It was a big week here in our tiny village. Two weeks ago our 15 class six students took their high school entrance exams and my husband turned 30. We have not had this much action in a long time!
We have talked quite a bit about this test our students had to take, the importance of it, and the impossibility of passing it. So I will not bore you with further details about it. Testing started on a Tuesday. Ryan and I had heard that testing days were pretty special, but we had no idea how big of an event it was going to be. On our walk to school that day, we were stopped by numerous families taking pictures of their class 6 child. The kids were squeaky clean and wearing new uniforms and shoes. Some girls even had had their make-up done! Many of them had candy kahoas strung around their neck in honor of the special day. Ryan and I just looked at each other and said, "Oh man, maybe we should have thought to take a bath!" When we got to school, feast tables had already been set up. The first feast of the day was platefuls of cake, cake, and more cake with tea and soda. This was to fuel the kids for their first test. Ryan and I were pretty darn happy. Best breakfast ever... especially after a week of particularly crappy food. Kids put their sugar high to good use and went in to take the hardest test of them all... English. Ryan and I followed the lead of the proctors and laid on benches to take a short nap.
The Tongan breakfast of champions:
Hangin' before the test. It was crazy to see how nervous all the kids were!
We awoke to the sound of another feast table being set up. This time... Tongan pie and ice cream! Ice cream is SUCH a rare treat for families and kids here. It was so cool of the PTA to do this for them. The kids were having such a great time. Over ice cream, the kids told us all about the English test. Some of them even remembered the sentences they wrote to ask us if they were good. It was giggling and silliness at it's finest.
Kids were then let loose to "hang" for two hours. This, as they say, was nuts on cake! The combined effect of eating so much sugar and sitting for a two hour test lead to some pretty hardcore play. Yikes! Eventually kids were corralled back into the testing room for their next session. At this point, Ryan and I were starting to think eating so much sugar in one day was not such a good idea. But, we shrugged it off and thought, "Oh well, it is a special day. It's not like we will ever do this again." Oh the stupidity.
After the kids finished their second testing session, our community sat down to the largest feast of the day. The class 6 parents and many other members of the community went all out to prepare a celebratory feast for the kids. It was so wonderful. We ate the most amazing food! This was truly village feast food at it's finest. The only snag is that right when we broke into the meat, they brought us out each a special dessert of cookies and cream ice cream. The flavors were NOT compatible! In the end, Ryan and I ate so much we literally got home, laid on the floor and groaned. But, it was sooooo worth it! This was one of the coolest community events we had been to since moving here.
Two hours later we decided we better eat all the food we got sent home with because it was not going to keep. So, we ripped into crabs and fish and told ourselves we wouldn't eat much the next day.
The next day we arrived at school to repeat day one of testing all over again. Ryan and my pact to go easy was broken early on with the appearance of actual cinnamon rolls WITH FROSTING on our breakfast plate. Needless to say, we ate just as much the second day as we did the first. When in Tonga.....
Ryan was trying to make the boys play X-Men with him. He truly is just a big 12 year old. Here is Tukuafu as Wolverine.
Testing is over and the children rejoice!!!!
And some are just plain pooped :)
Our Class 6 students. Ryan and I are going to miss them so much next year! It is sad to think of not being with them every day. They really are an amazing group of kids with so much personality. We love them so much.
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