Fiji 2011 - The Humanitarian Bent Part II

After our warm welcome into Komave Village, seeing the kindergarten and meeting the elders over Kava, we stopped for a quick lunch at the Warwick Resort, a sister resort to the Naviti, where we were staying.  After lunch we headed to St. Peter Primary School. Again we took a box of much needed school supplies. Although the fees at this school are reasonable, families also need to purchase uniforms and school supplies, and cover transport fees if they are not walking distance. When the teacher that met with us saw the coloured crayons she expressed that they were in big demand as some families couldn't afford to buy their own.

There was a class of students on a break and although we were heading into the winter season (I guess we were technically there in autumn), the sun was still quite hot and bright and the students were all gathered in the shade of the only, and thankfully big, tree on the school grounds.

The students were more than happy to pose for photos as the teachers welcomed us into their classrooms to look around and see what the students were learning. Much of the writing on the boards were simple sentences introducing simple verb tenses and nouns. I could tell they were very proud of the work they were doing and the progress of their students as English is the second language for the students with Fijian being spoken at home.

When we came to a Class 5 room, there were a few students at the window waving quietly and I spied a world map on the wall, I asked them if they could find Canada on the map. A group of four or five students quickly went to the map and were looking at Australia and the surrounding islands. I said, no farther away, the big pink country, when one student realized, he said, "The Americas?" and the students were awed by how far away we were from. That's one of my favourite memories from the trip, the moment of awareness the student had.

I was surprised to hear that there are class size regulations in Fiji (I didn't give much thought to this being an international issue), but due to demand, they don't turn students away and one teacher (the one below) had 52 students in her class! Teachers are heroes aren't they?

I love these two photos...the boys all roughing it out fighing for a prominent spot while the girls hang in the background. The girls stuck pretty close to Tess touching her hair and cheeks. Although tourism is big in Fiji and I'm sure the students had all seen "white" kids before, I don't think many families come to the schools and villages and hang out like we did allowing for those face-to-face encounters.

Goodness, those faces ... I love them!