3/13/08

Do it for the kids

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Today we had some environmental awareness at the school. Jessie and Jessica (other Peace Corps volunteers here in Vava’u) visited my school to help me teach the kids about recycling. We have a recycling cage at the school, thanks to Jessie, and the kids have really gotten excited and filled the cage in about a week.

We weighed it out and they collected 33 kilos and there is a company that pays 60 cents a kilo, so the kids made 20 bucks picking up cans. I’m excited about where our recycling efforts could go with the schools here in Vava’u. initiative

J

Been a little while...

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Yeah, so I’m finally writing again… my plan is to start writing in here more frequently. Steve writes in his blog all the time and my buddy Stan found a renewed energy, so… I will try for the same.

What’s new with me? I’m doing awesome here in Vava’u. I keep myself pretty busy and still have plenty of down time. For those of you that have sent books to this side of the world, I appreciate it. They are getting read and not just by me. As you may remember I am working at the Vava’u Side School, a charter school, similar to a private school. We just had the opening for our school. It was an exciting event; the opening was followed by a huge feast (maybe 1000 people). The feasts here are always a big deal, but this was really big.





During the feast, the students performed traditional dances for the guests and it was a lot of fun. It wasn’t just the students that performed though. I suited up and did a warrior dance with my class 5 kids and another teacher at the school (yes, I danced in front of 1000 people). The picture can show you better than I could ever explain, but it was such an awesome thing to have experienced doing.



I’ve been teaching for about 8 weeks now, 2 weeks in our new facility. It’s going great. Some of the projects I’m thinking about for the Side School are: improving the library, putting together a computer “lab” (3 computers), and building a garden for the students to work on. If you have any children’s books, want to help out in some way with the computer lab, or want to mail some seeds this way, let me know, because I’d love any support.

Hopefully, I will start getting involved in some secondary projects soon. I do want to try and build a ropes course here, but need to figure out a lot of the logistics, before I can even begin to think about it. I’ve also put forth some interest in tutoring at the university here and should start helping with some computer classes soon.

Steve has moved up here to Vava’u. He was down in the capital for 3 months, continuing with some training for his job working at the Tonga Development Bank. This doesn’t happen much, but we are actually next door neighbors and by neighbors; I mean his house is less than 6 feet away. I could probably jump into his house from my porch.



Now I have to end with the highlight of the this month. We went sailing last Saturday and it was truly one of the coolest things I’ve done. It was a beautiful catamaran, definitely one of the largest sailboats I’ve been on. We sailed to a lagoon where we spent the day hanging out in the water and catching some sun on the boat. The whole day has me looking into the possibilities of me sailing after Peace Corps. On our way back we stopped in at Mariner’s Cave. The cave is actually only accessible from underwater, which is one of the reasons it’s so cool. The lot of us swam under and through (6 feet down and 12 feet in). It was such an amazing day.





Thanks to all of you who have sent me letters and packages. They really do make my day when they come and it’s nice to be able to share things from home with my neighbors and other Peace Corps volunteers.

J