Kovi mo e Lelei

Kovi mo e Lelei - The Bad and the Good

I’ll start off with the bad news:
A little boy in my village was shot two nights ago. The whole incident was an accident. An old man was playing with a gun and pretending to shoot some little kids. The kids would run and scatter while laughing hysterically. The man didn’t know the gun was loaded (which is no excuse in my book). The bullet went through a wall and struck the 4 year old in the stomach and arm. After staying at the hospital here in Vava’u for one night, he was flown to Tongatapu to hopefully get better medical treatment.

Shootings have not been an issue here in Vava’u. Guns are mostly used for purposes of killing large pigs and cows. I hope this accident awakens people to the issue of gun safety. I know all the kids in my village are pretty scared.

Now a little good news:
I’ve booked my flight to come home for Christmas. I’ll be home for almost a month!!! Although I love it here, I’m excited to see everyone back home. It will be just the refresher I need to come back renewed and full of enthusiasm to finish off my last 8 months.

When I joined Peace Corps I signed up for the World Wise School Program, which is keeping correspondence with an assigned classroom. After a year. I finally have my match and will now begin communications with a geography class in Indiana. Not many people have ever heard of Tonga, so it feels good to educate people about this beautiful country.

The Youth Vegetable Plot is moving right along. We have been working on clearing the land, which is a bigger project than I had initially thought. The guys have been chopping down trees and I have been raking up trash. I guess people have been using this land to dump cans and glass bottles for many years. A few more days of clearing and we will be ready for the plow to come. We already started a little vegetable bed for the tomatoes, cabbage, and green peppers. The carrots and beans will be planted later. The rains have been coming down so everything is growing fast. My garden has been unsuccessful, but I have a better feeling about this one.

Hope everyone is healthy and happy.

Love,
Adrianne