December 4, 2012
So on Tuesday I am hanging around the school watching all the students cut the grass and “clean” the classrooms when Mele (one of my counterparts) comes up to me and asked me if I can teach the class 1 and 2 something to perform for their graduation Thursday night- Umm sure Mele let me just pull out that age appropriate Tongan dance that I know and teach it to these 6 year-olds who don’t speak English. Anyway, I said I would try and think of something- so I took the class aside and thought about teaching them to single Jingle Bell Rock because it is super short and kind of fun. Well that was a mistake, we couldn’t even get through the first 2 lines:
Jingle bell jingle bell jingle bell rock
Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time
Insert Peace Corps skill number 1- adaptation.
I decided let’s do something that doesn’t really require them to know English. So I made up some dance moves to the song and we did that instead. It worked out pretty good- these kids just love to dance!
The graduation was last night and it was a fun little ceremony where we did all the dances we did for the show we did a week ago (yes, I reprised my amazing kailao performance) and then each class did their own dance. Before their performance the teacher gets up and announces each kid's percent and place in the class, starting with group D from 0-35% and then moving up to group A 85- 100%. It was so strange to see the kid who was in the last group get up in front of everyone and then every one kind of laugh/ cheer. I guess the idea is that maybe they will all want to try hard so they can not have to be in that group in front of everyone? Either way all the kids get money put in their shirts when they dance and lays made of candy so as far as they are concerned it works out for them.
I wish I could have attached some pictures with this post but I still have not been able to get back my phone/camera. I hope to have a photo-taking device of sorts soon.
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