Malo E Lelei from Tonga!
I have been here for almost 2 months now and things are going great. I am in love with my host family! They are so fun! Ofa (host dad) drives around rocking out tunes so we all jam along with him and the kids! We go to the beach once a week and go watch his rugby games on Saturdays. The family is a lot of fun! I am slowly making more friends. The language barrier is hard to deal with because we don’t know who speaks English and who doesn’t. But I am working through it and meeting more and more people.
My project is difficult to figure out when I first got here. I realized that the language barrier prevented me from doing informal interviews so perceptions of physical activity would e harder to recognize. But I did notice that physical activity is everywhere in the culture! Boys play rugby. Girls play netball. Everything in the Tonga culture has to do with some physical activity. So I kind of changed my project to observe the type of physical activity people get, how long and intense it is, and how frequent they do it.
I am also going to start volunteering at Saineha High School on Monday. I am going to help start up their Physical Education/Health classes for the lower forms. They have tried it before but it hasn’t ever stuck. Hopefully this time I can help the program grow and prosper. I was also able to help get PE/Health books down to them to help the school have something to teach from.
Well I think that’s it for now!
It was really cool to read this post and then your next one and see the progress you're making! I had trouble with the language barrier here in South Africa as well, but there are always ways to work around that. Unfortunately that usually requires some flexibility, and I don't know about you, but I was a little hesitant to make changes to my project. But...change is good, and I'm glad you were able to make some good adjustments. Sounds like things are going well!
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