For a Ha’apai airport check-in, it was quite a spectacle. The attendant motioned for Blair to corral her dog inside the large plastic doggy cage on the scale. Papi’s stubborn refusal to comply to Blair’s repeated commands caught the attention of the plane’s other passengers, both Tongan and palangi, bringing wide eyes and laughs. The Tongans probably wondered why she would be silly enough to take her dog with her to America; the palangis probably thought it was cute. Either way, everyone watched. That was fine, Blair had her laugh at the Brazilian contingent that waved their passports around as if anyone needed photo ID to get a seat on a domestic flight in Tonga.
Forty minutes later, the plane soared into the air. The airport became all but deserted except for one lonely camera-holding PCV and his dog. And so the exodus continues.
Blair will fly to the states on Wednesday. Todd is in Fiji and will be home shortly. Juleigh is already back, along with a couple others from our original Peace Corps Tonga Group 75. Their Facebook statuses talk of pizza, iPhones, and hot showers. That could have been me, but instead I’ll be waiting another 20-something days. So here’s your obvious question:
So what the hell are you still doing here?
There are many reasons.
I do miss my family, but I also have a reliable “high speed” internet connection with Skype that lets me communicate with them more frequently than most other volunteers. I also visited the states for 5 weeks last Christmas whereas Todd and Juleigh haven’t been home once. Being home was a great rejuvenator that transformed me into an over-achiever in my second year, and I don’t know if I would have been as happy without that visit.
I was also the most consistently happy volunteer in Ha’apai, aided by having a very flexible work schedule, an encouraging principal, secondary project successes, that internet connection, and, later, that hot water shower (I’m still dreaming about that first hot bath at my layover hotel in Auckland, though less so than if I was still taking daily cold showers). I receive frequent positive reinforcement through carepackages and an ever-increasing number of Blog followers. (The blog especially has helped me because I could turn every defeating frustration into an interesting or relatable story. My popular “you know you’re in Peace Corps Tonga when” list can just as easily make one laugh as make one cringe). My supervisors are happy with me, my neighbors appreciate me, and almost no one has stolen from me. I truly like living here. Never in my life have I been happier.
Now that my school year and my health projects are over, I can relax, read, write, and go fishing. It’s winter doldrums in America but summer vacation Tonga.
It won’t be such a relaxing break, however, because there is still one very big reason why I’m still here. As soon as I return home I’ll become… unemployed!
By staying in Tonga, I get one more month of free healthcare, a comfortable salary, and time to apply for jobs online. I don’t need to be in the states to apply for jobs, and being here keeps me closer to the Peace Corps staff network helpful for finding job openings within the Peace Corps organization. It’s scary; Economist articles sometimes read like battlefield updates in a grueling war to find jobs. Juleigh has a job waiting for her, Blair has law school coming up, Todd has some future volunteer plans. I have student loans.
But Sione, don’t your parents miss you? Wouldn’t they rather you be home for Thanksgiving? Aunt Alice and cousin Adam will even be in town!
The best Christmas gift I can imagine for my greatly supportive parents is getting out of their house as soon as possible. That requires getting a job. We’ll all be much happier and I’ll be much more free spending in the Chicago social scene if, by the time my final flight out of Ha’apai comes around, I have a job locked down.
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