Halloween?

Halloween in the Marshall Islands…what an experience! School was fun today and the kids loved making all kinds of Halloween crafts. We made pumpkins and spider webs…we ate candy…we played games and pretty much did nothing that had to do with school. It was great! The kids don’t exactly understand what Halloween is though and they think it is a thing…not at day. They kept holding up the teeth that I gave them (that Carrie sent…what a great idea!) and saying I have a Halloween! And after school they kept saying have you seen a Halloween? Is it time for Halloween yet?  

After school we had our PTA meeting (another story it itself) and then hung out until later that night. Then, all of a sudden, as I was sitting there talking to my dad about the days meeting, a HUGE group of people came running up behind me with flour caked on their faces, shirts tied on their heads and sunglasses on their eyes! They tried to ‘make a halloween.’ Hahaha it was the funniest thing I have ever seen! They have never done anything for Halloween before (they only heard about it last year from Carrie) but they started a new tradition tonight. They get ‘dressed up’ /put flour on their face, and go around from house to house singing church songs – like Christmas carols! It was hilarious and great. So funny to see how people interpreted my explanation of it and made it Halloween Ri-majel style here. Definitely a fun night.

As for the PTA meeting after school…I think it might have actually accomplished something! Although the first hour was still about who would make food for the meeting, we eventually got to talking about relevant issues and sorted some messes out. We talked about moving Tari out of the library so we can finally use it – the PTA will start repairing his house this week. We talked about teacher attendance…there is a meeting with all the teachers this week to discuss the issues and talk about consequences for poor attendance. We talked about parent involvement in their children’s education and helping them study and showing interest in their achievement and success. If a parent doest care about this children’s education why on earth would the child care? The last thing we talked about was putting a community effort into getting the MOE to come out and repair the school. I think the most successful part of the conversation with was teachers providing children with an honest effort in their work and really trying to teach the children. Fancy looked as though she was going to cry and Tari, although defensive, looked like he got it too. I don’t know that anything will necessarily change, but it is the first time they have been called out by the community – so hopefully some positive changes will arise from the meeting. The foundation for improvement has been set…now it is just a matter of follow through and action.