Saturday, August 04, 2007

Backtracking - Thurs, Nov 30, 2006

Jessica (Sesi), Lupe, Manatu, Me, Karen (Keleni), and Moala kneeling down

Hey all!
Ok first of all...

Please write me letters:

Carly Anderson, PCV
Peace Corps Office
PO Box 147
Nuku'alofa, Tonga
South Pacific

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!
now, time for a long info packed update...

Tues after writing before the riots - we took a 10 hour boat ride from tongatapu to ha'api and our host families met us at the dock at 3am!! what nice people!! they also insisted on feeding me (of course - tongans are all about the food!) before i went to bed. my host family includes:
my father Livai - the town officer
my mother Manatu
bro - Maikolo (age 26, works in the bush/farm, getting married next week i think)
sis - Lupe (age 24, LOVES tongan basketball which is quite different from american basketball)
bro - Sione (lives in tongatapu)
cousin - Aisea (age 24, likes to tell me that things are called names that are completely wrong - like for days i was calling cereal veve which means garbage)
sis - Moala (age 20, goes running with me on the airport every morning and is very nice and friendly)
bro - Nui (age 16, obsessed with Uno the card game that i brought with me - i've created a monster!)
sometimes some other little cousins hang around as well.

wed - after a little bit of sleep at my new host-home, i helped my host family gather leaves from the ocean that they will be using to weave a wedding mat because their son is getting married, then i went swimming with the sisters and we sang Sound of Music songs at the top of our lungs and it was fabulous! then we ate, of course, since that's a major part of life in tonga, and then they taught me how to weave baskets out of coconut leaves - i managed to make one basket!!
thurs - my host sister volunteered to run with me in the mornings and guess where we run - the airport runway!! as long as a plane isn't coming in. then we had school all day in the main town of Pangai (very small, only one restaurant, 2 computers, etc) and then i walked back home with my friend karen - it takes us 40 minutes to get home. We are in the furthest village out but i love it. it's a great excuse to walk a lot. at night we just planned lessons for our crazy community teaching - basically we have to just round up some kids from the town and we teach them.

fri - Moala and i ran to the end of the island in the morning - it was soooo beautiful. really amazing. then language class (we just have lang. classes with our little village group of 4 on mon, tues, thurs, and fri mornings and then planning time in the afternoons). in the afternoon we walked to town and hung out a little and then had American night at the one restaurant in town. the current volunteers joined us and we were all together so it was fun to just catch up and here more about our peace corps service. and eat pizza! when i got home i did some more weaving with my host mom and sis

sat - walk to town for email and then walk back for lunch and then walk back to town to watch rugby and then walk back home. on our way home though we stopped to go swimming, fully clothed of course. i'm talking long skirts and shirts here. it was so much fun!! then i swam more with my family when i got back home. and then introduced my family to Uno and played into the wee hours of the night

sun - eat, church, eat, sleep and read, church, eva pe (wander around) to the airport to weigh ourselves on the luggage scales, eat, sleep (that is seriously all you are allowed to do on sundays!!)

mon - lang class, planning for community teaching, walk to twon and back, and more planning (not too exciting - sorry!)

tues - lang class, crazy crazy crazy community teaching - firecrackers were involved - it was insanity!! ahhh, but then i had a nice walk with another volunteer, oh and scandal of all scandals - i was left to talk with my host cousin in the dining area on our own for like half an hour - that probably means that the entire island thinks we are getting married now!

wed - class in pangai, lots of walking and swimming in the wonderful ocean - by the way we are surrounded by coral reefs about a mile out so we don't have any waves breaking on us or anything - just beautiful clear water!!
thurs - lang, walk to town and plan at the restaurant and then meet with the teaching team so that we can help with the teaching lessons, then i did work at home and my whole family helped me make posters and such

fri - church at 5 am, run, lang, HAPPY THANKSGIIVNG at home, no luck with teaching the community - so we went swimming - yippee!! baking with other volunteers and then join my family at the mormon dance - ahhh! too wierd!! and my family is totally into dressing me up in lots of flowers and such and spraying me with lots of perfume because they want me to marry a tongan boy. sat - walk to town, watch some tongan basketball and rugby, and i cannot remember at all what happened after that - i didn't write it down - sorry. oh wait, i remember - THANKSGIVING!! it was fantastic!! so much yummy food and after we played triominos for a long time, which was also great. thanksgiving dinner was held at the volunteers house on the beach!! it was great!! and we had turkey and stuffing, and cranberry sauce and everything!!

sun - eat, church, eat, sleep, church, eva pe, eat, sleep - like i said, that's all we do on sundays!!
mon - lang class, go to town, play hookey from church with my host sister and go swimming - i taught all the kids how to play marco polo - it was wicked fun!!, then just planning by candlelight because the electricity was inexplicably off possibly to conserve deisel

tues - lang, teach community youth about fruits and vegetables - it was much much much better this time - maybe because the rainkept the wild ones away!! then of course, lots of uno with my family, oh and planning to teach all the volunteers how to set up classroom management plans in one hour - zoiks!!
wed - classes in pangai where i taught a session with 2 other volunteers on classroom management since we are the only ones with teaching experience - everyone asked us to stay after to answer more questions for about 2 hours - they are all so nervous!!

thurs - pouring rain!! it was crazy!! i even skipped my morning runway run!! this post-poned our coooking lesson that was supposed to happen this AM because the cooking happens outside. sai pe! (Just fine, it's OK) we still had a lovely lang class and then a very nice walk to town and time to update my emails.

and tomorrow we are cooking spaghetti dinner at a volunteers house and watching a movie!! wow!! i'm soooo excited!!

alright, i must go now. sorry this was so long, next time i'll just keep it to the major points. i just get so excited about everything we are doing and learning. it's great!!

oh and everyone needs to start planning to visit either in may or august or next december/january.

happy thoughts all!-carly (keli in tongan)

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