Ha’ano and Thanksgiving

For the week of attachment I will be staying with a current volunteer named Grant. He lives on an outer island named Ha’ano in the Ha’apai group; so it will be very similar to what Tungua might be like. He is only one year into his service. Also staying at his house will be Melanie and Eric, the kick ass married couple. That is the only reason that a single girl would be able to stay at a single male’s house. It is very culturally inappropriate for the single volunteers to have someone of the opposite sex be an overnight guest. But I guess since there is a married couple with us it is a little better.

As we get off the airplane the current volunteers are waiting there to take us to our new homes for the next week. We start off by all eight of us pilling into a taxi van with all of our luggage (how we all fit….I still will never know), dropping four of the volunteers off in Pangai where they will be staying for the week with a different volunteer. The rest of us staying with Grant continued on to the meat store (which was a little shack in someone’s yard off the side of a road) to get some moa (chicken) for the week, than on to the PC office to pick up his three Tongan friends who drove the boat into Pangai and also get some food from a little store in the same building. Once we are done shopping for our food for the week we headed over to a neighboring village where we drove to a wharf and loaded up into a small little fishing boat; in the boat was Grant, his three friends, Melanie, Eric, me, all of our luggage and of course our food. The boat ride was about an hour. It was really interesting to experience since that is about the size of the boat that I will have to take over to Ha’afava. If you put your hand on the outside of the boat and reached down about 5 or 6 inches you could touch the water. While we were heading over to Ha’ano it started to sprinkle on us…no worries about our stuff because it was covered, it was just us who got wet. =)

Grant’s and his village are great!! His village is a little smaller than mine, he has about 34 house holds but there are also about 3 or 4 other villages on the island, so the island itself is larger. He also has running water and electricity from 7pm to 2am. The day to day experiences that we had with Grant were priceless. Just to be able to see a current volunteer in his community really taught us a lot. Grant is a school teacher so the job will be a little different though. Grant also showed us some really important skills that we need to use while living on an outer island. Everything from cooking delicious meals with little supplies (not sure I mentioned that Ha’apai does not get any veggies from about December to about March/April), fishing, eating raw fish right out of the ocean (oh man…I have a really great story about that), gutting and scaling fish, husking a coconut, making coconut milk, starting a fire using coconuts to cook dinner with, to understanding how to be accepted in a Tongan culture and community without sacrificing your own culture and views. All in all it was a really great experience and I also made some good friends there that I will go back and visit.

The story about eating raw fish right out of the ocean…as those of you who really know me, I don’t eat raw fish! I don’t like the smell, the texture, and of course the whole mental thing about it being raw does not help. We were all swimming at the wharf one day after school with the children in the village and this man from the village comes up to Grant and just hands him this raw fish. The man had just been cleaning out the nets they have placed a little further down the beach. Grant tells one of the kids to go get a knife. Meanwhile, Eric, Melanie and I are getting out of the water curious to know what we are going to do with the fish…some what knowing that he is going to have us eat it, but still hoping that he might have something else planned. The kid returns with a knife and Grant guts the fish, scales it and puts three slits on each side of the fish. He then takes a bite out of the meat that is now showing and hand it off to Eric. Eric takes a bite, has a hard time ripping a piece off but finally gets it and his consensuses is that the raw fish is ifo (delicious). Grant then bites off another chunk of raw fish meat and hands it to me, while I give him a really nasty look I take the raw fish. Not wanting to go anywhere near this raw fish but at the same time taking the piece knowing that I should at least try it because this is a very common way that fish is eaten on an outer island. And since I will be on what is considered an even further outer island than Grant’s, I figured there is no better time than the present to give it a try. I go ahead and bite off a little piece from the chunk that I was given, try and forget exactly what I am eating and just taste it. My consensuses…..It is not that bad…I actually kind of like it and I finish eating the chunk in my hand. Melanie tried a little piece too but did not really like it. It was really crazy to think back on the event and know that I…I of all people just ate a fish that was just alive and swimming just a few short minutes before. Definitely an experience to write home about! ;-) **with all of these new and unbelievable experiences that saying has a whole new meaning!!

For Thanksgiving Peace Corps provides a turkey for each island group and all the volunteers and trainees on that island group get together and try to make a traditional dinner with the available supplies. Since everyone else on Ha’apai where already on the main island it was just us on Ha’ano who needed to find a boat to take up into Pangai. Grant informed us, that like most of the other parts of Tonga, everything runs on island time and we should pack and get everything ready the night before because we don’t know exactly when the boat will be leaving. It could be 6am or 10am, just whenever people feel like leaving. So in the morning we wake up at 6am all packed and ready to go, talk with some of the locals to see who is going and when they might be leaving. After a while of talking with different people in the village we find out that no one is going into Pangai do to the shortage of fuel for the boats. So needless to say, we get to spend one more day on the beautiful island of Ha’ano. All of us are really fine with the change on plans and make the most of the day. For dinner we ended up sharing a really nice simple ika mo e moa (fish and chicken) dinner with just the 5 of us: Grant, one of his really good Tongan friends, Eric, Melanie, and myself. Even though we were stranded on a beautiful tropical island, we all really enjoyed ourselves and had plenty of things to be thankful for.

We were able to find a boat going into Pangai the next day, caught our flight back to Tongatapu and headed onto our second home stay and the final leg of our training schedule.

Feasts, Packing and Good-Byes....Oh My!!

Sunday, November 23, 2008 @ 3pm

We had to say good bye to one of our fellow trainees. For curtain reasons one of the trainees in Tu’anekivale is being sent home. It is a very sad time for all of us to see him go…but things always happen for a reason. He really had a great impact on his fellow trainees here in Tu’anekivale as well as his host family. The night before we were going to take him to the airport, his family planned a really big feast for him. (Thankfully no pigs were killed for him!) And of course it being a Tongan event…there were thank you speeches given not only by us (the fellow trainees), but also our language teacher, his host father, and his host sister. His host sister delivered such a touching speech that I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. The broken English accent added a little emotional touch. It is really amazing how much of an impact you can have on someone else’s life in such a short period of time.

Just a few short days later it was time for the rest of us to head onto the next leg of our training. We will be spending one week with a current volunteer to get a better idea of the day to day life a volunteer. As much as I am excited to go see what it is going to be like on an outer island, I know it is going to be hard to say good bye to my host family. The night before I leave the family holds a ‘family meeting’ for them to all say thank you to me and good buy. It was also an opportunity for me to express my thanks and appreciation for all they have done for me. Just picture…about 22 people sitting in a circle on the floor of a living room all focusing their attention on one key person. It was a little overwhelming with the language barrier to really understand what they where trying to express to me. I could understand a few words here and their but their body language and tone of voice really helped me feel the emotions they were trying to share with me. It was really a totally unique experience of just an overwhelmingly strong circle understand of love that was able to break through a language barrier. Once everyone who wanted to speak was done, including me, Sione said a lotu (prayer) and then of course…it was time to eat, but what we ate was the most unique part. We had ice cream (which is a really really big treat!) and we ate it with….BREAD!! Yes, that is right we ate our ice cream with bread. It was actually good…it was chocolate ice cream and it was a little melted so you just use the bread to soak up the melted ice cream. You should all at least try it! =) The rest of the night was filled with just everyone staying at home together and watching movies. It was a really nice last night with the family.

The next day was filled with me trying to get everything to fit back into my suit case plus all the new things I got since I was at the home stay (everything did end up fitting…thankfully!!), taking family pictures and lots of pictures of the kids, and saying good bye to everyone in the village. It was somewhat of a really depressing day! When it came time for us to leave for the airport we first headed to town to go pick up the twins and Mapo and than headed to the airport with a car full of people and all of my belongings. When it was time to go into the boarding area was really hard. Saying good bye to so many people and the emotions that they all showed did not make it any easier. Once I was done giving everyone a hug everyone started coming around to give me a second hug…needless to say I was the last one to go into the boarding area. As we walked out to the plane, my family yelled from the gate on the side of the airport building “Bye Hina!!” “’Ofa atu (love to you)” over and over again. It is a memory I will never forget!!

Site Assignment Day

Today we found out where we are going to spend the next two years of our lives!! =)

My assignment will be in Tungua. It is a small village in the Ha’apai Island Group. It is the only village on the entire island. Now when I say the entire island…the island is only about 1 mile by a little less than 1 mile. =) I am being sent to one of the farthest most islands of any current volunteer or any of the other trainees. The village has a population of about 230 and has about 42 households. I will be working primarily with the youth group to help build the businesses that they currently have. (Side note…in Tonga when they use the word youth it has a different meaning. Youth is considered anyone who is out of school and is not married.) I will also be working with the fisherman, the weavers, and the school. What it sounds like is that they want me to help with everything. I am really excited to have such a variety of jobs that I can help with. I am most excited about the rich cultural experience I will have living on an outer outer island. I will have access to the internet when I go into the main city Pangai in the Peace Corps office. However, I hear it is really slow…but it will be free. To get into Pangai I have to take a small boat to a town called Ha’afeva (where their will be a married couple stationed) and then change to a little bit bigger boat for about a 3 or 4 hour boat ride into Pangai, so I will not be going into town all that often…maybe once a month for food shopping and catching up with you guys!! =)
I am told that my house used to be a clinic...which means that there is not a clinic in our village anymore. ;) I guess it is somewhat of a big house and very close to the matatahi (beach – literally: face of the ocean). YAY!! I will have to take pictures of my house and my view to share with you all. I do not know if I have running water or electricity for certain yet. I am fairly certain that I will not have running water, so that means bucket baths for the next two years! =) And as for electricity I might just have it at night, which is perfectly fine for me since you don’t really need it during the day. I am sure my view of the ocean will make up for everything!!

Today was such a great day!! I am really excited about the experience I will get living on an outer island…and to make the experience even better the closest PC volunteers to me is a kick ass married couple. I am sure that I will be hopping over to their island when I need to get away. It is funny how things play out. Within the first week of arriving in Tonga the wife and I really clicked on a lot of levels and we were both hoping that we would be placed really close to each other. =) Look how things just seem to work out…we are going to be seeing a lot of each other. YAY!! After finding out everyone’s sites…we had an amazing day out on a boat. One of the current volunteers set up a boat to take all of the PC volunteers, trainees and some staff members around to some of the different site seeing places around Vava’u. It was so much fun and a great ending to a day that was filled with so much excitement…since everyone was excited about where they got placed. We swam into some really cool caves, went snorkeling (amazing and colorful fish Art…it was like I was looking into your tank), and spent some time on a beach that we had all to ourselves. It was really relaxing and the views were so faka’ofo’ofa (beautiful). On the boat ride home one of the staff members and I climbed up onto the very top of the boat (above where the captain’s cabin is) and just enjoyed the ride home. It was that moment…as the sun was going down reflecting off the water, the beautiful islands and cliffs, the slight breeze in the salty air that I realized…I am so lucky….I was sent to paradise!! =)

...Only in Tonga!!

Saturday after I came back from being downtown using the internet, Kasi (another volunteer in my village) and I were invited to attend our town’s misionale feast. A misonale is a church function where once a year the families donate money to the church. But they make it a really big event. They call out the families names and say how much they donate. Some families really want to look good so they give a lot more money than what they have, sometimes taking out loans. After all the donations are done they head over to the hall to have a huge feast.

We headed home changed into appropriate wear and walked down to the church. As we were being lead into the hall…we realized they were going to seat up at the front of the room with all the ministers. This is a very great honor. It means that you are a very special guest and should stand up at some point and thank everyone for having you, the food and of course inviting you to sit in the front.

As we sit there in the front of the room listening to one of the ministers speaking (in Tongan of course…so we really don’t know what he is saying), I sit there and take in the atmosphere around me. There is so much food on the table that it has to be stacked on top of each other in about three or four different layers…when I look out into the rest of the room I feel like I am hiding from everyone behind all the food piled up. There was enough food just on the front table to feed a starving nation. There were about 10 pigs on our front table alone, crabs, lobsters, tons of different side dishes, fish, shellfish, fruit, lots of soda, candy and so much more. After the prayer is done, I sit there looking at the matrix of food in front of me not sure where to start, not wanting to cause an avalanche. As I am eating, I realize staring right in front of me is the butt of a roasted pig! =) A whole pig…just for me to eat since there are about 10 pigs on the table and about 10 people (I ate none of it though). Just when you think there is no way that you are even going to make a noticeable dent in the food….they bring the front table more food. Well…ice cream…and of course you have to eat that since it is a really big treat here!! ;-) It comes time for Kasi and I to stand up and show our appreciation for having us at the front table. So…in Tongan we introduce our selves, tell them we work with Pisikoa (the way Tongan’s say Peace Corps), thank them for the food, tell them that we really love our village and the people, say thank you again and sit down. Now, one thing to mention is that in the Tongan culture they are always standing up and saying thank you to everyone and for everything. So when Tongans stand up and talk people don’t really stop what they are doing, they just kind of listen. But when Kasi and I stood a big hush went over the room, everyone stopped, and gave us their undivided attention. Oh great!!...just don’t mess up the pronunciation! =)

The rest of the ministers at the table finished talking, the last one said an ending prayer and it was over; all the people who were outside come rushing inside. The food was divided between all the families in the community, whether they were from that church or not. Within an hour all of the food was gone and the hall was all cleaned up. You wouldn’t even be able to imagine such a giant feast had just taken place such a short time earlier. Amazing!!