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!! =)