This morning as we boarded the bus for our schools, Chantel was singing the theme from "The Simple Life." She thought it was hilarious that I was assigned to the farm teacher. Thankfully, for everyone, I ended up spending most of the day at the main school and managed not to have to teach any agriculture themed lessons. Instead I spent part of day in Maori language and performing arts classes and the rest of the day with a lovely social studies/English teacher and his class. The kids I talked to were quite curious about America--the best question I was asked was if you could really score in America by asking someone to coffee. I assured Sheree that I had never had any luck with that tactic.


Sharee also wanted to know if I had seen the Twin Towers fall. When I said yes, on TV, she scornfully replied "we saw that."

Eric, the social studies/English teacher recommended several books and poets that I have been enjoying reading. These include Hone Tuwhare, Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme, and Apirana Taylor. He lent me a copy of a wonderful anthology of Maori and Pacific writing entitled Pacific Voices, edited by Bernard Gadd.

In the Maori performing arts class I observed, and then attempted to learn a waiata a ringa, action songs. The girls in the class performed beautifully and left me feeling very inept. Here is a video of Te Wakahuia performing waiata a ringa at the Aotearoa Traditional Maori Performing Arts Festival.

I did walk up to the farm and take a few pictures. The kids in the agriculture class were very sweet and also asked lots of questions about America. I showed them pictures of Uni kids and they thought they look very old for their grade! They were also quite impressed with the photo of the school I showed them. Everyone thought it looked quite "flash."


The outside of the agriculture classroom.


An ag student. She was very sad because her tomato plants had died when it frosted the other night. Her stawberries, on the other hand, were looking quite healthy.

The teachers at Northland College were overwhelmingly hospitible to us--today at lunch there was a huge "shared lunch" complete with a roasted wild boar, killed by the principal of the school. Their incredible generosity and kindness to us was quite humbling.