Oh yeah, and I teach too

You may be surprised, shocked even, to learn that life here in Tonga isn’t all biking, beaches, and vacations. I actually have a job here, teaching senior-level history at a high school. It’s the British system here, with a head boy, prefects, and houses (no Gryffindor though). In the Canadian equivalent, I’m teaching grades 11, 12, and 13 (OAC lives on!) history, and grade 13 sociology.

This past week, my supervisor came to visit from Canada for six days to see the school, island, and how I’m doing here. Two of those days were our inter-house sports competition. He also took class photos for our newsletter and magazine.

3…2…1…Bungy!

Completely out of left field, Dad suggested to Lisa and I that we all go bungy jumping. It being his idea would become ironic, when he’d later opt-out. I knew New Zealand was known for its extremes – skydiving, white water rafting, and the zorb (everyone knows what that is). I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was essentially the home to bungy jumping as well – commercial bungy jumping was pioneered by New Zealander A J Hackett. A search through the “Adventure New Zealand” guidebook showed that we would be passing through Taupo, a sort of extremer’s Mecca, where Taupo Bungy promised a jump of 47 meters - New Zealand’s highest water touch. Neither Lisa nor I had bungy jumped before. The closest we had come was sitting in a freefall chair on Canada’s Wonderland’s Drop Zone, but we decided to “go big or go home.” They didn’t take reservations, but made the semi-comforting pledge that they would be operating in any weather save a lightning storm.

I told Lisa that I had to jump first if it was going to happen, basically so that I couldn’t wuss out after she jumped. We waited on a platform overlooking the lake, with two jumpers ahead of us. It appeared that the New Zealand meter was bigger then a Canadian meter, because we were at least a hundred meters higher then 47m. We watched one of the jumpers ahead, who, on “bungy!” was too afraid to jump and needed one of the attendants to shove him off the platform. Next the jumper ahead of me went, and then it was my turn.

“Good mornin’” the attendant said, then, “(stuff I couldn’t understand in New Zealand English)…camera…(more gibberish)…you’ll jump.” I nodded. He asked if I wanted to do the water-touch (exactly what it sounds like), and how “much” water I wanted to touch. I hemmed and hawed; shouldn’t touching water be my goal for jump 2? He said there was no point in jumping from NZ’s highest water touch if I wasn’t going to touch the water…

“Ok, well, I just want to brush the surface with my fingertips,” I decided, and he said no problem mate.

I stepped up to the platform, and Lisa on the bench bedside me disappeared along with the rest of the world. The only thing my brain knew existed was a patch of water below, and it was screaming at me to be careful that I didn’t fall. The attendant said something and pointed; I blankly looked up at a black device beside me, and while my mind contemplated the free fall that awaited, it whirled and clicked. I had no time to think about what it had done, because someone was counting down. When he said “bungy!” I leaned forward.

I am certain that, in my life until then, I have never had a more concerned look on my face. Not scared, just very extremely concerned. “You idiot, you’ve doomed us!” my brain screamed at me, as it struggled to understand what I had just done. I drew in a sharp breath and then a second without exhaling in between. I felt tension around my ankles, and noticed water coming towards me. “Oh yeah,” I remembered, “Water touch!” I stretccchhhhed out my finger tips to ever so lightly brush the water’s surface…and plunged in to my chest. The look on my face instantly changed from concern to surprise, underwater, before I was yanked back out. As I sputtered, I managed to do something none of the jumpers before me had – I got myself spinning. I sprang up and down, and spun round and round, blowing water out my nose.

A raft appeared below, and someone hooked me and pulled me aboard. In the thirty-second trip to shore they grilled me about my life, so that in Lisa’s thirty-second trip they could tell her all about me. Without knowing my fate, Lisa wisely decided against the water touch, but still managed to get a good spin going. All that was left was a hike back to the top, where we could tell Mom and Dad about the fun they had missed!

Lisa and I waiting for the guy in red, who needed a push


Luckily, I was thirsty