Ready or not

Well the last couple of days have been filled with classroom prep. I have been busy trying to lesson plan without any wifi and without any materials. Let me tell you it has been a real struggle. I relied so heavily on google to help me create all my lessons plans through out college and now I sit in a classroom and try to be creative on my own. My biggest worries is being creative in music and art. For music one of the teachers told me to just sing to the kids. If anyone of you knows me that well you know for a fact that I cannot sing to save my life. This could be interesting.

On Saturday morning I decided that I was going to do a little surprise for my mother on her birthday. I have an island phone that works to call people on the island and I can make calls to the states in the case of an emergency and that way my family can contact me in the case of an emergency.  I decided I needed to test out my phone and see if it could actually call the states. I dialed my mom’s number to see if she would answer. I was becoming a little worried because the phone just kept ringing and ringing but by some miracle she answered. I said Happy Birthday and I had never heard her scream my name like that before. It pretty much made my day so much better. I decided that the extra costs that it cost me to call her was worth the fact that she was so excited to her my voice! After a short conversation we decided we better hang up as I am sure dad was in the background worried about us racking the phone bill up!

On Saturday afternoon we headed across to the main island to test out our hammocks. Virginia and I had never set them up and decided to do it for the first time on the main island that way no one could see us failing at it. The people on our island literally watch us so closely. Like they could tell you exactly what time I left and where I went and what time I came back. I guess its good to know that they care about us a lot. Anyway back to the hammocks. Since I was unaware that the ropes did not come with the hammock I had to buy some rope. It took me a little while and my hammock may have almost touched the ground but I did figure it out. With a little bit of practice I am sure I will master it.

On Sunday morning we headed to the church that they said spoke the most English. The church is a white church with stain glass windows and seated right on the ocean. I can see the waves crashing as I am listening to the church service. In this church they love to sing for the first hour they just sang. Even though it was in Samoan it was fun to watch them. They also had a ton of little kids in the church and they were so stinking cute. They did sing one song in English and they sang and danced around while singing the song. Everyone in the church was just dancing to the music. We also got to shout outs throughout the church service. They thanked us World Teachers for coming the church and for coming to the island. They thanked us for leaving our families and lives to come help their children. They also told us that we were going to be their family for the year since we won’t be around ours. It was very sweet of them.

After church Luma our school secretary gave us a whole bunch of Samoan food. It was turkey tails served in banana leaves, taro, and a sweet salad. It was all really good and it was nice to have a meal made of us. We then spent the rest of our Sunday preparing for our first day of school. Ready or not our first day of teaching is here! Lets hope all goes well!

With Love,

Abby