The highlights:
Monday for English Club we cut the English practice short and I taught them tae kwon do! Just the white belt exercises - all the basic punches, blocks, and kicks, and the beginner sparring moves. on Friday we had watched a Jackie Chan movie and they seemed interested so on Monday I taught them the beginner stuff : )
Tuesday we pulled off a surprise party for Aurita and Marcia's birthdays. All of our birthdays are in June so we wanted to celebrate together. But Brendan and I told them that we just wanted to have them over to our house for some lunch to practice English. But when were supposed to drive them to our house, we kept on going to Castaway, a nice restaurant on the beachfront. Sister Sonia met us there. Sister Aquelina was supposed to come also, but she was very sick.
So the five of us went into the restaurant and ordered pizza. Aurita had eaten pizza once, but Marcia had never had it (she hadn't even heart of the word "pizza"). So we got cheese, pepperoni, and a chicken one. They tried each type, but the pepperoni was everybody's favorite. So we talked and looked out over the ocean and at pizza until Sr. Sonia pulled out surprise birthday presents for each of us. The clinic girls each a necklace and I got a new pair of socks and $5 pulsa (phone credit) - perfect gifts for a volunteer because most of my socks are super-stretched from all the handwashing and $5 pulsa means lots of texting Sisters and friends and, if I'm lucky, 3 minutes talking to my family in America : )
Tuesday night, after more work, Brendan and I went to our Australian friend Therese's house for a movie night. We had pizza again (2 times in 1 day - Brendan was happy!) and spent most of time talking while the power was out. But eventually we did get to watch a movie before heading home. It was a nice break, and it's always great to be around Therese because she has many great stories from volunteering in the Solomon Islands, Uganda, and now working in East Timor.
Friday, Brendan and I were chaperones for a field trip. The 3rd year students who have an emphasis in science loaded up into the back of 2 big trucks and we drove the 2 hours to the village of Remixio (pronounced ray-miss-ee-oo). We were in the back with the students and they were singing and shouting the whole way, just like high school students at home. On the way they pointed out the Timorese coffee that the country is known for and we saw the house of their Prime Minister.
When we got to the high school in Remixio their student were very shy of the newcomers, but slowly they warmed up to us. We started off with plant identification and the Canossa Biology teacher formed groups from both schools. Brendan was in charge of Group 3 and me, Group 4. Basically we supervised their plant-finding in different areas up in the hills above the school, made sure that the two schools are working together, and that the students didn't go too far or get hurt. My group was lucky - we were given a hill that had a lot of the ferns they were looking for and beatiful views down each side. Eventually we came back and presented the plants and their classification by genus.
Around 1 pm we had a lunch break, and Sr. Domingas's friends invited us for fresh corn and oranges. After lunch the Canossa students presented to the St. Joseph's students how to use a microscope and test blood. I think it was good for the Canossa students to have to explain what they've learned and good for the St. Joseph's students to be taught by peers and well as teachers.
After the lessons there was recreation for about an hour with soccer, basketball, volleyball, and a baseball/cricket game they played with a tennis ball. Brendan and I played volleyball and basketball. Volleyball was fun and relaxed with people from both schools on each team. After that came school vs. school guys soccer and girls basketball. Canossa needed a 5th player so I played basketball, but it was painful. But there's always next time...
The trip home was even better than the trip there - the students were especially lively and shouting and singing and dancing and clapping in the back of the truck for 2 hours straight. How any of them had a voice the next day I have no idea! We were surrounded by mists as we came out of the mountains and by the time we got to Dili the moon was bright and the Southern Cross ( a beautiful constellation) was high in the sky, but nothing slowed these kids down. We taught them a chant from Remember the Titans adapted for Timor Leste and they loved it and sang it over and over off and on for the last hour : ) We were starting to regreat teaching them it (just a little) when we got back to school and made our way home.
Saturday our Tetum teacher in Rome, a Timorese Sr. Ana Florinda, came to our house for lunch. She had finished her training in Rome and now will be a Timorese missionary in Indonesia. But while she is working out the longterm visa she has a couple of weeks here to catch up with her family and fill them in on what life is like outside of Timor.
It was great to see her! She's the kind of person life can't get down - always smiling or laughing... She's the kind of person that you hear before you see them : ) We were blessed to have her as our teacher in Rome because she was the first Timorese person we ever met and she was wonderful. So meeting her helped us look forward even more so to the mission.
She shared recent stories from Rome and gave us the updates on the missionary Sisters we met during our formation (many of them have completed their formation and are traveling to the countries all over the world that will be their new home). In return, we told her about how things were going here. She was glad to hear that we were enjoying ourselves and working hard. Before she left, Brendan helped her check some English documents, we took photos together, and she gave me an early birthday present - a box of cookies (practical and delicious)! She is always kind and exceedingly generous. It lifted our spirits to be around her and we hope God will work it out so we can see her again in the future : )
After lunch there was time for a quick rest and then we were off to English Bible Study. It was great as always and afterward Yanni, one of the Bible Study girls, asked us to hangout with her at the beach. So the three of us went to a part of the beachfront she liked that was filled with families cooking up fresh fish and corn on the cob for people walking past. We stopped at her favorite place and ordered pop and grilled corn. They put chilis on the corn so it's hot & spicy. It was good, but I'm not gonna lie, it paled in comparison to Iowa sweetcorn. That's one of the critical summer things we're missing, but for one summer we'll probably survive.
After the corn and conversation we dropped her off at her house before continuing to another Filipino activity. In June there were two activities - a formal dinner/dance for their 111th Independence Day celebration and this Saturday night there was a raffle, dinner, and presentation from the sports fest. Sr. Sonia gave us free tickets to both events as a gift. Thanks Sr. Sonia!
So Sr. Sonia was there with 15 Timorese girls who live at the Balide convent, so we sat by them during the dinner. Dinner was really good, except it was difficult to get used to the Filipino pasta (they like it sweet, which is confusing to our tastebuds). After dinner they raffled off 50 prizes, starting with #50 and between every 5 or so one of the sports fest teams made a presentation. There was singing, dancing, martial arts, and even tininkling. I'm not sure of the spelling, but it's a dance you do with 4 long, bamboo poles and some people click the poles together in rhythm while others dance in the middle of the tic-tac-toe and try not to get caught by the poles. My class did it in grade school - it's one of my favorite memories from music class : )
So the tension increased with each round of prizes. Brendan and I had bought 3 tickets and were hoping to win the mountain bike or another good prize. We didn't have any lucky, but one of the best parts of the night was watching one of the Canossa girls win a DVD player. All the girls were screaming and jumping up and down and were really excited for her. The other highlight was watching the girls do a semi-traditional Timorese dance that one of the girls had choreographed. It was beautiful and set to great music! We could tell they were nervous, but they did a great job and got quite an ovation as they finished!
We didn't stay for the end because it was getting late and I knew Brendan had a busy day planned for my brithday Sunday and if I was tired it wouldn't be good. And it was busy and one of my best birthdays ever! But you'll have to wait for the next blog to find out what happened : )
Hope all is well with you and that summer is going great! Be sure to enjoy that sweetcorn in memory of us : )
Love,
Rachel and Brendan
1 comment:
Congratulation!!! On a great birthday!!! And everything else! I haven't "commented" in a while, but we're all very excited for you and Brendan!
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