Ohey.

So it's been about 5 months. Sorry about that! I got behind on everything and then kept getting intimidated by the prospect of catching up. But it's time to face my fears and deal with it, so I'm going to give you all a brief recap on the major things that have happened over the past 5 months. If there's something that catches your interest and you would like a blog post about it with more detail, feel free to comment and let me know. That way I won't write five million pages about things you aren't particularly interested in, haha.

Augustinsane preparations for both Camp GLOW and the Class 6 Secondary School Entrance Exammy friend Marie's birthday- we went to a resort out on the east side and had a buffet with traditional Tongan food and a performance (in a cave!) filled with traditional Tongan and Polynesian dances. Some of my other Peace Corps friends performed the Tau'olunga (a traditional Tongan dance for single ladies) that they learned during trainingSeptemberCamp GLOWs Tongatapu, 'Eua, and Vava'u were all successful. It was a stressful week (and month in general) for all involved but the girls on each island had a blast and learned a lot despite a couple of unexpected twists in the plans. Yay GLOW!Final preparations for the Class 6 exam. My birthday! I'm 23 now. Cool.Murder mystery dinner with some peeps. 8 of us dressed up as different characters from a murder mystery dinner game set and had soup night while trying to figure out who had killed our fictional host. Costumes were outrageously awesome and the whole dinner was a blast. Great food and great company. Possibly one of my favourite nights I've had here in Tongan.OctoberMore preparations for the Class 6 exam.CLASS 6 EXAM! Two days, two subjects each day. Then Class 6 had two more days of testing along with Class 4 based solely on the curriculum and meant to assess the new curriculum. My involvement in these exams was sitting outside the school in our neighbouring village with another teacher, reading a book and waiting for our students to finish so we could go home, each, and come back for the next exam. It was a party.Rugby World Cup action! This stretched throughout September as well but I'm including it in October because that's when the most exciting part happened: Tonga beating France! (France went on to play in the final game where they lost to New Zealand.) I did not do much watching of the Rugby World Cup because I still don't really understand rugby and have always had a hard time watching sports on TV. But I did wear my red on Fridays to support Tonga and we went to town after we beat France to eva with my neighbours. Town was crazy!! The streets were jammed with cars and people carrying Tongan flags and everyone was yelling and cheering. It was really fun! We left before it got toooo crazy though.A much more relaxed approach to school once the exam finished.The sense of dread creeping up on us Group 76 volunteers as we realized that Group 75 would be leaving very soon and no one new would be coming.A beloved member of our Group 76 also left- Dan Dirks. He got a job working with Doctors Without Borders. While we're all really proud of Dan and know for certain that his wide array of skills will be better utilized in his new job, we miss him a lot. He was our go to guy for pretty much everything. I swear, that man can do it all. "Dan, my fridge is leaking." "Dan, I have rats in my house." "Dan, my tire needs air." He also had a wonderful treasure trove of experiences that he was more than willing to share. Seriously, love that guy.Halloween! Multiple parties, some of which I did not attend as I was too lazy to leave my village. I did go to two, however. At one, I was Daisy Duck. At the other, I was a member of the Spice Girls- I was Pumpkin Spice. There were also Pepper, Sea Salt, Cinnamon, and Ginger. Aren't we clever? My friend Sandy came and stayed at my house a couple nights. One night, there was an explosion of cockroaches! Sandy turned on the sink to wash dishes and they just swarmed everywhere. This had never happened before! So we ran away. Then I Morteined the place to kill them. Then a molokau (vicious carniverous terrifying painful centipede) came out. We screamed more. I dropped my computer- don't worry Mom, it's okay- and Sandy killed the molokau. No one seemed interested in why were screaming, since none of my neighbours came to check on us. The next day my neighbours all said "Oh, we heard you guys playing last night." Playing? PLAYING? We were screaming bloody murder! Although I guess there was some laughter thrown in there, it wasn't all that reassuring to know that was the reaction my neighbours had, haha. NovemberLots of socialness as members of Group 75 departed at various times. The socialness was fun, if a bit wearing eventually. However, we're definitely missing all the wonderful people who are living it up back in America. The end of school! We did a little end of the year ceremony where students got awards and did performances. Biggest part- the entire school acted out the Nativity story in English! It was pretty impressive. I didn't have that much to do with it other than writing the script but the students did a really amazing job with their lines, even the ones who usually struggle a bit with English. I videotaped the whole thing so maybe someday I'll be able to get that up on YouTube for all y'all to watch.I left for New Zealand! Yay!DecemberNew Zealand! It was really fun. We hit up Auckland, Rotorua, Waitomo, Taupo, and Tongariro National Park. Saw glow worms in caves and thermal activity, luged down a mountain (on a wheeled cart thing), went in hot springs, did the Tongariro National Alpine Crossing (during which I almost died because I'm so out of shape), and saw lots and lots of beautiful scenery. I also got to see my friend Claire who was my first and absolutely amazing co-counselor at Camp Kennybrook. Claire is from England but just moved to New Zealand for the year so that was super super wonderful. Hopefully she'll come to Tonga sometime soon!More Christmas youth performances a la last year. That was really really fun.Found out that out of my 8 students, 4 passed to the schools they were hoping to attend. Two will be going to Toloa, the all boys Wesleyan boarding school. One will be going to Queen Salote, the all girls Wesleyan boarding school. And one will be going to Apifo'ou, the Catholic school. The other 4 will be going to the nearby Weslyan middle school for forms 1 and 2 and then will move on to secondary schools. Yay for my students! I'm very very proud of them.Went to my first Tongan wedding. A man from my church got married and Vao, my Tongan 'mom' and the Class 1 teacher at my school, brought me with her. It was a very palangi-like wedding with bridesmaids and the same kinds of vows and stuff, which was interesting and not necessarily traditional but a choice of the bride and groom. It was fun though. There was a big feast after with lots of eating and dancing and speeches.Christmas! Talked to my lovely family on the phone while they were at my grandparents house for Christmas Eve, which was nice. Went to a feast, again for the couple that had just gotten married. That was awkward because I STILL had to sit at the head table even though I barely know them and it was one of the longest feasts I've ever been too. But it was very kind of them to invite me and I enjoyed spending time with some people in my community who I don't necessarily see as much as some others.Went to a resort with my friend Kimberly. She came over from 'Eua for New Years and we spent four days at Vakaloa on the West Side of the island. Beaching it everyday fakapalangi, which means we got to wear our bathing suits and dress however we wanted instead of having to swim in clothes and be completely covered all the time. Kimberly is wonderful company so I really enjoyed spending that time with her.JanuaryNew Years continued at Vakaloa.My camera broke :( It somehow got water in it even though it's supposed to be waterproof. Working on sorting that stuff out.'Uike Lotu. Prayer week. Missed part of it because of Vakaloa. Last year I went to every service at 5 am and 5 pm each day because I was new. This year I stuck with the 5 pm services and bailed on the 5 am ones. I felt kind of bad but my community didn't really mind so it was okay. 5 am is really early to go to a church service for a religion of which you aren't actually technically a part, especially when you are not fluent in the language.Beach day with the youth in my village. We only went for a couple hours but it was really fun. Sadly, that was when my camera broke.Mid Service Training, also known as MST. That was this past week. Had lots of sessions. some were good, some were not, but on the whole it was really nice to be together as a group again and get to see everyone from the other islands. They all headed back today.

Next things coming up: training week starts the 23rd, then school begins the week after that.

That's about it! Sorry this post is so long, but I'll try to be better in the future (she says yet again). Let me know if you want anything to be elaborated upon.

Love and miss you all!xoxok

I missed the 2nd part of the 7th Harry Potter movie! (Okay, granted I missed the first part too but that wasn’t the last one…) So weird! It’s like the end of my childhood. Someone here has it- thank goodness for bootleg movies!- so hopefully I will be watching it soon but it just won’t be the same as seeing it in theaters would have been. Pretty much everyone’s facebook status was related to Harry Potter on opening night. It made me super jealous. Oh Harry…. Can’t believe it’s officially over!Update since I originally wrote this post on my computer at home- watched a bootleg version of the harry potter movie, from Russia. Thank goodness for people who video tape movies in a theater.... xoxo

And we’re back with Kindy Conversations, Part 2! Those crazy kindy kids… Kindy Conversation #3 This is Lesa again. If you don’t remember her, please see Kindy Conversations, Part 1. She’s the one whose baby is named Baby, duh…. I enter the kindy room while the kindy kids are playing and sit down on the floor. Lesa runs up and sits down next to me. Lesa: Katalina! Me: Lesa! Lesa: Where is your baby? Me: What? Lesa: Where is your baby? Me: What baby? I don’t have a baby. Lesa: Is your baby in your stomach? (as she reaches over to touch my stomach) Me: (bewildered and totally appalled at the idea of someone thinking I’m pregnant) What?! No! I don’ t have a baby!! The kindy teacher then laughed and explained to me that Lesa’s mom is pregnant so she probably just thought that if her mom is having a baby I must be too, naturally…. Somewhat terrifying, to be completely honest. Kindy Conversation #4 This conversation takes place with ‘Eliesa. ‘Eli is a 4 year old boy in the kindy class. I’m a little confused as to his life… I’m pretty sure he’s Tongan, but he has a Fijian nanny/family member/someone who takes care of him, I think… he might be part Fijian. I don’t really know. But there is some Fijian influence in his life. This means that he knows random English words, random Fijian words, and some slang in both languages on top of Tongan. It can get a little bit confusing when he mixes all of it together. But this time it was just funny. After short recess in the morning, students brush their teeth. There are always a few students who don’t have their toothbrushes, including some kindy kids. The kindy kids play in the sand during short break. As I was walking back to the library, after all the students had returned to their classes, I found ‘Eli and a couple other kindy boys still playing in the sand. Because of how this conversation went, I’m going to write it in Tongan and translate it in parentheses after (sorry, I’m not including some of the correct accents, too lazy. Also, my Tongan spelling sucks…). Me: Ko e ha me’a oku mou fai? Foki ki api’ako! Osi taimi malolo! (What are you doing? Go back to the classroom! Break is over!) Boys: Look innocently up at me and then keep playing. Me: ‘Alu ki he holo! Vave, taimini! (Go to the hall! Hurry, now!) ‘Eli: (continues playing calmly while he talks to me) ‘Oku ou va’inga. Ikai fufulu hoku nifo. Hala…hala… (I am playing. Didn’t brush my teeth. I don’t have a…I don’t have a…..) Me: Osi taimi fufulu nifo. ‘Alu ki he holo! (Toothbrushing time is over. Go to the hall!) ‘Eli: (Looks earnestly up at me.) Hala…hala…hala…. toothbrush! (I don’t have a….I don’t have a…. I don’t have a…. toothbrush!) Me: (briefly silent as I process the fact that he said toothbrush in English, then starting to laugh) Sai pe ia… ‘Alu ki he holo! (It’s okay! Go to the hall!) I found this one really funny because I wasn’t sure if he couldn’t think of the word for toothbrush in Tongan (polosi) and so used English, or if he was trying to think of it in English so that I would understand what he was saying. Either way I was completely caught off guard because I was not expecting him to say toothbrush. I didn’t even know he knew the word for toothbrush. Kindy Conversation #5 This conversation takes place on a regular basis with the same student, Tina. She’s super tiny and super adorable and somewhat loud. She really likes to shake my hand, as lots of the little kids do because that’s what they learn to do when they are learning to introduce themselves. So this conversation with Tina could happen anywhere at school, any time. I’m walking down the path to a class. Tina runs up to me. This is entirely in English Tina: Katalina! (sticks out her hand to shake mine) Me: Hello, Tina! Tina: (as she shakes me hand, she recites what she understands as the proper words to go with it.) HellohowareyouI’mfinethankyouhowareYOU?! Me: I’m great, Tina, thank you! Go to class now. This happens like, every day. She’s actually gotten a lot better about it and sometimes stops after the “Hello, how are YOU!?” so that I can actually answer. But then once I do she still responds with “I’mfinethankyouhowareYOU?!” no matter which way she does it the you is always really loud and excited. It’s pretty cute and I have a hard time correcting her because I don’t want to crush her enthusiasm; you can always tell how proud she is that she knows what to say to me. More Kindy Conversations to come later! xoxo

The school year is already more than halfway over! Craaaaaaaaaaazy. To mark the end of term two, we had a Culture Night at school. Each class performed an English presentation and a Tongan presentation. Even though I technically probably should have been helping all of the classes with their English items, that would have been nearly impossible. So instead I helped Class 1 and was entirely responsible for Class 6. At our last similar event, my principal had chosen two short dramas from school journals for Class 6 to put on. Although Class 6 did a decent job with them, it was hard because the plays contained a lot of humour that only a native English speaker would get. For example, one play was entitled “I’m So Hungry, I Could Eat a Horse!” Since that is an English expression (and Tongans actually do eat horse on occasion), my students didn’t really get it. Despite my best efforts to explain the meanings of the lines and plays as a whole to them, my students were more focused on memorizing their lines than actually knowing what they meant. As a result, they had a really hard time learning their lines and practicing was more like drilling them than having fun rehearsing a play. Since I was put in charge this time, I took a different approach. We had recently read and studied the story of Cinderella in class, and then I let my students watch it. We had also read a traditional Tongan fable in English and turned it into a drama. So I presented them with three options- Cinderalla, the Tongan fable (‘Aho’eitu, about the first King of Tonga), or writing their own drama as a class. We voted and they chose Cinderella. I wrote it, making sure there was a part for each student and that it was simple enough for them to memorize. My students told me it was too long. So I made it shorter. We practiced for the week leading up to the culture night. The kindy teacher kindly helped me by giving students stage instructions and being a bit more critical than me (as I was afraid of discouraging my students), but doing so in a way that made the students laugh and enjoy themselves. It was amazing what a difference this approach made. Instead of barely knowing their lines only hours before the performance, all of the students memorized their lines within a day and a half. They were genuinely excited to be performing Cinderella for their family and friends. On the night of, all of the girls brought beautiful dresses from home. The boys wore button-up shirts and tupenus (the skirt-like piece of clothing worn by men in Tonga), and the boy who was playing the prince even wore a full suit- tie and all. They had made crowns in class, which of course most of them didn’t end up wearing, but we had them! The students were nervous, and the boy playing the prince tried to run away. But they were also excited. I was as well. I am proud to say that my students performed their parts flawlessly. They missed one tiny part because someone went on too early, but I didn’t even notice (I only found out after when one of the girls who was in the skipped scene expressed her displeasure to me). There were whistles and cheers as the girls walked on in their gorgeous dresses. Everyone was loud, spoke clearly, and did exactly as they had practiced. The audience laughed at all the right parts and my students were smiling broadly at the end of their performance. I really can’t even describe it. Maybe it sounds ridiculous- after all, it was only a 10 minute version of Cinderella by a bunch of 10 and 11 year old kids. But I was so incredibly proud of every single one of them. They did so well. When the night was over, every teacher commented on how well Class 6 had performed. All the students had done well, but Class 6 had really owned that night. They were not simply recited memorized lines which held no meaning to them- they were actually acting! In their second language! I can take no credit for this- my students did it all themselves. They chose the drama and they ran with it- they basically came up with all the staging based on what they had seen in the movie and what their lines were. Their brought their scripts home and practiced. Many of them can still recite their lines now, 2 months later. They were absolutely kickass. My only regret is that my camera had recently been stolen so I have no photos of them performing Cinderella. But I promised them they can do other plays after their exam in October, so hopefully I will get some pictures then! I know they’ll do just as well, as long as they are allowed to take ownership of their projects. xoxo

Generally I have been quite happy in Tonga. Occasionally I get homesick, or miss random things in the US (particularly food). Missing Christmas was a bummer, but not as bad as I thought it would be since I was so happily and quickly adopted by my community. But overall these moments are few and far between. I love my community, my students, my fellow teachers, and the other Peace Corps volunteers/staff here in Tonga. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been placed here despite any job and life frustrations that might arise. Unfortunately, not all bad moments are as hard to move past as the odd case of homesickness or bad days at work. One of these moments came in early June, shortly before the end of the term. On an average Friday, after adventuring with friends (since I don’t teach on Fridays) I swung by the office to check my email and such as I wasn’t planning to head into town again until I went on vacation to Ha’apai. At the end of what had been a beautiful, completely carefree day I was shocked to receive the news that Andrew, the boy I had been dating when I started my freshman year at Colgate, had died. I don’t want to go into too much detail as I don’t want to broadcast the incredible pain felt by his family and friends over my blog. But essentially what happened was that Andrew was accidentally shot by a friend while they were hanging out in an apartment in Farmington, shortly after Andrew’s graduation from UMF as well as his 23rd birthday. I got this information in an email, but by the time I received it 10 days had already passed. I spoke briefly to a mutual friend via facebook, who informed me that the funeral had taken place earlier that week. To say that I was stunned by all of this is an understatement. Andrew and I have not really spoken much over the past few years, but we had caught up briefly just before I left for Peace Corps. As a family friend of the Ficketts, who are essentially my family as well, Andrew has been in my life for a very long time. I saw him every year at the fooseball party and frequently spent much of the weekend with him, especially as we got older. He was my first boyfriend and is someone who has always been very important to me, as has his entire family. Like I said, I’m not trying to broadcast this in a gossipy or insensitive way. I’m trying to explain to all of you something that I know is a significant part of my time in the Peace Corps. People say that it must be hard to be so far away from home, to miss my family and my friends and everything that I had in the US. I guess that’s true to an extent, and I can see how people think that. But to me it is not that much of a challenge. A large part of the reason for that is how absolutely amazing my family and friends are. I cannot honestly say that there is anything in the US I “had” but no longer have. I am incredibly blessed to know that when I go back I will still have incredible people there to welcome me; there is not really anything else worth missing. What is difficult is being away during things like this, as morbid as that may sound. I missed Andrew’s funeral, and in doing so I missed the opportunity to grieve in the way that I am used to and that we, as Americans, consider to be an important part of accepting death and moving past it. I could not be there for his family and friends, and although I know there is nothing I really could have done to offer them comfort, physically being there would have at least been something. To be quite honest, if I had found out in time to make it back for the funeral, I would have done my best to find a way. I sent a letter back for Andrew’s family with another PCV who was going back to America. I don’t know if they received it, or if I said anything worthwhile, but it was the best (and literally the only) thing I could do. I spoke to Caitlin and Darian (mutual friends) on the phone. I exchanged messages with a friend of Andrew’s. My Peace Corps friends were absolutely fantastic, inviting me over for the night and watching out for me all weekend. My friends in America sent really loving messages. But I know that this is something that will be a challenge for me until I am able to go home and make peace with all of it myself- and that won’t be until next May, a year after it has all happened. I still think about it every day and though it only brings me to tears sometimes now, I know it is because I have not fully processed the reality of the events. And there is no way I can while I’m here. My life in Tonga is too separate from my life in America and it is too easy to retreat into this life, too hard to force myself to truly absorb bad news from so far away. If it is in your nature, please pray for Andrew and for his family and friends, who have lost someone so amazingly dear to them. If praying isn’t your style, any sort of positive thought or energy will do. I do not usually ask people for their thoughts or prayers to be directed in a certain way but I feel this should be an exception. Thank you. xoxo

Hello team! I’m alive. Sorry it’s been five million years. I don’t really have an excuse. But I’m about to upload a ton of blogs so I hope that makes up for my complete lack of presence on the interwebz over the past few weeks (months?). So… Going way back in the day, the first thing I have to tell you about is the fundraiser we had for Camp GLOW back in the beginning of June. I’m technically the Fudraising Officer for Camp GLOW Tonga. What this means is that I’m in charge of setting up fundraisers to get money for the general GLOW account- not any of the specific island camps, but money that can be used for administrative costs, shared materials, and back-up money should we need any for the actual camps. I kind of forget how I got this job, but it is now mine. All I really have to do is plan events throughout the year. We had our first one early in June at a bar/restaurant in town called the Billfish. We had done a similar fundraiser there last year but this year Liz Sullivan, the owner, really went above and beyond to help us. She graciously gave us the entire restaurant, provided a munchies and some punch, a floorshow and MC, and her staff to work with us. She also made a generous donation herself. Basically, Liz is awesome and if anyone ever comes to Tonga you should totally go to the Billfish. Basically the event was a little cocktail hour where we had information on Camp GLOW, sold raffle tickets, and had a floorshow consisting of various Polynesian dances. It was originally supposed to be made up of people we invited- I had an extensive list of important people who I wrote really formal letters to (mostly by Liz’s request), and all the volunteers were also invited- Peace Corps, Australian, and JICA (the Japanese volunteers). We sent letters to all of the embassies/high comms, and put fliers at various locations in town. Despite all these efforts, it mostly ended up being us hitting up unsuspecting Billfish patrons, including lots of palangis who were just there for dinner. I almost felt kind of bad about harassing people while they were relaxing and enjoying dinner BUT they got a free floor show soooooo I got over it pretty fast. We raffled off a couple gift certificates to local businesses (other places to go if you come to Tonga: Beach Hut Café, Café Reef, and Beauticious! Thanks to them!). Two out of three of these gift certificates were collected on the day of, when I was freaking out since I barely had any raffle items. But that’s just how it goes here- everything is last minute. Overall the event went pretty well. We made just under 500 pa’anga in about 2 hours. Our goal was between 500 and 1000, but even though we fell a little short we nearly doubled the amount made last year so that was good. I’m kind of trying to plan another fundraiser for next week at another bar but the owner is out of town so we’ll see how that goes…. Even though I have a decent amount of experience planning philanthropy events in the US (through TriDelta and Konosioni), it is significantly different here because there isn’t such a pressing sense of time. It’s also very hard to get donations because the same restaurants/businesses get hit up by various organizations and groups every day so even though there are a lot of kickass businesses in town who want to help us, they can’t really because they can’t give money to everyone who asks. I totally understand and respect that but it makes things like raffles extra difficult. Thus we will see how the next one goes! xoxox

So, fun fact. I'm technically the Fundraising Officer for Camp GLOW Tonga, which means I'm in charge of raising money not for any specific island camp, but for the general account to maintain Camp GLOW Tonga. Last night, we had the first fundraiser that I planned.

It was a fundraiser that was done last year, and I had a ton of help from other PCVS, especially Sandy who is in charge of Camp GLOW (thanks everyone!). We did a little cocktail hour/raffle at one of the bars in town. The owner was really helpful and set up a floor show for us with dancers, had a popular radio dj come MC, and gave us plenty of space to have GLOW publicity items set up as well as some free munchies and drinks. So, if you ever come to Tonga, please go to the Billfish because Liz, the owner, is a star. Yes, shameless plug to an audience who will probably never come to Tonga, but still.

We raffled off some gift certificates to local businesses (another shoutout to Beauticious, Cafe Reef, and Beach Hut Cafe- put all of these places in your itineraries, folks). Overall we raised just under 500 pa'anga which was slightly shy of our goal but more than last year so yeah. Relatively successful and quite fun.

Woooo! Time for the next one!

xoxo

k

(PS I hope I just gave you all enough to read for a bit. I have to go to school now.)

(PPS it's almost winter break. I will be going to Ha'apai to help out at the Camp GLOW there, and then have a few days of beachy wonderfulness on the island of 'Uoleva where we will camp and wear bikinis and snorkle and it will be awesome. CAN'T WAIT.)

I'm not really sure if I'm supposed to be writing this on my blog but no one told me not to so.... it's fair game. Sorry, DC censors.

Due to recent budget cuts, Peace Corps is doing a bit of downsizing. Tonga appears to be on the blacklist. Reasons are related to size of the program, dropout rate, effectiveness, and mostly cost of running the program. As a result, it's being shrunk. Some people from DC came earlier in the year to evaluate Peace Corps Tonga and see how to proceed. After barely meeting with PCVs and generally ignoring everything we had to say, they decided to both shrink the program and narrow the focus. From now on, only primary school English teachers (which, just to throw in my two cents, is the thing that pretty much EVERY SINGLE PCV in Tonga told them NOT to focus on), and much smaller groups (think 15 instead of 25). This was supposed to be a gradual downsizing. Okay, not ideal, but tolerable.

News later came that this would be an immediate downsizing. As in, they could now only have 25 PCVs in Tonga as of the time the next group ends their service. AKA the end of this year. Problem: there are currently 25 PCVs in my group, group 76. Thus.... no group 77 this year. WAIT WHAT?! Group 75, the group above me, is leaving this fall. No new group is coming in. It will be just Group 76 left in Tonga. I certainly hope we don't get sick of each other.... (okay we won't, we all like each other, but still.) A new group coming in is always exciting because it means new, inspired volunteers, new friends, people to train and teach about Tonga, etc. etc. Well, not for us. Bummer, man.

Supposedly there will be a group 77, of about 15 primary school teachers, but they won't be coming in until my group is about to leave in fall of 2012. Needless to say, I'm skeptical. I am personally of the opinion that some time next year they will announce that they are shutting down Peace Corps Tonga. But, keep in mind that this is just my opinion and does not express or represent the opinion of the US Peace Corps or Government. Ha ha.

I'm not entirely bitter about this because I do see Peace Corps's side of things in terms of the use of PCVs in Tonga and the overall effectiveness of the program in terms of the amount of money spent. I'm not going to get into details about it because a.) my feelings on it are somewhat confused and b.) I'm not super informed about said details. So I'm not trying to be critical of Peace Corps because I definitely definitely understand where they're coming from and it's an unfortunate situation because of budgeting. However, I definitely am bummed because I love Tonga and the people here and mostly it makes me sad that it's unlikely other Peace Corps volunteers will get to experience this in the future. And my group doesn't get all the perks of another group coming in, like missing school to help train them, getting fed by Peace Corps, teaching people about Tonga, etc. Boo.

So yeah. That's that. Bummer, man.

xoxo

k

This has been my week this week:

Monday- It poured. About 30 kids showed up at school. We had morning prayer, then all 30 kids piled into my principal's van and were driven back to their homes. We had a brief teachers' meeting (about all the same stuff we talked about at the staff meeting last Friday). I was home by 11:30

Tuesday- Started out as a normal day of classes. My principal got a call from the Ministry of Education that some administrators and educators from Kiribati were visiting Tonga to take notes on the education system in order to better develop Kiribati's and could they please come see our school. Various other Weslyan schools had already said no because they were not prepared. My principal, being the confident and proud man that he is, said that sure they could come and whatever was ready would be ready. Thus, the entire afternoon was spent rearranging, cleaning, and organizing the school building and grounds instead of having class. This included painting the library shelves which I had not finished repairing or sanding, and painting literally half the school- to the height where the kids could reach- while the children were still wearing their school uniforms. Needless to say, paint EVERYWHERE.

Wednesday- First half of the morning = continuing to clean up the school and make it look pretty and far more organized than it actually is. Second half of the morning = the Kiribati people coming and meeting with my principal, meaning that I took the class 6 to my house for class so that the people could meet in the classroom/rapidly constructed library. Lunch break. Kids return to school and do some sort of thing where the older kids are in charge and talk to the younger kids, while the teachers have a brief meeting. My principal asks me if I had anything to do for the afternoon. I respond that I was going to teach classes 4 and 5. He says that everyone is tired so he's going to send the kids home. I'm home by 2.

Thursday- It's the opening of Parliament so there is a huge march with all the secondary and tertiary schools in it. My principal tells me I should go because it's cool and it's my first year (which was really super nice of him). I also had a fundraiser for Camp GLOW in the evening. So, I went to town, watched the march, did my fundraiser and spent the night.

Friday (today)- I'm still in town. Some people are coming to my school to donate school supplies, apparently. I stupidly said I'd bake a cake. Obviously did not have time, so am going to go buy a cake and go back to school. Not concerned about being late because nothing happens on Fridays, especially in the morning- the kids have religion with the minister and the teachers have a meeting. There will be a mini dance/concert for the donors. Then school will probably end early.

Keep in mind that this is not a typical week for me in the sense that all this stuff doesn't usually occur in the same week. But we usually have at least one day each week where something happens that takes priority over actual classes and we don't get much structured learning done. It's always an adventure, though.

xoxo

k

As I may (or may not) have mentioned, my school also includes a Kindy. This is the Tongan equivalent of an American preschool, so the kids are about 4 years old. I only work with them for about 15 minutes twice a week, and that working usually includes playing or just chilling and talking to the kindy teacher about school (or various other things). I don't feel terribly bad about this because a.) my Tongan is really not good enough to communicate with 4 year old Tongan children- it's hard enough to understand kids of that age when you speak the same language, much less when they speak a language you're relatively terrible at and b.) chatting/gossiping is an integral part of building relationships with people in Tonga so it's kind of like integrating into my community, which has clearly worked because I'm closer with the kindy teacher than the other teachers.

Despite the limited amount of time I spend with the kindy, some pretty entertaining conversations pop up, as they always do with young kids. I'll tell you just a few. Keep in mind that these conversations also took place in somewhat butchered Tongan.

Kindy Conversation 1: Soane

(Soane is a little 4 year old boy who is in some way connected to my principal and his family. He's also quite bold. Also, important background: sharing food is a HUGE part of Tongan culture and it's both expected to do it as well as rude not to. So when the kindy kids bring snack they always share with each other, no questions asked and no fits thrown.)

Earlier that day a student in Class 4 had given me a lollipop. I decided to eat it during recess time, while I was sitting on a bench outside the school. Enter Soane.

Soane: Katalina, what are you eating?

Me: A lolli.

Soane: A lolli from where?

Me: From Kavakava. He gave it to me.

Soane: More lollis?

Me: No, I only have one.

Soane: From where?

Me: Kavakava. He gave it to me as a gift.

Soane: More lollis?

Me: No, Soane. I only have one.

Soane: From where?

Me: Kavakava. He gave it to me. It's mine.

Soane: Oh. (pause) From where?

Me: From Kavakava. It was a gift.

This conversation went on in the same vain for about 5 minutes until I, exasperated but incredibly entertained, took the lollipop out of my mouth and handed it to Soane (I realize that might sound weird to you all in the US but trust me it's not here). He immediately stuck it in his mouth, went away, and I could here him talking to his friends going "Look, I got a lolli from Katalina."

Kindy Conversation 2: Lesa

(Lesa is a tiny four year old girl in the kindy class. She's one of my favourite students- she is super adorable and really lovey, she always gives me hugs and kisses and she has a really cute giggle. Background: the kindy recently acquired some toys from a kind donor and this happened on the first day they got to play with their new (and only) toys.)

Lesa decided to play with a cloth doll that was probably about the same size as her.

Me: Oh, Lesa! Who is that?

Lesa: My baby.

Me: Oh, so beautiful! What is your baby's name?

Lesa: blank stare, as if I'm stupid

Me: What is your baby's name?

Lesa: ...Baby (complete with a "well, duh" look).

Me: Oh. Okay. Well... she's beautiful!

More Kindy Conversations to come.

xoxo

k

Names and Answers! Thanks for everyone for playing! (AKA Sarah and Kathleen, and kind of Mom, haha). Those of you who didn't... you're totally lame.

Viniseni- Vincent

Sicope- Jacob

Kulisi- Chris

Taniela- Daniel

Siaki- Jack

Tevita- David

Siosiua- Joshua

Sione- John

Female Names

Mele- Mary

Malia- Maria

Siniti- Cindy

Sela- Sarah

Suli- Julie

Telesia- Theresa

Lepeca- Rebecca

Sinitalela- Cinderella- no, this is not a common name, but yes, I have a student named Cinderella! She's in my class 6 and she's adorable.

Okay love and miss you all! Will write more real stuff soon!

xoxox

K

I apologize that all my blogs are in stupid one big paragraph format. The interweb is being ridiculous sooooooo they're just going to have to stay that way until I can figure it out some other time. Hope it doesn't give you a headache! xoxo k

So normally I hate asking people for money. As many of you know, I could barely stand to sell Girl Scout cookies when I was little- and everyone loves a good Girl Scout cookie! However, I'm in Peace Corps and projects need funding so this is a shameless plug for a project I'm working on. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a week long sleep-away camp that is designed to empower it's participants by providing them with the knowledge, support, and skills necessary to set and acheive their own goals. It takes place in various Peace Corps countries around the world through the cooperation of Peace Corps Volunteers and local organizations. Camp GLOW first came to Tonga in 2001 but did not continue past that. It was restarted last year by a fellow PCV, Sandy, who used to run the camp in Benin (this is her fourth year in Peace Corps- 2 in Benin and then she extended two years in Tonga). We'll be having Camp GLOW again this year. There will be 5 camps across the four islands. A Girls' Camp in Ha'apai in June, and in 'Eua, Vava'u, and Tongatapu in September. There will also be a Young Women's Camp in Tongatapu in September. The Girls Camps are for 9th grade girls (around age 14) who display academic excellence and leadership potential. The young women's camp is for school-leavers ages 18-21. The camps include speakers, activities, and games geared to educate and inspire the participants, and are run like sleep-away camps. Last year was a lot of fun and very successful, and we're hoping to expand the number of participants this year. I'm working on this as a secondary project and am in charge of doing fundraising within Tonga, but we also have a link online that allows people in the US to donate directly to our project. The awesome thing is that 51% of our budget is already covered by the local community- through venues, labour, etc., not necessarily cash- so it isn't just a handout, it's something that people in Tonga are already investing a lot in themselves. I know a lot of people have asked my mom about sending me stuff in Tonga and that kind of thing, and while I absolutely appreciate that, I would prefer that you use the money to donate to Camp GLOW. The donation is 100% tax deductible and this is a project that means a lot to me. I also request that should you decide to donate, you check the box that allows your information to be released. I promise it will only come to me and my fellow PCVs working on this project, not to other people who want your money. Having the information will allow us to send you a thank-you note later in the year! So, here is the link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=421-130 No obligation or pressure, just an opportunity to get involved in my Peace Corps service if you so desire. If you have any questions about Camp GLOW or want more information, feel free to contact me at any time and I can tell you more about it! Thanks everyone! Love and miss you tons. xoxo k

So there are some Tongan names that translate into certain English names. For fun, I've decided to provide you with a few and see if you can guess what the English translation is. This really only works if you actually comment and tell me your guesses, though. I'll give you the answers next week! (Hopefully.) Male Names

Viniseni

Sicope

Kulisi

Taniela

Siaki

Tevita

Siosiua

Sione

Female Names

Mele

Malia

Siniti

Sela

Suli

Telesia

Lepeca

Sinitalela

The last one of the female list is a bonus because it's not really a very commonly used name but it's a super fun one! Good luck!

Love and miss you all!

xoxo

k

First, I apologize that it's been fifteen million years since I last wrote. I've been pretty busy and keep neglecting my blogging duties. So if you happen to still actually read my blog, sorry about that! Second, it's official- I've been in Tonga for 6 months! As of April 4th. I've been at my site for 3 months as of March 17th. One school term is over. I can't even begin to say how craaaaaaazy that is! I feel like it hasn't been nearly that long, but at the same timeit seems like I've lived in Tonga forever. Time is absolutely flying and I feel as though I've barely accomplished anything, yet I've learned so much. It's a hard sensation to describe. The first school term just ended. I missed the last week because I had TEFL training in Nuku'alofa for a week, and then our In-Service Training for a week. So I've been in town for two weeks without returning to my community and it's incredibly weird. I miss my kids and my friends and my Tongan family! It was great to see all of my training group (everyone was flown in from their own islands) but I'm ready to get back home and start school again on Monday. I have a lot of ideas for this term that I got from the TEFL training, so I'm excited to start putting them in place. I also have 8 weeks of teaching under my belt (woo-hoo!) and know my kids better, so hopefully we'll be able to accomplish more this term. A lot of my students have already improved their English just by being willing to practice and speak with me. I rarely speak Tongan with them (even though I probably could), so usually if they want to talk to me they are forced to use English in some capacity. Cute story about this. First, a little background. My principal, Viniseni, and his wife, Vao, (the class one teacher) are my neighbours, and also kind of my Tongan parents. They have 8 children (although one is really a niece but she lives there). There's Lolini, Akesa, Kalea, Mafi, Siniti, Neomai, Senileka, and Tupou. Lolini, Akesa, Kalea, and Mafi all attend boarding school in town and so are only home Friday afternoons through Saturday or Sunday afternoons. Siniti and Neomai go to the Weslyan English speaking middle school and come home in the afternoons. Senileka and Tupou are my students. Senileka is in class 6, and Tupou is in class 3 which means that he's 7 years old. Siniti, Neo, Senileka and Tupou often come in and out of my house after school and in the evenings to colour, read, and get homework help. Apparently at some point Tupou decided that only English is to be spoken in my house, although that's not a rule I have. He's great about practicing his English and not even remotely shy. If he needs to know what something means, he'll just ask and then use the English word. He's also decided to enforce this rule upon other children who come play in my house. One day he and a classmate, 'Ofa, came over and were looking at all of the pictures I have on my walls. 'Ofa started to ask my something in Tongan and Tupou immediately yelled "USE ENGLISH IN KATALINA'S HOUSE!" Poor 'Ofa just kind of looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't mind if he used Tongan, but if Tupou wanted to make him use English then I certainly wasn't going to discourage it. It's a great way for them to practice and if it means they'll also practice with each other, then that's even better! So speaking has improved at my school and this term I'm really hoping to work on writing- especially with my class 6 students. I'm starting to get a little nervous about their exam (although I won't tell them that!). I'll let you know how it goes! Love and miss you all! xoxo k

This is a shout-out to all my Gamma Phi Beta friends. Tongans wear the most random t-shirts, and half the time they don't even know what they mean because they're in English, slang is involved, there are innuendos, etc. Example of this: I recently discovered that my 11 year-old neighbour girl has a Gamma Phi Beta tshirt. It's for intramural sports. On the front it says "Gamma Phi Beta IM Sports" and on the back it says "Always looking to score..." I'm going to go out on a limb and say that my neighbour doesn't fully grasp the joke (and I'm certainly not going to explain it to her!).

2.19.11

I tried to climb a coconut tree this week with one of my PC friends. In our Emergency packet, they tell us that if a tsunami is coming, climbing up a really tall coconut tree is a potential means of staying safe. I don’t think anyone on Peace Corps staff has ever actually tried to climb a coconut tree. It’s pretty damn hard. You can only do it barefoot. I can’t get more than five feet off the ground. I encourage all my friends who live anywhere near palm trees to try it. That means you, Jamie and Daniela.

I’m not giving up, though. My plan is to work on my upper body strength and try again some other time. Unfortunately, I think what is holding me back most is my fear of all things incredibly steep. That includes trees which go straight up and have no branches to climb on. I would never even climb the tree to the zip line at camp because it was steep, and that had notches and you were attached with a rope. (Don’t tell my campers that, though- I always told them that it was because I wanted everyone else to have a turn. I didn’t want to make them scared. So shhhhh.)

Sorry Peace Corps. If there’s a tsunami, there’s no way I’m getting up a coconut tree. Especially not in 20 minutes.

(Don’t worry, Mom and Dad. There won’t be a tsunami. I’m safe.)

Xoxo

K

2.19.11

So I had a really sad experience this week. My neighbour’s dog had puppies. I have been deliberately avoiding adopting any animals because I know I will get too attached and not be able to leave it when I finish Peace Corps. But since I don’t know what I’m doing/where I’m going after PC I can’t truly commit to bringing a pet back with me. So I had been really successful with this even though I could hear the puppies, because I hadn’t yet seen them. But then they all came out of hiding. Long story short I fell in love with the runt of the litter, who was half the size of all the other puppies and black and just so cute.

I decided Tuesday that I was going to adopt him. But I went to another village Tuesday night to have dinner with a friend so I left the puppy outside with all the other puppies which is how he’d been living anyway so I thought it’d be fine. Well on Wednesday I couldn’t find him anywhere. I was so sad all day. Then my principal found him behind their house, where the puppies had been born. I was sooooooo excited! I jumped up and down and said thank you over and over again. I’m sure they thought I was crazy but oh well. So then I brought my puppy- named Tisikou, or Disco- inside and discovered that he couldn’t stand up. Whenever he tried he would stumble a little bit and then fall over. I gave him a bath and I tried to feed him some bread and water but he wouldn’t eat it. So I went to the store and got tinfish (fish in a can) and milk. I tried to feed him that and he wouldn’t eat it. So I put some milk in a honey bottle, pried his mouth open and fed him that. He drank a little bit of milk. By this time I had figured out that he was dying. A similar thing had happened with my friend Cecilia’s puppy a few weeks ago.

I was obviously really upset because even though he had only been my puppy for a day and a half, I loved him a lot. The only reason I decided to get a puppy at all was because I loved that specific puppy. I kept trying to feed him milk but he wouldn’t eat it anymore. So I just let him lie on the mat and hoped he was comfortable. He was making really pathetic squeaking noises whenever he breathed and his breathing was getting shallower and shallower. I put him in my lap and pet him until he died, around 10:30 that night. I was crying and crying and crying, it was so sad. My neighbours came home and they said they would bury my puppy for me the next day. I tried not to cry in front of them but for anyone who knows me well, you realize that obviously failed miserably. They were really nice about it though.

It was generally a pretty traumatizing experience and it still makes me really sad. Maybe that is stupid but it’s easy to get attached to animals! Haha. My neighbours kept trying to give me another of the puppies and I kept trying to say no but I think he might be mine anyway. We’re kind of just sharing the last two dogs, one is a girl and belongs to the kids over there. That dog is named Pretty. The other one is a boy and is kind of mine I think but I’m not really sure. It’s kind of confusing. But his name is Spoon, or Sepuni. I named that one, haha. I’ll keep you updated on whether or not he actually becomes mine. I really liked the name Disco and am kind of bummed I can never use it for a puppy again but my dying little puppy deserved a name and that is the best one I could give him. But I like Spoon, too. Maybe he will come to America and you will meet him someday. Or maybe not. That’s a ways away.

Xoxo

K

2/19/11

School since the first week has been a bit disorganized at times but generally much better. I’ve learned how to say a few important classroom phrases in Tongan, but mostly I just speak to the kids in English as if they understand me. Sometimes the Tongan teachers will help me if the kids don’t understand, but you’d be amazed at how well these kids pick up instructions based on my gestures and actions. It’s not that I don’t want to use Tongan with them, or that I’m being lazy. It’s that listening to English from a native speaker is not something they usually get to do and just having that practice is a lot of the reason I’m here. Not to mention that even though my understanding of Tongan has gotten a lot better, my speaking is still pretty slow/broken so sometimes chances of the kids understanding my English are better than them understanding my Tongan, hahahaha. How sad.

The school day generally goes something like this:

8:00- most of the kids start showing up for school

8:20- the bell rings and the students start to clean up the school grounds, picking up trash, pulling out

weeds, etc.

8:25- line up by class, some days have their finger and toe nails checked for cleanliness and length, have

one of the teachers tell them if there’s anything they need to know or that is different about the

day, and say a prayer

8:30- if it is Monday, have assembly where the principal does some Bible stuff with them and does roll

call for the whole school. That goes until 9ish. If it is Friday, the Faifekau (minister) comes and does

some churchy stuff with them. If it’s Tuesday-Thursday, class starts.

10:30- break time, during which the kids eat and play outside

10:45- the kids get the toothbrushes they keep at school and everyone brushes their teeth together

11:00- class resumes

12:30- lunch break, during which pretty much everyone goes home to eat

1:30- school starts again

3:20- school ends

I work Monday through Thursday. I start every morning with Class 1 for half an hour. Mondays and Wednesdays I am with Class 2 for half an hour, Tuesdays and Wednesdays with Class 3 for half an hour, Tuesdays and Thursdays with Kindy for 15 minutes to half an hour. When exactly I go to those classes and how long I stay varies depending on what the teacher is doing with them and how long I decide I want to stay. Usually it ends up being longer- I was only supposed to be with Classes 2 and 3 for 20 minutes, but I can’t do much in that time so I extended it to half an hour. Then every day from 11:30 to 12:30 I am with Class 6. That’s in the morning. In the afternoon on Mondays I am with Class 6 for another hour. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I am with Classes 4 & 5 (who are combined) for half an hour in the afternoon. The rest of the time I spend lesson planning and working on the “library.” Right now it is just a room filled with books, a computer, a printer, and a photocopier. The books are never used and it’s kind of messy. My job is to organize it and create a functioning library in the time that I’m here. I haven’t gotten all that far yet but I just went and visited the library of another Peace Corps in my group and she gave me a lot of great ideas so hopefully I’ll be able to get a little more done soon.

The kids at my school are really great, as are the teachers. Granted sometimes I still have no idea what is going or what exactly I should be doing but I consider myself really lucky. The principal and teachers are all very supportive, and the kids are enthusiastic and smart. For the most part they listen to me. Some classes are better about that than others but I can’t blame them too much because I know it’s hard to focus when someone is speaking in a language you only partially understand- I totally drift in and out when I listen to something that’s entirely in Tongan. But they really do try and they pick things up pretty quickly. So we’ll see how it goes!

Xoxo

K

2/19/11

Hey team! Sorry, it’s been awhile. Things have been a little crazy with school starting up.

I guess that’s what I’ll start with- school! After two weeks of planning (and I use that term very loosely), school started on the 31st of January. The first week was just half-days and I did not have my schedule yet, so I spent the time helping the Class 1 teacher, Vao (who is my principal’s wife/my neighbor/my mom in my village). I spent most of the week having no idea what was going on or what I should be doing. Fortunately Vao is a great teacher and really energetic/enthusiastic. She uses a lot of English with her students anyway, so I got a pretty good idea of what I should be doing when I work with Class 1.

However, there were also some interesting situations that first week. Best example is that Wednesday. Every day school starts at 8:30, and goes until they have a short recess at 10:30. Well, during recess on the first Wednesday one student managed to get a giant gash right below one of his eyebrows. As we were getting ready to start class again, Vao came back and told me that she had to take this student to the hospital and could I please do class for the rest of the day (only until 12:30, fortunately). Of course I said yes because what else was I going to do? The kid had a huge cut right by his eye. Class 1 and Kindy were combined at the time, so it was me and the Kindy teacher, Seini. This was challenging enough because for a lot of the kids it was their first time in school so there was a lot of chasing kids, bringing them back to the classroom, taking them off the tables, etc. After all, Kindy is 4 years old and Class 1 is 5, so they are pretty young.

I did the best I could in terms of some simple activities and Seini handled all the Tongan speaking. At one point we decided it would be good to go outside because we were doing basic verbs with the kids- walking, running, hopping and so forth. I thought we were all going outside. But when I started to take Class 1 outside, Seini said “okay so we will stay in here for a little bit and then join you!” I just kind of stared at her and she asked if I wanted her and the Kindy to come out, too. Of course that would have been ideal but I totally understood the need for them to be separated for a little bit. Thus, I said “oh, no, it’s okay, we’re fine!” Well, silly me. My Tongan is not even remotely good enough to control nearly 20 5-year-old Tongan children while running around outside. The best I could manage was “Fakalonglongo!” (quiet!), “Fanongo!” (listen!), “Tuku ia!” (stop it!), and “Kapau oku ikai te mou fanongo, oku ikai te mau va’inga!” (a very butchered attempt to say, “if you don’t listen we are not playing!”) Unfortunately it took me so long to say the last one that by the time I got to the “we are not playing” part they had stopped paying attention to me.

Basically, just picture me standing in a field with 20 small Tongan children running around crazily as I tried to get them to listen to me using a mixture of broken Tongan and English. Pretty ridiculous, exhausting, and hilarious. But Seini and the kindy kids came out after a little bit and we attempted some other games with them (which failed) and eventually just resorted to letting them run around anyway. I learned after that someone important from some education office- possibly the Weslyan office, maybe the government? I don’t know- was visiting at the time to meet with my principal. I’m sure I looked quite professional. Ooops….

Xoxo

K

School starts on the 31st- it was supposed to start this Monday, on the 24th, but they pushed it back a week for various reasons. I found that out this week. Ohhhh Tonga! Haha. This week was planning week number 1. There is a new curriculum for primary school so this week consisted of various sessions on that. The new curriculum seems like it is good for the schools. The government primary schools (GPS) are changing it so that English doesn’t start until class 3 (which is age equivalent to 2nd grade in the US- kids here start class 1 at age 5). This is because they found that there was so much focus on English that kids didn’t even know the rules of Tongan grammar. They could speak it and understand it and such but didn’t know a refined level of it- for writing papers and such. However, I don’t work at a GPS, I work at a Free Weslyan primary school (FWPS). So they’re using the new curriculum in terms of what is taught but instead of pushing English back to class 3, my school is actually trying to transition to a bilingual system. Not sure yet exactly what they mean by bilingual, but they’re going to be starting English at class 1, possibly even kindy. So I’m going to be working mainly with class 1 and class 6, but also doing some stuff with every other level too. Class 6 is when they take their major exam, as you remember, to figure out where they go to high school and there’s an English section so they need a lot of practice at that level. Last year none of the kids at my school passed the exam. While I would love for even one to pass this year, I know that it’s not that simple. My goal for now is to improve their English as it functions in real life situations first, and then focus on the exam later in the year.

Anyway, the sessions this week were all in Tongan so I didn’t understand a whole lot of it. I concentrated really hard and ended up with a headache, haha. I did get some of it, and there was a PCV there from Group 75 so she explained some of it to me as well.

Next week is planning week at our individual school. I should find out what my actual teaching schedule will look like and start to get some stuff ready for actual classes. I’m really excited to get to know the kids at school and be in a classroom. I’m also a little anxious about it, since it’s not something I’ve really done before- teaching at a preschool is not the same as teaching in a primary school classroom. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Love and miss you all.

k

Hey look at me! I’m actually writing a blog ahead of time! Everyone should be incredibly proud. Hopefully they internet will work when I head to town tomorrow and I’ll get to post this. If not… at least I wrote it, right? That ought to count for something.

Update on my lovely little housemates that I mentioned awhile ago. They have continued to scurry around my house in a quite obnoxious manner. Thus far they have destroyed my 1/3 measuring cup, the bottom corner of my shower curtain, a lot of toilet paper, tinfoil, my food storage container, some plastic bags and who knows what else. I’ve even had a few stare downs with them. Although I have never actually wanted to kill a creature in my life, these mice are getting on my nerves. Thus, I’ve tried to eliminate them from my life in various ways.

The first way I tried was mouse traps. My friend Cecilia and I bought some in town. After snapping his finger in one and saying it didn’t even hurt, one of our other friends deemed them relatively useless. Despite this, I decided to attempt it. I had four . I put peanut butter on them, placed them in a couple different locations, and left them over night. The next morning when I woke up I laid in my bed for a few extra minutes, trying to figure out exactly what I would do if there were actually dead mice in the traps (and kind of hoping there wouldn’t be, to be honest). I crept around the corner into the kitchen where the first traps were, only to find that two had been set off and the peanut butter was gone but there were no mice in them. The other two traps were just still chillin, peanut butter and all. That was a failure but I was slightly relieved to not see any dead bodies.

The next time I tried to drown them. By my dad’s suggestion I set up a bucket that was filled about halfway with water, put a piece of wood in the bucket with a cracker and peanut butter floating on it, and set a ramp up so the mice could get in. The idea was that the mice would jump into the bucket to get the treat and not be able to get out, drowning instead. Once again, I woke up the next morning secretly hoping to not find any little mice bodies. Or, worse yet, living mice swimming in the water. Then what would I do?! Leave them there knowing they were drowning or rescue them and thus defeat the purpose? (Un?)fortunately there were no mice that time either.

At this point, one of my good friends expressed concern about my emotional health should I actually find dead mice in the morning. He was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I admitted that I was lacking true commitment to killing the mice. I wanted them to leave my house but not necessarily to die. My ideal situation would be to sit down with them and say, “Look guys. You need to go. It’s nothing personal but your lifestyle isn’t compatible with mine. If you don’t leave by choice I’m going to have to kill you.” But honestly, I think they’d call my bluff.

I debated getting a cat. After much discussion with other friends, I decided against it- mainly because I didn’t want to have to worry about it when I went on vacations or when I leave in two years. I know that I wouldn’t be able to raise it fully faka-Tonga (keep it outside, let it fend for itself in terms of food, not play with it, etc.). Also I didn’t want to accidentally starve it, since I can barely feed myself. So, no cat.

That left poison. I don’t want the mice to die in my walls and smell but I’m willing to take my chances. I’ve put out four packets of poison. Three have disappeared so far, but it apparently takes 4-7 days for them to actually die. I can still hear them scurrying around at night, although there hasn’t been any damage recently (knock on wood). Hopefully they disappear and die outside somewhere. I feel a little bad but I guess I had no choice. Poor mice!

Love and miss you all!

k

I would like to start this post with a shout-out to two of my lovely best friends, Nicole and Curtis, who got engaged at Christmas! Congratulations, guys!! I'm so happy for you.

Related, that's one of the things that has been kind of weird about being in Tonga- missing important events in the lives of people I love. Knowing that something fantastic has happened and I'm unable to be there to share it is a weird sensation. I'm completely stoked for someone but a little sad at the same time. It's only happened a few times- Lea getting her NatGeo job, Nicole and Curtis getting engaged, Josh getting an A in religion (side note: wish he had been studying religion when I was still in college because I bet he totally could have helped me out in some of my classes). I am so so happy about all of those things, it just always catches me off guard to be reminded that everyone's lives are going on without me, hahaha. I know that sounds kind of self-centered but I don't really mean it in that way at all. I would imagine it's kind of the same for some of you, knowing that so much is going on in my life and having little sense of what exactly it's like.

Anyway, sorry, that was kind of a depressing note to start off on but I don't mean it to be! It's more interesting to me than anything else. I'm really quite happy and doing very well. School hasn't started yet but it's planning week beginning on Monday, so I'll finally be getting prepared for the school year! Ahh! I can't wait to get to know the kids in my village in a school setting as opposed to just playing around. And it will be really nice to have a schedule and specific tasks to accomplish. I'm likely going to be working with the whole age range of kids at my school, not just the older ones, so that will be pretty awesome.

I really have been doing the same thing as usual. Running, cooking, battling mice, hanging in the village, coming to town occasionally. Nothing too exciting. The first week of January was Uike Lotu, prayer week. I went to church twice a day every day, at 5 a.m. and 6ish p.m. I've been attending the Weslyan church as I will be teaching at a Weslyan school and right now most of the people I know in my village are Weslyan. I hope to venture to the other churches someday but I'm going to wait until I know people better so I can go with someone instead of alone.

I also hit up a couple feasts for New Years and the end of Uike Lotu. Feasts in Tonga involve a lot of food- roasted pig included- and speeches/prayers. It's all in Tongan, obviously, so I don't quite understand all of it but I do my best. The Tongans always tell me "kai lahi, kai lahi!" which is essentially "eat a lot, eat a lot!" which I am not very good at doing. By Tongan standards I eat very little, especially because I am a vegetarian- a concept which usually takes some explaining before it is understood. But at feasts I do my best to participate in the eating! Haha. Everyone in my village is so nice and welcoming. When I go to town for the day (like today), I miss them. I think that's a good sign so far!

So.... Yeah sorry this was boring and terribly written. I was trying to be fast. Once again I was too lazy to write anything ahead of time. I'll try and write something more exciting soon, maybe in a week or two once school starts. I probably won't be getting to town quite as much once I'm in school, though, just a heads up. Don't be alarmed.

Love and miss you all!K

Kaitlin's mom here. These are the pictures Kaitlin sent me to upload for her. Hopefully this will work, I'm rather new to blogging. But Kaitlin explained everything pretty well in her posts, so I think you will be able to figure out the pictures. And the title of this post is just me being a wiseguy! Kaitlin did ask me to tell you that her internet time will continue to be limited. Unfortunately, there is no internet access in her village, so she has to get into town. And right now she is supposed to be spending more time in her village getting integrated and such. So it might be awhile until her next post. But I am sure she will work it out so that we get to hear from her rather than second hand from me.

Here are some random fun facts/stories about my life in Tonga:

I am lucky. My neighbour has a washing machine. So I get to put my clothes in the washing machine and the only thing I have to do by hand is rinse them. No hand washing for Kaitlin! Sweeeet!In an effort to be nice, some of the Tongans in my village try to translate my name back into English. They translate Katalina into Katherine, despite the fact that I explained my name is actually Kaitlin. As a result, I respond to Katherine, Katalina, Lina, and of course, palangi.I successfully cooked for myself the other night, for the first time in Tonga! I made rice and vegetables. It was delicious. I was also very proud of myself, since I am not much of a cook. However, Tongans don't really understand vegetarianism very well- it took a bit of explaining. So when my principal's wife, Vau, asked me if I had cooked myself dinner and I proudly explained what I had made, her reaction was "...that is all? Tomorrow, I will look for eggs for you. I am worried you do not eat enough." I then had to explain that it was okay, I could get my own eggs and I actually eat fine. They are always so worried about me!I tried to bake a cake for Viniseni (my principal), Vau, and their family since they have been cooking so many meals for me. Baking is also a great way to make friends and integrate in Tonga. But, I am not much of a baker either. So my cake was not very good. But my neighbours ate it anyway and even said it was good and I was poto, smart, for making it. I have mice housemates. I think they only come out at night. They recently stole my toilet paper. Silly mice. They don't bother me now but hopefully they don't get any worse!I eva pe (just walk around) a lot to wave to people in my village so they know who I am. Eva-ing is a big activity here in Tonga. It's a little weird to them that I do it alone but the kids come with me sometimes too!I recently finished my first journal! That is the one Jamie gave me for my 21st birthday- thanks Jamie! Next is the one Monica gave me as a gift before I left. So everyone be proud- I've been writing a lot, even if it hasn't been on my blog.Tongans have beautiful voices. The singing in church is absolutely amazing.No, I do not go to the beach everyday. Tonga Group 76 is by far the most fascinating group of people I've ever met in my entire life (no offense to any of you). Everyone has such interesting backgrounds and stories that they are very willing to share. They are also very intelligent. We mesh pretty well. I had my first proposal for a Tongan moa (boyfriend or girlfriend) the other day. First let me explain that boyfriend or girlfriend must be used loosely. You can be texting with someone and be their moa, you can be walking with them on the street, you can actually be dating them- it's quite a wide range of activities and relationships. Tongans also frequently have multiple moas. So one of the boys in the group I was doing Christmas stuff with said "I think it is time for you to have a Tongan boyfriend." I said "Oh, really?" and he said "Yes, you should, would you like one?" I laughed and said "I think I am okay right now, I have not been here too long. I'm alright." And he said "You are okay?" And I said yes. He then didn't talk to me for the next couple of days so I felt kind of bad but we're okay now. A better way to handle it would have been with humour, such as "Oh, I already have 10 moas!" Or to just laugh and say, "You'd have to ask Viniseni first!" or something like that. But I was so caught off guard that I did not handle it well. Oh well, now I know for next time! These are just random bits of information that have come to mind while I've been sitting at the computer. If there are questions you have about my life, or day to day activities or anything, definitely leave a comment and ask! I'll do my best to address them when I next get the chance to be online. xoxok

Merry American Christmas! And Boxing Day in Tonga!

I recently became a real PCV, yaaaaay. We were sworn in at a nice ceremony by the water on the 15th of December. I moved last week to my site and am now in my own house. It's summer break in Tonga right now so school is not in session. That means I have nothing in particular to do except get to know people in my community and integrate.

This past week that has involved participating in various skits/dances/songs with a group of youth in my community. Youth is basically the kids who are in or have graduated from high school but are not yet married, so I technically count as youth even though I will be a teacher at the school. It's a weird kind of in between. The youth are split up into different groups and have been performing every night. I jumped in with the group of which my principal's daughters are a part. We practiced a lot during the day and then did the performances at night. It was a big to-do- tents were rented for the school grounds, huge speakers were set up, and there was a stage. I played the Virgin Mary on a couple nights, danced a few times, and pretended to get married in a reenactment of a scene from Glee (from an episode I had not yet seen, which was frustrating!). I spent most of the time not being sure exactly what was going on and only understanding half of the Tongan spoken to me. However, a lot of the people in my group speak pretty good English so they were sure to help me out.

No matter what I did on stage, though, the Tongans thought it was great just because it was the palangi (white person, foreigner) doing it. All the young men in my village also got a great deal of entertainment out of posing for pictures with me. I just stood there and laughed while they rotated through. Everyone in my village is so friendly and welcoming- it's been a lot of fun.

For Christmas we went to church, had lunch, and then went swimming at the beach. After that my principal dropped me off at a PCV's house in town were a group of us had a potluck and did a yankee swap. I got two very nice coffee mugs! I'm still in town staying with my friend, and will head back to my site tomorrow. It's been a fun little break but it will also be good to get back to my site and continuing getting to know people.

I know this post is a little all over the place- we are in the PC office watching Eat, Pray, Love so I'm trying to multitask. But I just wanted to give you all a little update while I'm here!

I emailed my mom some pictures since it was taking to long to load them on the blog, so she will be putting those up soon. You will get to see my house, my group of youth, and the Peace Corps I did Christmas with. Hopefully I'll figure out how to make albums and stuff soon so I can put up lots of pictures!!

Once again, Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a lovely holiday season and have a great New Years. I'll be thinking of everyone! Love and miss you all tons.

xoxo

k

What up yo? Long time no talk. Sorry I've been so absent- but PST (pre-service training) is winding down so hopefully I'll be able to update you more regularly in the future.

We finished up our language training about a week and a half ago with a mock LPI (language proficiency exam). This involved having an interview in Tongan with one of our language trainers. We were asked questions about ourselves, family, food, clothing, directions, time, weather, and shopping. I was able to answer all of the questions that I was asked and scored a three out of three on every section except clothing. I was fortunate in the fact that I had a great, very patient language teacher during training. I think that is a large part of the reason I was able to learn well. Unfortunately, I haven't improved all that much since the mock LPI so I need to get back to studying before we have the real one in December!

Last week we started technical training, which for me consisted of how to teach English in a Tongan classroom. They flew in a TEFL expert from Bulgaria, which is where she works for Peace Corps. She has been working with our TEFL trainer, Lose, to educate us on classroom management, teaching English as a foreign language, and various other things. They have both been great, and we've had a lot of help/input from current volunteers. Hearing their experiences about starting to teach in Tonga has been the most helpful thing, as well as hearing from other trainees who have already taught English in other countries.

This week we started practice teaching in actual classrooms! We were split up between the schools near us in Ha'apai to teach for 2 hours a day so we can get a sense of what Tongan classrooms are like. I have been teaching at GPS Pangai (GPS = Government Primary School) in class 6, which is about equivalent to grade 5 in the US. In Tonga, students take an exam at the end of class 6 that determines where they will go to high school. If they score well enough on the exam, they go to better high schools. If they do poorly, they can still go to high school but they will attend schools that are not as strong in their education. So at age 10 or 11 students in Tonga have to test to determine the entire future of their education. And the test is hard! There is an English section, a math section, a science section, and a Tongan section. I have looked at some English sections of the exam from previous years and I know that I would not come close to getting a perfect score. There are questions on the test that are completely arbitrary (write the best word that means the same thing as big- who decides what the best word is?) and questions that are actually incorrect- multiple choice with no right answer. The test is also written by people for whom English is a second language. All in all, it is a very hard test but it determines the future for a child who is in our 5th grade. Craaaaaaaaazy.

Anyway, the students I've been teaching this week have already finished their exams and so are just hanging out until the school year officially ends. The last month of school after tests is pretty chill- a lot of students stop showing up and there isn't much in classroom education. I've had about 16 students in my class each day, although there are usually more than that throughout the school year. They are super sweet and listen very well. Kids in Tonga are very well behaved in the classroom. Some of that is because corporal punishment is generally used in most Tongan classrooms and so the kids are afraid of getting hit. But it is also partly just the kids here- they were great even for me, a teacher they have never met. In the US, a lot of kids really try to test a substitute teacher that is completely unknown. The kids I've taught this week have been pretty great. We did introducing yourself on Monday, daily routines on Tuesday, and today we did verbs. Some of the stuff I have done has been too easy for them because we didn't know the actual level of the kids going into it, but most of it has gone pretty well. I've done a lot of games and interactive activities which kids don't do in the classroom very much here. And yes, I've been teaching entirely in English, with the except of a word or two in Tongan when they don't understand something. They've been doing really well! We do not have teaching tomorrow as there is no school because of elections, but we should be going back on Friday for our last day of practice teaching.

After that, we have one week left in Ha'apai then off to attachment! I will be going to stay with a current volunteer who teaches at a Weslyan primary school in an outer village on Tongatapu. I will be there for a few days so that I can see a volunteer's life, learn what my life might be like for the next two years, and ask her any questions I might have. Should be interesting! Then we have a wrap up week in Nuku'alofa (where I started), then exams, then swearing in and then off to site on December 17th or so. I can't believe it has already been almost 2 months! Crazy!

Alright well I think that is about it for now, I could write more but this is getting pretty long so I will leave it for next time. If there is anything in particular you want me to write about feel free to comment and let me know!

Hope all is well where you are. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Love and miss y'all.

xoxok

Greetings from Faleloa (my host village)!

Sorry I haven't updated in so long! I haven't had much time to get on the internet- I have school 5 days a week and on Satudays it is kind of a hassle to get to Pa'angai (the "city" of Ha'apai) because it is harder to hitch a ride and it is too far to walk. But we were successful today, thanks to the host father of one of the other volunteers!

However, this is going to have to be short because I don't have much time on the internet and I was too fakapikopiko (lazy) to write my blog ahead of time. My mom gave you a pretty good update about my life so I'll just give some more specifics.

For my host family I have a mom, Meleane, but her husband passed away a few years ago. I also live with two sisters, Lona (25) and Vei (11), and 3 brothers, Tau (8), 'Eni (6), and Nofo (5). 'Eni is actually Meleane's grandson but he lives with them full time. They are all very kind to me, except that they won't let me help out around the house very much which can be frustrating sometimes because I want to contribute. But I say if that's my only complaint, I am doing pretty well! Meleane's English is very good and the kids speak some English so my lack of perfect Tongan is not a huge issue yet. They call my Katalina or just Lina, since consonants are never next to each other in Tongan and so Kaitlin doesn't work.

Language classes are going much better than I anticipated, but I still need to get better about practicing my Tongan outside of the classroom. I'm often too shy to use it beyond general conversation such as hello, how are you, and learning names. I try to practice with my younger siblings more because that's closer to the level I am on. They are very patient with me, which is great! This week will be the last week of language classes, and then technical training will begin.

Like my mom said, I will be teaching at a Weslyan Primary School once I am actually sworn in. The village is called 'Utulau. There are 96 students, 6 teachers, and me. I visited there as one of our site visits when we first arrived and I absolutely fell in love with it. The principal seems very supportive and I am really excited to work there. I will move there mid-December but it will be summer break so I won't start teaching until mid-January or so.

Group 76 (my Peace Corps group) is absolutely amazing. Everyone is incredibly fascinating and super nice. It's a great support network and I have made some wonderful friends already. There is also one woman in my group who reminds me a lot of Ellen Kraly (one of my Colgate professors) which is absolutely fabulous. Ellen is someone who I admire a lot and who contributed greatly to my college experience (and also wrote one of my PC recommendations!) so having someone here that reminds me of her provides me with a lot of motivation to work hard and succeed. So, thanks again Ellen!

I guess I can tell a funny story... So I am very fortunate in my homestay experience because I have my own bathroom and my own bathtub. However, the tub fills pretty slowly which is totally fine. It takes about half an hour for it to fill 4 or so inches. So I turn it on, leave it for a little while, and then go back to it to bathe. Well the other night I turned it on and then forgot about it apparently, while we went to a community event that lasted about 3 hours. We came back and I had accidentally flooded part of the 2nd floor! The water wasn't super deep or anything but everything was definitely wet and we had to move the rug and pull up some of the floor covering so everything could dry. I felt so terrible! I cried and my family laughed a bit. They were super nice about it- Meleane said "it is never a bad thing to clean our house!" I think they mostly felt bad for me because I was so upset about it. It is one of those things that would be super funny if it were my own house but it wasn't... I am able to laugh about it for sure because there is nothing else I can do and nothing terrible happened, but at the time I was horrified. And yes, I freely admit that I am an idiot, haha.

Sorry but I don't have any pictures! I probably could have uploaded some but I haven't put them on my computer yet soooooooooo yeah... my bad. But it is beautiful here!

I don't have too much else to say because life is pretty consistent- class then study Monday through Friday, study/town/beach on Saturday, church/eat/sleep/study on Sunday.

I'm going to go because I want to head back to the beach soon. But I hope you all are doing well! I will try to update again soonish but it might not be until December when we get back to Nuku'alofa. Overall I am super happy here but I do love and miss you all tons!

xoxok

Hi all. Don't get too excited, it's Kaitlin's mom here (at Kaitlin's request) to update a little on happenings of the past month, to the best of my ability to remember what she has told me. I borrowed the picture from one of the other group member's posting. It is at the airport upon their arrival in Tonga. Kaitlin especially wanted me to explain that she has limited internet access where she is now, so has been unable to be in touch with anyone, but she misses and loves all her friends & family and is hopeful that once she is back on the main island, internet access will be move available to her and she can be in better touch.

Anyway, they landed safely on the main island of Tongatapu, where they stayed in the capital Nuku'alofa for 3 or 4 days before flying over to the island group of Ha'apai for their 12 weeks or so of language and other training. Kaitlin made it through her overweight luggage problem thankfully without issue. Someday we WILL be better packers! She did not even get charged from L/A to Tonga for having one overweight, which was very nice. The group has been split up into different villages. They train with their village grouping Monday through Thursday, then come together as a bigger group on Fridays. Kaitlin loves her homestay family, there are some children and grandchildren in the home, but I don't remember their ages. Mondays through Fridays are really pretty much occupied with classes, currently a big focus is on language skills, which her homestay family helps with. Weekends are free thus far. She attends church on Sunday mornings with her family and then they gather for lunch.

Kaitlin was very happy this past week. They had interviews for their placements early in the week and were notified on Thursday of where they would be assigned. Kaitlin was thrilled to get her first choice. She will be heading back to the main island after training completes in early/mid December. She has been assigned to a Wesleyan Church School in a small village to teach 5 & 6th graders (9 to 11 age range) English. Also, the Wesleyan Church Schools are planning a transition to bilingual education, so she will be assisting the teachers there to put that in place, as well as assisting in the library. But more details of her assignment will become clear as time goes on. Tonga has two schools, government and the Wesleyan Church schools. Anyway, she is, as I said, thrilled to have this assignment. She doesn't think that there has been a Peace Corps placement in this village, or if there has, there has not been anyone there for a long time. And it is about 30 minutes outside of a larger town.

She has had some beach time and snorkeling time and has made some good friends in the group. I think some of them will be within close (relatively speaking) traveling distance once she is at her village. The food has been fine although she has not been able to be strictly vegetarian. There are a lot of root vegetables, yams, etc and chicken, pork & fish. She has not had any illnesses, but has a cold right now. It has been somewhat rainy since they arrived, and of course humid, but she doesn't seem to mind that greatly.

We don't have a handle on how long mail takes, but her address right now is

Kaitlin Tufts, PCT

Peace Corps

PO Box 147

Nuku'alofa

Kingdom of Tonga

South Pacific

(You must include the South Pacific, otherwise it tends to end up in Africa)

She will have a different address once she is in her village, but any mail sent to the above address will eventually get to her. She will update her address once she knows it.

She does have a phone, but has not lately been able to buy more airtime for it due to difficulty in getting to the bank when it's open and then the store. There is no cost to her to receive calls and she is on a plan that allows her to call anyone in her group as well as the Peace Corps offices without charge, but she must of course pay for calling here. Her phone number is 011-676-77-85690. I use a calling card which puts it at .43 a minute. Although I haven't tried using Skype to call her cell phone, I checked the price on that and it is also .43 per minute.

From the East coast, there is currently a 17 hour time difference (they are ahead). But guess that will be 18 hours once we return to standard time. I am of course, not suggesting that anyone call her, just wanted to relay the calling situation. But if anyone wants to ever take the plunge, right now her weekends (beginning Friday afternoon into Saturday here) seem to work. She is in church usually until around noon on Sundays, and then lunch. Of course, any night owls out there have a few more options (that doesn't include me) :)!

Well, guess that's it for now. Hopefully Kaitlin will be able to take this blog up soon. She always has excellent information when she does it, and I would also like to see some pictures!

Just a quick update! I've been meaning to write all week and didn't get around to it. Shocking, I know.

I'm in LA right now for staging. I got here yesterday and fly out tonight. We registered and turned in all our paperwork yesterday, and then had dinner with our country director. The country director is not usually at training but she was flying through and stopped to meet us. She gave us a lot of information about the country and the culture, and just really emphasized being open and soaking everything up. It was sort of overwhelming but I think that'll be the general feeling I have throughout the first few weeks, which is okay. Today we have an orientation of sorts all day and then our flight is at 1115 pm.

Speaking of flights, little concerned about the luggage. I was definitely significantly over the Peace Corps weight limit, oops. I packed a little last minute- and by that I mean when I packed, I failed completely so my mom and sister did it for me and managed to fit most everything in. Thank you! The real problem, though, was that one of my bags was over the highest weight limit for Air New Zealand, which is what we are flying to Tonga. So I spent some of yesterday at the hotel moving stuff between bags in an effort to make things more even. There are things I could take out and wouldn't mind doing so but I'm running out of time. I don't mind paying the overweight fee, as long as my bags make it on the plane! It really doesn't seem like I have that much stuff in relation to how long I'll be gone but I don't know. We shall see!

Little recap of before I left. Hannah threw me a surprise birthday/going away party on the 25th which was so nice of her! I was totally shocked. We had dinner at the Blue Elephant, went to Gypsy's for drinks and then O2 for dancing. Laura and Zack came up from school, Ally from Connecticut, Mike and Curtis were back for the weekend, Sam Lindauer came, and J and his girlfriend made an appearance as well. This was all on top of everyone who is in the area as of now (Hannah, Meg, Bria, Nicole, Ashlee, Allen, K-ris and gf, Craig, Chase, Max... If I forgot anyone I'm sorry!). It was really good to see everyone and I of course cried multiple times saying goodbye but I am so thankful to Hannah for planning it and everyone for coming, I can't even say. I have the most wonderful friends ever!

Then this weekend Justin and Bre came up so I spent some time with them. And Darian came home from school- we carved Tonga pumpkins which I have pictures of and will put up someday. They were pretty amazing if I do say so myself. Then we had a party on Sunday with the fam and friends. I saw pretty much everyone which was really nice! It was a good way to get to say goodbye. After that, the packing started. Yup, last minute. Typical me.

Also! Jeff got me the most amazing present ever. He got me a Nook, one of those electronic book readers where you can download a bunch of books and have them to read. AMAZING. And perfect for this, since I can't exactly bring a bunch of books with me (especially since I already have luggage issues, haha). I downloaded a ton of books to read and am so so excited. It was really thoughtful and generous of Jeff, so thanks again Jeff! I love it. And him!

Anyway, now all the preparation is done and the actual adventure starts! I'll try and get in touch when I can but if it is awhile just assume I made it safely!

Love everyone and will miss you tons!

Tonga in....9 days! And I'm already bad at keeping up with my blog. Oops. I've been meaning to write for a little while now but just haven't gotten around to it. Better late than never, I guess.

I leave in less than two weeks. I'm not sure I've fully grasped the situation as of yet, but maybe it is better that way. I am not packed, I have not purchased everything I need, and I have paperwork I still have to fill out. But it'll get done. I work best under pressure...I hope.

Instead I have spent time just chilling at home, hanging out with friends, and reading. I went to DC this past weekend to see my brother, Jeff, as well as some friends from college. Jeff and I went to King's Dominion (an amusement park in VA) on Saturday which was super fun. We also saw some track kids Friday night. It was really nice to get to spend time with Jeff and see him one more time before I leave. I feel very lucky that I got to see him twice in one month! He is my absolute bestest friend in the world and I adore him more than anyone else.

After hanging with Jeff, I met some friends Sunday for a picnic. I got to see some TriDelta girls who live in the area which was amaaaaaaazing because I miss Delta and those girls so freaking much, it is unbelievable. I saw Smullen again while in DC, so that was nice too. And I also got to see LSG, Lea, and Kev! Kev flew over from Indiana to be with us for a few days which was incredibly nice of him. We stayed at Lea's Sunday and Monday night, before heading to Baltimore late Tuesday night and staying a hotel there for our early flights. I honestly can't say how happy I am that I got to see the three of them. We had great meals, wandered around DC, went to coffee shops and bars, snuggled. Nothing too exciting but that's how we roll. Just spending time together. At one point we were in Laura's apartment with Kev, Lea, and I dozing on the couch while Laura did work at the table. The set up of the room was even similar to that of Newell 26 and everything was the same as senior year. It was perfect. When it came time for Kev and I to leave, we all just sat at the table at Laura's in silence. It's weird to think that we might not see each other again for a very long time when being together feels so natural.

When I came home Wednesday we went out for dinner for Nicole's birthday- we actually got Nicole, Bria, Hannah and I together at the same time! Amazing. And Ally is coming home this weekend so that will be awesome and we will for sure get the five of us together. Can't wait!

So while it was really good to go to DC and see everyone, it was also kind of sad. I couldn't help but think about how that is the life I'd be living if I weren't joining the Peace Corps. I'd for sure have found a way to be in DC. I'd be near my brother, track kids, Deltas, and my very best college friends. It would be amazing. And even if I weren't able to be in DC and had to stay home for a bit while job searching, I would have my best friends since elementary school right there with me. But, on the other side of that, it also reminded me that I am so genuinely lucky. I have the most amazing friends in the world. I don't have to worry about losing touch with them or having our friendships fade before I get back. In a sense the people that I am sad about leaving are the same people who let me know that it is okay, and even wonderful, to go.

I don't mean for any of that to sound as if I am doubting my choice to join the Peace Corps. I'm most definitely not. It is what I've wanted to do since junior year in high school and that hasn't changed. It was just interesting to have a little snapshot into the alternative path my life could've taken. And who knows, DC might be where I end up after the Peace Corps (if all goes according to plan) and some people will still be there. Best of both worlds, baby. But that's not for awhile and I certainly don't want to wish my time in Tonga away.

All in all, I'm very excited to go. Now, about that packing and paperwork...

So, as most of you already know, I recently received my invitation to serve in the Peace Corps. I leave for the Kingdom of Tonga on October 5th, where I will be a Primary School Teacher for the next few years. The departure date is coming up pretty quickly and it was a bit of a surprise. My application was originally under consideration for positions departing for Sub-Saharan Africa in November. Late on Sunday the 22nd, while I was visiting camp friends in Westchester, I got an email from Placement asking if I would be okay with being considered to head to the Pacific Islands in October. I was a little hesitant since it was sooner than expected, but then again, it was the Pacific Islands... After talking to my mom and tearfully telling Jeff that I would only consider it if he promised I would get to see him before I left, I emailed back and said I was willing to be considered. The next morning when I checked my email, I had a response saying thank you and my invitation was in the mail! The actual invitation packet came on that Tuesday, the 24th and I said yes on Wednesday. To Tonga I shall go!

It feels a little weird to actually be preparing to leave for the Peace Corps. Up until my junior year of high school I had fully planned to be a preschool teacher. Then I did a project on the Peace Corps for World Lit/Geo and decided that's what I wanted to do. So for six years I have planned on this part of my life and here it is. I opened my application in October 2009, submitted it in March of 2010 (okay okay, so I was a BIT of a slacker when it came to the application), interviewed in April, got nominated in May, medically cleared at the end of June, and invited in August. Quite a process, although once I submitted my application it did go more quickly than I expected. Now there is so much to do before I go! It is a little overwhelming, but exciting nonetheless.

I will try and keep everyone updated about my experiences getting to and living in Tonga. For any of you who experienced my epic blogging failure while in Trinidad, I promise I will be a little bit better this time around- although, to be honest, that isn't saying much. You'll still have to be pretty patient!