First
of all I cannot believe that it is already time for thanksgiving. I think one
of the main reasons why it doesn’t feel like thanksgiving is because it’s not
cold outside. When the cooler weather comes home its starts to bring the
feeling of the holidays along with it. We had a busy week at school and at our
house. All three of us were worried what kind of emotions that holidays would
bring us since we would be away from our families for the first time. We didn’t
know how we would handle seeing them all together and not being apart of the
festivities. We were also excited to see how the island celebrated the holiday
and how it compared to what we do at home.
On Wednesday we celebrated
thanksgiving at school. The kids all came to school but we didn’t have to
teach. Instead we had a whole day planned of activities for the kids to do. We
started out the morning by doing the turkey race. The turkey race is a
tradition on the island where they have 4 different races and the winner of
each of the races wins a frozen turkey. We started the first race off with the
lower levels, then came our turn. They had two heats for the teachers. One was
for the younger teachers and the other was for the older teachers. I was unprepared for the race and ran the
mile in flip-flops. I had multiple people come up to me and tell me that I am
turning into a true Samoan for doing that. After all the races were completed
we had stations for each of the students to participate in. They had a sack
race, water balloon toss, relays, and kick ball. I think that the students
really enjoyed doing all of that. We also had a big speaker playing music all
morning long. After those activities we had lunch and then the upper level
classes played volleyball for the rest of the afternoon. After school was
dismissed we headed home to do a deep cleaning of our house. We were having a
few friends over for a thanksgiving meal.
Being away from thanksgiving brought
a lot of different feelings up. I have never missed a holiday from home so I
knew that it would hard to see everyone at home while I was not there. While we
were preparing our meal for thanksgiving I was making mashed potatoes. It
reminded me of how for every holiday I sit in the kitchen for what seems like
forever peeling potatoes for everyone. My dad would always bring me what seemed
like an endless amount of potatoes and laughing at me because he knew I would
be getting sick of it. My mom would moving all around the kitchen cleaning and
washing dishes before we were finished using them. Its one of my biggest pet
peeves because I will still be using a spoon and she would have washed it and
put it away before I have even noticed it was missing. I missed all of that. On
the flip side I started thinking about everything I have done here and how
lucky I am for this opportunity.
On Sunday afternoons I like to go
out and just sit on the beach and watch the waves roll in. I love sitting alone
and just basking in the beauty of the island. I also love playing with all the
little hermit crabs that are crawling on the beach. I have never seen so many
hermit crabs on a beach before. I was sitting on the beach lost in thought when
I was reminded of why I spent my thanksgiving away from home. I soon felt
little pokes to my side and giggles. Sure enough I was spotted on the beach and
one of the kids came over to say hi and make sure I was okay. Soon after we had
a few more kids show up on the beach. Virginia came over to where I was with
the kids. We were all playing with hermit crabs when we decided to build a
little home for them. After like a half hour of building this home in the sand
we decided to head home because it was starting to get dark outside. The two
boys that were with us decided they wanted to walk on the beach back to our
house. They wanted to create a line in the sand of our footprints. They of
course led us back on the most crazy path possible but seeing them running
around and giggling with us made it all worth it. It made me realize that even
though some days can be tough for us we need to focus on the good things and
all positives that are going on. We need to focus on the fact that we are here
for the kids and that they are all that matter.
With
Love,
Abby
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