TAUFA'AHAU PILOLEVU KOLISI recently celebrated our 75th anniversary. In Tonga, a Kolisi (College) is a boarding school, where the majority of the students live on campus during classes and go home during the breaks. The school year here, in the southern hemisphere, begins in January and ends in November. There are breaks in March (fall), June (winter) and September (spring). I am making this webpage in March during the fall break, thus the lack of students in these pictures. In this topsy-turvy southern hemisphere the strangest part for me is how the sun is moving lower to the NORTH as winter approaches!

Here is a map of the Taufa'ahau campus area in Pangai. The wide lines are roads and the little red triangles show where some of the pictures were taken from. The little blue squares are houses where some of the teachers and staff live, including me. The larger blue boxes are the major buildings that make up our campus. There are 186 students here in classes this year. The classes are from pre-kindergarten up through Form 6, which is kind of like the end of high school. There is a Form 7 which we don't offer on our campus. I compare that to a US preparatory school, kind of between high school and university study for the academic student. Some of our part-time teachers are taking classes at the USP center in Pangai, and those are the same level of classes that I was teaching as Form 7 when I taught at Tupou. You can see some pictures of Tupou at this site.

This is pic1 showing the entry area to the classrooms. On the right is the Library and on the left nearest the road is the main offices. Further down is the staff room and computer classroom, and behind them are the upper classes. The building at the back of this photo holds the lower classes, science classroom and the bookroom. Behind the library from this view is the industrial arts and home economics building.

Pic2 shows the classrooms and the grounds in the center of the classroom area. I remember that tree was a lot smaller when I first came here in 2004! Back in that corner there are two huge cement tanks holding rainwater. There are many of these here for drinking water. There is a well behind the hall that is pumped to a water tower which supplies running water to all the houses. I use the tap water for brushing my teeth and washing dishes, but the rainwater makes a better quality tea (I drink a lot of ice tea). There is (mostly) no hot water in Tonga. My friend Lesieli swears the rainwater is better for washing hair and clothes.

This view pic3 is looking down the road from the classrooms. Out of the picture on the left is the kindergarten and on the right is the girls dorm. Down the way is the hall and the church office. You can see the Tonfon tower further down. That provides our internet using a Motorola Canopy broadband access point. Unlike Fiji, which has broadband service from the US by undersea cables, Tonga has only satellite links. Tonfon's Ha'apai link provides about 1.2 Mbs downlink (600K up) which is shared with all the mobile phone traffic. TPC has 128K/64K (dn/up) service, but I get a burst now and then up to 300K. You can almost see the ocean at the end of the road. The fishing jetty is right there at the end of this road.

Here in pic4 are staff housing and the sports grounds. My house is under that huge tree. Yes that is a pig in the road. These are the domestic kind and they are free to wander around everywhere throughout Tonga. We all try to keep them out of our yards and gardens but they are very smart animals, those pigs. Same goes for the chickens, although not as smart as the pigs, they do fly a little bit now and then. Oh yes, and all the dogs. They bark all night and fight each other but at least they eat up all the garbage. Out of the picture on the left is the boys dorm and at the right out of view is the preschool grounds. Since it is fall break the grounds are a bit shaggy.

Here is the church in pic5. It is a beautiful building, befitting it's central position in life here. Down in the corner in front there is a huge bell which rings 1 hour before service, again 5 minutes before, and right at the beginning of church services. There are services at dawn, at 10am (the regular one) and at 5pm on Sunday. If you forget the schedule, just listen for the bell.