Juleighs cyclone post

Last week we were hit by a huge cyclone here in Ha'apai. After a week of cleaning I've finally got my house back together. I've read a few of my friends blog accounts of the storm and think Juleigh has a great play by play account of what happened during the storm so I've included it below. I hope you enjoy and if you want more of her blog you can find it here: http://juleigh.wordpress.com/

More blogs written by me coming soon.

During training, Peace Corps does a good job at preparing us for the worst possible situations we may face as volunteers. One of the things we go over again and again is the “Emergency Action Plan” (EAP). The four stages of the EAP are stand fast (stay at your site, no traveling), consolidate (bring everyone in your island group to the consolidation point), evacuate (leave your island) and all clear (you are free to go home). While we all studied and understood what each of these stages meant, we were told that consolidation rarely happens (hasn’t happened here since 2006). When we heard that a cyclone was on its way, not in my wildest dreams did I expect what later ensued.

SATURDAY, 2/13
3:00pm Call comes from Todd (our emergency coordinator); all Ha’apai PCV’s are to report to our consolidation point.
At this point, none of us on Ha’apai had ever had to consolidate before. We were told by the Safety and Security Coordinator at the Peace Corps office that the cyclone was a category 3, headed straight for Tonga and that it would be hitting very early morning on Sunday. It was a bright and sunny Saturday, you wouldn’t know by looking at the sky that a cyclone was coming.
5:00pm All 10 volunteers are accounted for at Todd’s.

I had grabbed enough clothes for 3 days, my computer and hard drive (knowing there would be lots of time for movies), Into Thin Air, bible, journal, toiletries, some snacks from my latest package, some candles and my lantern, 3 bottles of water and I loaded my phone up with credit. Everyone’s spirits were high; Blair and Sarah had made it in from the outer islands. I had put all of my things into a cab with the other’s stuff and walked over to Todd’s while talking to Caitlin. I also had a skype date scheduled with Mary and her kids. I was actually more worried about missing that date than getting ready for the cyclone! (I did get to have that skype date with the internet at Todd’s!) The internet was working for a few hours; we lost it at around8:30pm.
We ate dinner and went to bed. All of this time, we were receiving phone calls from our office in Nuku’alofa with updates. The storm was very slow moving. We had expected it early Sunday morning. We had sleeping bags, mats and air mattresses strewn about the house. Sleeping was just fine on Saturday night.

SUNDAY, 2/14

10:00am Storm proofing and reorganizing begins.
We are all waiting patiently for the storm. Having never been in a cyclone, none of us knew exactly what to expect. We had heard that it was a category 3-4 storm, with winds from 150-200 MPH. Our cell service was still working so I was keeping up with the volunteers in Vava’u. The storm would hit them first, coming from the North East. It was actually still sunny at this point in both Vava’u and Ha’apai, this made it hard to brace for the worst. It would drizzle off and on, but for the most part, it was clear.
2:00pm Lunch time
It wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t tell you about the food! Alyssa made us cilantro burgers with homemade buns and french fries! Ifo! Still no cyclone. PC is calling, telling us it will now be here at 6pm.
4:00pm Taping windows and tarp goes up
We decide that since there are so many window panes (opportunities for water to come in), we will use the cardboard from some boxes to seal the windows. We get a call saying that this is a strong category 4 storm. We also put the tarp up over the main windows in Todd’s living room. We put it inside thinking that if it’s outside, it will be ripped off. It takes us some time to figure it out, but it gets up. Windows all over the house are layered with cardboard and shut. Koichi joins us (JICA volunteer).
5:00pm Dr. Who, West Wing and Law & Order SVU viewings (no cyclone)
6:00pm No Cyclone
9:00pm Dinner (eggplant parm) & no cyclone
10:00pm Electricity goes out (so does running water)
11:30pm “Twister” viewing (very apropos) and……No Cyclone!
1:00am All are in bed.
It was not easy to sleep. We had been told by PC that it would come early morning on Monday at this point. They continued to call us throughout the night. The wind had picked up and the bushes were hitting the side of the house in the room I was in. The wind whipped across the house and it was so hot because all of our windows were closed, it was a rough night.
4:00am PC calls, Cyclone Rene has hit neighboring island Vava’u

Todd takes the call from Peace Corps; we now know the cyclone is close. We stay in bed until around 6am and then put the finishing touches on the house. (Oatmeal and hazelnut coffee for breakfast…I even drank it black!)
6:00am Koichi wakes up soaking wet
It has begun.
9:00am All mats/bag/belongings cleared out of living room
The rain is now coming into the house because of the windows and high winds. We decided to move all of our things into Todd’s bedroom to keep everything dry (“dry” nothing is ever completely dry in Tonga).
10:00am Tarp needs to be fixed
The tarp is brining too much water into the house and it’s filling the front room up. John does a good job trying to rig it so that we can funnel the water into buckets. It works for a little while but the water is coming in too fast. We have buckets, mops, dust pans and brooms to get the water out. We open the front door and are now trying to get the water out as fast as we can. Grant is against the bedroom wall protecting that seal (so that we don’t get water in that room). Everyone is pitching in, just trying to get the water out.
10:10am Table placed in front of the door
We notice that the front door is not going to stay closed. We put the table in front of it in case it blows open. At this point we are on the floor in the living room trying to get as much water up as possible.
10:30am Cardboard in the bedroom
We are afraid that our “dry room” is going to be compromised. We set up tarps and add cardboard and duct tape to the windows.
10:50am Bottom of front door rips off
This is now pretty serious, the guys to a great job taking the door off, getting the kitchen door and putting that on the front door. Note: at this critical juncture, Villiami walks over from down the street (I work with him at the govs office) just to see what we are doing. We are smiling, but the winds are VERY strong. He chatted for a while as the guys were putting the door up. We just thought it was funny that he wasn’t at HIS house doing the same things we were.
11:00am New tarp strategy and give up on the kitchen
Too much water is coming into the house. We decide to take the tarp outside. People are on top of other people’s shoulders to get the tarp nailed above the windows. I couldn’t take a picture of this because the winds were so strong and the water was still flowing into the house. Also, the living room was filling so quickly that we decided to give up on the kitchen and let the water come in.
11:15am Rain stops, eye of the storm?
While putting our second tarp outside, the rain stops and the winds die down. We are unsure if this is the eye of the storm or just a break. We have been told that it’s only a break. We are all so tired from bailing water, we all need a rest. We take a few minutes then try to get the remaining water out of the living room. We go back into the kitchen and bail all of the water from there, sweep the hall ways and secure the tarps and add mats to the outside side windows.
12:00pm Is this the end?
Cell phone service is back up. I text the volunteers in Vava’u, they say it should be over. PC calls and says that’s only round one, round two is on its way.
1:00pm Round 2?
Winds pick up but rain stays away. We are exhausted and soaking wet. Water bubbles start to form on the ceiling.
3:00pm Cyclone is over
The wind is still strong, we don’t have electricity or running water, but the cyclone seems to have passed us.
The rest of the night, we continue to mop and clean. The house is musty but most of the water is out. We eat dinner and retire to separate rooms to relax and debrief the day. Peace Corps says to hang in there through one more night. We are ready to be done with this thing. One more night together.
TUESDAY 2/16
6am Todd gets the “All Clear” call
We are released to go home. But, the house is still in shambles. We take everything outside, sweep, mop and scrub almost every inch of the house. We get home around 1. Remember that each of us has our own homes to clean now.
The nuns were so kind to put boards on my windows and towels on my floors. I had very little water come into my rooms, no damage done. I still don’t have electricity or running water, probably won’t have it until Thursday. Our office was also a disaster. We spent the rest of the afternoon pulling carpet out of there. It’s been a very long few days. I will say though, I was impressed by almost every single person in our group of 10. We all pitched in and got it done. In the end, I think we had a successful first cyclone experience. But I am glad it’s over and I am glad to be sleeping in my own bed.

Cyclone Rene

I'm too exhausted to write much but I just want to update everyone quickly. On Saturday we were warned of a looming cyclone headed directly for the islands of Tonga. All of the volunteers in Ha'apai were told to consolidate to my house since it is at the highest elevation and is the strongest structure of any of the volunteer houses. Nine volunteers quickly came over with a ton of supplies to weather the storm, which ended up being a category 4 cyclone out of 5, 5 causing catastrophic damage. The storm lined up and hit us with its full force of 143 mile per hour winds and kept all ten of us confined to my house for 63 hours without running water or electricity. My house stood up well to the storm other than my front door which was ripped off and sent across my yard. Since the storm we have started a short recovery process and have gone around to each others houses and our office to begin cleaning up. The damage to our houses and around town is minimal. Only a few power lines and trees are down and several poor quality houses fell down. At this point it sounds like nobody was seriously injured. Over the course of 63 hours a ton happened and I have some great stories, pictures and a movie to show in the next few days. More info in about 3 days, the amount I will probably sleep after I publish this blog.

New Pictures!!

It was finally cool enough to take a bunch of pictures around town so I snapped a bunch of pics and wrote a lot of captions to give a little tour of Pangai. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Todd828/FirstDayOfSchoolAndSomeShotsAroundPangai?pli=1#

Learning how to teach

I just finished my third week of teaching and I cannot describe how relieved I am to be done. Teaching is tough! Before the semester begun, I discussed with my counterpart, Tok’a how I would like to begin teaching. We noted that I had no teaching experience and had never observed a Tongan classroom. We decided that it would be best for me to observe classes for the first three to four weeks and then begin co-teaching with another teacher in the classroom once I felt comfortable. I would continue teaching more and more and eventually I would be given my own classes.

The Peace Corps has a specific approach to development and does not want volunteers teaching alone. This ensures that volunteers are not taking away a local jobs and it allows volunteers to learn from local teachers and vise-versa. The reality here in Tonga is that there is simply not enough money to fund the schools. Schools have almost no money for maintenance or supplies and almost all of the funds go to paying teacher salaries. The schools can only afford so many teachers and most schools are left needing more teachers than they have. My school requested four additional teachers to help cover all of the classes but they know that their requests fall on deaf ears and the education budget simply makes it in impossible. Most of the teachers here teach five out of six periods a day and some even teach all six several days a week. It is a demanding schedule and as a volunteer hoping to start projects outside of the classroom, it was a schedule I was not interested in joining.

The first day of school came and went three weeks ago and I was given four classes to teach, all different and all requiring a new lesson plan everyday, not exactly what I talked about with my counterpart. The next few days were daunting for me, especially during the first week since the daily schedules were only posted minutes before the school day started. Not only was I teaching for the first time ever but I had no idea which classes I would be teaching each day or how long the periods would be. Some days my classes were twenty minutes and others were fifty. I asked the teachers what was going on with the schedule but I could never get a straight answer. Sometimes they would tell me they did not know the schedule and other times they told me that we would have twenty-minute periods and we would end up having fifty-minute classes. I suspect that there was not a schedule at all. After the first few days of that, I decided to make rolling lesson plans and planned large sections of material so I would never run out.

Some of my classes went well and in others, I fell flat on my face and my lessons bombed. Prior to figuring it out in the classroom, I had no idea what level my students were at. I tried to give them initial assessments but even those were tough as well. It is tough to get Tongan students to talk and when they do talk many of them talk softly and I cannot quite understand their English accents yet and sometimes they just cannot understand what I am asking for. My first few classes were all over the place, some were too hard, and others were too simple. I changed things around and after a few tries I actually had a bunch of good lessons.

As soon as I saw my schedule with many more classes than I had initially discussed I went to my counterpart Tok’a and had a discussion with him. He told me not to worry and that the schedule had to be worked out and eventually I would have fewer classes to teach and more time to observe. I worked through three weeks with four lessons and stayed up late every night trying to figure out how I could explain my lessons to the students. It is difficult to compare and contrast a free market economy to a planned economy to students who live on an island with little economy at all to speak of.

I kept talking to Tok’a and other teachers about my schedule and asked when I could get one of my classes taken away. They kept says yes, yes, yes, we’ll take one away, but nothing ever happened. After almost three weeks of teaching four classes, I decided that something actually had to happen. I need more time at night to study Tongan and to spend meeting and talking with the other teachers and my community. It is often the Tongan way to wait for tomorrow to fix something and when tomorrow comes you make a deal to do it the next day and so on. Enough was enough so I laid out all the reasons why I needed to drop one class and made it clear that I was not a replacement teacher, my deputy principle listened and actually took away a class. It was magic. I went in this morning and I only had to teach two classes which gave me time to observe two other classes. It was exactly what I needed. I learned a ton from simply observing two classes today.

During our first assembly on the first day of school the principal implements a new rule that all classes and all conversation on the school compound would have to now be completely in English. It is a great goal since the school I am at aims to be college preparatory and the regional exam to get into university and all university classes in the region are in English. The only problem is that the kids do not have a good enough working knowledge of English to do it. At first, I did not realize that. I have been teaching all of my classes in English and have only talked to the kids in English. As a native English speaker, I figured that I would be a great example for them to listen to. After observing two classes, today I quickly realized my mistake and learned that I will have to teach bilingually. Getting that one class dropped gave me enough extra time to observe other classes and realize some things I need to change and even better, I can now act on what I need to change and begin studying more Tongan so I can teach bilingually more effectively. So, that is a short wrap up of my teaching experience so far. More next week.

The ups and downs of Peace Corps service

During training we were told that we would experience a never-ending circle of emotions during our service. We were told that one day we would feel absolutely in love with the culture of our country, the posh beach side location of our house, our fulfilling jobs, the wonderful students we get to work with daily, yada yada yada. On other days we might feel nonchalant about our positions and just go through the motions of our jobs, feeling comfortable where we were and just going through another day at the office. And other days we would be thinking, “WHY THE HELL AM I IN THIS CRAZY COUNTRY???????? PLEASE GET ME ON THE NEXT PLANE BACK TO CORNER CAFÉ’S, CHINESE FOOD AND WARM SHOWERS.” Well today was just one of those days where I felt all three of those emotions.

I woke up this morning excited and confident about my lesson plans and ready to breeze through the planned twenty-minute classes scheduled for the day. My goal was to get to know my students a little bit better, learn a few new names and get a general idea of their skill level. So I did that for the first twenty minutes of my first period economics class but when twenty minutes was up the class did not end. I stalled for five minutes and made the kids write a little about what they knew about economics and told them they would have to turn it in. After the finished the assignment the bell still had not rung. I thought to myself, “What’s going on here? I know this class has already gone well past the allotted time.” But there was nothing I could do. I had twenty-five kids looking at me wondering what to do. So I had them share their answers and when the bell had not rung still I cracked open the text book and just expanded my lesson plan on the spot. The class ended up running for forty minutes, almost a full class. When the bell finally rang I went up to another teacher and asked them what was going on. They let me know that we were actually doing full forty-minute periods all day! I quickly scrambled to think of new ideas to expand my lessons for the next three classes I had. I quickly thought to myself, “you know as a volunteer you can just leave service anytime with a simple call to Tongatapu and then you’ll be on an airplane in less that seventy-two hours and headed back to the land of plenty with all you can eat sushi buffets and schedules that actually run on time.”

Luckily those thoughts quickly fled my mind. I ran back to my house and picked up some more resources and figured out what I could do for each of my classes. I expanded some sections of my lesson plan and brought out my Dr. Seuss book and read the story of the Lorax to my next class and introduced environmentalism. The rest of the day went by rather smoothly and I ended the day content with new confidence in myself to figure out what to do when things do not go as planned. The rest of the day was actually kind of fun.

After school I went over to a fellow volunteers house for a joint meal and commiseration session. We discussed teaching and the sad fact that the only cargo boat coming to our island might not be coming back. Everyone seemed to have similar teaching stories to mine, it is just the reality of teaching and of teaching in Tonga so it seems. There is no other way to deal with what we are experiencing than laughing about it. So that is what we did.

I ended the night talking to a volunteer who is in her third year in the Peace Corps. She already completed two years in Benin and now is doing one more year here in Tonga. I learned all about what it was like to do a third year and how to go about it. It sounded like an awesome opportunity to explore another country for just another year and if I can get through the ups and downs of Tonga I might be interested. And there I was, excited about Peace Corps again and contemplating signing up for a third year in a different country. I had officially done the Peace Corps circle of emotions in less than twelve hours. Get me out of here! O wait I actually like what I’m doing here and how do I sign up for more?????

The Pulupaki is Osi

I just received an e-mail from the country director here informing all of the volunteers that the only large boat servicing the islands of Tonga other than Tongatapu has been deemed unsafe and unseaworthy. A year ago there were two boats, the Princess Ashika and the Pulupaki. The Princess Ashika was used until it sank and ended up killing over a hundred Tongans. After the Princess Ashika sank there was a massive review of what happened with the boat to look into why it was still in service. The hearings showed massive amounts of negligence in the ministry of transportation down to the captain of the boat and many of the crew members. The captain was even asked if he knew if the boat was going to sink and replied, "Yes, I thought it was going to sink every time I got on it." He still did nothing and let many of his passengers die. After the Ashika sank the Pulupaki had to carry all of the cargo that the Ashika was to carry. Many people knew that this was dangerous as well and the crew often did not follow many international marine laws such as providing life jackets or giving a safety briefing before each trip. After hearing about the negligence in the case of the Ashika and what I knew about the Pulupaki I decided never to get on the ship. I am happy that the boat is now out of service but now we have a huge problem.

Few goods are made on many of the islands here in Tonga. My island only produces a few root crops and exports little. We are almost completely dependent on outside imports. With the Pulupaki out of service we will soon run out of basic food items like sugar and flour. Even the chicken, eggs and canned goods are imported here. If the Pulupaki is not replaced soon it appears that everyone on my island will have to survive off of root crops, fish and the animals native to the island. Nobody knows where a new boat will come from and Tonga cannot afford a new one. The Japanese are building and donating a boat for Tonga but it is not expected to be finished until January of next year. It looks like my diet is about to change tremendously.

The other sad part about losing the Pulupaki is that the Peace Corps will no longer be able to support five volunteers here is Ha'apai. The Pulupaki was their only means of getting to their islands so they are all being pulled from their schools and will have to find new sites. Two of the volunteers have only spent three weeks at their sites so far but the three others have already been there for over a year. It is devastating for them to have to leave their sites and start all over again at new schools and in new communities.

I am a little worried about what will happen to the rest of us in Ha'apai. Will all of my basic supplies have to be flown in? We are expecting some serious inflation here; will I still be able to live here within my living allowance? There are a lot of tough questions to be answered. I have already spent my entire monthly allowance stocking up on food items here. As soon as I receive my money from next month I am planning on spending it on as many canned items and food that come on the boat as possible.

First days of school

Today was the first real day of class here, sort of, if you can call it that. We started off school last week with planning week with most of the teachers. Several of the teachers were not around yet. The only boat traveling to my island is currently stuck in Tonga for a repair and for a legal review. There is only rumor about the Pulupaki at this point but it appears that it is not up to safety standards and will not be moving in the near future. This is really sad for me because my washing machine that I got as a Hanukah present is supposed to be on it, but I've digressed. So several teachers did not show up for school planning week because they were stuck in Tongatapu and a few others did not show up because...umm actually I don't know why.

I often get bogged down here when I compare things here to the way they are in America but I have realized that I cannot do that because the two are simply different and will never match up to each other. But if one were to compare planning week in Tonga to planning week in America, one could say rather little was accomplished. We came up with a mission statement and a vision for the year and covered a few policies, the key one being annual leave. I believe last year teachers got twenty-eight days off during the school year. Yes, that is twenty-eight days other than school breaks or holidays to simply take off for any reason and usually without prior notice. This year some of the teachers were a little sad to hear that they now only had twenty anytime vacation days a year. It is also important to note here that there are not enough teachers to teach all of the classes already so when a teacher takes off there is nobody to replace them and no substitute so the class simply sits there. After planning week we got ready for the kids to come on Monday, well I'm not sure if ready is the right word for it, but we made sure that we knew that in fact the kids would be coming to the school compound on Monday.

So yesterday Monday came and the kids came as well. School is a little different here. School does not exactly start on the first scheduled day of school like in America, it is more like a rolling start or soft opening. The kids were each instructed to bring in some supplies since funding is a big issue here and the school cannot afford many basic supplies. The kids each brought in a large mat that we often use to sit on here, a broom and a roll of toilet paper. During a short assembly we collected the items and the teachers were all introduced. I loved getting to sit in front of all of the children on their first day of school.

The youngest kids were very cute and I could tell how excited and nervous they were to start high school. There is no middle school here just primary school and then high school. The youngest kids here are just twelve years old and the high school is in the big city on the island. There is no school bus here and the kids have to hitchhike to get to school and it can take up to an hour for the furthest away students. It is definitely an intimidating journey for the younger students. So after the assembly we went to our homeroom classes. I am sharing a homeroom class with another teacher named Tupou and the class is filled with the youngest students. Each grade is called a form here. The youngest are called form 1 and the oldest are form 6 and the rest fill in between. Tupou is an amazing English teacher and the head of the English department here. She'll be helping me a lot with my classes and lesson plans and has a gazillion ideas for secondary projects to do with me. After homeroom yesterday we just let the kids go and got ready for the next day, sort of.

When I asked the deputy principal yesterday what I would be teaching he still did not know and he told me not to worry about it. I just went with the flow and tried to not let myself stress out about going into the first real day of school without an idea of which classes I would be teaching or lesson plans. I wrote down a few ideas for introductory activities but there was not much else I could do. This morning when I came to school the schedule was up. I had four different classes. I would be teaching form 1 English -my homeroom students, form 4 English that my homestay brother Amoni is in, form 4 economics and form 4 accounting. So I got my classes and that meant it was now time to teach. It felt exactly like my first day of high school. Where do I go? Wait, what am I teaching? I thought I was supposed to be teaching that class with another teacher, what is going on? I did not know quite what to do so I just figured out where my classes were, walked in and introduced myself. I am somewhat confident my students understood me. I had the students all sign in and introduce themselves to the class and then I took pictures of my students so I can memorize all their names. Maybe I'll be able to actually pronounce their names later in the term. With almost no planning or foreknowledge of my classes I somehow got through them and it was not even that bad. As I type this blog I am waiting on the curriculum handouts so I can get an idea of what I am supposed to teach the students and what they already know. At the very least I will be able to make a lesson plan for tomorrow. So that's school so far. I've got some great projects planned with the school which I hope to tell you all about next update.

I also just heard in that the only boat that comes to Ha’apai, the Pulupaki is being sent to Fiji for repairs. After seeing the boat I am surprised it still floats so it could be stuck in Fiji for sometime. Almost nothing is produced here so it is a little scary not having the only boat that restocks this island currently out of service. I did a major restocking a few days ago in case this happened but it looks like I might have to go out and get some more basic supplies like sugar and flour just in case.