Update

I put some new pictures up from camping two weekends ago. Click Picasa on the right.




I went and drank kava for a few hours last night. Not much going on today, sitting in the lab watching it rain.

Thanks!

To Jay, Jennifer, and Hunt:

I received the package from you guys Thursday. Thanks so much for the books and stuff. I read "The Road" all the way through on Sunday. I haven't decided what to start next. I got to test out the shoes this weekend and they were great. I think the tripod will come in handy for camping and stuff since I can wrap it around a tree or something!

Mom and Dad:

Got the latest package with the shirts/food/stuff in it. Thank you!

Not much going on this weekend - no work Friday or Monday for the holiday. Lots of reading and sleeping.

Birthday

Since moving to my new house, I have been hanging out a lot with one of the families that lives across the "street". Their names are Sione and Sivi and they have a son named Kasete. Sione works at Westpac Bank and Sivi is a nurse. Kasete goes to Vava'u Side School (where James works). I have been having a lot of meals with them and also practicing my language. I have also been reading books with Kasete to practice his English.

Well it turned out that Kasete and I have the same birthday, March 18, which was yesterday here in Tonga. They told me that I should come with them to the school and have cake and ice cream so Sivi picked me up at work around 10am and we went to pick up the birthday cake at Paradise Hotel (apparently the only place that makes birthday cakes in Vava'u).

When we arrived at the school with the goods I immediately heard a little girl scream "It's a birthday cake!!!!" and everyone went crazy. Sivi also brought two huge bowls of pie and a lot of ice cream. All of the kids sang happy birthday and happy long life to Kasete and I and everyone pigged out on the cake and ice cream. It was great. I really wish I had gotten a picture of all of us but all I got was a picture of Kasete cutting the cake.



After work yesterday afternoon some of us got together at Mana'ia, a local restaurant/bar on the waterfront for some pizza and beer. Everyone just sort of ran into each other at once and we all wound up there. The manager Mary found out it was my birthday and brought out fresh carrot cake covered with caramel icing. Everything was great and I had a very good birthday. I didn't get any pictures at Mana'ia but I think I can get a few from Steve. I will try and get those up as soon as I can.

Thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes!

Stuff

I uploaded some pictures of sailing to Picasa - you can check it out by clicking the link on the right. I have a pretty hard time uploading to Picasa from here so I'm sorry it takes so long. I have more pictures that I will slowly try and get on there.

Last Sunday King, Niva and I made a visit out to Tuanuku to take a picture of their youth and also tell them about our classes here at the VYC. I am trying to upload some of those pictures now.

Last night King, Vai, Amanda and I made visits to Tefisi, Tuanuku (again), and Longomapu. We are trying to get out to the villages more this year. We talked to them about the projects they were interested in and also told them about what we are working on.

Tefisi has not had an active youth chapter in some time and they are just now working on putting it together. Tefisi is the village where Shannon, a fellow Group 73 volunteer lives. Tuanuku has been working on keeping their beach clean and are interested in building some small houses there that may be rented out as an income generating project. Tuanuku was the home of a past volunteer, Tessa Horan, who passed away as the result of a shark attack in 2006. You can read about her at http://www.tessahoran.com/.
The meeting in Longomapu never happened because we couldn't figure out where anyone was but it was nice to get out there anyway.

If you have Google Earth you can see the locations of these villages by copy and pasting these coordinates into it:
Tefisi - 18°37'57.67"S, 174° 0'50.23"W
Tuanuku - 18°39'51.31"S, 174° 1'53.16"W
Longomapu - 18°38'47.60"S, 174° 3'20.75"W

Sitani

Weekend

Saturday a few of us chartered a yacht and spent the day sailing. I had a wonderful time and it was nice to get out on the water and relax. It's very easy to forget how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place when I'm sitting in the lab every day. I got a few pictures and will try and put them up tomorrow. Steve has a pretty good writeup of the day on his blog as well. You can read it by following the link on the right of the page.

Molokau Sighting

I was reformatting one of the computers late yesterday afternoon by myself and a visitor showed up.




It's called a molokau. I have yet to be bitten by one of these things but I have heard it's pretty intense. My friend Andrew got bitten by one in his bed and said it was definitely on is Top 5 Most Painful. He admitted that his Top 5 might not be as impressive as some but still...

Anyway I guess I should have worried more about killing it rather than taking pictures of it because by the time I finished snapping that picture it ran under the baseboard before I could kill it. They are supposed to be very hard to kill (if you cut them in half you just create two molokau). I hope we don't meet again.