Counselor Bonding

Slowly but steadily progress on Camp GLOW & GROW is moving along. Our schedule and curriculum have been finalized. Speakers have been approached to lead sessions ranging from healthy life styles to family planning to environmental awareness to women’s rights and domestic violence. A catering contract has been created and signed. The campers, the essential part of the program, are signed up, and we expect a good showing for our parents meeting tomorrow. And, as pertains to this blog post, our counselors have been chosen.

We – volunteers – like to immodestly and optimistically proclaim many inspirational and profound lessons that will emerge from Camp GLOW & GROW, but one of the less discussed anticipated impacts of the camp centers on the counselors. Though the main subject of the camp are the campers, the Form 3 boys and girls, the aim is also for the counselors to learn the same information as the campers from the speakers who come, while simultaneously improving their leadership skills by being responsible for the campers and leading sessions themselves. The goal is very much to instill confidence in our counselors so that they understand that they have the ability to accomplish anything they desire.

For the girls finding counselors was easy. Each of the female staff has long been a part of Camp GLOW, either as a former camper or counselor. They are all old pros of the camp, and observing the enjoyment they receive from helping and their clear appreciation for Glow’s goals has been one of the most gratifying parts of my work so far. Since the boys camp is new, there were no former counselors to fall back on and we instead chose 4 boys – two 19 year olds, and 18 year old senior in high school, and a 16 year old sophomore in high school – who we know and whom we believe exemplify the attributes we want in our counselors. We had our first meeting 2 weeks ago to explain to them their duties and go over the schedule, but the real fun, and in some ways the true start to the camp began last week.

Last Saturday, an American couple who owns a sail boat that they run charters off of graciously offered to take us and our counselors on a day sail, free of charge, as a fun way to bond before the beginning of the camp. We were only too happy to accept the incredibly generous offer, so at 9:30 in the morning 4 Peace Corps Volunteers, 4 Camp Glow counselors, and 4 Camp Grow counselors embarked. Our goals were two fold: to instruct the counselors in greater detail about their responsibilities and to have fun.

I won’t bore you with all the nitty gritty details, but will instead state what we did broadly to show everyone reading and those who were so amazing as to contribute to the camp where your money will soon be going. Lead by Yamiha, an amazing Tongan counselor in her early 20’s who has been part of Camp Glow for its entire 4 year history in Vava’u, we went through the schedule with the counselors to explain what their duties would be and what the camp would look like. Speaking better Tongan than any of us could ever hope to achieve, Yamiha made everything click for our counselors.

The rest of the morning was spent sailing to one of the islands, enjoying a little swimming in the beautiful waters to get refreshed from the hot Pacific sun, and then back to work. The next part of the meeting was to teach the counselors little games or “energizers” that they would play with the campers at various times to keep them engaged. Anyone who has attended a camp or worked for a business with a particularly conscientious HR department would recognize these games. One of the games, called kwa (said as if you were a ninja), consists of everyone standing in a circle, while one person points to someone yelling kwa, who then raises his hands in air saying kwa, while the two people next to him pretend to slice him in the stomach while also saying kwa, and this keeps going until someone makes a mistake. It is incredibly silly, but everyone always laughs and enjoys the game, and it is an easy way to break the ice or rejuvenate yourself after a long day.

The last part of business, other than swimming, snorkeling, and enjoying some fantastic American food (PESTO!) was explaining the bridge model. The bridge model, an essential part of Camp Glow and one that we have adopted for Camp Grow, defines the critical thinking and decision-making sessions of the camps that we believe are so vital for both the campers and the counselors leading the sessions. The bridge model consists of two islands, the ocean, and a bridge drawn on a piece of paper. The first island stands for where they are now, such as High School students, inhabitants of Vava’u, sons and daughters. The second island represents where they want to be in the future, such as high school graduates, teachers, doctors, good husbands and wives. The water signifies all the potential dangers that could stop them from reaching these goals, like illness, unwanted pregnancy, drugs, and alcohol. Finally, the bridge encompasses how the students will navigate these potential risks through concepts such as good decision making, studying, and hanging out with good role models. The bridge model represents the core of the camp experience, and this description is expanded throughout the four days. The counselors seem to really understand this concept, and are eager to teach it themselves next month.

The rest of day was spent talking and playing a few other energizer games. It was a truly amazing day. We were able to spend some quality time with our counselors, get to know each other better, and learn a little bit in the process. It was one of the best days I have had as a volunteer, as it combined a fun experience with work that I am truly passionate about, and I cannot express my gratitude enough to the American couple who took us out on their boat. It was an amazing offer and a great day.

Thank you all for reading. Before I get to the pictures, I wanted to state that for those of you who read last weeks post about rugby, my school region won the rugby tournament. You can see a photo of the winning team below. As for the other pictures below, they were taken by Mandy, another volunteer, with her terrific camera skills and her great camera. Thanks to her for sharing these with me and please enjoy them.

The Camp GROW Counselors

Discussing the bridge model in the shade

playing one of the energizers 

The winning rugby team and the 2nd place net ball team!

         

Camp Grow & Glow Staff 2013

Akapulu (Rugby)

Two events dominate the post-exam school life, the Class 6 & 5 boys’ rugby tournament and Tongan Culture Day at the end of November. The rugby event is the subject of conversation for the entire year for both the teachers and the students, especially the boys. From my first months working as a teacher back in February and March I remember eager students constantly alerting me to the fact that October and November was ruby time not class time. I have repeatedly been told that my region won last year, but in the highly scientific poll that I have conducted the past few weeks, every student and teacher from every school has assured me vehemently that they won the rugby tournament last year. Oh well, that is life in Tonga for you. Some of you may remember the track and field events I coached a few months ago, and Sports Day was certainly a larger event in terms of my contributions, the number of student participants, and family attendance, but for the few boys who make the regional team, rugby is as good as the school year gets.

First we trained at school. The older boys would line up practicing scrums (the play consisting of jumping on both your teammates and opponents after a tackle to attempt to retain possession of the ball), their backward passes, their tackling technique, and of course, their speed and shiftiness on offense. The practices were highly chaotic and far from a learning experience, but the kids loved it because they knew it was just the beginning.

My school is far too small to host its own rugby team, which has 15 members per side. We only have 7 Class 6 boys and 6 Class 5 boys, so even combined we could not support a full team. Luckily, like with sports day, the rugby competition is regional and we are Vahe Hahake #1 (East Region #1). Every afternoon for the past few weeks, Paea and sometimes I have taken the kids to the much larger and nearby school of GPS Ha’alaufuli to team up with their kids and the students of GPS Tu’anekivale. We would bring our Class 6 and 5 boys, throw them out onto the field, watch them smash into each other, and offer a few strategic tips and pieces of advice. Unlike with the track and field, I am pretty useless as a rugby coach and most of my time has been spent working as a cheerleader and a one trick pony of telling the kids to hit their opponents low rather than grabbing their necks during the tackles.

Over several weeks, we finally put a team together consisting mostly of Ha’alaufuli boys, a few kids from Tu’aneikivale, and my two largest Class 6 students, with several of my kids on the bench. Last Friday, the rugby competition began, consisting of 6 school regions. Our first match was against the Western region, home to one of the married Peace Corps volunteers, and we triumphed over them by scoring one try (a touchdown in rugby speak) and by shutting out the west – they were scoreless. We then played the northern district, again composing of a Peace Corps school, and manhandled them to assure our team a place in the semifinals tomorrow. I would love to tell you that the rugby was exciting, but I would be lying. Rugby is not a particularly enjoyable spectator sport, at least from this one American’s perspective, who does admittedly enjoy playing it, but it’s always fun to see a win and the teachers and students were happy. So…bring on the Semis!

And, speaking of rugby, the World Cup Rugby League is currently underway in England, but of course you know that. Tonga is one of the teams playing in the tournament and every match they play is watched by every single Tongan throughout the Kingdom. Parents and kids stay home. People bring tvs to their place of work. It is a major event. Last week, I went into town to attend a meeting for Camp Grow at one of the high schools, and when I arrived on time the principal asked me if we could wait for the rugby match to end before meeting. Tonga was playing Scotland, and I was happy to oblige as I walked into a room of dozens of students to watch the game with them on their large plasma flat screen tv, or, I mean a small tv with a large antenna sticking out of it.

Watching the Tongans reactions to the game was absolutely hilarious. There were shouts, cries of cheating, laughter, and enough anguish to make a fan of any team proud. The favored Tongans played poorly all match, only to make a stunning comeback to retake the lead with the time running down, but ultimately lost when Scotland scored in the last few minutes. According to my sources this was an upset and the Tongans will need some luck to reach the next round. The Tongan team has since beat the Cook Island team, as the Americans also did last week (USA! USA! USA!), but according to the coconut wireless (Tongan gossip) the Tongans are not playing very well because they have not been paid recently, and the people in Tonga are constantly calling the players’ parents to tell them to make their sons play better. If only I could do the same for the Heat!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this rugby filled post and the pictures below. Have a great weekend!

The scrum - We are in orange

The out of bounds play

Net ball, which occurred at the same time as the rugby tournament, is even less exciting than rugby

Tonga vs Scotland

Kai Umu

With the Class 6 exam in our rearview mirror, the teachers and I have had some opportunities to be a little more creative with what we do with our time at school. Last week, Paea and I decided to spend the first two days of school building an umu (underground oven) and making the traditional Tongan meal of lu with our Class 6 and 5 students. Lu, for those of you who do not remember from previous posts, is named for the lu leaves that constitute the most important aspect of the meal. The leaves are spread out, and meat, such as fish, chicken, beef, lamb, and canned beef/fish, onions, salt, and juice from the coconut meat are placed on top of the leaves. Other ingredients, especially other vegetables, can be added to this recipe but lu, onions, meat, salt, and coconut milk are the meal’s true staples. The food is encased in the lu leaves, and then wrapped traditionally in banana leaves or more recently aluminum foil, and placed inside the oven for about two hours to cook.

The first day was all about preparation. The boys hopped over the fence in the back of the school compound to scrounge for the materials we needed, while the girls were content to laugh and watch how hard the boys were working. The first task was to find firewood. The 10 and 11 year old boys, who are so adept in the bush with a machete as they have been working in the bush since they were old enough to walk, made quick work of the nearby trees and threw the wood we needed over the fence onto the school. They then looked for the rocks that would be burned in the umu to bake the food.

After this the boys got a little creative. Apparently, the church minister of one of the villages taught the kids how to make a chicken trap. With surprising skill and dexterity, the boys built a pressure sensitive trap that would hopefully snare a chicken by the leg with a rope and leave it dangling upside down. I asked Paea if this was ok, as even though the chickens are in the bush and are not fenced in, they are not wild animals and someone does own them. He looked at me, shrugged, and said in a voice that left much doubt to his statement’s veracity that, “People don’t really care about a chicken or two. They only get mad if you steal a pig.” Neither of us really bought that, but a funny conversation did ensue between Paea and Soeli, the leader of the students designing the trap.

(All in Tongan)

Paea: What are you doing?

Soeli: Catching chickens

Paea: What chickens?

Soeli: We’re stealing them!

Paea: For who?

Soeli: For Soni!!!! (That’s me).

Somewhat luckily we did not catch any chickens, so no one was mad at me for apparently being the ringleader of a bunch of chicken thieves.

Once the kids were done collecting the rocks and the wood, climbing up trees to retrieve coconuts, and finished building the traps, they hopped back over the fence. All that was left for the day was to dig a whole in the ground that would serve as our umu – about 4 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 4 feet deep – and chop up the wood for the next day.

Tuesday was more fun. The teachers and the kids brought chicken – legally bought or raised – lu leaves, onions, canned fish, bread fruit, and kape (a Tongan root crop that I do not know the English equivalent for). The first step was to prepare the meat – pluck off the wings, remove the entrails and other organs, and wash off the blood – before placing the food on top of the lu leaves next to the cut up onions. Several of the boys were in charge of husking the coconuts, scraping off the meat, and then twisting the meat to get to the milk of the coconut. A few of the girls and the boys cut the cans of the fish in half to use the raggedy edges to scrape off the outside of the mei (bread fruit) to prepare for it to be baked. Our strongest boy, Lili, used a machete to peel the kape – somewhat similarly to how you peel a potato just on a larger scale – before tossing it into the oven.

Once these steps were finished, the students with the help of my principal Selu, poured some of the coconut milk onto the lu, which provides the food with most of its flavor. The lu was wrapped around the food, which was then in turn wrapped within tin foil. Finally, everything was ready to be baked. While all of this was happening, a fire was raging in our umu, as the wood was used to heat up the rocks. Once the fire was done, the rocks were shifted around, and then the lu, mei, and kape are spread over the rocks to bake. After the food is securely in place, the kids covered the food with a sheet to protect it and keep it clean, and then poured heaps of dirt on top of the sheet to trap all of the heat within the oven to cook the food faster.

Two hours later, the food was ready. Almost too hot to grab out of the umu, and then way too hot to eat with my fingers due to the absence of silverware, the students, teachers, and I sat upon banana leaves in a circle for a lu picnic. After the mandatory prayer, we dug in. While not the best lu I have ever eaten, the food was surprisingly good and it was a lot of fun to eat as a school after putting so much labor into the project. I still marvel at how efficient and skilled these kids are in every aspect of the kai umu (eating food from an underground oven) – using a machete, preparing meat, starting a fire, retrieving and husking coconuts, etc – and how different their lives are than how mine was growing up. It was an absolutely fascinating experience to see them do something that is such an integral part of their lives, but was never even part of my consciousness before I arrived in Tonga.

Thank you all for reading. I took way too many photos over these two days, so I have posted a few of them below and will upload the rest over the next few posts. Happy Halloween!

Maria (left) and Lose (right) scraping off the outer layer of the breadfruit

Sosefina, Paea, and Soana preparing the lu leaves

My principal Selu helping two of the girls pour the coconut milk onto the food to provide flavoring

Finished! Enjoying our lu picnic

Birthdays

Even with the risk of revealing myself as a bit of a nerd – I am – birthdays in Tonga have an undeniable Middle Earth feel to them. For those of you who are familiar with the Lord of the Rings novels and movies, I am of course speaking of J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythical world, Middle Earth, and specifically his hobbits that inhabit it. In Middle Earth, hobbits do not celebrate their birthdays like we do in real life. Rather than receive gifts on their birthdays, Hobbits in fact give them away. The anniversary of your birth is less a celebration of self but instead an acknowledgement of a communal achievement.

Birthdays are much the same in Tonga. People rarely mention when their birthdays are and almost never do anything to celebrate the day. A few months ago, I was trying to teach my students the meaning of date of birth during a particular unit, and several of them could not even tell me what day they were born. The closest they could get was the month and the year. It just wasn’t a big deal for them.

One thing the Wesleyan Church in my village does, and I have learned from the other volunteers that this is unique, is acknowledge birthdays. Each Sunday at the 10 O’clock service, the minister calls up everyone who had a birthday that week. The entire congregation then commences to sing happy birthday in English, and even adds an extra stanza of happy long life at the end. I still have no idea why we sing in English, as most of the people in the village can’t speak more than a few words of English and no other part of the service is conducted in English, but this happens every week. I must suppose than that even Tongans understand the greatness of the happy birthday song.

A perfect example of how Tongans handle birthdays is evidenced by my neighbor’s actions. My neighbor, Mana, has 3 kids, all of whom have birthdays around the month of August. At great personal expense and rather than simply buying his kids gifts, Mana hosts a feast every year in honor of his children and invites the entire village. The feat is the same as always, except every single piece of food was paid for and made by his family. In Tonga, this is a relatively obvious thing to do. There is no reason to have a party or elevate a single individual, and instead Tongans would rather celebrate with their entire community. The self is much less important than the group.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy the photos.

posing in the garden

The morning tooth brushing

Living Alone

As far as I know, there are no homeless shelters, senior citizen homes, or orphanages in Tonga. There is no need for them. In the West we tend to think of the family as being nuclear – mother, father, brother, sister. Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins are of course very important, but in a time when people are frequently not living in the places where they grew up, families have become inevitably smaller and more scattered.

Tongans, on the other hand, take a much broader view of family. Your neighbor is your family. Your village and your community are your family. Your cousin is your brother. In fact, when I first arrived in my village, I had a difficult time figuring out who was related to who, as many cousins will refer to themselves as sisters (in Tongan and in English) and distant 3^rd or 4^th cousins are instead described as nephews and nieces. In practical distinctions these terms are wrong, as your cousin cannot be your brother, but in Tonga titles are irrelevant in comparison to the close-knit relationships with even the most distant family members.

This sense of communal family explains the lack of shelters, homes, and orphanages in Tonga. No Tongan lives alone. It is entirely possible, I could even say probable but I will play it safe, that the Peace Corps Volunteers are the only people living alone in the entire country. For Tongans living alone is unthinkable. To this day I am often asked if I am faka’ofa (sad) to live by myself. To Tongans a house is not a home without more people living inside than there are rooms or beds available. A home has your third cousin, an adopted brother, your unmarried aunt, your grandfather, and who knows who else living with you.

No one is ever in need of a home. In Tonga, like in many cultures, the elderly are revered and treated with great respect. Tongans are honored to take care of their parents and grandparents, and have them live with them in their homes. While money is viewed very differently here than in the US, no person could ever be homeless. Beyond family, any person from the same village or a neighboring village would happily allow the person to live with them. Orphanages? Informal adoptions occur all the time, and children always have a place to live, whether it is with a friend or family.

This generosity of spirit helps explain why I have been able to form such rewarding relationships with my neighbors. While I like to think some of that has been because of me and my actions, the simple fact is that by virtue of living in the village, a powerful bond automatically connects me with my neighbors. We are tied together and I will always be “their pisi koa.” So, in many ways and like my Tongan neighbors, I do not truly live alone.

Before I move on to the photos, I first wanted to give an update about Camp Grow/Glow and school. Since I received the incredibly generous donations from family and friends, Camp Grow and Glow has taken several steps forward. The other volunteers and I have worked with the High School Principals of Vava’u to create a finalized curriculum and schedule for the camps, and we have recently begun visiting the schools and leading information sessions for the Form 3 students of each high school. At these sessions we explain the goals of the camps to the students and pass out applications. Once the application are complete, the volunteers and I, in conjunction with the principals and teachers from each school, will look over the applications together to decide which students would make the best campers. There is still much work to be done, but thanks to the support from all of you back home, Camp Grow & Glow is working to accomplish our goals.

There are also some exciting developments occurring at my school. Several months ago, in an attempt to improve our somewhat dilapidated school, I applied for a grant from the Government of Japan. Though it is still a long shot that the school will receive any money, a representative of Japanese embassy came to the school this week to discuss my grant proposal and explain to me what I could do to make our application more competitive. To achieve the funds I will have to stretch the limit of my past experiences by putting together a working blueprint of what the new school would look like, as an architect would do, and also speak to several construction companies to determine the costs of each of our improvements. It is a daunting task, one that I hope to accomplish by working closely with the teachers and PTA, but I am incredibly excited about the possibility of transforming the school and leaving something substantial behind that will remain long after I am gone.

Thank you all for reading and please enjoy the photos.

Zumba in one of my villages

The Class 6 Exam

After months of work and obsessing over the test, the Class 6 exam had finally arrived. Or, to be more precise, The Secondary School Entrance Exam. When I was assigned to teach in a primary school in Tonga by the Peace Corps, I never thought I would have to teach to a test. That is something we do in the US, but surely I thought, in a small village on the other side of the world, there would be less pressure on standardized testing. As has usually proven to be the case this past year, my assumptions were wrong.

While I have mentioned the exam often in this blog, I believe a refresher course is in order. The Class 6 exam is a big deal. With a few exceptions, almost every single Class 6 student (roughly the equivalent of 6^th grade) takes 4 exams – English, Science, Math, and Tongan – created by the Ministry of Education. The exam has two functions. The first is to determine whether the student will graduate from primary school and attend high school next year. This is a real concern as kids are often forced to repeat Class 6 – 4 out of 9 of my students are such repeaters. The second function is to decide which high school the student will attend the next year. No student is forced to go to any one school by the Ministry but the choices available to them depend on their scores.

The tests each consist of 100 points and the scores are added up into a total possible score of 400. To demonstrate how low the scores often are, the cumulative score to attend the best high school in Tonga, Tonga High School located on the main island, is 280. The average score to attend Vava’u High School, the best and only government high school in Vava’u, is usually around 240, or an average of 60% on each test. The students who do not receive these scores will often go to the high school that is run by their church, such as Mailifahi for the Wesleyans or Saineha for the Mormons, and these scores vary but they can be much lower than the scores of the government schools. Further, it is almost impossible to repeat Class 6 twice. No matter what your scores are in year two, you are going to high school.

With that behind us, the exam dominates the teaching of Class 6 for the entire year, but becomes an obsession over the last few months before the test in October. My Class 6 teacher, Paea, hds given the kids a practice test every day since July, and I have similarly had to focus more on test taking skills and test preparation than I would have otherwise liked too. My school is actually more relaxed than most, as many schools force their Class 6 students to attend test prep classes before school, after school, and during the holiday breaks. Though my school did not make our students attend an extra class, possibly because of the small size of our Class 6 – 9 students – or the fact that my principal is somewhat removed from the exam as the Class 1 and 2 teacher, Paea and I did go into school during the break two weeks ago for some last minute test prep.

Last week, the exam finally arrived. On Monday, we spent the morning preparing one of the classrooms for the exam. We moved the best desks into the room and covered all of the walls with white sheets so that the kids could not read the school posters hanging on the walls. After a ministry official came by and approved of our “test-taking center” we finished school early and let the kids relax for the rest of the day. The tests is structured over two days, with this years test being English on Tuesday morning, Science in the afternoon, and Math Wednesday morning with Tongan in the afternoon.

During the actual exams, all I have to do is wait. In order to reduce cheating, the principals and some teachers go to other schools to supervise the exams. At our schools, Paea’s brother and another volunteer’s principal were the supervisors so it made for a very stress free environment. While the kids were taking the tests, from 10 to 11:30 and 2 to 3:30, many of the parents and random people from the village walked over to the school to wait around for the kids to finish. The woman sat under a tree and talked, while the men turned my classroom into a kava drinking circle, as I was highly encouraged to sit with them for several hours drinking kava while waiting for kids to finish their exams. There were two reasons, however why the people from the village came to the school. The first is that they are genuinely interested in how the kids do, but the second and most obvious reason is that there is always a ton of food at the school during the exams and they wanted to eat.

Every school does their feast a little differently, but at my school two different parents of class 6 students volunteered to provide the food for the lunches in between the tests for the students and the teachers. The food is meant as a reward for the students and a thank you for the teachers. The feast had everything I believe my readers have come to expect from Tongan feasts, except at this feast it was only the teachers, students, and church ministers who sat down and ate. Of course, there were plenty of fakamalos (thank you speeches) from the parents and teachers, and I even gave one after the English exam. I kept it fairly simple, thanking the parents for the food, my teachers for their help, the students for their hard work and told my students how much I will miss them next year. I will say, however, that after having to make a speech in another language, I don’t think public speaking in English will be as nerve wracking in the future. After we finished eating, all the parents and other villagers sat down and finished all that was left of the food, ensuring that everything was properly devoured.

After every test, each of my students assured me that the tests were easy. I would be reassured by this, but after every practice tests they have ever taken in English or any other subject, they have proudly announced the test to be easy while heir actual scores were not quite as high as their confidence was. We won’t receive the scores for several months, as they have to be shipped to the main island to be scored, but I am proud of my kids and the work they put in this year. Now, however, is an interesting time in the school year. From now until schools ends in the first week of December, nothing happens in school. Very few classes are taught, and instead kids play rugby and practice their cultural dances. The only comparison I can make is to ask you to imagine a senior in high school taking the AP Exam and then spending the last month of that class watching movies. Further, imagine if after the AP exam, those classroom dynamics were replicated not only by that one senior class but also by the entire school, grades K through 12. That is what school is like in Tonga after the Class 6 exam, and it will certainly be an interesting and relaxed next two months.

Thank you for reading. After I uploaded last weeks post, the owner of the whale operator I swam with emailed me the pictures our guide took. They are absolutely stunning and are below. I hope you enjoy.

The calf and the mother playing

The calf heading for the surface

Swimming with the Whales

How do I describe swimming with the Humpback Whales? How can I possibly convey the sensation of floating within feet of the largest animals on the planet? Is it even possible to accurately portray their effortless grace, their playful antics, or their startlingly gentle demeanor? The answer – probably not, but I will do my best.

The adventure started on a stunning Thursday morning, one of those rare Tongan days where the weather is clear and the sun is out but it is not unbearably hot. Taking the pleasant weather for what I hoped as a foreshadowing of even better things to come, 4 other volunteers and I left the wharf at 7:30 in the morning on the hunt for whales. Driving out in the fastest boat I have traveled in since my arrival in Tonga, we made it out of the harbor and into the islands in the record time of only a few minutes. Trying to temper my excitement and knowing we may not see any whales for hours, I attempted to relax, sit back, and enjoy the view.

For three hours we motored around the islands with our two Tongan guides periodically stopping the boat to scan the horizon or listen to the radio for any sign of whales. After pretending to remain patient, we finally heard on the radio that another boat had sighted a mother and her calf swimming close to a nearby island. The boat began motoring in that direction, while the rest of us let out a collective sigh of relief. Yes, we have a sighting. This is real. We are actually going to swim with whales.

Well…at least eventually. The boat that found the whales first began to swim with them, so we watched from afar as groups of 4 – the maximum number of people allowed by law to swim with the whales at a time – took turns swimming with these gentle behemoths. Watching the tourists in the water and only being able to see the occasional backs of the whales as they breached the surface for a breath of fresh air was an incredible tease. We were chomping at the bit to get in the water and experience this closeness with the whales for ourselves.

Some time later it was our turn. In order to swim with the whales, the guides first try to determine where the whales are heading so that they can angle the boat in front of where the whales will be to allow us to be in the position to see them. The hope is that they will stay in relatively one place so you can spend several minutes with the whales, but if not you can at least see the whales for a few seconds as they swim by.

With an indescribable feeling of excitement and my heart rapidly beating inside my chest, I jumped into the beautiful turquoise water of the South Pacific. Following Sione, our Tongan guide, I swam behind him 20 yards until I saw the whales. I expected to be scared. I assumed that swimming in the open water only feet from such a colossally massive creature would be intimidating to say the least. From the moment my eyes made contact with the magnificent mother, however, every thought and fear disappeared from my mind. Time, as the cliché goes, literally stood still. Within feet of me, just below the surface of the water, I was swimming with a mother whale and her two-month-old baby hugging tightly to her side. The whales of course took no notice of us. Do we notice a solitary ant when we walk by one?

It was only a matter of seconds. The whales passed right by. Effortlessly gliding through the water without even a flick of the tale. Their size was massive. Even the calf was double our size. But from the moment I saw the whales, I understood their gentleness. The only emotion I could think of was calm. The whales were so tranquil, floating through the water without a thought in the world. I don’t believe in personifying animals, and I do not agree with allocating human emotions onto animals, but when I looked into the eyes of the mother whale I felt a profound sense of equanimity and tranquility. It was absolutely beautiful.

Describing the Humpback whales physically is almost as difficult as explaining the experience. The water in Tonga is so clear that the visibility is astounding. The first thing you notice is the size. Whales are absolutely humongous. Beyond that, there is not any incredible physical diversity among the species. They are mostly blue with a white underbelly, and bits of barnacles attached sporadically across their bodies. The body and tail are massive, with the face somewhat narrower, angling almost to point at the end into a constantly smiling mouth. To see the whales for yourself, you can see the picture below that one of the volunteers took with his underwater camera.

To reiterate, the first time I swam with the whales, it was only a matter of seconds. It was amazing, but they quickly swam past us and did not seem content to remain in one place like I selfishly desired. We all wanted more. The next few trips into the water were the same. A great, but a short sighting. After these initial trips, however, we finally struck gold. I jumped into the water, swimming towards where Sione beckoned me to go. When I arrived, the calf was only feet away from me, while the mother remained 20 feet below us, keeping a watchful eye on her calf. For whatever reason, this time the calf was in a playful mood. It swam towards us, looking directly into my eyes, and continued to play by darting in circles and jumping out of water right in front of us. The calf’s mood was infectious as it flipped back and forth around us. Rather than seconds, I was able to experience this playful atmosphere for maybe ten minutes. To accurately describe the experience it was like watching any newborn mammal, animal or human, playing around and discovering the world it inhabits for the first time. Except this animal was a whale, and even as a baby it is huge. This makes for one lovable but large child.

There was more to the day, with another swim with the whales, lunch on an island beach, a bit of snorkeling, and the beauty of seeing the whales breach the water including some playful jumps of the baby (one of which I captured below) and an incredible poster-worthy Free Willy type epic jump out of the water by the mother, but the experience when the calf was so close to me I was almost worried I would get hit by its darting tail was the true special experience I wanted to write about in this post.

Being so close to the whale and having the opportunity to swim with a mother and calf was a once in a lifetime experience that I unironically can’t wait to do again next year. I hope I did a somewhat decent job of explaining the unexplainable sensation of swimming with the whales. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. When you go on a Safari, you are somewhat removed from the animals. Sure there is no cage like at the zoo, but you are in a car with a local guide and a rifle between you and the animal. Even when scuba diving you feel more like you are entering into alien territory and are gazing at animals normally far smaller than yourself, except for the occasional shark. But whales, inhabiting a depth not far beneath the surface of the ocean and being mammals themselves, do not feel like the other. Swimming with them instead feels natural and soothing. It is not as much a viewer and the viewed but two mammals coexisting in a shared territory, swimming along. It is a sensation, fleeting but powerful, intense but ethereal, that makes you step inside of yourself and simply mouth the word, “Wow.”

Thank you all for reading. Please enjoy the photos of the whales below.

The calf jumping out of the water. The only one of these photos I actually captured myself.

The mother

The calf

The whale watching crew 

Some mother/calf bonding