group shot

if it was up to the children, it would always be bubble time in Fiji

at school, we always brush our teeth right after lunch, at the river!

we'd love you to hear how they serenaded us on our way home from school

we are the one with the children of the world

Just another day in paradise…

A class act.

It rained today, and then it rained some more and then it poured. The rainforest smells fresh, the sea, as the locals like to call it, changed into every shade of grey. It was our last day at Raviravi. Goodbyes are always hard, this one was joyous though still: to know we’ve added color to their classrooms, and they have made their way into our hearts.

morning group time

creating the sea outside our window:

using water colors for the first time

A Fijian style goodbye:

the mothers’s group perform to us teachers at a heartfelt goodbye ceremony

Welcome to Nuceva

catching wind with the windsocks...

Today was our last day of teaching at Nuceva village.

just another day at school

Some of it was spent on cleaning up the environment. The children all took turns walking around the village and the shore picking up anything non-biodegradable.

As Maria and Bonnie were walking with their kids on the shore it started to pour, a typical daily occurrence in Fiji. Not exactly knowing the shortest way back to the school, Bonnie asked her group, “how do we get back?” and the reply was, “Madam, we run… FAST!”.

Meanwhile Aya was busy with her 3^rd graders exploring colors and images. One of which was the Peace Sign. She drew it on a large piece of paper and showed it to her class.

“What is this?” she asked them.

These were their replies:

-        Sailosi thought it was an airplane.

-        Jushoua said “moon”.

-        Iva – “a clock”.

-        Naomi thought it was “a house”,

-        Apenisa “a map”

-        Sola turned it upside down and said: “it’s an upside down tree.”

In Siggie’s class, 5, 6, and 7 year olds were experiencing paints in a whole other way. Lori and Siggie handed them a cut-out butterfly shape and sprinkled three different spackles of paints on it, then showed them how to fold the butterfly, tap on it and then open. Mosese, a bright eyed 7 year old was so excited: opening the butterfly and seeing the paints mix and create new colors and shapes, his jaw dropped, his eyes got even bigger, and as he looked at us we said, “it is like magic…”

-        “magic” Mosese repeated and ran around the whole school yard opening and closing the butterfly, each time with the same amazement, saying: “magic! Magic!”

The goodbye ceremony from Nuceva’s children and mothers exposed us once more to their incredible natural talent for music and rhythm. If you’ve never heard Old McDonald sang by Fijian children, you do not know what harmony and tempo that song could even have.

We sure didn’t…

It was sweet and touchy and silly and joyous all at once.

It is still paradise…

Do you know what happens to people who live in paradise their entire life? They forget how special it is. When I woke up this morning, the front door of my bure’, the hut I’m staying in, was wide open to a very lazy ocean and I tried to ask myself just that: Would I so easily get used to this beauty and forget it is even special? The doubtful that I am, I doubted that as well.

Last night we stayed up late working on our lesson plans. It was after a day filled with excitement such as joining one village to a church gathering where all windows and doors were cut just right to let ocean and rainforest breeze take turns sliding through, and where we listened to the most beautiful arrangement of voices signing so naturally and to a very passionate and devoted sermon which we could not understand a word of: in Fijian…

We are in Beqa Island. It’s a rather small island. There isn’t a single road here. To get to either of the few villages you walk through the forest, walk along the shore, or get there by boat. The boats never make it fully to the shore since there are no docks anywhere and so getting to the boat is always by walking, sulu (the sarong we were when visiting a village) and all: cameras, school supplies, etc. in the water.  

We rose up early and after a light breakfast of the most tasteful pineapple and mongo we headed towards Naceva , the first village we were to teach at. The boat ride was a bit over half and hour, walk through the water, and into the village, where the locals are yelling from every window or door that is open (all are open) Bula! Bula! Hello, welcome.

We were introduced to the head teacher and the students who were quietly sitting on a mat waiting for us. As soon as we walked in they got up from the mat and in unison said: good morning, madams! From that moment on were to become “Madam me! Madam me! Big brown eyes, bright smiles and all.

Siggie took the younger group: kindergarten to grade two. Aya took grades three and four. Bonnie had grades five and six, Maria had the oldest, grades seven and eight. Lori was busily doing what she’s best at: executive producer of our mission, meeting with the village chief and his assistants, as well as always being the teachers’ right hand for all our needs.

Children are children no matter where they are: curious and easily excited; energized with any new learning. The children of Naceva were no different. Maceu loved the stories we read, Paulina wanted to only use glue, Serupepeli, definitely the class clown, Tepora, the very shy. Still, soon we were laughing together, singing together and running outside together: chasing bubbles, catching wind with the windsocks we made, or posing for our cameras.

Close your eyes… breath deep… now… imagine you’re in paradise… the sky is an endless blanket of blues and whites, only a thin horizon merges it with the ocean that lays there calmly, as it also separates one from the other  … all trees bare fruits, colorful, vivid, exotic… the hillsides are dressed in a luscious blend of greens and red, spotted with yellows and other colors far as the eye can see, the sun sets and rises to the music of a thousand birds. Now imagine, that not only you’re not going to be kicked shamelessly out of this paradise, you are actually welcomed with open arms extended over sparkling smiles and warmth that only music coming from the heart can embrace you with. Now try to understand that your stay in this paradise is so much bigger and greater than your own personal need to soak it all up, and stand still as your heart is bursting at the seams with joy.  

Vacation spots around the world are known to bestow you with their beauty and hospitality. Beqa Island Resort is no different: beauty and welcome is all around. Only Sue and Mark are, the managers and the visionaries, and the people they call family, the local Fijians.  

Team 3 of Global Classrooms for Peace is here to include the Beqa Island children in their teachers’ exchange program of cultural openness and enhancement. The boxes we carried halfway across the world are bursting at the seams such as our excitement, filled with a collection of children’s picture books, crayons and paints, toys and lesson plans. 

Soon we will cross the greens and the blues that surround us to meet the Beqa Island children and teachers so we can share all that we have with them. This is, Lori’s vision with Mark and Sue’s biggest heart anyone can imagine, chain of support and development of the local schools; their mutual mission to alleviate poverty through education to improve the lives of the children and their parents.

This is Global Classrooms for Peace, Team 3, writing to you from paradise, overwhelmed and overjoyed with what they’ve been entrusted with, which is to extend their knowledge and ideas beneath this vast span of beauty, and grant it to the people of Fiji. 

Our stay here is work, and yet, no one can convince us that we are not the lucky ones.

And if you are thinking for a moment that this grandiose exploration of words is exaggerated and inflated, you have never felt the most amazing feeling: to want to give as much as you can back, hoping, only, you can match the giving that has already been donate so generously to you. We truly wish we can do at least that. And we can’t wait to be doing just that. We’re told the children and the teachers are waiting anxiously. They have no idea how much more anxious with excitement we are, waiting to meet them.

Taking dictation from children about their flags

discussion with the children on where we are going

Preperation meeting