Tuesday, May 13

Yesterday, thirty-five bongs on the old gas cylinder at 6:00 a.m. announced that the new District Priest was holding mass for the village.  I had already talked with friends about staying home since it was our first day back at school, but Aaron ate a quick bite and walked over to the church after the third set of bells at 6:45.  When he returned around 9:30, the kids and I were going strong on school, and I paused to fix some food to take down to the District Priest, his family, and the other big men of the village.  Aaron took it down and stayed to visit while the rest of us continued with school, knowing that a farewell get-together was coming soon.  When the bell rang to call the village, Aaron walked over to join the festivities.  He's great in group dancing!  Olivia and Katherine soon followed, and as soon as I got lunch cooked, everybody but Benjamin went down.  During the singing and dancing, each person followed the line that moved past the District Priest's table and dropped their gift (like money or bars of soap) in front of the Priest's family. 

Then the speeches began, and everybody found a shady spot to rest.  When the speeches were finally finished, we sang a few more songs together (picture of group dancing and singing) and ended with three happy cheers, led by my amazing husband. 

When the kids finished with school, I took a bag of Katherine's too-small underwear and walked around the village sharing them with the little girls.  They really prefer the bright colors over the plain white!  I had my very simple "script" ready in Lavukaleve, so it was good practice for me to try and communicate what it was that I wanted to accomplish. 

This morning, the trade winds were blowing strong, so I went on the porch to watch the sun rise with a cup of coffee in my hand and my Bible in my lap with no concern for mosquitos.  Love mornings like that!  School got off to a better start now that we are back in the swing of things, so Katherine and I took half an hour to walk over to Ofoen's house to take popcorn and to teach Bernadine (her crippled granddaughter) how to use some uppercase and lowercase alphabet cards I had given her.  Bernadine doesn't go to school because she can't walk, but she is a smart cookie!  We played a matching game with about half the deck, and we included Bernadine's three-year-old little brother, Rube, and my friend Ofoaen.  Then we tried "Go Fish" with the other half of the deck, which was a little bit more difficult to explain.  "Ngonam "D" atula lea?  (Do you have a lowercase D?)
Almost time for our radio sched with SITAG now and kids should be coming in from playing very soon...