Multiplication WAR!

Today was a bit of a lazy day at the beginning. Meghan and I were waiting to hear from schools about when we could come visit (she is conducting Professional Development workshops for some of the secondary schools in Suva, and while she does that, I will go to the PE department and see how/what they're doing in their programs- possibly will do a workshop after collecting notes from what they're doing, if it will help. I may just end up doing on the spot collaboration type meetings while at the schools, who knows). While we waited, we both worked on researching for projects. It was lazy, but productive nonetheless. We didn't hear anything all day though, but we were almost expecting that. After lunch, Meghan, Gre (his name is Gregory, but when he was little, he only liked to wear grey sweatpants, so his brothers started calling him Gre) went to the store to get a few groceries. We had a fun time and laughed a lot. The best part was we were crossing a street and this olderish guy was walking with us, and he said 'Bula' in a passing, but nice sort of way. Then did a double take (there aren't that many white people here, we get looked at a lot), and he said "OH!!! AUSSIE???" We started laughing and said No, United States. And he liked that even more! And started telling us how to get places and things. It was so cute. But I was seriously so flattered. Australian. Hah!

Then it was time for tutoring. No awkward topics this time! But Kini (misspelled his name on the last post. oops!) was there and thanked me for helping him study. So sweet. Today I worked with an 11 year-old boy named Suli for the first part of it. We did Multiplication War. Like the card game War, except you multiply the cards and the first person to say the correct product gets the cards. So of course, I let him win a few, but mostly I didn't. And oh my gosh. Seriously, THIS KID KICKED MY TRASH. He was so smart! He doesn't come there for tutoring- his sister does, but he has to go with her. One of the staff members walked by and told me he was really good at math, and needed more help with elementary science and English. So after we played War for awhile, I said let's work on science. So I riffled through my brain to think of the most basic science I could think of. The Solar System! I remembered learning that in Elementary School and Carly (my nearly 4 year-old nice) knows all the planets. So I asked him what he knew about the planets, and he just stared at me. So I said, "what planet are we on?" he said "planet??" and I went ohhhhhhhhhh noooooooooooo they haven't studied their planets?? So I turned to an older girl (Andi) and asked her when they learn about planets in their schools. She said "Class 7" I interpreted that as 7th grade. 7TH GRADE IS WHEN THEY LEARN THE PLANETS. I couldn't believe it. But Suli wanted to learn more, so I drew a quick diagram and told him there were 9 planets. Then I remembered all the stupid controversy over Pluto not really being a planet, so I said, well 8, but Pluto wants to be a planet. And I told him we lived on the Earth. It just never crossed my mind that he wouldn't even know the planets! Yikes. So then we played more Multiplication War and other kids joined in. It was fun, but man alive. THE PLANETS. I can't get over that.

We walked home and it started to rain lightly. We had an AMAZING dinner cooked by Va and Tiko (spelled her name wrong earlier too!). It was DELICIOUS. OMG. It was chicken with this unbelievable sauce and I don't even know how to describe it. YUM. And now we are watching the movie UP. Hopefully tomorrow Meghan and I will get to a school or a few, but who knows.

Moce and much love,
Sarah

PS Tutoring pictures! 1- Suli, the math smarty pants! 2- Studying hard. 3- Silly faces.