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

It’s That Time of The Year Again

Three things are absolute in Tonga: eating, sleeping, and church. Two of those things, eating and church, are epitomized every year at the Misinale. The word Misinale literally translates to missionary but it often refers to the annual fundraisers each village holds every year for the church. Some of you may remember my post about the church fundraiser from last November. You are forgiven if you do not. Last year, in one of the first weeks after my arrival from training on the main island to Vava’u, I attended the fundraiser at one of my villages. While I went to the Misinale in one village, I arrived after my other two villages, including the village I live in, had held theirs. Several weeks ago, I was finally able to attend the Misinale at one of the villages I had missed last year.

Though church fundraisers are held by every denomination in Tonga, I am most familiar with the Wesleyan Church and my post today will focus on the Wesleyan’s Misinale. The Church fundraisers are completely different from the normal services. There are no sermons, and few prayers and hymns. Everyone sits in their pews waiting for the never-ending passing of collection boxes. Every few minutes several women, who for some reason are dressed in ridicules outfits walk around the church to collect as men, women, and children drop 1, 2, and 5 dollar bills into the collection. At this particular Misinale one woman wore a Santa Clause style fake beard and another wore a blue wig. One trick I learned from one of my neighbors, which is quite useful, is to make sure to have small bills before you attend any fundraiser. The night before, knowing what lay ahead, I made sure to acquire 10 $1 bills so that I could put some money into the box every few times the women passed by. As my neighbor correctly asserted, the trick is to allow everyone to see that you are contributing, but not bankrupting yourself in the process.

However, bankruptcy is exactly what happens. The money that goes into the collection boxes is nothing compared to money each family has to donate to the members of the church who, seated at a table right in front of all the pews, count and announce the amount of the donation to the entire village. There is absolutely no anonymity. Every family is expected to donate at least $1,000, with many contributing significantly more. Anything less than $1,000 would bring shame on behalf of the family.

This is a lot of money in Tonga. Many families do not have a single member with a paying job, and instead support themselves through their farms and money sent from family members living overseas. Even for the people who do have jobs in Tonga, very few jobs provide enough money to allow for such a large contribution. The vast majority of this money given to church is from money sent from family overseas in places like New Zealand, Australia, and California, Texas, Arizona, and Utah in the US. Ironically, very little of this money remains with and is used by the village congregation, but is instead sent to Church’s headquarters on the main island and even to the countries mentioned above. This creates a constant cycle of money from overseas being sent to family in Tonga yet never the less ending up in the churches from the very countries the money was sent from. It seems that only Western Union – yes, that still exists here – profits from such an arrangement.

My village is very small and only raised around $26, 000. This is a significant expenditure for the small community, and is a large percentage of their annual income. Another volunteer, attended a Misinale on the same day I did in the larger village of Tu’anekivale, and told me they made over $60,000. In Tonga, these fundraisers are no laughing matter.

As is always the case, any event in Tonga must be accompanied with food, and often in copious amounts. After the three hour Misinale, a tent was set up in front of the church, and lines of tables were stacked with food. All of the staples were there – fried fish, sweet and sour chicken, hot dogs, lu, root crops, beef with vegetables, deviled eggs, noodles, raw fish, and much much more. After the initial prayer, everyone gorged on the food, while listening to the fakamalos (thank you speeches). One of the elderly women gave an incredibly generous falamalo on my behalf, which was very touching. After the service, the women sitting next to me piled heaps of food into plastic bags for me, ensuring that I would not need to worry about food for the entire week ahead. It was a money-and-eating-filled-day, and I now I just have to wait for my other two villages to conduct their Misinales in October and November respectively.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy the photos.

Two of my class 5 students, Malia on the left and Sosefina on the right, working hard

The girls posing in the garden

In the vegetable garden

Pretending to work

Healthy Life Styles

When properly motivated, Tongans can do some absolutely amazing things. Several weeks ago, the Ministry of Education, in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, announced on the radio – often their method of communicating with the schools – that the schools should place a greater emphasis on promoting healthy life styles to the students. This would come about in two ways, a school garden and aerobics classes.

The garden is the teachers’ domain. The very day of the announcement, my principle Selu barked out orders to the students to begin tilling the soil. 30 minutes of furious activity later, the kids had finished their duty. Over the next two days, we, and I’m using the word “we” very loosely as I sat around and watched my students, planted carrots, tomatoes, peppers, onions, cabbage, and lettuce on the school compound. As they were working, my counterpart Paea pointed to a Class 1 6 year old student who was chopping down some branches and joked that he was far better than I was with a machete. I wholeheartedly agreed and sat around in awe watching my kids create this incredible garden in minutes, where I would have been completely befuddled and needed days to do accomplish even half the amount of work. A month later, aided by copious amounts of rain, the garden is looking good and we are all excited to eat the healthy vegetables after the test.

Watching the rapid farming however was sort of a bittersweet experience for me. On one had it was truly remarkable how seamlessly the students and teachers worked together and how much even the youngest Tongan child knows about farming. It is truly a different world over here. The entire work was done in two days, and with relative ease. The bitter part about the garden is why did it take so long to start in the first place? Many schools have gardens, this not a new or revolutionary concept in Tonga. The students and teachers enjoy the papaya and bananas that grow from the trees on the school compound that were planted years ago. Seeds are similarly easy to find and are not prohibitively expensive. One of the difficult aspects of serving in Tonga, and I am sure this is true of many developing countries, is that it is easy to see how much could easily be done, but simply isn’t for a variety of poor reasons. That being said, I am happy we now have a beautiful garden to reinforce to the students the importance of eating healthily, I only wish it hadn’t taken an edict from the ministry for such to get done.

The second part of the healthy life style agenda is simply exercise. On this point, I take personal responsibility. When I first came to my school, I was loath to teach physical education. The main reason for this is that my school has no water tanks as they are all broken. I am trying to alleviate this situation through grants, but I am still waiting to hear back on that note. The only access to water my students have is ground water, which runs infrequently, is dirty, and is high in mineral content. This is not great water for my students to be drinking, but they often do anyways because it is their only choice. The second reason is that like all kids my students already get a ton of exercise from recess when they are constantly running around. This doesn’t even count the 1 km or longer walk it takes them to  get to school. These two reasons held me back from running physical education classes for my first few months at school.

That all changed, however, with the radio announcement and my principal’s request for me to spend 2 hours a week with the students working out. My worries were somewhat relieved by my students bringing water from home on the days we work out, so I have started doing exercises with them. On Mondays we play a variety of sports like ruby, soccer, and kickball. I teach them a few drills – I have learned that they are tragically unable to run the three-man weave – and then I let them run around and scrimmage. It is not very organized, but it makes the kids move and they seem to enjoy it.

The real fun happens on Thursdays. Aerobics, or zumba, is huge in Tonga. For those of you who are not familiar with zumba, the basic idea is that people either watch an instructor or a video and follow their dance/exercise moves while listening to popular up-tempo music. Many villages in Tonga hold zumba classes, and I have to say that one of the funniest things in Tonga is watching the older men and women, who are usually quite large, dancing through their Zumba routine while listening to the latest US pop songs. The best song and dance routine absolutely goes to gangnam style, which every one in Tonga, aged baby to walking stick, unabashedly loves.

Now that you know what zumba is, I lead zumba sessions every Thursday. One of my teachers brings in speakers, we blast music, and I lead an impromptu and entirely unplanned dance session. I must admit that I have absolutely no clue what I am doing. I am not a good dancer and I undoubtedly look ridiculous to the 45 Tongan children who are forced to watch me and mimic my uncoordinated “moves.” I do not yet have pictures of myself leading zumba, as I have been too scared to actually see how I look when I do it. I do not have particularly high hopes for myself, however, judging by the laughter ringing from the other teachers who completely immune to all my requests to jump in, simply sit behind me, laugh, and watch.

Zumba is without a doubt as ridiculous as it sounds. Since it goes on for an hour, I have resorted to such eclectic and old school dance moves as holding my nose and moving up and down to pretend I am swimming to the spirit fingers from the cheerleading movie Bring IT On that I admit I have seen to anything else I can remember from the dance sequence in Pulp Fiction. It is ugly, I cannot deny that, but it is equally hilarious watching the kids copy my routine and it does work up a sweat. Luckily, one of my class 5 students is particularly good at zumba so I will often have her stand next to me and remind me what move I should do next. I am still in learning mode as I have only taught the class a few times, but its moments like this when I am very glad that no one back home can see me.

Thank you all for reading. There may be hope some day that I overcome my fears and actually get someone to take photos of me teaching the ridiculous zumba class. Until that day, please enjoy the photos below.

The kids waiting in line for their soccer drills and enjoying the trampoline

Mesui, one of my Class 5 students, playing soccer

Samiu, our trouble making Class 1 student, decided he'd rather pose than play soccer

We had a funeral in the village this week. Funerals are a huge deal and practically bankrupt the family of the deceased. The men are preparing the hundreds of pieces of meat that will be given to everyone who attended the funeral. Think of it as the Tongan version of sitting shiva.

What I haven’t told you

This week marks my 1 year anniversary of living in Tonga. I left Los Angeles on September 2^nd, 2012 and arrived in Tonga on the 4^th. I know it is cliché, but wow. While I will not stretch the truth by saying this year has completely flown by, it absolutely has been a fascinating year and I cannot truly believe that I am already half way through with my service. I still remember getting onto the airplane incredibly nervous, questioning whether I was making the right decision and unsure if I could handle the rigors of living in the developing world. I remember being overwhelmed by the rapid fire Tongan that seem constantly aimed at me, and taking pictures of roasted pigs and thinking how this was such a “cultural experience.” Little did I know that hundreds of roasted pigs lay in my future.

Though I do not want to delve too personally at this time, I feel that I have grown as a person and into my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It hasn’t always been easy, and I certainly spend a lot of time alone and reading, but knowing everything I know now, I still believe that I would make the same decision to get on that plane as I did one year ago. I have accomplished some of what I want to achieve while I am here, and for the rest I have 13 months to put my stamp on Vava’u and attempt to make a lasting difference.

As for the title of this post, I feel like you, my readers, and I have come a long way. If after one year you are still reading this blog, it must mean that I am either doing something right or that you really, really like me (I’m hoping for both). I feel that we have grown together in this great South Pacific adventure. For the most part you have lived the experiences I have gone through, and have been interested enough to return. I must admit, however, that I have been holding a few things back. I truly believe that you are ready for them now and that after 1 year of reading this blog, these points come out as, “That is not much of a surprise,” rather than, “Oh! That is disgusting!” Well…here we go.

First, there are rats. Plenty of rats. In the developing world, where houses, including mine, contain numerous holes and entry points, unwanted rodents appearing in your house are inevitable. I still contend, however, that I have been lucky. I have not been plagued by the dozens of rats that infest the houses of some of the other volunteers. Some of that luck was self created as I have worked hard to cover any cracks and crevices that I think a rat could crawl in through, but regardless of such diligence, I do live in the bush and I have not been able to completely stem the tide.

In the roughly 9 months I have lived in my house, I have probably caught about 8 rats. Due to my covering work, these rats have mostly been babies. They are so small in fact that when I discovered my first rat in the house, back in January, I went to town to buy a sticky trap and poison and I mentioned to one of the volunteers who had serious rat problems at her house, that I had found a mouse under my sink. Not missing a beat she felt the need to tell me, “Harrison, there are no mice in Tonga. That was just a small rat.” Lovely, I thought. At the time, I felt like she really didn’t need to tell me the truth. I was quite happy with the lie.

My reaction to seeing rats in my house has similarly evolved. The first few rats absolutely terrified me. I would let loose high pitched yelps and frantically try to crush them with my broom, which would undoubtedly fail as they found cover in a spot I could not reach. After those initial three, I was used to it. If I saw a rat or evidence of one, i.e. droppings, I would calmly put out poison and a rat trap and dispose of the dead rat the next morning after I had calmly slept like a baby the night before. One of my proudest moments as a volunteer I am not proud to say was catching two rats on the same trap. That was a big day for me.

Secondly, Tongans eat lice. Well…ok, not really, but it certainly looks like they do. Many Tongans have lice in their hair. It is kind of unavoidable. I am a bit paranoid about the lice, so I am obsessively careful about not putting the back of my head against anything in any car, plane, couch, etc that I find myself in. That being said, no volunteer that I know of, has of yet succumbed to these insidious creatures.

To get back to my main point, to remove the lice Tongans groom each other by sifting through the hair and picking out the lice. It is extremely common to see a mother combing through her daughter or son’s hair to remove the lice. Mothers and daughters are the most common sight as boys keep their hair short in Tonga, but Fathers and sons, sisters, brothers, and friends can all be seen grooming each other. It is practically an epidemic, as evidenced by the grooming and the fact that the kids are constantly scratching their heads.

The eating part is the most shocking when you first see it. I know I was kind of stunned out of motion my first time observing the delicacy. Lice have apparently very strong outer shells and are difficult to kill. Fingers are simply not strong enough to dispose of the lice properly. As such, the Tongans put the live lice in their teeth, chomp down on the lice to kill it, and then spit it out. However, the spitting tends to be far subtler than the whole putting a bug into your mouth part of the process, and it thus looks like the Tongans are eating lice. It is quite a site.

I hope you are still with me. As far as I cam remember, these are the only two aspects of life in Tonga that I have been holding back on, though I think you were ready for them. For any of you who are planning on visiting me in Tonga, it’s ok. Take a deep breath. You will not get lice and probably won’t see a rat. Please, still come to Tonga. Malo (Thank you)!

To end on a somewhat more serious note, I do want to thank all of you for your incredible support and your unbelievable donations to Camp GLOW and GROW. I would not have been able to get through this first year without the amazing people back home who have been in my corner the entire time. I am truly blessed to have so many special people in my life and I cannot express adequately how much it means to me. Thank you.

Please enjoy the photos that weren’t able to load in last week’s post.

My kids posing with the vegetables

The girls practicing for the Thank You program

Loving the trampoline

Norie baiting the lines

Christmas in August

Tonga receives. As a country that is what they do. The vast majority of Tongan’s economy – I believe around 90% - comes from foreign aid and remittances. I could debate the pros and cons of Tonga surviving as a welfare state all day, but this post will be a little more focused than that and definitely less serious. In addition to these many gifts, Vava’u receives numerous generous contributions from the people traveling through the island on their yachts.

Last Friday one such contribution was made to my school. I had received warning that the employees of a yacht, the owner was still in the US, called The Patriot were coming to my school to donate much needed school materials. The kids were incredibly excited and we spent several days preparing a thank you program, filled with songs, dances, and vegetables for our guests. On the actual day they came, the kids’ energy was palpable. I had told them that the school would be receiving a trampoline and they reacted as if it was the greatest thing they had ever heard before. When several cars of the people arrived, the first carrying the poles and net for the trampoline, I could barely hear myself think over the deafening volume of my kids’ cheers.

After introducing myself to our guests, they began to set up the trampoline while the kids watched them completely mesmerized. Barely able to tear a few of the older boys away, I had them help me carry the supplies to one of the classrooms and prepare the pizza boxes for later. Once the trampoline was all set up, I, as I was asked too by my teachers, introduced the school and commenced the thank you program. The program was light and unspectacular – I must admit that my kids for all their strengths are not particularly strong singers and dancers as compared to the other schools’ students – but the visitors seemed to appreciate the effort. All of the classes sang, while the older boys demonstrated a war dance and the girls danced the traditional women’s dance, the tau’olunga. At the end of program, the students trotted out an impressive collection of carrots, coconuts, oranges, pineapples, cucumbers, lettuce, and papaya to offer up as presents.

Then came the pizza. In addition to bringing the trampoline, new soccer, volleyball, basketball, and rugby balls, and a ton of school materials like paper, pens, pencils, and finger paint, the guests also ordered pizza from a restaurant in town, Aquarium, for the whole school. Surprised by this development, as I did not warn them about the pizza, the kids were almost as eager to eat as they were to jump on the trampoline. Many of them had never eaten pizza before, and I could almost guarantee that this was the first time most of them had ever eaten food from any of the restaurants in town. After lining up the kids by class, they came up to collect their pizza with radiantly beaming smiles and devoured their slices in minutes. Every single student, loving the pizza, confidently expressed to me that it was delicious.

With lunch over, the real fun began. The kids started lining up to use the trampoline, while the rest of us played soccer and rugby. It was absolutely a free for all but the kids loved it, and I could tell how happy the people were to see the Tongan children enjoying their presents so much. A week later the kids are still completely enthralled by the trampoline, constantly asking me if they can use it – for some reason the other teachers have apparently designated me as the boss of the trampoline – and the school and I are incredibly appreciative of the generous donations given to us.

Now, on other note as I still seem to have your only somewhat divided attention, the next day I was invited to go fishing with two other Peace Corps Volunteers. Leaving from the wharf, we cruised to the backside of the island, which is stunningly beautiful as the entire North side of island is dominated by cliffs and the open ocean. On this day we were trolling, meaning the boat was constantly in motion and we kept our lines trailing behind us. Not the most successful of outings as we managed to catch only three fish, 1 rainbow runner and 2 skipper jacks, the runner did make for some exceptional eating later than night.

The fishing was incredibly fun and the weather was absolutely gorgeous on that day. We spent hours cruising around, talking, and waiting for fish that, alas, never seemed to bite. The day would have been terrific if only for the fishing, but I mention this occasion now not so much for what we caught but what we saw. The first sighting was a sailfish, which looks exactly like a marlin, but I am told by people more knowledgeable than I that it is in fact a different fish. Apparently a rare site to behold, the sailfish jumped twice out of the water only 30 yards away from us, gracefully flying through the air and splashing softly back into the water.

But wait, there’s more. When we first left land, our host assured us that we would probably see humpback whales. This is currently peak whale season in Vava’u, as the whales leave the now frozen Antarctic to mate and birth their calves in the tropical waters of Tonga. Unbelievably excited by this prospect, I constantly kept my gaze on the horizon for a site of these gentle behemoths. At first, we saw only teases. We could see sprays of water in the far distance, but that was it. No tails. No jumps. No backs. Just water and air, and all very far away.

On our return to the wharf at the end of our day, quite happy overall but certainly disappointed not to see whales, it happened. Only a football field or so away from the boat, a pod of whales emerged from the water. Majestically gliding through the ocean, I saw their backs as they came up for air and their larger than believable tails dart through the wind. I saw a whale playfully slap the water with its fins and one completely jump out of the water, though from a far greater distance. Though I couldn’t see their whole bodies and I failed to capture a worthwhile photo, the whales were absolutely one of the greatest things I have ever seen. Their awe- inspiring size, the effortlessness of which they glide through the water, and their stunning gentleness to the point of meekness was a wonder to behold. Already signed up, seeing these beautiful creatures only made me more excited for when I will have a chance to actually get in the water and swim with them in less than a month. Until then, I have this happy memory to sustain me.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend.