Night School

May 22, 2013

Po ako essentially translate to night school and is the name given to the extra classes that the class 6 students have in order to prepare them for their class 6 exam in October. My students do their po ako before school and right after school because our class 6 teacher doesn’t like walking in the dark and the school is a bit away from the center of the village. The class 6 students have about 2 and half hours of extra class every day, which is also extra teaching time and I really doubt that this extra time is compensated for…

I teach English po ako for about an hour and half to two hours once a week. Yesterday, I took the class 6 teacher’s slot because she wasn’t going to have class so we started around 4:30. Now I was pretty hungry because I hadn’t really eaten all day (which is pretty unusual as I am sure you know if you have read some of this blog), so I told the kids to go and get me some coconuts before class. This right here is probably my favorite thing about Tonga, since everything is surrounded by bush and the kids are expert climbers by the age of 5, you can send them off to get fruit at any moment. Unfortunately, my little farmers came back about 20 minutes later with just papaya- I don’t like papaya, I think it smells farty and it is always too mushy. After the kids finished cutting up the fruit with the same box cutter razor that they use to sharpen their pencils I did decide to give it another try (a decision I make every time I am offered the fruit) and it actually wasn’t too bad-I think I was just too hungry. I should mention here though that I sort of might be allergic to papaya as I was up all night with the worst stomach pains I have ever felt (of course this probably wont stop me from tasting it again if it is offered to me)….