the day the princess came to my birthday

This has been a week of celebrations in Tonga.

The group of seven AYADs that I arrived with have settled into three houses. For simplicity, we can call these the boys' house, the girls' house and the couple's house. Last Friday the girls' house had their housewarming. The theme was cocktail, so most of took the opportunity to wear the "semi-formal" outfit we were told we would need in our pre-departure pack and have since discovered we will wear only when taking advantage of the flimsiest excuse possible - like on Friday. Others, as pictured took to the markets and a fabulous store here called The Shop That Time Forgot to put together there creations. As you can see from the pictures and guess from the name, this shop specialises in selling clothes manufactured in the 60s, 70s and 80s that never made it out of the wrapping, let alone were sold, at that time. Anyway, the night was fun. Most of us made it home around 4am.

On Tuesday, my work launched the Kingdom of Tonga Strategic Development Plan 8 (SDP 8). This was the culmination of some eighteen months work, so though somewhat stressed about the day going well most of my colleagues were pleased to finally reach the launch. I was more excited because it was my birthday and the Princess would be attending. It is not often you can say that a princess came to the party on your birthday. Maybe it wasn't exactly my party, but near enough. The other fun part of the launch was the addition of an SDP 8 theme song and dance. If we ignore Unchain my heart and the GST, Australian governments don't do theme songs for their big launches and more is the shame. I can't wait to hear Looking to the Future, Building on the Past on the radio or playing at the Billfish, will have to try and remember the moves to the dance.

That night, I went to dinner and drinks with some fellow AYADs and assorted palangi and managed to celebrate both my birthday and the arrival of the new group of AYADs. With three intakes a year now, there will be arrivals quite regularly.

And, of course, there was the celebrations at lunch time on Thursday amongst a group of Aussies who managed to find somewhere to watch a replay of a soccer match that had happened a few hours earlier on the other side of the world. Our disappointment at missing the first half thanks to the ever unreliable TonFon television programmers was long forgotten by the time the final whistle sounded. There will be a few phone calls to TonFon today to make sure we get the whole match versus Italy tomorrow.

On Saturday, I participated in the 2006 Olympic fun run. The run itself wasn't particularly notable, nor much of a celebration, though I did manage to run more than the four kilometre course by being foolish enough to follow some Tongans who went the wrong way. What was a highlight, was finally meeting somebody who plays hockey. As part of the day's activities, there were demonstration clinics for kids of various sports including hockey. The local competition gets underway next month and I may now be coaching one of the teams. It should be fun.