Strange day here today, the king of tonga died last night in a hospital in NZ. We only found out when we were in hospital this morning, when most people were already wearing black. The people here have a "tapa" where they mourn for 1 month-3months, its not been decided yet. Everyone wears black and no celebrations are allowed, no loud music is aloud etc. The body is being brought back to nukualofa (the capital city, which i'm in) on weds this week, and the funeral is at least a week after that, so ifs its next wed-fri then i'll still be here and we will probably go. We need to buy black clothes as we need to wear this weds and to the funeral or we will look disrespectful, especially as we are working in the hospital. Its a shame in a way as it may slighty ruin our trip we have planned for the end of this week to the other island group-vava'u, where we are hoping to do whale watching etc, as its a more touristy place with lots to do. We are hoping that things will still be running-as lots of things may close, and that we will be able to get back alright on the flight mon, as if there are important tongan families coming over, they get priority over us, we may get stuck, hopefully not! Still, its quite good to be here for a part of history. The boys may even be here for the coronation of the next king. Yesterday we went to church in the morning, its a very christian country and we wanted to go for the experience.It was really nice and a lovely church,however it was in tongan and was a catholic church so I wasn't quite sure what was going on! the singing made up for that though, they all have such good voices that the singing is just beautiful. In the afternoon two boys we met the other day, one local and 1 aussie volunteer drove us round one side of the island, we climbed in some caves, went to a little cove,saw the blowholes and flying foxes-bats! then chilled on a beach for a while, it was a really nice day and nice to hear about tongan culture from a tongan! he even climbed a huge coconut tree, got us each a coconut then hacked the top of them off so we could drink from them, it was sort of like sweet water, interesting but nice, got a good touristy type picture too! Today I was with the paeds team again and saw a few interesting cases, but then this afternoon I changed to do medicine with rob for the week. Its soo hot at the moment though, getting hotter everyday, great for sunbathing but not for being in hospital, its too hot. I almost fainted on the ward this afternoon, not nice. Going to get takeaway curry type thing tonight, for a bit of flavour! and probably relax as the heat is wearing us all out. I'll write again soon, unless the internet cafes close! Miss u all, Lors xx