School Daze

Well, after a week of nothing but rain, we were blessed with a week of full sun. It was so wonderful to enjoy the sun again and use it to try to rid many of our possessions of mold. It was a pretty hot week here, but after such a long period of rain the sun is such a necessity. It was a pretty quiet week here, but here are some of the happenings: 

- Two of the teachers at our school had their 30th birthdays in the last few weeks. Ryan and I thought it pretty cool that all four of us at our school will turn 30 this school year. To commemorate such an occasion, I went all out making cookies. We are talking frosting and sprinkles and everything. Ummm.... did I mention it rained for 7 days straight? it never ceases to amaze me what we will come up with to occupy our time. Needless to say, the whole tray of cookies was finished in 5 minutes flat. So, I guess they liked them!

 

                                                                              

- Our students are beginning to make contact with a class in Lakefield (my hometown). Kelly Ackerman, the teacher with whom I am working, had her students write little intro paragraphs. So this week we had our kids do the same to email back. It was so cool to watch the kids take the assignment and run with it. They had such heated debates about how to make their sentences sound smarter for the kids in America. It was such a fun thing to see them engage with. I was completely lost for half of the class as the students debated in Tongan. Luckily, a few of the higher students would stop the discussion and tell the class to be quiet while they translated their conversation for me in English. They were so proud of their final products! I was so proud of them. I then had them try to type their emails. It was the first time they ever touched a computer! Two days of typing and two students finished :) But, again, it was neat to watch them problem solve and do something they had never done before. Ryan and I are inspired daily by watching these students push their own comfort zone. It helps us to do the same.

- The community asked if we would teach a night class for the youth who go to high schools in the city. We started on Monday and had 20 kids. Since Monday we have had  a steady stream of kids who come to our house every night for help with their English. Some students get off the bus, change, and come here to hang and work. Ryan and I may have had to eat our dinner in the kitchen one night because their were so many kids here we had no other choice. Ryan and I feel good about the fact that the community has found effective ways to utilize us here in the village. It's good to be busy.

- Sadly, three boys in our classes lost their father this week. He died of cancer. He was fairly young and left behind 4 boys and 2 girls. It is incredibly sad. On Thursday, the whole school went up to the putu, which is what funerals are called here in Tonga. We were able to pay our respects to the family which in Tonga involves kissing the forehead of the departed. One of the boys named Osika is especially close to Ryan. He seemed really comforted when Ryan stood by him and just put his hand on his shoulder. I was glad we got to be a part of it. After the funeral, we went back to the school to all eat lunch together. The kids were so cute. They politely shared lunches given to us by the funeral procession and just enjoyed being together. It was a nice ending to the week.

                                                     

- Well, that's about it. This weekend we have our good friends coming to stay with us. We have Peace Corps reports due soon so we decided to pow-wow together and get them done. It has been three weeks since we have seen them, so we are overjoyed that they are coming to stay. 

We hope you all are having a good week and that you too have warmer weather. Here is a picture from our classroom. We have taken this picture before, but I never get sick of looking up during a lesson and seeing this. Magical is the only way to describe it. Happy weekend!

 

                                     

 

Oh, and Ryan Patrick Flood, I know you are reading this and I want you to know that you are officially on my shit list. Why? Because you had the hairbrained idea to send my husband the 'Game of Thrones' series in your care package. He has now become a lump who constantly says, "Just one more page and I will get up and help you." I now have to haul my own toilet water in the dark, which I hate. I also had to stoop to hiding his book at school the other day so he would actually come to class with me and teach. #1 on the shit list Flood. I will deal with you 1 year and 7 months from now.

Finally, we want to congratulate our good friends Ted and Jess, who will be married this weekend in Iowa City. Ryan and Ted have been friends through high school, worked at Palmer's Deli together, through college where they both went into the School of Journalism and had plenty of adventures like traveling through the Sahara Desert in Morocco together. Ryan is pretty heartbroken not to be there this weekend. But, the silver lining is that Ted and Jess will be honeymooning in New Zealand next December and we have plans to meet them and celebrate their marriage with them there. We are so excited! Congratulations Ted and Jess!