4:01 a.m.

Thursday, October 26, 2006 – 4:01 a.m.

It's 4 a.m. and although my opportunities to sleep has been both sparse and sporadic, I'm currently wide-awake. Approximately 30 minutes ago, I had the opportunity to repay the married Peace Corps volunteers that had helped me haul books and computers up two flights of stairs the night before.

(30 minutes ago)

Clunk Clunk Clunk!!! It was the sound of two empty oil drums rolling across hundreds of tiny rocks and pebbles in the middle of the night. No, let me restate that with a bit more emphasis on what actually occurred. It was the sound of two empty oil drums proudly declaring to the entire village of Pangai that they were in fact, two hollow oil drums rolling across hundreds of tiny rocks through the main street and boldly approaching the police and fire station.

Shadows were poking out of recently lit homes as Tongans started peeking out their windows to see who was stupid enough to create that much noise in that brief time of day when it was neither completely night nor morning.

It probably wasn't too shocking when they found their answer; it was two Peace Corps volunteers. It was two Peace Corps volunteers whose muscles ached from carrying the heavy 50-pound oil drums on their backs all the way from the wharf. It was one Peace Corps volunteer in particular, who learned that the empty oil drums weren't exactly empty per say.

With still a bit of sleep deficiency, the adrenaline beginning to wear off, and my hands soaked in some foul grease, I had decided that the oil drums needed to be moved off my back and transported with a bit more ease. While it wasn't our intention to disturb the entire village, we weren't exactly thrilled (or physically capable) of having to lug heavy oil drums for miles in our flip flops. After lugging them as far as we could, we finally decided to simply give swift kicks to the drums until we were at the police station. Once we arrived at the police station, we just decided to carry the barrels on our backs once again for the remainder of the trip to the Peace Corps office.

The oil drums will be used as trash cans on the outer island where the married Peace Corps volunteers currently live. It takes over 20 combined man hours of watching for the barrels, two trips by ship, carrying (and kicking) said barrels through a good portion of town, a taxi, and rolling the drums up a large hill before an outer island sees something as simple as a 'trash can'.

Peace Corps, it's definitely not a 9-5 job in Ha'apai. Over the last few days, my definition of 'a lot of sleep' has changed from 12 hours a day to a full 5 hours a day. I'll try to catch some naps while Windows and Linux is being installed onto the new computers.

As a side note, I went over to the business building and low and behold, there was no electricity in the computer room. For the time being, I'm running an extension cable from the far side of the building so I'm able to work on one computer at a time.

I bumped into my counterpart and asked him if he could turn on the electricity in that room. He nodded, but he gave me an incredulous look that said, "Great... first you want computers and now you're already asking for electricity? What am I going to do with you? How can I keep up with these weird demands?!" You Peace Corps volunteers sure are a strange lot...