A new rota, comedy valentine’s gifts, island hopping and the biggest grog session in TP history came around in week four…This week it was the girl’s opportunity to take over the reins on the build. A great start from the boys has seen their female counterparts pick up the build at the walling and flooring stage. Caroline, Rachel, Ellen and Will have made the flooring their own, completing half of it in a week.
Meanwhile Sarah, Amber and Phil combined forces to take on the walling challenge. Finishing the week with almost 2 walls completed. This week also brought our latest addition to the team, Gerry ‘the northern’ Giraffe, as well as helping out around site, he also supplied us with some golden moments when interviewing the team, hopefully some videos will follow in the coming weeks.
George, Hannah and Tom continued with the impressive start to Kindi. The children have responded well to the new male influence around the place with Grand old Duke of York becoming 2 minutes of madness that can be heard from the neighbouring village as the little terrors run wild. The theme chosen for the week has been superheroes, with the children hiding behind their decorated facemasks as they wreaked havoc for the entire week.
Applying their knowledge to school this week was Alice, Mike, Tommy and Rory. Alice used her Kindi experience to good measure in classes 1&2 this week, proving a real hit during song time. Mike settled in well with classes 3&4, monitoring the children’s progress and offering a helping hand when marking their work. Tommy although having big shoes to fill with Rachel’s departure has risen to the challenge taking a lead in English and guided reading sessions with classes 5&6.
Rory has assisted the headmaster throughout the week in classes 7&8, getting involved with English, Maths and social science lessons. A highlight being Tommy’s outdoor lesson being interrupted by a pig darting across from Mua village in a desperate attempt to flee, only to captured on the opposite end of the field by trailing villagers.
The weekly evening events got off to an intense start, thanks to the challenging quiz Tom, Alice and Rory put together. The knowledgeable trio put each member to the test, which left no hope for the leaders Tom and Nige. Nevertheless a discussion over the question regarding the Union Jack has left Rory backing his answer by throwing out a ‘Robocop’, still awaiting the confirmation he remains confident but the nerves are increasing on whether his thick curly hair will see the remainder of the trip.
Wednesday night was the initiation of our weekly spear fish trips, first to test the water was Phil, Hannah, Ellen and Mike. With a dodgy torch it was always going to be a difficult evening, however with the only catch being a piece of coral by Phil it still didn’t dampen the night’s experience, which featured in Sunday’s highlight of the week.
We couldn’t allow valentines to pass by without a special evening for every member of the team. A 50/50 split of the sexes was the inspiration for picking one another’s name out of a hat to determine who dined with whom that night. Jumping on board with the idea in a big way the villagers did their ‘thing’ in hosting mind blowing evening meals. The pictures speak for them self!
A first of its kind island get together put the icing on this week’s cake. Following a day building our very own traditional bure we travelled over to Nairai on Friday, to compete in the TP 7’s and netball tournament. The weekend brought together three TP teams on one island for the biggest grog session in TP history!! The village boys pounded the grog hard to keep the tanoa supplied with kava as fifty five of us ate, drank and danced to our hearts content following a tough days sports on the Saturday.
Following Sunday’s rest and reflection at the half way mark of our paradise life, each member of the team was happy to be back at their home, half the world away from home. Rolling into week five we hope for time slow a little…
