HOT SHOWER!!

Monday, October 13, 2003

We got to experience a typical Tongan Sunday. On Sunday’s you do not do any work. Typical schedule of a Sunday is as follows….wake up and go to church, have a HUGE lunch/BBQ, the rest of the day is reserved for sleeping and doing nothing. You are not allowed to do work, exercise/swim, laundry, nothing. Just enjoy the holy day. It was really nice. They allowed us to make a choice to go to three different churches. I chose to go to the Catholic Church. It was really nice. Their singing was AMAZING. It was like a Christmas morning service…..but that was their everyday singing. Music and singing seems to be a very big part of their culture. After church we were taken to the director’s house for a traditional Sunday ‘umu. There was a small pig that was roasted, in the ‘umu there were root crops and some kind of salted meat cooked in taro leaves, tons of fish dishes, sweet & sour chicken, bread (they have amazing bread here), and lots of fresh watermelon. All in all you are expected to eat A LOT and then eat some more. The rest of my day was filled with getting my bags ready for our home stay trip up to Vava’u, studying the language (which you should not do on a Sunday), and getting to know my roommate better. She is a really nice girl from Alaska. (Art and Mel à we now have a place to stay when we go up there to see the Northern Lights. =D )

Today, Monday, has just been filled with more language and business development learning. We understand a little more of what we are going to be doing….but not much better. Tomorrow we are leaving for the island of Vava’u, but we do not have to take the boat anymore! They told us the reason is that…..the boat is not running. Welcome to island life…nothing seems to be that reliable. =) So we get to take a plane, but most likely we are going to be taking the boat back. So we just get to postpone the 30 hour boat ride. When we get to the island of Vava’u we are going to be spending the day with our host family all day. It will be really nice to be able to experience the culture at a more personal level. We have not had that much interaction with the culture since we are not living with a family and the Peace Corps staff that are Tongans are more American while we are around and in training. I am really looking forward to being able to learn the language and understanding the culture a lot more. The first step into being able to have a successful service is to learn the language.