The school children had a fun time entertaining us village visitors.
23 February 2011 | Butaritari
The tight nit family and village life is equal to that of the Fijians. We could see this on our visit to the local school. The crews from the yachts Mr. John and Casteel and Brick House all converged at the school after the children returned from their lunch break. For the next hour and a half we were treated to every fun song and dance the children so happily performed for us. And we read stories to them about Three Pigs and performed a dance about head shoulders and toes. But in response the children did their much better version of “Head Shoulders Toes” in two languages. We gave presents of DVDs to the teacher and later a DVD movie made from all the pictures Patrick took of the days activities. Now all the children can see their happy smiling faces on television. Everyone in these islands love to have their picture taken although they may never see the result. If a picture is taken of one person, it is an embarrassment for someone near by not to have their picture taken also. On Butaritari, the shutter clicks far more numerous than anticipated and the person always thanks you for taking their picture. This would have been a very difficult situation in the old days of film. We left the school that day with a feeling this school system teaches communal awareness, peer support and many things not found in books, of which they have few. On the shoulders of John, Scott and Patrick, as we left the school, were the gifts of huge stalks of green bananas.