Community Days

The last few days have been fairly busy. All of the villages just finished their 'community days'. Most of the community day activities were just games, with ours being no exception. We had a dj for music, a dance, a faikava with a couple of doa’s (sp? – volunteers from the next village that helped serve kava), a 3 legged race, tug of war, water balloon tosses, duck-duck-goose, and the winners of each competition were awarded candy prizes.

The village next over did a community clean up with the youth, which turned out quite nicely. Our village did a community cleanup and it certainly is a lot of tough, manual labor. The people here sometimes joke that they’re lazy, but I disagree. They’re just tired after a long day’s work. For those that have worked menial, yet physically demanding jobs, they understand the difficulties of trying to accomplish anything, like studying, after 8 hours of work.

Our language classes have been switched up a bit; I guess the Peace Corps are trying to do something new. We’re now grouped under how quickly we’re learning the language. There’s been a bit of instruction overlap (because classes have been taught at different speeds), but overall it seems to be working out quite well. We’re all getting a lot of new vocabulary and picking up on the different ‘styles’ of spoken Tongan. The people in my new class are quite the comedians and although it sounds quite trite; I’m enjoying all of it immensely. I think the Peace Corps would be hard pressed to make a class out of this training group that isn’t fun to be around.

In one more week we’ll find out where we'll be placed. When asked about what I was hoping for, I asked for a place that I could get Internet at home. (I have my fingers crossed) There have been rumors going around about where certain volunteers will get placed and we’re doing quite a lot of speculating. So far it seems like the majority of people will get placed in the capital. In a way, I’m not sure if I’d like to be stationed there. Sure there are the luxuries of electricity, good food, the possibility of hot water, and it’s the main connection point to other islands, but it makes me wonder if its what I really envisioned when I signed up for the Peace Corps.

Oh well, the main factor in determining placement is based upon where our skills can be best used. We’ll see what happens! In a certain twisted kind of way, it’d be funny to be placed in a job that I was completely unqualified for, which is quite the possibility.  Rumor has it that people will be placed in banks, schools, NGOs, and government offices.

Our cultural day is this Friday. I need to make something Tongan, teach my family how to make Teriyaki chicken, practice our group dance, and cook some good ole Tapioka before then! I’ll be sure to bring my camera.  I can’t wait to put up some of the videos / pictures that I’ve taken (once I finally get stationed). There’s less than two weeks left in Haapai and then we’re back to the capital!