Here comes the sun, da da da da .....

Actually, it's gone again now - replaced by pouring rain - but for a day and a half we had tropical sunshine, and even a couple of sunsets. Monday I wss taken on a field trip to Manono, a small island between the two main ones in the archipelago. There was Titimeio, my host in the aiga - extended family - Toulei, a native of the island and Losaline, the Tongan teacher who's here from Sia'atoutai on the Pacific Methodist exchange scheme. Depressingly, she only started Queen Salote college the year after Diane and I left. She's been bringing me up to date on the Tongan gossip.  We left the rest of the college sorting out the mess left by cyclone Amos. As we drove along we could the remains of trees that had been cleared away and some banana plantations flattened, but little damage to buildings, fortunately. 

Manono is a 20 minute boat ride from the end of this island, with Aluminium catamarans powered by 40 hp Toyota outboards the standard inter-island transport. Once on the island we were taken to Toulei's family Fale fono , the main meeting house for the village. Morning tea consisted of cans of orangade and plates of Pringles. Then It was off on a two- hour circumnavigation of the island. Manono has no cars (no dogs and - so it's claimed - no mosquitos either) but there's a footpath round the island linking the villages. There's a total population of about 800, with 2 Methodist, 3 LMS and 1 Catholic Churches. One or two simple holiday resorts. - it would be a great place to get away from it all. This has been a pivotal place in Samoan history. At one time the centre for warfare, but then the base for LMS and Methodist missionaries. Several of them are buried here. The walk in the mid-day heat was pretty tiring, so conversation was a lot quieter on the way home. We did stop for some excellent ice cream as we came through Apia.

  

This week there's also been teaching - a 2 hour session on Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection on Tuesday and a seminar on modern trinitarian theology yesterday. The last was quite a challenge. For some reason they have a syllabus that requires them to look at a number of German theologians - a tough proposition, even for Germans! Students have starting sidling up to, asking for help in projects they are doing. Sometimes I can help, sometimes I have to send them off to find a genuine subject specialist - 'no, I can't help you with your essay on Nehemiah, that's what Old Tstament lecturers are for'. We have a Fijian educational consultant at the college this week, here to help the staff with learning outcomes, assessment criteria, etc - all the parephenalia of contemporary academia.