West Side Pride

Before winter vacation, our school had the Leone Taumafai Swing Choir Christmas Performance at Lee Auditorium in Utulei.  I had never thought some of my crazy, disruptive, unmotivated students in class could be SO focused and passionate about something until I saw them singing for the Christmas show!!!  I honestly was holding back tears during like half of this show.  Leone has the BEST Swing Choir on island (and I'm not just saying that because I'm biased...it's a fact).  I'm so proud of them- and mad props go out to Pati Pati for leading them!!! WeSt sIdE rEpReSEnT!!!!!

Leone Taumafai Swing Choir Christmas Performance

They got a little rowdy during an amazing remix!

We also had our christmas performance... the Western District Choir..... where we sang Samoan Christmas songs on TV & for the governor..... here's what some of the music I had to learn was like....

Kristina & I in our Christmas Choir puletasis

more Leone teachers reppin West side

FiaFia/Tausala Day

 Picture this: Seniors in high school, dancing in front of the guests (their families, friends, teachers), while getting dollar bills thrown at them, tucked into their clothes, or smacked onto their sweaty bodies.  Now take it a step further....the boys are shirtless, oiled up, and after they finish their Samoan dancing, dance dirty.  While the girls dance, the boys lay down on the cement gym floor in front of them and let the girls stand on them while they dance.  Girls run around the dancers to collect the money.  Now you have Tausala Day at Leone High School.  It was a few weeks ago, on a Saturday, and it was QUITE an experience.  I've seen them dance like this before at assemblies, but Tausala Day is where all the seniors perform in groups based on village.  Some of my students are so talented when it comes to performance!!!! I was impressed.  The videos from it are hysterical, especially when some Leone alum grabbed us WorldTeachers and had us up dancing with them.  My students got a good laugh of that as well, seeing their teacher up there shakin her groove thang.  I threw some bills at my students (despite feeling a bit like an older woman at a male strip club....) and carried on.  Oh, and of course, we got fed there. This is Samoa, after all.

Senior who actually just arrived from Western Samoa
and is attempting a football scholarship, workin his dance moves

One of my seniors- Ioane (John)

  

student representing the Tongan community

Some of my seniors from Aoloau also known as "Alaska", since it is up on the mountain and "cold".
They joke that there is snow up there.  The video of their dance is priceless.

Learning the Fa'asamoa

Kristina and I recently woke up around 5:45 on a Sunday to learn how Samoans do the most important things: make food!  We thought we were going to help with the umu (Samoan earthen oven), but they didn't end up doing umu that day.  Instead, we learned how to husk a coconut and make it into coconut cream, how to weave a basket (this will still take some time to learn......), and most of all, we learned why Samoans start doing this stuff around 3am, not 6am.  The sun is up by about 6:30, and it is MUCH more manageable to get these tasks done in the dark than in the blazing fireball that is the Samoan sun.   They also need to get everything ready before church around 8am.  Tau taught us how to do all of these things and we definitely want to wake up earlier another Sunday to practice this stuff more and learn how to cook umu.

making coconut cream!

while I was going cocoNUTS (hehe) kristina learned how to weave a basket!

gettin the good stuff :)

We went to church with one of my students in Nu'uuli around 8 and were there for a HUGE to'ona'i (lunch). We got chicken, cocoa Samoa (which is literally the best thing ever but I don't get how people drink it in a place that is soooo hot!!! It would be PERFECT after a long day of skiing. It's the best hot chocolate I've ever had), panikekes (basically fried dough but with bananas in it), taro, oka (raw fish in coconut milk with spices), and a ton of other food. (We were supposed to go to ANOTHER lunch afterwards but we begged them and told them we were so full we were feeling sick). 

Valentine's Day

Feb 13th & 14th were especially disappointing days with my students.  I just felt totally unappreciated and worthless, like I hadn't taught them anything- including manners.  After I gave my seniors Finding Nemo candies (because we share the love of Finding Nemo and we've been watching it in class), they left the wrappers all over the floor and would NOT share ANY of the supplies I gave them to make Valentine's Day cards.  They were the first period of the day and all of the supplies were gone by the end of their class, and there was nothing left for my other 4 periods of classes to work with.  Not to mention, all of my classes had just been disastrous in terms of teaching the few days prior.  I had also put some bible quotes about love on the whiteboard and asked students to write about them for extra credit if they chose not to take the time to make valentines. After all of my explanations about SHOWING that you care about someone and not just TALKING it......my students were running around the room stealing supplies from each other and not listening to a word I had said.  I was defeated on Valentine's Day.

BUT THEN..........

Last block of the day today, Friday, before a long weekend, one of my quieter students came up to me as the bell to get out of school rang.  He always gets his work done and works really hard (but might be somewhat of a troublemaker outside of school.... not quite sure but I've seen his antics at the rowdy assemblies....).  He is probably about 6 feet tall and is a football player (or was for most of the season until some....circumstances).  He told me he had a Valentine's Day card and after a fairly lengthy back-and-forth convo about who it was for and when he was giving it to them since it was the day after Valentine's Day I figured out that it was for me and he was sorry that it was late. 

We shared a laugh about our miscommunications and he told me to wait to read the card.  I read it after everyone left my classroom, and without writing all of the contents of the card on this page, I will explain the gist of it by one of his phrases, "I can't explain it in words".  There was a lot more to the card, but I don't want to spill everything on my blog, and it wouldn't mean as much to anyone reading this as it did to me when I read it.  But he had also PROVED it (as he mentioned in his card) through the work he always does in class.  It's as if he had taken the bible quotes (likely, since he is very religious) and reminded me how he put them into action. I hadn't realized the effect my students' words would have on me once I saw them in writing- especially if their words were backed up with evidence. Also, because he's a senior it meant even more to me coming from a mature soon to be adult who has his head on straight. This one card, this one student, had made my whole week turn upside down with just a few words.  I now know why people decide to teach and continue to teach throughout their lives.  I get it!

Me and some of my biology class on Valentine's Day