The final day has so far been excellent.
It is currently 4pm on a lovely day and a group of us (Pam, Terry, Vicki, Bill, Paul and Sue, Bill, Grant, Anthony, Chilli, Juanita and Gavin are enjoying a nice coffee and cake in a city café in down town Nukualofa. We are able to do this as all the work is done and we can now relax. We can also exploit the cafe's internet, as the wireless at the gust house just cannot handle our needs. The remainder of the team Paul and Sandra, Tony and Geoff have taken the opportunity for some quiet time and by now are probably having a well earned nap. President Paul seems to like his naps.
Our morning was pretty hectic. Having got to a very good place last night (day 10) we started at the school this morning as a clean up crew and had a list of minor defects to fix up. The power socket in classroom one, the backboard in classroom 2, the padlock for classroom 3, the last six louvres, paint touch ups, etc., etc. By 10.30am we had all the defects fixed up and had given the classrooms a final dust and tidy. Then it was back to the guest house for a quick shower and change of clothes. We bought the team Tonga style 'sarongs' (can't recall the correct name at present). The males all wore back ones and the females had nice colourful ones. Decked out in the sarongs and with our RAWCS polo shirts and badges on we then headed back to the school for the formal hand over of our work and entertainment provided by the students. Of course we had the usual lunch at 12noon, just to make sure we did not starve.
The formalities at the school had our team as the guests of honour and the immediate past president of Nukualofa Rotary Amanaici joined us. We had a thank you speech from the Deputy Principal, with responses from Amanaici and Chilly (who closely resembled another team member with the length of his speech) and then a thank you as the closing address from the President of the PTA Soana (who had been helping us on the project as a carpenter). In between we had two performances from the school students. The first was cultural singing with hand movements by the girls who were beautifully dressed in cultural costumes. The second was a series of dances by the boys with boat paddles. The boys were also dressed in very colourful traditional costumes. (Photos will be posted soon).
Each team member was also presented with a present consisting of Tongan T-shirts and a gift of a necklace with their name carved on it, local carvings of either dolphins or Tikka like statues, and the ladies also got a necklace and a handbag. Chilly, as our chief, also got a few extras including a map of Tonga, his and hers fans, and a bag (could be his new man bag).
In return we were able to give a large table top of goodies for the classrooms and students. This included, pencils, crayons, coloured packs of paper, poster paper roles, mugs, soap, highlighters, toilet paper, water buckets, coffee cups for the teachers, erasers, pencil sharpeners, blu-tac, Sellotape, chalk, scissors, fluoro card, and a dictionary. Also a friend of Chilly's, a teacher at a Queanbeyan School, had provided about 10 bubble wands, some Australian pencils and notebooks, and had had her students each write a letter to the school. Bendigo Bank (through Rebecca) had also provided us with 6 sports balls (2 netball, 2 rugby, and 2 AFL). So the treasure trove was quite impressive.
By 2pm we were free to leave, and head in to town to relax.
Tonight we are going out for a cultural evening - but that will be in tomorrow's blog.
