A lot of people are not fans of Mondays, particularly that
morning struggle to pull yourself together and get to work or school after a
week. This Monday morning was a bit harder, not because I didn’t love where I
was and what I was doing. No, after the wretched dog barked all night. The cows
started mooing at 5. At assembly it was revealed that if they’re on school
property, we are allowed to kill them. Jeffery’s dad’s bullock needed to watch
himself because my mamie had plans involving a bush knife and a feast.
Monday afternoon was spectacular! Courtney and I watched
Sorina and Lavi while their mum taught class five. We made sweet rice, ate
fruit, coloured and scrubbed some pots. When school let out, the sisters came
and collected us. We were off to the garden for the first time. I have major
respect for the gardens and their owners, the sheer amount of food that comes
out of them is incredible. It took half an hour to walk there, barefoot up and
down the hills sliding in the mud, bush knife in hand. We dug taro, collected
bush cabbage, picked island cabbage and devoured sugar cane. I loved the
garden, as you go down into the valley there is so much greenery hiding the
actual gardens. It’s like walking into a secret, as though the place might be
forbidden for some reason, it is so beautiful.
In class one and two we ended up with four English groups. I
still had the top level Pineapples, but I also had the Soursops. Soursop is a
fruit that smells nasty but is delicious, it was the only fruit we could think
of in a pinch. The Soursops were 5 francophone transfers who no idea what was
going on. Their main goals were learning the alphabet and writing their names.
They really needed a confidence boost too. It looked like it was going to be an
uphill battle. On Tuesday, Familla and Jerine, two of the soursops, managed to
write the whole alphabet out between them. It took an hour and a half but they
did it! I was so proud of them!
Reading was my planned activity for Tuesdays in classes five
and six. I had no other explanation for that disaster other than God testing my
patience. I got totally blank looks for the hour I spent with each class. It
didn’t matter who I asked to read, how slowly we went through the work, it just
didn’t work. Why anyone would write a book about a Mexican walking fish called
Pepe who looks like a banana is beyond me. In class five, I kept repeating the
word banana. Lavi walked into the classroom, handed me a banana, smiled so big
her tiny face nearly split in half and left again. She didn’t say a word.
Everyone in my class looked at the banana, looked at Lavi, looked at each
other, looked at Miss Viran, looked at me, looked at the banana, looked at
where Lavi had gone and then we all burst out laughing.
Tuesday was also Mamie’s birthday. Courtney and I spent the
afternoon with Wawa (Auntie) cooking. We made banana laplap and while it was
cooking we had to keep running out of the kitchen, eyes streaming because of
the smoke. It made splitting the cabbage take a very long time. Birthdays mean feast in Vanuatu. Mamie’s
birthday was no exception. We had laplap, noodles, rice, bread and cake. There
was cordial as well. I never claimed that the food I ate was healthy but
parties really were all about the carbs. We played uke and cards, two things I
was getting very good at. There was singing too, there is always singing
though.
It was a food week because on Wednesday, we were hanging
around before breakfast when Dad and Daddy Presley showed up carrying a whole
pig. Well, half a pig each which they had already gutted. It certainly
explained the barking we woke up to. Breakfast was the eight shaped donuts,
except not eight shaped and real bread. I had some of my bread a s a snack
later. We had island cabbage and namumbah at lunch. Namumbah is a kind of nut
that you cook at eat. It’s not particularly flavoursome but it is tasty. Then
the school was having a fundraiser after classes so we had baked taro and pork
at 4:30. This was after I had eaten a simporo roll that was actually really
good. The day was polished off with more pork and taro for dinner. I have never
had food baby quite as spectacular.
It was a good thing it was sports day as well. The whole
school played Cat and Mouse and Seaweed, which started people laughing. Then
while the big girls played volleyball and the boys played soccer, we taught the
year 1/2 girls the hokey pokey. The whole body shake had all the parents
laughing. We also played left, right, under, over which was designed during
maths week and duck, duck, goose. No one could stop laughing and when I almost
rolled down the hill we were playing on, I had to agree.
On Friday I opened a coconut all by myself! I popped a
blister but I was still super pleased with myself. We also got to use our
little kitchen for the first time. We made soursop and orange tea to celebrate
and didn’t burn ourselves. We then invested in a box of matches and a bag of
sugar. Phil and Terry were due to visit us that weekend, so we taught year 1/2 the
choruses to “Our God” and “10,000 Reasons”, they could sing the song but they
liked to do it in an echo. They’re funny kids.
Love from Me and My Backpack
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