These are a few of my favorite things. . .

So a lot of random things have happened this week! I'm just going to give you the highlights of a few of the cool and funny experiences!  First, we went to a dance last friday night. It was really fun but very different from any dance I have ever seen. After every song, everyone goes back to their seat. You wait for a boy to come ask you, and to ask you he walks up to you and bows then you go and dance with him.  No one was talking to any their dance partner and you stand about four feet away from the person you are dancing with.  It was very entertaining.  The kids would come up behind me and touch my hair and when we were dancing there were about ten kids circled around me dancing like i was.  It was precious! On saturday we went to the beach, which is always amazing! we went to the rocky beach again.  It was high tide and the current was very strong! It's kind of like an adventure to stay up and not be pulled away.  We found a "cave rock" that was huge and climbed up on top of that (which was kind of painful and scary) but when we got to the top it was the most amazing view of just the ocean and waves and palm trees with the sunsetting directly over them.  On the other side the stars were already comng out.  It was truly breathtaking.

On Monday, Nick and I talk Manoa (the 13 month old we live with) for a walk in his stroller. We were just walking for fun and to see things and we saw this sign by a path that said something ( a long tongan word) lookout.  So we decided to be adventurous and took the dirt path. We walked for about an hour in the bush (the jungle) and the path ended but we knew that the ocean had to be somewhere close so we kept going through the knee high grass.  I carried manoa and nick carried the stroller on his head. Finally, we found the edge.  It was a big jungly cliff, and all we could see was ocean all around us.  It was absolutly amazing! It wasn't a beach at all, just a the edge of the island.  The ocean is so massive and went on forever every direction.  I had chills it was so pretty.  it was kind of a funny picture too though, because it was just us two palangii's with a tongan baby and a stroller hiking through the jungle without any direction and no body around us. It was a four hour hike/walk, but totally worth it! BEST VIEW EVER!

We went to a funeral yesterday, which was pretty cool. I was at school still for half of it, but the other students went to the house and hugged the dead body. So that was interesting. Everyone sang a lot and then at the end they gave everyone a bag of meat. I'm still not sure why, but we ate it for dinner last night and it was ifo'opito (very delicious) so I'm not complaing!  An interesting thing about tonga is that they bury a lot of people in the same grave, up to ten family members.  When the next person dies they dig up the grave again and put the body on the others. It was a very special thing to see.

A few random funny things: The tongan babies are strong! They beat each other all of the time and never cry.  One of the guys here kicked a rugby ball (very hard leather) straight up in the air and it fell right on a baby sleeping in it's stroller.  It hit the baby full force, but the baby just woke up cried for three seconds, and then went right back to sleep. All of the kids are so tough, it's amazing! 

My tongan is still really bad. I was at school the other day and I was leaving the class and then a few of the students ran after me yelling something.  I couldn't understand them so I just smiled and waved and said "Bye!" and kept walking. Then they yelled louder, but I just turned around and waved again and said "see you later" and then finally one of the girls who does speak english came out and was like "they say you left your umbrella!" It was really funny.

I have a student in my class who always picks papaya and indian apples (the most amazing food I have ever put in my mouth, so delicious!) for me and brings them to me! He is so sweet and always stands outside my house and yells my name. It's adorable!  Another funny story, Uini through a giant cock roach at me. i was standing by the door and she thought I was holding it open for her to throw it out the door, but I wasn't. So she throught it straight at me. I almost had a heart attack. There was a lot of screaming and jumping.  This place is really funny!