This rainbow welcomed the students back to school this week (yes, it rained the 1st day of school). School was supposed to start a week earlier, but on January 28th the principal announced that school would start a week late! We were shocked. Such a thing would never happen in Utah. We started teaching a class on assessment (testing) on Feb.10th, and we've been very busy also preparing for school wide literacy testing, coaching new mentor teachers, and preparing to teach a student teaching class. We also serve as part time Sunday School teachers and YM/YW advisors. That's why we missed last week's blog. Sorry about that.
We continue to eat well as attested by our lack of weight loss. Sister Sumner threw together a wonderful Nacho Grande for lunch last week when we didn't have a lot of time to cook. I can't believe we ate the whole plate. We've been able to figure out how to make some of our favorite dishes such as pizza, spaghetti, cinnamon twists, cookies, and even fruit salad despite having to substitute for many ingredients that are not available here. I'm getting spoiled by Janet's homemade bread.
On January 12th a volunteer group of dentists and dental hygienists from the Deseret International Foundation arrived. They not only cleaned our teeth but even cut our hair. They have been doing this at their own expense for a dozen years. We often took them thank you treats for family nights. What a great group.
John Millar and Ameet Kumar arrived here on Thursday, February 5th. John has served as the TVET area director for several years but is now retiring. Ameet is his replacement. The dinner and cultural presentation was to honor John and the dental group.
The traditional Stick Dance is always fun to watch. I would attach some video but our internet is impossibly slow. These dances are usually performed by members of the Service Center and school faculty and their wives and children. We can tell by their facial expressions that they truly enjoy doing this despite the many rehearsals in the heat and humidity.
Of course the ladies put on fascinating dances that usually involve a lot of hip shaking. If you look behind the dancers, you can see a large wooden box laying on the floor. The men beat on this box amazingly hard with their bare, flat palms. It has got to hurt, and the sound can be heard all over the campus.
We had to change our 45th Wedding Anniversary plans to Saturday, February 7th because of the celebration for John Millar and the dental group. We went to the Hotel George restaurant in Betio. The atmosphere and music were lovely, but next time we'll eat at the Golden Restaurant. We were less than impressed with the food here.
On sun shiny days the glare from the roof of the adjacent building is blinding, so I put up some curtains in our office which can be closed to take the edge off the glare. Sister Sumner reluctantly made them with a lot of pressure from me since she didn't think we needed them. Our office, however, was the only office without curtains. I had to improvise a way to hang the curtains, but so far they are hanging just fine. We've had some nice compliments on them already. We couldn't help but notice last Sunday that many of the girls' white Sunday dresses were made out of the same material.
When we go walking early in the morning, the students are busily engaged in cleaning the campus grounds. We had to smile at this group of girls all dressed in their shiny new school uniforms carrying new pink brooms to sweep around the dorms.
The Young Men/Young Women's opening social was a bust and a blast at the same time. It was a bust because just before the start of the meeting, Microsoft decided to start downloading updates to my Windows 7. By the time I borrowed another computer to show the new YM/YW Theme Song video "Embark" the meeting was nearly over. After the meeting, they played "guess the name on my back" game. Sister Sumner baked over 12 dozen cookies and Sister Alldredge, the mission nurse cooked another 5 dozen for the refreshments. Needless to say, there were no cookies left over.
The young ladies you see in these two pictures are NOT the MiaMaid or Laurel Presidencies. They are, in fact, the Young Women's Presidency. The Young Men's Presidency is also composed of 17 and 18 year old students. We are just their advisors. It is neat to see them start to learn about leadership. We try hard not to take over from them so that they can grow in their callings. The Kiribati culture makes them painfully shy around us.
This picture was taken in the front of the school office. There have been lines of new and hopeful students filling out lots of paperwork. There are many more applicants for Moroni High School than there is room for. The kids know this and it helps them to realize how blessed they are to be here. We feel the same way. It's hard to believe we have been here 5 months already. What a joy it is to teach with the Spirit helping us understand each other. It's a good thing, too, because sometimes we have a hard time understanding their English. We hope we can help them learn to speak more clearly.
Our first faculty meeting of a new school year. Lita, our principal is welcoming everyone. The TVET couple, Elder and Sister Bogh and we are always asked to sit in the front and allowed to take care of our business first. We'd just as soon sit with the rest of the teachers. The faculty meetings lasted half a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Tuesday we did a presentation on comprehensible input in the SIOP model of teaching.
