Friday, November 5, 2010

Stuff's a Happenin!

So two great events that recently happened is the celebration of Diwali-festival of lights, celebrated by Hindus all over and Halloween celebrated by Americans all over.Diwali is the celebration of the return of the Lord Rama after 14 years of exile.The story goes that his father had three wives and one wife asked to be fulfilled to wishes without disclosing the wish first. The father agreed and then was told the wishes were to send Rama into exile and then make her own son King.Distraught the father did not know what to do but Lord Rama went on his own free will. While away the city went through a time of great darkness and despair.As soon as Lord Rama came back the twon went back into prosperity.Now Hindus celebrate this event by lighting hundreds of candles all over their home outside and then making and eating alot of sweets to share.Also fireworks are used to lgiht up the night's sky which is really nice to see from my roof top deck.Even nicer is that people decorate their houses with all sorts of Christmas lights.Fun fact is that these lights will be nowhere to be found during Christmas.The actual holiday was yesterday and I went around with my school's head teacher visiting her families and eating sweets for about 6 hours and then drove around the neighborhoods to see the lights the families put up.Man did these people go all out.It truly was go big or go home.They also did it big by buying new sarees and of course I partaked in this and bought myself two sarees, you know I'm always a sucker for a reason to go shopping.
Halloween was celebrated by having a costume party at a hotel. So many of us got together and have such a good time.Lady Gaga made an appearance, spiderman, Jesus, tom cruise in risky business and a few girl guides.The night was awesome and yes I did dress up- a hippie.My first and definitely not my last costume party.Next up is Thanksgiving.

Even more epic failures

I tried to make potato curry today...epic failure
I tried to wash a shirt without letting the dye bleed onto my other clothes...epic failure
I tried to have a sex-ed class with two combined classes...epic failure
I tried to walk up the footpath without hacking up a lung...epic failure

Don't worry there will be plenty more in the years to come

Do you really need English?

So if you at one time asked me what I did not want to do in Fiji that would be to teach English classes.That is one thing that deeply did not interest me and I thought went against my own value system of pressuring people to become more Western and devaluing their own language and culture.And then I end up at a school for students with Special needs and just a month ago I started taking on one of the classes t improve their English reading skills without much hesitation.
First off what I think happened is that it's a lot different to say something outside the situation and then be surrounded by the same situation and try to stick to your guns.So after a few classes I started reflecting back on my resolve before I came to Peace Corps.What I am starting to realise a bit is that Fiji is made up of many different cultures with separate languages and even within the languages are a range of dialects which are hard to comprehend if persons of two different dialects were to speak to one another.So I would think it would be easiest and I guess most fair to teach in English at all school levels.A backlash though is that many schools do not provide classes on the students mother tongue and so lose their ability to read their own language.So I would like your feedback. What do you think is best?What is the solution?