleep-over with four people in our living room!

We had a few unfortunate events the last couple of days though. Alicia was ready to take her black puppy home for the first time, Brett went out the back door to find him, and he was laying there dead next to our house!! It was really sad, our neighbor kids were really cute though and helped dig a grave. Brett started packing down the dirt, then we realized the kids were mounding it up like a Tongan grave. They even lined it with rocks, and with white shells spelled out "puppy"! We noticed the mom dog was looking really sick too and not eating. The next morning we found her also dead next to our back door!! The neighbors think it might have been some kind of poisen or something they got into. The rest of the puppies are doing fine, bouncing around and nipping at our feet whenever we go outside.



Brett went to teacher planning today, and starts school with the kids on Monday. I'm just hanging out, doing a little work when needed. It's been pretty lazy here lately. We did get some packages and mail recently (thanks mom and dad!), so we're getting updated on the rest of the world through people and time magazines. I wonder sometimes what the newest songs on the radio are.

Little Helpers

So I'm starting to change my mind on how I feel about all the little kids living around us. Three more just came home from a longer christmas vacation yesterday, so there are five little boys living across the yard from us now, ranging in age from 2 to about 12 years old. It's better now with the older ones around, they keep the youngest in line. And the best part is they're our little helpers! We'll start doing chores or things outside like making a fire to burn our garbage or putting up clothes on the line to dry and the boys will just start helping us! We gave them some starburst and banana bread for helping. I've noticed they're always around the yard area, and if our doors are open they'll come and sit in the doorway or on the steps and watch us or the older ones will talk to us since they know English. We never know what we'll see when we look out the windows or doors with these kids, the youngest is seen sometimes peeing off the edge of their doorstep, or worse. And they climb up our huge trees in the backyard, really high up on tiny little branches. It will be different, quieter at least, once school starts next week (I think). And we found out that our other neighbor, Mosese and his family might be moving to an outer island. So there will be less kids around. His kids and wife have been gone for the last month though anyways.

Brett's birthday was fun on Sunday. I made a cake from scratch, we still had no eggs but it turned out. Then in the afternoon our neighbors invited us to a church service and feast, we thought it might be a few hours, but turned out to be a 2 hour church service for the kids going back to school, and a couple hours at the feast with lots of speeches. There were lots of long tables set up, each area with different food and drinks from each family. Mele, who we had lunch with on our first Sunday and works in catering, made sure to pass down some really good spaghetti to us. And Silosi and Ana, our neighbors, had roasted a pig for the feast.

The peace corps couple on an outer island, Eric and Melanie, finally found a way to get into town this week, the Olavaha boat is running again finally! First they were going to get in for dinner last night, then early this morning, and now hopefully they'll make it this afternoon. The boat keeps getting delayed or is running late. The smaller boat, Tautahi, made it this morning. So the stores are all really busy today, there's a lot of new food and supplies in that were running low. We heard rumors of ice cream and Brett went looking but didn't find any. We did get a big tray of eggs though. Another transportation problem - the airplanes, maybe because the petrol was getting low, I don't know. But Grant and his brother were going to Nuku'alofa and his brother got stuck here last night and will hopefully get on the plane this afternoon, the morning flight was cancelled.

In other news, the puppies are doing good, we've picked out a little brown furry one to keep, new photos are posted on the link to the left.

Here comes the sun

It was really nice and hot out today! We biked all the way up to Matafonua beach resort/beach on the northern tip of Foa island, it took about an hour to bike there but was well worth it. The bike ride was pretty, going across the airport runway where the road divides it, and the land bridge between Lifuka and Foa. The beach at Matafonua was gorgeous, turquoise-colored water and really sandy beach and swimming area. Sarah met us there, her village from Foa was there having a picnic so there were lots of Tongans around that ruined my chance of wearing my palangi swimsuit, but was still a lot of fun. We ate at the restaurant there, really good pizza and nice ocean view, and swam with the kids from Sarah's village. Before we got in the water, there was a big commotion, a young tongan girl was swept out by the current and had to be pulled in.

Earlier this morning Brett went with our neighbor to the bush and helped him pull out a few ufi and pele (yam and vegetable that's like lettuce). Tomorrow is Brett's birthday! There's not much to do in Tonga on Sundays, we'll probably go to church and then afterwards there's a feast again with the Weslyn church.

Gale Winds

Gale winds, yes thats what I said. The local weather has been very crazy over the last week. We have had a lot of rain and recently we had a gale winds advisory from the Fiji weather service. The winds were up to 50 knots at times. I was afraid if I walked outside I might get picked up and tossed over to Samoa or somthing like that. We have been inside most of this week since the weather has not been cooperating. Last night the winds were really high I th0ught at times that our house might blow away but it stayed strong. On the upside we figured out how to make homemade pizza, that really made our day. Here in tonga we do not always have the best of choices with food so when we figured out how to get ingredients for pizza and how to make it we were very excited, I feel a bit more American today because of that.

P.S. We caught the mouse.

(Brett)


Flooding from waves around the Fisheries office building, standing next to it is our neighbor Silosi.

Standing on the wharf with waves coming over the edge, looking towards Fisheries and the clump of trees is where our house is.