I am alive- and for me, that is good enough at the moment. The first week of school is over, and while it was certainly an experience, I am grateful that it is out of the way. Before the week even started, all the teachers were instructed by the administration not to instruct- they informed all of us that since many kids who were expected to register had yet to, everything would be shifting around to the point where teaching would be useless. I doubted this a little: silly me. It seems that even when it comes to school Samoan procrastination exists. Kids were being registered all throughout the week, and did not appear to think that this was either unusual or perhaps detrimental. Still, administrative instructions aside, it was an interesting week.
I am currently teaching 5 periods out of the six- my second period is designated as my prep period, although the administration has already warned that most likely, that period will actually be when I substitute for other teachers who are absent. Of the five classes I am teaching, 4 are General science (and are mostly freshmen) and one is Physical Science (which contains freshmen, sophomores, and seniors).
My smallest class at the moment has one student-there apparently was a scheduling mishap which supposedly will be fixed this week. Not including that, my smallest class has about 16 kids- my largest, 26 (which is two more than I have chairs for). These could all get bigger- over the next week, all the kids' schedules will change as they place in or out of certain subjects. It is not uncommon for there not to be enough desks or chairs- students are very accustomed to sitting on the floor.
An interesting aspect of NVTHS is that because the majority of the vocations it offers training for are geared towards males, there is a large disproportion of males to females. In most of my classes, there are a maximum of 4 or 5 girls. In my first period, there is one poor lone quiet girl, who I think I am going to have to work on in terms of bringing her out of her shell.
The boy/girl ration definitely creates an atmosphere conducive to rowdiness, but so far, discipline has, for the most part, been maintained. I have had to send a few kids out of my class for various reasons, and I had to lecture another, but overall manageable.
Part of it, I believe, is also not the kids' fault. This week was full of pep-rallies. We had seven in five days-SEVEN. There was an opening, welcome to school pep rally. Every day there were "class meetings" in which each class worked on cheers for a competition during the planned Friday pep rally. On Friday, there was an extra pep rally in the morning, because the Troy Palumalu foundation/Nike showed up to give football equipment to us (they are giving it to all the public high schools), plus the planned, 3 hour pep rally in the afternoon. With all this going on, its not a huge surprise that the kids did not want to get in the classroom mindset, even for introductory activities or games.
Speaking of pep- Every day at our school, the principal creates a bulletin with announcements for teachers. Tuesday's contained this gem: "All those who wish to join the elite cheerleading team, please see one of the advisers, April Kirby or Rosa Mutchnick, today at lunch or directly after school." Without warning (or agreement), my housemate and I became the cheer coaches. Keep in mind- I might be loud, and April might have been in a sorority in college, but neither of us has ANY cheer or dance team experience. Oh well. So far, the girls (and one boy) have been really fun though- and they have worked really hard. They already have a notebook full of chants, so making routines shouldn't be that hard... right?
We had a trial run at our football game Friday, and I have to say, I was proud- they only cheered for a quarter (everyone had lost their voices from the plethora of pep rallies) but they all tried hard.
(side note: I am sitting on my bed writing this, and without any thought, I reached out and flicked one ant off my sheets and one off my arm... without even thinking how strange/annoying/gross that is. I'm acclimating!)
Friday night, everyone hung out and celebrating getting through the first week of school. After comparing stories I realized I have it pretty good- I have textbooks and workbooks, chairs and tables. I may not have a lab or lab equipment, but I don't have rats in the classroom, or exposed wiring either.
Blog post tomorrow: Nuuuli waterfalls!
and.... pics as promised (more are coming... these are older)
Felicia sleeping on the table after a centipede crawled on her face during the night... she stayed with us until she left for Olosenga, one of the outer islands.
Milana and Bralin- this is the host mom of one of the other volunteers and her grandson.
Another one of her grandkids- all Samoan kids are cute btw, its amazing.
A coconut crab! Thusly named because they can crack a coconut- its one of the main things they eat. You can't tell in this pic, but claw to claw, this thing was about a foot, foot and a half wide/long... and its a small one. Fully grown coconut crabs can get up to 3-4 feet.
One of the many, many, many, many churches around AmSam.
In the back of a pickup truck (an extremely common method of transportation) on the way to the West end of the island for a barbeque, hosted by a member of the AmSam DoE.
A hermit crab hiding in a tree at Fagatele Bay... this thing was as big as my hand!
So funny! And the pictures are spectacular.....
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