Three strikes and you're out!

In the Peace Corps, you usually get three strikes before you're shipped home. The first strike is for minor offenses and you only receive a verbal warning. The second strike is for more serious offenses; you're written up, and that goes into your file. For the third strike you're taken into serious consideration for removal out of the country. If the offenses are serious enough, you can jump from nothing on your record to a second or third strike (and thus consequently sent home).

Here's how a few of us from Group 71 bypassed our first written warning and almost got kicked out of the Peace Corps before even swearing in. When reading, here's some things to keep in mind for perspective:

1.) In Tonga, we quickly realized how large a role that weather plays in planning events. Last week the weather was raining off and on so we had to cancel our plans to visit the resort island of Pangai'motu. This Sunday we were lucky and the weather was just perfect. When the weather is right, you just go with it.

2.) To understand our thinking, I have to explain the cultural context of Sundays in Tonga. On Sundays, most Tongans go to Church (sometimes as often as 3 times in the day) and all shops (except for bakeries) are closed. It is so significant that it is officially illegal to work on these days; Sundays are designated specifically for spending time with family and relaxing.

3.) One of the Peace Corps policies that was heavily stressed was the importance of lifejackets; the reasoning is that the often fickle weather causes the sea to behave erratically, with sometimes dangerous results. The sea may be perfectly calm one second and within the span of a few minutes, a boat may capsize from the pounding seas. Another Peace Corps group had decided to ignore the policies, and thus consequently received their first (verbal) warning.

With that in mind, we approached the Peace Corps office on a beautiful Sunday morning. Normally our life vests are lying on an open table. The original plan was for us to talk to the on-site security guard, grab our vests, and catch our boat to the small island resort of Pangai'motu. To say the least, things did not go as planned.

When we arrived, the jackets were no where in sight and we searched in frantic desperation, hoping to catch the boat on time. We found them inside a locked storage room and asked the Peace Corps guard for permission to open the room. He nodded in agreement, but did not have a key.

We did not want to disturb the Peace Corps staff on a Sunday so we did what we've always done since arriving in the Kingdom of Tonga; be incredibly resourceful. Thanks to some quick thinking, a plastic credit card, and some deft fingers, we were walking out of the office with our life vests in a matter of minutes. The security guard made no effort to stop us and watched curiously as we 'did our thing'.

After returning from our mini-vacation, we found a Peace Corps vehicle waiting for us. The staff inside were not entirely happy with our actions. Now with perfect hindsight, I agree that what we did was not acceptable behavior! The official terminology is something akin to “breaking and entering into a federal building” and "stealing government property"; that's some hefty charges, especially when you're in a foreign developing country. However, to our credit, at the moment we didn’t see it in this particular light.

Always the optimist, we thought we were considerate in not disturbing anyone on a sacred Sunday, we were resourceful with what we had, we already signed out for the lifejackets (so we weren’t stealing), we didn’t damage anything, and we tried to follow policy by wearing our life jackets.

There was a rumor that we would have all been kicked out if there weren't so many of us (over half of Group 71). It seemed unlikely since it would seriously damage the Peace Corps' reputation if say half the volunteers promised to key government offices and NGOs suddenly disappeared just days before their start date. For a brief moment they tried to single out the person who finally broke in, but we stuck together saying they were arguing over semantics; it was only a matter of time before someone pried open a window or found another way in. In the end, we were all written up and went from a clean slate to one remaining warning before getting kicked out of the Kingdom of Tonga.

I feel awful about the incident and completely understand what we did wrong, but at the same time I'm already chuckling inside at the twisted humor of it all. Our next breach of policies might get us sent back to the States so don't be surprised if I'm back early.

P.S. Totally inappropriate, but someone should really consider investing in better locks...

A sad day in Tonga

The Tongan King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV passed away early this morning. Tonga is currently the only constitutional monarachy still in existence; this means that the king holds a heavy influence in government, yet there's also a level of aristocracy (nobles), elected officials, and people still have basic constitutional rights.

Tupoud IV was the king for the past 42 years and with his passing, politics will heavily shift. The last time a King passed away, businesses were shut down for 6 months (which is also the timeframe that everyone in Tonga needs to wear black clothes). Time to go shopping for a few more black shirts...

Almost a volunteer!

Our homestays are officially over and we're currently on the way back to Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga. We're traveling aboard a really shaky and aerodynamically questionable plane. When I looked into the cockpit, I could almost swear that I saw certain pieces being held together by duct tape.

Before we left, we got our assignments listing where we'll be staying for the next two years. For my assignment I'll be setting up a computer center, teaching computer classes, and doing the IT work for the Ha'apai radio station. I'm the first Information Technology volunteer they're getting (and only) so I'm a bit nervous. I emailed a few friends to get some software and I got quite a few replies. (Thanks everyone!) Another volunteer had additional software which we happily dumped onto our hard drives. (I wish I had brought a larger hard drive!)



I'm really psyched to live with all the other volunteers in the same place for the next week. The guest house we're staying in has hot water for showers. Yesterday was the best shower I've had in months (From this point forward, I don't think I'll ever stop appreciating hot water showers). If all goes well, we'll swear in as official Peace Corps volunteers on September 14, 2006! Until then we gotta practice our war dance, work on a slide show, and pass the Tongan language proficiency test.

Placement Rumors

Cultural day is finally over! It is such a relief. It was one of those days that are great laughs for everyone, except for us trainees. We showed off our Tongan handicrafts, did our skits, and performed Tongan dances with our villages.

The day had started off fairly crappy. I had a high fever the night before, didn't get much sleep, and was really out of it by the morning. I took some medicine and within the hour I was good to go!  I made ufi and showed my host family how to make sweet and sour chicken. They had no teriyaki sauce so I had to change my earlier plans. I also had to do a lot of improvising since they had no oil, stove, oven, or baking powder. The chicken ended up coming out like Chicken McNuggets, but still tasted pretty good.

After our culture day was over, our town had interviews with the Peace Corps placement officer. I had a fairly good hint as to where I’ll be stationed and what I would be doing. The project would be IT stuff at a new radio station (with rumors of possible airtime) and setting up / maintaining a new computer center.

I already have some pretty grand plans for the computer center. Supposedly in a few weeks (Tongan time can be much longer), shipments of some hand-me-down computers will arrive. Setting this up would be easy and I have some plans to teach the Microsoft suite of programs, basic computer setup / maintenance, and maybe even some computer science, depending on how advance the class is.

The difficult and time consuming part isn’t in simply completing the project; it’s about building sustainability by showing and explaining this to a Tongan counterpart. Depending on the types and the quantity of computers we get, I’m hoping to get the community together to play some network games. Can we say LAN Party with 40 computers?! I’ve started asking friends to send copies of old school games (that are not very graphically intensive) like Quake 3 arena, Starcraft, Warcraft 1 / 2, and a few educational programs like Photoshop, a compiler for C#, MySQL server, etc.

One of the biggest personal challenges will be adjusting to the location. I knew that after training, our group would be split up. I just didn’t expect to be located on an island with, at most, one other volunteer from my group. I'm trying to be optimistic; even though I really love this training group, I know there are great people everywhere and no matter where I go, I’ll end up meeting more. I do hope that I can visit the training group once every other month or every third month.

On Monday we’ll find out for sure where we’ll spend the next 2 years of our life. Next Saturday we’ll be back to the capital and I can pick up my guitar (thanks very much to my family). In three weeks, we’ll hopefully all be sworn in and become volunteers. It’s an exciting time. As much as I love training, I can’t wait until training is over so I can set my own schedule again. Now if only we didn’t have to pay the lofty prices for Internet here, everything would just be perfect.

What to do with computers on an island?

Lately I’ve been thinking about one of the challenges with computer centers in Tonga. Here’s my understanding of what usually happens; a Peace Corps volunteer comes into a village and sets up a computer center, the volunteer teaches them the Microsoft suite along with basic computer upkeep, then the volunteer’s two years are up and the computer center falls into decline. Nothing is maintained, electricity bills are not paid, and the center eventually shut downs.

The problem appears to be the motivation in up-keeping a computer center. Keeping a lot of computers running is often a painful task, even for the most hardcore computer admins.  If I were in the villager’s shoes/flip flops and the only thing I had to look forward to with computers were Excel spreadsheets and Word documents, I’d be bored out of my mind.


Here’s my theory on how previous volunteers have introduced computers. They come in with the mindset that they can make the people in their village successful by giving them great skills to put on their resumes. At first, the community takes notice of the volunteer’s work because it’s new. When the novelty wears off, no lasting impression is made. How many people remember any presentation on word / access/ excel?  How is it relevant to their lives when they're on a 5 mile island?


When volunteers introduce marketable skills, only the most committed people (those that are probably trying to get off the island) will fully explore the program. For the average Tongan in Ha'apai, why would you need a computer when there's only a handful of them on the whole island?  There’s very little bait, just simply a lot of mean looking hooks. In my humble opinion, trying to sell the importance of being able to create formulas in Excel to people on a small island smells like a recipe for disaster.  I'd like to try something slightly different; it may work or it may end up being worse, who knows?


Let me start off by asking how many computer gamers are in the Peace Corps? I don’t know statistically, but I’m sure there are very few just because of the conflicting environments. The people applying for the Peace Corps are ready to tough it out without electricity and live in a lean-in for their twenty-seven months whereas gamers are hard pressed to leave their computers and electricity. Peace Corps would be pretty far from the normal gamer’s thoughts.

So here’s one of the relatively few gamers in the Peace Corps (don’t ask how I got here). With that said, why not implement computer games to get the people’s interest? What better way to start off teaching typing than through Mavis Beacon’s car race?


My parents used to make me type at least half an hour on the program 'Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing' before I was allowed to go swimming in our pool or play video games.  I thought it was fruitless at the time, but by the time I was in 3rd grade, I had logged enough hours on my 486 computer that I could easily type 40 words per minute.  By 8th grade, I was typing at a rate of 80 words per minute with a near perfect accuracy rating.  By combining the tedious with the rewards, it kept a fair balance between work and enjoyment.

As people's interest in gaming increases, people could even pay money to enter events like a gaming tournament where the winner receives a portion of the entrance fees and another portion could be used to pay for the upkeep of the computers. The list of ideas goes on and on and I have to say that I’m very psyched. Hell, even if the ideas fall through, I’ll still have a blast playing LAN games with fellow volunteers and the community here.

Computer Specs!

I’m beginning to get some really neat ideas about what I would do with the volunteer position at the radio station and computer center. Well, the radio station has a pretty vague job description right now (although I can see it as a great way of advertising Peace Corps events), but the computer center seems to be a bit of free reign.

Yesterday I went to check out some of the computers at the Peace Corps office and quite frankly, they’re not too shabby. The computers that they were considering giving/ auctioning away were Pentium II 200 MHz, 128 MB of ram, and 2 gigabyte hard drives. While this isn't on the same level that most people are accustomed to in the States, it met my expectations for a developing country.

I heard from the more experienced volunteers that the new computers coming in would be a step ahead (though I don’t know how much of a step) of the current ones sitting in the PC office. I’m hoping they’re at least 400 MHz.

I want to see the reactions of the people who’ve never even seen the 8 bit graphics of a Nintendo when they start playing a Quake III Arena game against a roomful of their peers.

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!