Monday
Today I woke up, had breakfast and then walked to my first day of school. there was an assembly first thing in the morning so all the students gathered on the floor in the year 1 and 2 classroom and the teachers sat in chairs at the front. The head teacher greeted everybody and introduced me and asked me to say a few words. I stood up and told the students how excited I was to be teaching them for the next few weeks and about the supplies I had bought for them, Master Jona asked teh year 8 prefects to come up and accept the donations on behalf of the school. I said Vinaka and sat back down. The head teacher decided that this week I'm going to be helping out Madam Kini with year 1 and 2. Miss Kini set up a desk for me in the back of the room next to hers and i watched her teach all 30 students. I helped grade math papers and read books to the students until lunch, I walked outside and saw Naomi with a lovely lunch basket for me. While I was eating, Naomi talked with me and I started to feel bad that she wasn't eating with me,I handed her one of my 4 egg and jelly sandwiches and she accepted. After lunch, I headed back to class but miss Kini isn't back yet, I took some initiative and gathered the class for a story. The kids listened, but the language barrier was rough and a few of them just didn't understand. When Miss Kini got back, it was time for their Fijian lesson and I wasn't much help. I started to feel sick again and was trying to power through when Miss Kini said i could go home early, I reluctantly accepted. When I got home, I was ready to pass out. I slept for the rest of the day, Naomi came to check on me and it felt good to have someone worry, I told her i was feeling better but skipped dinner and just fell asleep hoping I could make it to school the next day.

Tuesday
I woke up feeling a little better but i skipped breakfast too. When I got to school, the head teacher told me that I could start leaving early at lunch from now on, I told him it was okay, but he just thought I'd be bored, I told Ms Kini that I'd only be there for half day now and she seemed a little disappointed but it did make sense. Ms Kini taught Year 1 english and then Year 2 and then asked me to help some of her students that were slower learners, seh separated out 4 boys and I showed her some of the Pre K workbooks I had brought with me and we photocopied some pages from the boys to do.I helped the boys out and they did a great job. Miss Kini explained that a few of them had started very late which was why they were slow. I graded the students papers and helped them make corrections, some of the kids did really well and some of them had no clue. The levels in the class varied greatly and I was just so amazed by Miss Kini's ability to teach her 30 students which were essentially 3 classes, Year 1, Year 2 and the special needs students. She did an amazing job and I felt like I was learning a lot from her. After I went home, Naomi and I started weaving bags out of coconut leaves, Naomi remembered my staff meeting before I did, luckily, I made it in time, Master Jona went over things that needed more attention like the kids toothbrushing program and the PE classes which all of the teachers ran themselves. Then, he asked me to say a few things about the special needs students and what advice I had for helping them move forward, it was nice meeting even though only about half of it was in a language I could understand. I went home and rested again since I still wasn't feeling great.

Wednesday
I'm finally feeling better today, I've been in bed every chance I got for about 4 days now, but I woke up and I was ready to go. I went to school and the kids sang their daily song with their powerful voices, I am surprised by how loud they are every time I hear them sing. After morning song and prayer, Miss Kini asked me to lead a math lesson, I was nervous, but I went up to the board and started writing equations, and asking the kids to answer, I used blocks to represent quantities and my students seemed to be getting it. I was teaching the concept that any time you take the same number away from itself, you get zero and the were getting every question right, so I gave them a few equations to write down and answer by themselves. I felt good, I had completed my first lesson and the kids were doing great from what I could see on their papers. After school, I walked home and had lunch, it was roti and fish curry. When I was finished, the tied had rolled out so I went to explore the tide pools. I saw some really interesting creatures but Loi warned me to watch out for stingrays because they bury themselves in the sand and if you step on them, they sting you and you'll have to go to the hospital. I found this weird worm looking thing that was essentially a jelly tube full of seawater, a hermit crab type thing that when you put it on its back, pulls out an arm and flips itself over. I've decided these are my new favorite animals.

Thursday
It was a slow morning at school until the teacher from Year 3 and 4 came and asked me to watch his class while he went back to the village for a while. He didn't say how long a while was, but he showed me a lesson plan and told me to teach them and then give an assignment. So I taught year 4 about money and then gave them an assignment, that took me about 15 minutes and so i moved on the the year 3 students, I gave them a similar lesson and then an assignment. I waited for them to finish and then gathered teh class at the front to listen to a story until Teacher came back. I said goodbye to the class and headed back to year 1 and 2. I taught an english lesson and the kids learned about words that end in "ing" I needed Miss Kini t help me convey what the assignment was because of the language barrier, but they got it. I created the assignments and then helped Miss Kini with some computer problems, she was trying to get graphs of the students' grades for the parent teacher meetings on Friday. After school, I went home and had lunch with Naomi, I still can't believe how much this 4 month pregnant, mother of a toddler does. her husband, Tua was in Suva and Loi Sandy was busy with baby Hope. So Naomin, chases after 2 year old Sam and works the plantation, cooks the meals, does the laundry, washes the dishes, cleans my room and everything and anything else that needs to be done. She's kind of awesome. I've really enjoyed talking with her this week, She's been telling me all about Gunu and her own village, I've been learning a lot about the culture and how the Fijian people really live. After lunch, i went back to the school to take care of any of the kids' cuts or scrapes that needed attention. Now, whether it was shyness or simply a lack of injuries, I really wasn't needed very much, but the kids were really excited to get taken care of.

Friday
I had my last day in Year 1 and 2 today. I finished Miss Kini's graphs for her class results and rankings, I was looking over all the information and it was hard to see that some of the students did so poorly simply because they had only gone to 12/64 days of school, they were learning the same things and would still move on with the other students. the teachers here are incredible, but I think it's impossible for anybody to teach 30 unique students at the same time and expect them to move forward at the same pace, especially when teachers have 2 separate classes to teach at the same time. The parent teacher meeting was honestly a little boring, mainly because I couldn't understand it, but no worries, I just want to help out with the students who were all in 2 classrooms. I picked up a few books and read/yelled a book to the kids who were unbelievably loud. Seriously, the lungs on these kids are something else. When it was time for the kids to have lunch, i went home. I had lunch and then explored the tide pools with some girls from the village, we were getting pretty far out when the girls seemed uneasy, they warned me about the Vai (I later earned that this is the Fijian word for Sting ray) that would attack your leg and make blood come out, I wasn't sure what they were talking about, but if it scared these fearless kids, I figured it was time to go back. When I finally got to my little house again, Naomi said there was a boy in the village who had come looking for me, I laughed and asked what she meant. Apparently he had come by and asked if he could meet me, he had a "special" talent called gecko climbing which is where you climb up coconut tree like a gecko and then back down with your head pointed to the ground, I was intrigued so Naomi and I went to find Walu. I met his Mom and she told me to marry her son! Naomi and I laughed out loud and when we had been waiting for a while, Laisa (Walu's mom) told us where to find him, so we went to the kasava plantation and met Walu, he was busy planting so he said we'd do it later on. Naomi and I walked back home laughing about the whole thing.