Me'a Ofa Day

This week was our first week back from break. Ryan was a champ and ended up teaching most of the week solo as I got sick as a dog in Fiji. He did an awesome job and when I returned the kids reported that "Ryan is a fun teacher!" 

The weather this week was so strange. Every day we went from crazy rain and cold wind to full sun and beautiful weather. I have never seen weather just switch back and forth from completely overcast to completely clear and back to overcast quite so many times in one day. The result is many people/ kids in our village ended up as sick as I was. Not so fun. One afternoon I awoke from a nap to see this lying in our house:

After giving Ryan the "why the hell is the dog in the house like that" speech, Ryan just looked at me and said, "He was cold, so I made him a little bed inside." Note: that was NOT mud. It was mostly pig crap. A lovely way to scent our house. Stupid boys and their dogs.

I returned to school on Thursday because Ryan came home super excited Wednesday night telling me our students had finally filled their "Good Things Jar." The Good Things Jar is an incentive we use in our classes to encourage students to work collaboratively and try to push their comfort zone with English. It took awhile for them to really latch on to this, but once they hit the halfway point, they really got amped. They have been doing so great trying lots of new things in class. When they fill up a jar, they earn a special gift. Our students had no idea what the gift was, but they found out on Thursday it was a brand new bag made by my Aunt Nina, Aunt Jean, and cousin Lexi. (Emily, I did not include your name because I heard all you did was drink coffee and watch. No credit for you sister dearest!) My aunt Nina had simply made these to give to our students, most of whom do not own anything they can call their own. She had no idea we would milk three months of good behavior out of the kids before they got 'em! Thank-you so much Nina, the bags are truly amazing!

In the bags were large notebooks, candy, pencils and pens, and mini-notebooks. Our students LOVE school supplies and they LOVE being able to have their own stuff. Needless to say, the day they received their gift was incredible. We had so much fun chatting with the kids and watching them revel in their hard work. Here are some pictures from the day!