We finally arrived. My biggest thought when we were approaching the island was "Wow, it's a lot flatter than I imagined." Although we were jet lagged, we had a whole schedule when we arrived. We were greeted at the airport by current volunteers and PC staff, bearing what I would describe as similar to a Hawaiian Lei (called a kahoa here) and transported to the hostel/guest house where we will spend one night before joining our Tongan host family. The full schedule was probably good as it did not give us any time to think about how scary all of this is.
We had our first kava circle (kava is a drink made from the powder of a crushed root - it looks and tastes like dirty dish water, but leaves your mouth slightly numb). Afterwards, we enjoyed a BBQ at the PC office with the current volunteers - ironically, I already have a connection with one of them ... she knows someone who goes to the same church as Julie and had already heard that I was coming. She graduated from USC and seems like a really cool girl.
