Mon, Jan 29, 2007; TONGAN VACATION

Singing Kareoke on my birthday with Poki and Ada

Hello Everyone!

I hope that you all have had a wonderful start to the New Year! It has been extremely hectic over here in Tonga so I have had some trouble finding time to send an update, and unfortunately I think I have to be quick today as well because I am waiting in the Peace Corps office to go to the wharf with 2 of my friends who are leaving for their permanent site today - the island of Namuka which is a 6-8 hour boat ride away from any other sort of mainland (boats only go once a week and even that depends on the weather) and has electricity only for a few hours at night and only one town phone. They are pretty nervous about going to such a remote location but also very excited for the adventure!
Anyways, first of all...I wanted to let you all now my school vacation schedule so that if anyone plans on taking any vacations to Tonga (hello - i live in the South Pacific and you could stay with me for free!), you will know when I am available to hang out. Of course, you can just come at a different time and just use me for my accommodations - i'm really OK with that as long as you buy me dinner just once! :)
OK - here are my vacation dates (as long as nothing gets changed, which is never a guarantee here):

* Friday, April 6 - Monday, April 9 (4-day weekend for easter)
* Saturday, April 28th - Sunday, May 13 (2 weeks - School holiday)
* Saturday, August 18 - Sunday, September 2 (2 weeks - School Holiday)
* Saturday, December 8 - Sunday, January 20 (6 weeks - Christmas Holidays)

The best way to get here is to fly into Auckland and then fly over to Tonga. If you look up flights directly to Tonga they are ridiculously expensive, but you can find flights for a decent price to Auckland and then it's only a couple hundred or so to fly for Auckland to Tonga.

Alright, as far as other news goes, I have spent the last 3 weeks working with 2 Australian volunteers to train one of the Tongan teachers to work in a Special Education class. One of the volunteers from Australia is an Occupational Therapist who was working with Lesieli (the Tongan teacher) on techniques for teaching Handwriting; and the other volunteer is a Hearing Impaired Specialist who has been working to teach Lesieli and I Australian Sign Language (and yes it is different from American Sign Language - or at least the alphabet is - not a single letter was the same!) because we are going to be working with at least one deaf student. I am going to be working directly in the classroom with Lesieli to continue to train her on how to work with students with Special Needs and to train the other teachers at the school and continue to develop the program. I will also be working to expand this program beyond the pilot classroom and, hopefully (fingers crossed) create a training program for all of the teachers in Tonga to learn basic techniques for working with Students with Special Needs and to create an IEP system and service system throughout Tonga. It is very exciting but a lot of work! Today was our first day of school and I am totally exhausted!

As for other news, tomorrow I finally move into my house. It is in the main city of Nuku'alofa on the island of Tongatapu. Nuku'alofa is the capital of Tonga and the biggest city in Tonga, although it is still very small compared to American cities. My house is quite large and has 2 bedrooms - plenty of room for visitors.

Ooops - my friends are about to leave so I must go, but I will write more sometime soon!
Happy Thoughts Everyone!-carly (kali - i changed my Tongan name!)