Glutton for Punishment

Food poisoning, boils, a weird big-toe issue... and before I came to 'Eua, I had a bad case of fakalele, an ear infection, and other random weird illnesses/injuries.
Now, after one gluttonous day of swimming Palangi style (which means in a real swimsuit, not covered up with a tshirt and shorts), I am a piece of white-bread toast. My one piece I got from Kohl's for $8 is totally awesome; however, the parts I revealed (gasp!) hadn't seen sun in probably close to a year now... mayonnaise- colored thighs and back... now the mayonnaise has been doused in red pepper.
I slept last night with my fan on as high as possible (although the stupid mosquito net blocks some of it), and I had to sleep on my stomach... I HATE sleeping on my stomach. My back is too sensitive-sore, and the sides of my back, by my armpit, are so tender they feel bruised.
I feel like a roasted puaka.
I layered sunscreen on 3 different times, in the morning before my 1-hr-40-min bikeride to the beach, which is on the farthest part of the island, once when we got to the beach, and then once when we came back in from playing stupidly on the blowholes, which were AWESOME! (I got cool pics...I'll post them soon.)
Anyway, the day was worth it--especially since we ate breakfast for dinner afterward and had wonderful "Christmas Blend" coffee. But now, I'm suffering the pains of a severe sunburn. As of now, I feel no blisters, so I should be okay. But for someone who hasn't been to a beach for this type of sunbathing in probably 2-3 years, my poor mayonnaise thighs were shocked. It even got burned on the sides of my thighs, my "haunches", I call them, where I lay on my side to sleep... ohhhh, faka 'ofa. How sad.
BUT... I do have lotion with Aloe, though not real aloe itself. I may have to take a lot of bucket baths since it's now hotter than it's been in a while--especially after the cyclone weather that brought cool breezes and colder rain.
ANyway, teaching starts tomorrow! I think the first couple of days will be nothing... mostly cleaning out the rooms and organizing things. I will teach Class 4 every day, but I have Class 3 only 3 days a week. HOpefully my night class for HS students will begin soon, and I think my PTA meeting is tomorrow with the town officer and treasurer... then I will know what they want me to work on as far as community projects!
Okay, my red-pepper-paprika-mayonnaise-covered self (I do look like a candy cane, by the way) is heading back to mi casa to make some food.

Electricity is Back! Woohoo!

My water smells and tastes like vegetables because my electricity has been out three days due to the Gale Force winds we encountered because of Tropical Storm Wilma. Luckily, we weren't touched by the cyclone-- just a lot of wind and rain. My fridge smells like rotten produce, but due to an amazing package from my aunt and uncle--full of wonderful things like spices!--I made pasta with a delicious sauce of tomatoes, cheese, black pepper, sea salt, and chopped veggies. Yummmmm. The packages from Laura/Tim and Lauren/Chase (and a fun Christmas card from my cousin Kathy) totally made my day--candy, cookies, spices, a book, school supplies, water bottle, ball shorts...it was wonderful.
Since it gets dark at 8, I spent the rest of daylight (after church) cooking and washing dishes. Luckily, my PC friend let me borrow her flashlight, so I read til nearly midnight, finishing Memoirs of a Geisha (what a great book and movie!). I couldn't sleep well because my big toe is infected somehow and is extremely sore. Pus has now surfaced from the swollen red knot in the corner cuticle, but things are getting better since I've drained it a little, cleaned it, and covered it with a GOOD bandaid I received in my package from Elizabeth! (What a good nurse she is... she even included Tums! She knows me too well.)Unfortunately, I didn't get a ride back from town to my village after the teacher workshop, so my foot was really sore. Boo-hiss. I feel silly that one infected toe makes me feel all complainy, I mean I had food poisoning for goodness sakes! At first I thought it may be an ingrown toenail, but...no. I don't think those ooze.
On a non-grody note, I know what I am teaching now! School starts Monday (you may do a happy dance along with me, if you wish), and I will teach Classes 3 and 4 (Grades 2 and 3, essentially), and will eventually start teaching a night class for high school students.
As far as secondary projects, I want to start a Creative Writing group here-- there's a program I heard about on the main island that publishes good Tongan works by students, so hopefully that can happen!
I will also be working with Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) all this year until the camp starts in September, and I will be a Camp Counselor leader type person, and I'm totally excited about it! Gender issues are...well, an issue here, as in many PC countries (well, pretty much all over the world), and we want to equip females here with the confidence and ability to function and be educated in many things-- health, youth awareness, and of course...fun. I am pretty stoked about it!

Some have asked if I need anything for future packages:
First of all, thank you to everyone who has sent me packages! It absolutely makes my whole week when I have packages in my possession. It is seriously Christmas every time I even open a card or a letter--so even if you don't send an overly expensive package (stupid shipping), please--a card or letter is much appreciated! I love it all!

Here are some school supplies that would really help me:
-Post-it notes
-Note cards
-Markers
-Crayons
-Colored Pencils
-Colored Chalk
-Construction paper
-Maps! (US, World, Pacific??)
-Pens
-Scissors (the small kind for kids)
-Glue/sticks
-Composition Notebooks. I want to use these for my Creative Writing class. In the US, when school starts, people flock to the many aisles dedicated to school supplies in Wal Mart, Target, etc and raid them like it's an Easter Egg hunt. It amazes me now to think of the one aisle JUST dedicated to notebooks. Composition notebooks, 50 cent notebooks, Mead NBs that cost like a million dollars, calendar notebook planners, Steno pads, binders... Here, the notebooks are small, simple. The quality is equivalent to the really cheap flimsy notebooks you can get at a DG store or Wal Mart, but the paper is... well, from all the moisture and humidity, paper here never feels dry. It's crazy. Many kids usually just carry one notebook to school, so I would love for my Creative Writing kids to have a Comp. notebook for their own imaginative writing...I may keep them in my possession between weeks (because someone could easily take them if the kids keep them...in Tonga, my pencil is your pencil. My frying pan is your frying pan. My bra could just as easily be your bra.)

Anyway, those are the main supplies I"d love to have--thank you to everyone for your support! Also, if you have any children's books or see them on clearance or anything... books are also scarce here.

Taimi malolo (time to rest.)If you've ever seen Blazing Saddles (a movie that will make me laugh from start to finish no matter how many times I watch it,) I want you to imagine me as whats-her-face, the performer with the funny bunny "wabbit" voice who can't say her R's. She's on stage and starts singing, "I'mmmmm sooooo tiii'uwd, ti'uwd of being ad-mi-uwd..."
Consider that my exit performance. I'm beat! Only to hike back to town tomorrow. 'Oiaue.

The Pickle Tickle Handshake Kava Circle

One of my new pastimes is to give everything a nickname. To my new friends here, I reference my "awesome liberal aunt", my "liberal Christian best friend", my "conservative Christian friend," my "Nurse best friend," my "Philosophy friend," etc. It's funny how when you go somewhere new and talk about your old life, you label everything.
Well, for your references and my entertainment, I've labeled another part of life here. The first Kava Circle I went to was the Baby Pig Foot Kava Circle. The next night, I went to a younger kava circle, which will now be known as The Pickle Tickle Handshake Kava Circle.
The PTHKC was where I met my new BFF Fedora Hat Boy, and this circle was more colorful, a little more perverted with the younger boys and such. When a kava circle has a female tou'a, the man who sits to the left (or young man, in my case) is supposed to talk to the tou'a to keep her from becoming bored. It's a lot of sitting and it makes my bum hurt. Anyway, the guy to the left is usually flirty if he's single, and this guy definitely was. He spoke no English, but he spoke very quickly and mumbled while the band played, so I could only hear bits and pieces of jumbled Tongan... of course, it sounds like that to me anyway, but he kept asking about my moa. Moa, in Tongan, means chicken or boyfriend/girlfriend. My first technique was to tell him that yes, I love moas. Moa fakapaku (fried chicken.) He kind of laughed a little, but then he persisted more. "Oku ke i ai a e moa faka-Tonga?" (Do you have a Tongan bf?) Oh yes, I said, "Oku i ai moa e nima noa! (I have fifty moas). He looked at me in amazement. I stared at him, thinking, Seriously dude? You can't even get a joke? (Tongans LOVE joking. And lying for entertainment purposes, such as story telling.)
I told him I was joking, rolled my eyes, and started talking to fedora hat boy/new BFF. At the end of the night, around 11pm, I finally left, and some of the men shook my hand saying, "Malo, Seini" (Thank you, Jamie), Malo tou'a. One young man shook my hand and THEN, in a junior-high spurt of immaturity, he took his middle finger and wagged it against my palm.
I stared at him, astounded, as I jerked my hand away and walked out of the door. Ick! Ugh, gross! My 12 year old self came out, wiping my corrupted palm against my skirt, my legs limping in soreness from sitting for 2 hours without moving (basically). Of course, not all men or kava circles are like this. In some cases, this was really bad, and in some cases,this was really mild. It probably sounds terrible to you... please know that I think it's pretty funny. I have told people about the Pickle Tickle Handshake guy just so that people will know what happened-- many of them laughed, some scoffed at the impurity of it all. Haha.
Oh, and I got the "Pickle Tickle" handshake reference from A League of Their Own. Do you remember the part when the crass scout (probably my fav. character) sends the 3 girls on their way and says, "Oh, I'll go home, grab a shower and a shave, give the wife a little pickle tickle and them I"ll be on my way."
Thus, the Pickle Tickle Handshake Kava Circle. (PTHKC)

Tongan Time, Daytime Dreamin', Good Churchin'

1. School has been delayed another week. I finally met my principal on Thursday and she told me to meet other Primary teachers at the town's GPS. It's not super far, but with the hills, plus I"m the northernmost village, it's a bit of a haul. So I rode my bike to the nearest PCV and we walked the rest of the way. We wear sweaty, I had mud on the bottom back-half of my skirt from the muddy bike ride (after all, it pretty much rains everyday here. No joke). So we get there at 8:30, as instructed, and we sit for 2 hours as the teachers talk and listen to the radio. The radio seems to be giving instructions or mere updates on the education system. Then at 10 the program stops. We sing, we pray (and prayers are very long here. 15 minutes is modest), a guy gives a speech (another very Tongan custom...speeches are always given at public functions and feasts), they clap for we new PC folks, and then we all break to go to the workshop. Woohoo, action! Finally. It's 10:15. Then my principal says, "Are you going to the workshop?" Well, yes. Of course.
"No, you go back home."
What? Don't I need to go to the workshop?
"Oh, no. You come Tuesday for workshop. Same time."
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Tonga.

2. I have to admit, I am getting restless. I wanna start already! I'm nervous as it is--I've never taught little kids before. PLUS, I don't even know what I'm teaching! However, my town officer/adopted Tongan father tells me that he and other TO's have been talking about getting together high school students for a night class. It would be an extra load with extra planning, but I really want to do it. It would be in my village, so I wouldn't have to travel. So I've agreed to it. I'm pretty excited-- now I can teach poetry! YAY! Also, I'm getting excited about getting involved with other projects-- Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a program that each island group is in charge of once a year, and I'm so excited to help with it! It's in September I think, and it's a part of GAD (Gender and Development), which is my primary interest as far as secondary projects. Of course, I'll do some projects directly associated with my community (probably more like writing grants, etc.), but I am very excited to work with other PCVs and share ideas! I'm itching for newness. I am also already planning (in my head--a very rough sketch) of the traveling I wanna do when my service ends. Do I wanna visit India and Nepal and go through Europe (to Belgium, of course, to revisit the loves of my life), and then to USA? Or do I want to do some American traveling and meet up with friends in diff. states there? Oh, the choices! I have 2 years to ponder!

3. Church. Spirituality. Hard things to maintain here just for different reasons. However, on Wednesday I went to church and suddenly was blessed by the rich voice of my ATF (adopted Tongan father). I teared up and just closed my eyes and listen to the colors of different harmonies--a talent these Tongans pick up from birth. No joke. In prayers, I absorbed everything I could and just kept thanking God and let him get into my system, you know? I ignored the preaching--after all, I don't understand it, plus it was the yelling kind. I understand the passion and character involved in preaching, but I must say, the yelling kind does not attract me anymore. It's too much for me and I cannot mentally (or spiritually) handle it. Once I snapped out of my spiritual trance, the preaching started bothering me, and I started getting sad... just of how sometimes God and spirituality can be so misconstrued. I felt really down and I looked at scripture and saw how things used to happen in the Old Testament--terrible, terrible things--but suddenly God just said, "I love you Jamie." It was beautiful. I thought some more, prayed a little more, and he said, "Jesus made things new."

New things are good. Especially from Jesus. He was/is pretty fantastic. Then Thursday, I went to Jehovah Witness church (I know, right?!) and of course I didn't understand that either, but it was happy. People listened, not slept. It was totally great to be in a Palangi building with fans (!!) and there was a Palangi from New Zealand there who has lived in Tonga with her husband (a Mauri) for 15 years. We had great conversations.

Yay Jesus!

The Truths of the Concrete-Vomit Dream

I've never been a vomiter. If I'm sick, it's a sinus infection or, on rare occasions, the flu (when I refuse to go to the doctor...which happens), but never to I throw up. The last time I had a stomach virus, I was 5 and I caught it from my mom who, despite her efforts to talk me away from her bed, couldn't push me away fast enough from giving her a hug. I mean I only wanted her to feel better, but the next day, I was regretting that hug as I hurled over the toilet, begging for an "inventory" rather than a suppository. My parents got a laugh out of that one.
Anyway, for years now, I've had this strange dream where I'm throwing up, but it feels like I'm throwing up concrete, and I"m nearly choking on it because it's so thick. During my dream, I'm thinking of all the times I've seen my drunken friends throwing up on curb sides or over dorm toilets or, the most fun of my experiences, over a trash bag (not can) that I am holding up. Their vom was nice and luquidy-- easy for throwing up. Of course, they were heavily saturated, so that makes sense.
Sunday night, I found myself on the toilet throwing up into my laundry bucket (lined with a Kohl's bag I'm glad I brought), living this concrete-vomit dream. For lunch, I had eaten at a feast to celebrate the starting of school and the leaving of my village's students who would go to schools on the main island and here. Compared to other feasts I've visited, I didn't eat as much as I normally do. I did try one or two new dishes (one called faikekai...which I will never touch again), and I noticed that some of the meat tasted old...those of which I took two bites and stopped eating.
I felt okay for a couple of hours and noticed my stomach kept feeling heavier and heavier, as if a growing boulder lived in there. Like a friggin tumor. I wrote a letter to a friend, telling him how I'd just taken a shower in the rain (with a tank and shorts) for a measure of cleansing, because I'd felt enthralled by Eat, Pray, Love, and just hours later, doubled over my front porch, my back porch, and my toilet, I'm thinking,
"Yeah, now I'm f***ing cleansed."
A sick joke. Get it? A "sick" joke. Haha. Yeah, really not that funny.
And you know how mental conditioning works?
For example: if you're a kid with terrible allergies and you hate needles but you have to get allergy shots every week, and you get shots in the same mustard-yellow room your whole life, you become very hateful toward that mustard-yellow color.
Every time I went to my toilet, the vomit came without effort (except for that concrete chunkiness I nearly choked on), and every time I turned to my left side on my bed (the position I took when I couldn't move anymore to the bathroom and needed to vom into my pretty little pink bucket), I felt nauseous...even after the sickness passed.
All is well now, though. My last sickness was at about 3am Monday morning, and I spent all yesterday in my bed, internally moaning (and maybe it was audible, too) over the awful headache, neck ache, and backache that would NOT leave me the hell alone. I slowly sauntered into my village for one purpose: Sprite. And phone cards. I needed my mom's voice. So I returned to my house, slept on and off, avoided all door-knocks of kids who needed my attention, and finally texted some of the girls in my village to tell them what was going on. In the afternoon, I made myself eat 2 crackers and take some Tylenol. I miraculously slept WELL, woke up to my mom saying "Jame, how ya feelin hunny?" and everything just felt better.
I even felt so good this morning, I cleaned my bathroom, my pretty pink bucket, and, gasp, my toilet. After, of course, I had enough in my belly (tea and a couple of crackers with peanut butter) to hold off any mentally-associated nausea. Luckily, the cleaner smelled much stronger than the puke. Thank God.

The Baby Pig Foot Kava Circle

If you haven't Google'd kava yet, please do. Like right now. At best, I can tell you it's a "tea ceremony" in which men gather every night here in Tonga to drink kava (not alcohol...it's basically a tree (root?) that they pound into powder and mix with water...the sensation is one of lethargy and it makes your mouth go numb after a while.) As far as I know, there are two kava circles in my village, both of which I have been the tou'a, or server.
The first night, this past Sunday, I was in a kava circle with predominantly older men, which is usually better as far as they don't say as many dirty things, but there was no singing or playing of the uke/guitar, so it was a bit boring. I would sit, answer questions (my Town Officer/adopted father told them to only 'lea faka-Tonga' to me, or speak only Tongan), and try to listen to conversation. Suddenly a man, probably in his 30s, emerged carrying a baby (it took me by surprise), but even more surprising was the object in the baby's hands/mouth. A pig's foot. Not just the hoof, but basically the leg from the "elbow" down. And this baby was probably between 6-8 months old. My niece Kendall just turned 9 months. I can't imagine her chewing on a pig's foot. I couldn't stop staring at the baby. The dad probably thought I was baby-obsessed, thinking that my biological clock may be ticking, since they next suggested that I marry the guy sitting to my right. But I couldn't stop staring at the pork chunks on the baby's white shirt and chunky chin.
So for future reference, if I ever tou'a for this circle again, this will be the Baby Pig Foot Kava Circle.
The next night, I was a tou'a yet again, but for the other circle. This was the younger, more colorful group, which was great for entertainment because they sang and played instruments. But the guy to my left (who is supposed to be the designated conversationalist to keep the tou'a from getting bored...and is usually flirtatious and suggestive), was crazy annoying. He kept asking me about my "moa", or boyfriend. I told him I had 50. He looked at me in wide amazement, and I said, "Seriously? Fakakata pe." (Just joking.) He kept asking if I wanted a Tongan moa. 'Ikai, I said. (No), Ngaue pe. (Just working.) He didn't speak a lick of English and the music was so loud and he spoke so low that I couldn't understand a damn word he said, either. It was quite frustrating that I couldn't actually move. He sat so close that our knees touched, and I tried as delicately as possible to scoot over, but to no avail. Tongan boys can be quite persistent. Luckily, to my right sat a younger boy I've befriended, who laughed at my eye rolls and "'Oiaue!"'s. ANd next to him sat who I hope will be my new best friend here. This guy wore a black fedora and a vintage band t-shirt with his tupenu, and he spoke in a feminine-ish voice that made me feel comfortable enough to give him a huge hug when he actually asked about my life rather than my moa.
He also was the lead soprano today in singing practice.
We should be friends.