Aelan Laef!

One day a local friend of mine walked through the coconut plantation to join us for a children's class. Except the class was cancelled and he hadn't been notified… I felt suuuuuuper bad about it, and asked him how long it had taken for him to walk here (it's a fair walk). He said: "Oh, about 15 minutes… 15 minutes island time." That means if probably took an hour or something, maybe even more. I don't know, I've yet to walk that walk (plans have been made). But that's just one example of island time.  During my first month in Vanuatu, I noticed how everything just took way more time than I expected. Breakfast. Cooking in general. Going from A to B. Giving someone a ride somewhere. Walking to the store. I also noticed how no one is ever in a hurry. There are no businessmen running around with suitcases and mobile phones. In fact, nobody runs . Not unless they're chasing a football, of course. You know that determination to reach your desti...

It has been a busy week at Rowhani for me. The library has been filled with youth doing research assignments all week, I've been stepping in for some teachers every once in a while and GUESS WHAT! Guess who's new task it is to co-teach basic science for year 7 and 8 students?? I'm still trying to understand what exactly happened. With about 15 minutes warning I was in a classroom talking to students about heat emission and absorption. Wait, what? WHAT? All I know is, I've now got 10 hours of basic science each week. Luckily I'm not teaching the classes all by myself (what a catastrophe would that be!), but it's still a whooooole lot more responsibility. It takes a lot of time to prepare the lessons - and it requires a bit of creativity to work with limited resources (and now all you teachers out there are noddin' yer heads and clapping your hands knowingly "aye, aye!")  Check out this "polystyrene cup + lid" we made from the packaging t...

Easter time! That means 4 days of holiday! Someone said "Welcome to Vanuatu, the land of public holidays" as there seems to be a public holiday every few weeks (and sometimes, without any warning. One day we had to send our students home in the middle of the day because it had been made a holiday all of a sudden). But, Easter is, truly, a legit holiday. Also, here it's less about bunnies and witches and such. It seemed very fitting that in our spiritual education class we should be talking of Jesus and His teachings on love that Thursday morning. Then we finished school before lunch with assembly (we always finish the week with one). In this assembly we sang a really nice song to commemorate His Holiness Jesus Christ which I had had the great joy of learning with the beloved yr10's the day before. The words go like this:  Above all powers, above all Kings Above all of nature and all created things Above all wisdom and all the ways of man  -- You...