To start the blog off here is a video of one of my students, Tupou dancing!
I AM IN LOVE WITH 'EUA! It is the most beautiful place I have ever been and I get to live here for TWO YEARS! My heart is happy <3
I am living in the Village Tufuvai. It is very small, but full of beautifully wonderful people! and puakas (pigs).
With the help of Google Maps I created this nice visual for you! The green circle is my whole village, Tufuvai. The blue circle is my school and the yellow arrow points to my house! Last, the purple circle is where you will stay when you come and visit me! And the beach to the left is the most majestic beach I have ever been to.
My school is a government school. There are two teachers, Meleongo and Silia and a principal who also serves as a teacher, Muli. My school has all composite classrooms. Meleongo is the class one/two teacher. Silia is the class three/four teacher. Muli is the class five/six teacher. Some schools in Tonga has kindergarten, but not all schools do, like mine. Kindergarten is more like preschool in the United States. Class one is when students are required to start school and it more similar to US kindergarten. After students complete class six they move to a secondary school. Tufuvai does not have a secondary school so the majority of the students will go to 'Eua High School, which is in the main village, Ohonua, but some students may go to one of the few religious secondary schools. There are only four weeks left of this school year and then students will be on summer break. They will start school again in February.
Silia, Me, Meleongo, Muli
Silia, Me, Meleongo
Class one/two building
Class three/four and five/six building
With two of my students at my welcoming feast! Lineni and Malama
This week was my first week in school and it made me so excited to be a teacher! I did a little bit of teaching too. I work on letter sounds with the class 3/4 students. Something interesting I learned during this was they call the letter Z set. The Tongan school system is set up to start teaching English in class three and by form one which is the grade after class six students are taught in all English. I will be working mostly with Silia and Muli, but since there are only 36 students in my school I am going to do some simple English with the class one and two students too! I also read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to some of the students. They loved it and it was so fun to share an American favorite with my Tongan students!
First day of school outfit in my house!
My house is right next to the school. I am spoiled with my house. Most peace corps volunteers have very small houses, but mine is huge. I have way more space than I know what to do with. I will post some pictures of the inside once I have everything settled and homey! Anyways, here are some photos of the outside!
My backyard
Picture of the whole compound! My house is on the left!
As I have already shared multiple times there is a beautiful beach two minutes from my house. Tomorrow is Sammy's birthday so we are going to eat at the resort in my village for dinner and camp on the beach, followed by a hike on Saturday! So exciting!
Tufuvai Beach
And here is a picture I took of Maka today next to a coconut. She has yet to kill a cockroach, while I on the other hand have killed like 20. I told her she has one month to start earning her keep and then I am sending her back to Tongatapu.
ps. If you want to send anything for my kids they could use marbles, pencils, red pens, a map of the world, stickers, and really anything you want to send!
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