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!!