Congratulating and Rejuvenating

Wow - the first trimester of school is over! I have been teaching English for 3 months, living in 'Otea for 4 and in Tonga for 7. Incredible. I'm currently in Nuku'alofa, the country's capital, attending Inter-Service Training (IST), a combo of technical and language training. It's also a great chance to take a break from the confines of my little island and catch up with the other 28 Peace Corps Volunteers in my group. It's a time for refreshment, rejuvenation and relaxation.

One of the best things is the sense of perspective IST has given me. I am so so privileged to be living on an outer island. Many of the PCVs are living in Tonga's bigger towns and they just don't have the community I do. Everyday I get to see Tongan culture at its most traditional and I'm so thankful for that. Also, so many Tongans speak English, especially on Tongatapu (where the capital is) that many of the PCVs who work in the city just have a much harder time practicing their Tongan language skills. Me, I don't have much of a choice. And as exhausting as that is some days, it's made an enormous difference.

That's one of my biggest accomplishments from my first four months at site. I can actually speak and understand this language. I am bilingual! I think I hadn't really admitted this to myself before IST because language can seem like such a struggle some days in my village where everyone else is of course fluent. But here I am in the capital city chatting away with shopkeepers, passersby and the Peace Corps trainers who got me started with the language at the very beginning. It's an absolutely amazing feeling to discover how far I've come. I feel absolutely empowered and so proud. I can speak Tongan! I'm far from fluent, but I can understand most of what's said to me and I can get what I want to say across. I can see so many changes in my communication level:
I can engage in Tongan all day without needing to collapse on my bed for a nap.
The processing time for what's been said to me is much shorter.
My pronunciation is much better.
I can reply much faster, both in putting sentences together and linking the sounds.
I'm not self-conscious about it anymore so I feel free to take risks and make mistakes.
I love seeing the look on a new friend's face when I start chatting with them in Tongan. It really makes a big difference in my interactions with them. Language is definitely one of my biggest accomplishments so far.

For the first three days of training we had a seminar on team teaching, a practice that PC Tonga only recently made one of its goals in Tongan classrooms. Each of us got to invite our counterparts, so I invited my principal, who teaches Classes 1-3 in 'Otea's school. It was a great chance for us to build our relationship, personally and professionally. Team teaching is a pretty rare concept here so it was great for my counterpart to get such indepth exposure to it. Traditionally in Tonga when a new PCV starts teaching at a school the teachers think it's their cue to take a smoke break, a nap, or not show up at all. The team teaching goal was developed a way to counteract this and my biggest goal for my first term at 'Otea's primary school was to ensure this did not happen to me. I was determined not to teach alone, but to work alongside the teachers at all times, giving the students the benefit of having two teachers and developing the teachers' skills. Happy to say this goal was achieved although the way the teachers and I work together still has lots of room for improvement. My counterpart and I left the seminar full of new ideas and goals. The ones we are the most focused on are:
1) Sharing what we learned about team teaching with the second teacher at our school. My counterpart is willing to support improved team teaching with him in anyway that she can. Also, we plan to start having regular meetings all together to keep our school atmosphere healthier all around.
2) I'm going to team teach with my counterpart during her morning and afternoon sessions with Class 6. each is about an hour long and helps prepare the students' for the end-of-year exams that determine whether or not they can go to secondary school. (Short story: when I asked what time the morning class starts, she replied "When the students can see". I thought she meant once they'd woken up enough, but really she waits until there's enough daylight to see the blackboard. Oh outer island life . . . )
3) My counterpart and I are going to try two new types of team teaching - remedial and supplemental. Both entail pulling different groups out of the main body of students to work with them more specifically.

I am so lucky to be working in a such a little school where I can build close relationships with both the teachers, enabling us to plan and work together very closely. We have the luxury of trying out lots of new things because we know each other and our little group of students so well. Student teacher ratio of 7:1. Amazing.

Before IST I was struggling a lot, letting things I have no control over bog me down. But I've been away from 'Otea for six days now and I can't wait to get back. I'm full of pride about the things I've already accomplished and so energized to work on the goals I've set for myself for the next part of the journey. Can't wait to get home, check on my pets, work on these new projects at school and dive into my language and cultural learning with renewed pizazz. Nofo lelei - Live well!