Monday
Well this morning I got up, had a breakfast of bananas and biscuits and then walked to school. today was supposed to be my first day in the year 3 and 4 classroom, but since Mrs. Kini was out sick, I got to teach her class. By myself. I was nervous to say the least, but the teacher next door was there in case I needed help. I found the schedule and started a maths lesson, I tried to teach fact families, but I was really losing the class. It's incredibly difficult to teach a class of 6, 7 and 8 year olds how to do math when they don't totally understand what you're saying. I got through the lesson and managed to convey and assignment, but when I was correcting the papers, there was a pretty clear line between students that understood what I was saying and those that were completely clueless. I helped the ones that were struggling, meanwhile, the students that had finished or did not know what they were supposed to be doing, were creating anarchy. Kids were standing on desks, fighting in the corner and no matter how many times I attempted to settle the class, they just don't understand, I was almost ready to throw in the towel, but I took a breath and asked a teacher o watch the class for a minute while I had a break. When I got back, I read the kids a story that maybe a third of them listened to and then the bell for recess rang.

Tuesday
I had my first day in the year 3 and 4 classroom with Master Elia today. I lead a math lesson for year 4 while Master Elia did the same with year 3. Afterwards, when the students were doing there classwork, Master Elia asked me to watch the class while he brought out supplies for a couple of volunteers that were at school that day. out of curiosity, I looked out the window and saw a familiar face. It was Mrs. Tema! Last summer, when I was in the GLA, Mrs. Tema was the local organizer of the education program and she was a real mentor to me throughout the whole experience. I was thrilled to see her so I bought the supplies out instead. I was greeted by name with a big smile, couldn't believe she recognized me! I never thought I'd see her again, but it turned out he had been in contact with Reapi and she knew I was there. We were both so happy to see each other and it felt so good to reconnect. I was feeling nostalgic, remembering where it all started. We said goodbye and I headed back to class. After school, I went home and Naomi and I went to do some weaving. I made a tiny mat while we chatted with Kelly, a woman from LA that was staying in Fiji for the third time. We were talking about travelling and why we both loved Fiji so much when NAomi went to check on Tua who was making dinner tonight. Naomi and I had joed about him cooking the night before, but he didn't realize we were serious until a couple hours before dinner, so he wasn't thrilled. When she got back, we started talking about how Naomi hadn't seen her mother since before her son Sam was born and she wanted to introduce him to her village on the main island (introducing children to your village is a Fijian tradition/ceremony that needs to be done before the child ann come into the village) before her second baby was born in a few months. The family in Gunu didn't want her to go because they alway half joked she wouldn't come back so I told Naomi that she should just go to the mainland when I leave so i can see the ceremony before I go back to the US. it was getting late, so we went back home to see what Tua had cooked for dinner, it was an interesting meal of noodles, carrots, some kind of meat (corned beef maybe?), tomato sauce (ketchup) with cheese and crushed pineapple on top, it was surprisingly good and we all had seconds.

Wednesday
This morning, I woke up still tired, it had been raining all night and the sound of raindrops on an aluminum roof is unusually loud, that in addition to the sound of machinery driving off a boat and into the beach, past my house to the school from 8pm to 4am, made it very hard to sleep. However, school was a lot of fun, I taught another math lesson to year 4 and then planned a group activity for all the students to do. they used crayons to color in thermometers and learned about temperature. Their projects came out looking awesome and I felt like a real teacher, the kids had learned something and they had fun doing it. The bell for recess rang and Master Elia and I planned out our net activity, we were going to make a chart to get all of the students' reading levels down, but decided that there wasn't enough time. Instead, I let the kids read to me outside one by one until lunch. On my walk home, a boy named Jack came up and asked if I could take care of a scrape on his leg, I was happy to see that the kids knew I was there if they needed anything. I patched him up an he went on his way. I had lunch and then started working on a lesson plan for tomorrow. LAter on, the Captain Cook cruise ship docked by the village like it does every Wednesday. I went to see the village handicraft market that they always get up when big groups of tourists come by. I wen to say hello to a teacher who was sitting by a couple cruise ship employees and they thought I was a customer, it kept happening throughout the night until I introduced myself to everyone. I made friends with the rest of the employees and they actually brought me a plate of food and we all had a nice conversation while we ate. I got to bed pretty late especially after having to change the sheets that a mouse had pooped on, but I managed t o fall asleep at around 10pm.

Thursday
Well, I officially hate chickens more than any other animal on the planet. Roosters in particular. I swear if I wake up to 5 roosters having a screaming contest at 4 in the morning one more time, I might psycho murder them all. I was exhausted and unable to go back to sleep, because the screaming roosters had woken up the dogs, whose barking had woken up some of the village kids, who were just as upset as me to be awake that early. So by 5am, I'm still in bed with 2 pillows on my head, trying to drown out the screaming roosters, barking dogs and crying babies. I tried for a another couple hours but by 7am I finally got up and just in time for Naomi to bring me breakfast and tell me she was going to the mainland for some shopping. She was also going to get some ingredients for me to make chocolate chip cookies. I finished breakfast and then headed to school a little late. I taught a geometry lesson and the kids drew 2D and 3D shapes. it was kind of a slow day and I mostly just observed for the rest of class. It was a hot day so I was ready to take a shower to cool off but the shower was still broken, and I decided I didn't want to take another bucket shower, so I just went to take a nap.

Friday
I had my last day in the year 3 and 4 classroom today. We all had a relaxing Friday, I had my year 4 students color squares of paper and then we folded them into sonobe units and made 3D shapes out of them. It was a really fun day and Master Elia's classroom was looking great, it was decorated with all the students math/art projects. I came home and had a rest before going for a walk through the village. I said hello to Laisa (a nice woman who wants me to be "friends" her son who was my age) We had nice chat and then I met her granddaughter. Sarafina and I went for a walk together and we sat down with a few women who were weaving, we chatted for a while and I asked about their goats, apparently, they had just caught them that day. Then I saw Tua and Mahi, they were going to harvest Kasava and Yams, we tagged along and I pulled up a Kasave plant, we hung out for a while and then I carried Sarafina back home. I was kind of gross so I decided to go for a swim. I walked down to Nasogo (a settlement closeby) and said hello to some of my students and then went swimming with them. We had a great time doing flips and handstands, and having chicken fights until the sun set and it was time for me to go home.