Reading Promotion Week

This week at school we are having Reading Promotion Week. The basic idea was that they were going to cancel all other subjects and just focus on reading. However, it didn’t turn out that way at all. I guess like everything in Vanuatu, it didn’t turn out as planned. My main job in this program was to read aloud to all the classes. They want the students to hear fluent English being read. This was actually really enjoyable as the kids would get really excited to hear me read. But for the rest of the day, there seemed to be very little reading involved. There were 10 minutes of silent reading in the morning, but other than that the teachers liked to focus on this section they call “experience with a topic”. Basically they’re supposed to do some hands on activity related to what they are reading. The teachers I think interpreted this time as, let’s let the kids run wild, time. Yesterday one of the classes decided they’d take this time which is supposed to be an hour long and do a traditional bunia or bake. The bunia includes various root crops and any meat available (chicken or bat preferable). Well, needless to say, this activity which began at 9 in the morning went until 2 pm. And the whole time, the students were definitely not speaking English. I wonder if it even related to what they were reading. Anyway, next Monday they’ll do their presentations of what they have learned during the week so it should be quite interesting.

Also next week will be my last week teaching my classes. In 2 weeks from today, I’ll be leaving Futuna and heading to the capital. It still hasn’t really hit me yet that I’m leaving and a lot of these people I may never see again. I think I’m most sad about my 3 year old sister. Like all of the other people I can keep in touch with through letters or email, but my sister who is like my best friend here probably won’t even remember me when she gets older. The good thing about leaving is that I’m trying my hardest to appreciate all these organic root crops that I’m eating. Like whenever we’re having manioc for the umpteenth time that week I just tell myself, that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be thinking about manioc when I go home but I won’t be able to eat it.