Everybody's Lookin' Forward to the Weekend, Weekend

As terrible as it is to work every day of the week just to get a few hours closer to the weekend, that is where I am at the moment. For instance, this past weekend, I spent all of Saturday doing as few strenuous activities as possible. For example, my late morning swim consisted of standing in the water and talking (not to myself, don’t worry). It was so nice to not have to try to remember what I was just lecturing about or check who is taking notes or figure out where my wandering student went. All I had to do was stand there without a care in the world. Luckily, I’m having an inflatable tube sent to me. So, next time, I can just lie there without a care in the world.

            Of course, I love the adventure just as much as the relaxation. On Sunday, a few of the other volunteers, some other pa’alagis (Samoan for “white people” which, according to one of the taxi drivers, literally means the people who “broke through the sky”) who are here on contract with ASTCA (one of the local cell providers), and myself went to the village of Vatia to go hiking. Originally, we had planned to hike Mt. Alava, the most challenging trails on the island. However, we stumbled upon a group that was going to hike a shorter, slightly easier trail that was only recently completed. According to the guide (Yes, the other group had hired a guide), Rory, the path was an old fisherman’s path that the National Parks Department recently cleaned up and added to their list of trails.  

Essentially, the trail took us up a mountain ridge via a winding path and then down the other side by horizontal ladders that acted as steps. It was like walking a really simple maze and then doing a Stairmaster in reverse. Quite the workout.  On the other side of the ridge was a beautiful, rocky beach with a great view of Pola Island (see below). Overall, it was a really awesome adventure and a great weekend.

Then…the school week started. While I can’t say that this was a bad week because there have been some really great moments, the week certainly started off rough. Up until this week, I had been letting my students sit wherever they wanted. At first, it was because they were sitting on the floor so I didn’t really have a good way to enforce the idea of staying in their seats. Then it was because I didn’t have enough chairs to give everyone a seat. I made it a first come, first serve basis. But, when Monday came around and I felt like they were more interested in sitting next to their friends and talking to each other than learning, I had finally had enough. I put the chairs against the wall in a U-shape, assigned students seats away from their friends, and forced the “difficult” students to sit on the floor in front of me. By the end of the day on Tuesday, I finally felt rather confident in my classroom management skills. Every period was participating, listening, and taking notes.

 Then, I went to plug in my computer at the end of the day…only to realize that someone had stolen my charger. While I have had students snag a ruler or a pen in the past, I never in a million years expected them to take anything valuable. That really sent me over the edge. After discussing the matter with the vice principal, who is being extremely helpful in attempting to get the cord returned to me, I went home frustrated and disappointed.

Of course, I did the only logical thing to do when you’re frustrated; I created a quiz and a test (don’t worry, it’s relatively fair). Once those were finished, I tried to go to sleep but it was futile. After putting in all this hard work, getting compensated at a rate of about $2.22/hour, and having so much faith in my students, I couldn’t believe that this is how they would repay me.

The next day, as I told each of class what had happened and asked that, if anyone knew anything, they let me know, I realized that I couldn’t and shouldn’t blame them all for the actions of, at most, a few. Many of them were actually shocked to hear the news, others even offered to buy me a new one. The offer was clearly just a kind gesture but it really is the thought that counts.

Although it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting my charger back anytime soon, I’ve realized that I do have to be more careful with my things. That’s just how it has to be. What’s more, there was a silver lining to this incident. Since I am giving them a formal assessment today, we HAD TO play a review game yesterday. It was actually a lot of fun. My students really got into it and they did fairly well. Let’s hope the test goes just as well.