Teacher's Planning Week

January 28, 2013

It was the first official day of work today; this week is Teacher’s Planning Week on the calendar and then next week we start school! The ministry of education holds a planning week/ presentation week were all the elementary teachers from around Vava’u get together and work out the year. I went with my teacher’s into town where we met all the other teachers and Peace Corps at a hall. Of course this is Tonga, so instead of starting at 8:30 the meeting started around 11 and it was actually a church service rather than a meeting. They had also put all of us Peace Corps on separate benches in the front of the room… The next 2 days were a bit more of a meeting but still all in Tonga so not of much use to us.

On Thursday we were supposed to be done with the meetings in town and we were told to just meet at our schools and work. I missed this day of teacher planning because I had arrange to go out with the Micro Finance group on the island to see what the meetings are like and to learn more about the organization. It was really neat getting to go around and meet with all the women and see how a Micro Finance org works on the ground. At each meeting I was offered a bride as soon as I walked in, one of the meetings offered me a bride and lunch! I got to learn a lot though and I think I will try and to do more work with the group in the future.

On the last day of the week I had accidentally talked myself into making breakfast for my teachers while we met. After breakfast (I made scrambled eggs with onions and hot sauce, then to make it fakaTonga I put it into bread bowls) instead of doing planning I helped my principal mow the humongous field that is in front of our school- this was done with a push lawn mower not a ride-on one… I am just assuming I didn’t get much out of the week because I don’t speak Tongan, but it also just seems like an interesting way to start a school year and I am not sure if it is better for us outer village schools or inefficient.

I know it is kind of lame but I am proud of this food invention so I had to take a picture of it