Scrapbook is DONE!!!

Okay, so you know how obsessed I am with scrapbooking.

I've finally finished my Cook Islands Scrapbook and you can view it by clicking on the link on the right side of my page.

I hope you enjoy it.

I kind of cheated by printing out my blog and literally cut and pasted parts of it in there. And I didn't want to journal in my own handwriting so I printed up some captions and glued them in too.

I also kept a lot of things (no surprise there!) that I incorporated into my book and you will see what I did with them. I don't know what to do with my shells and rocks I collected from the beach though.

Let me know what you think of the scrapbook. If you have some pictures that you would like in a scrapbook, contact me, I have done a couple of them for co-workers and would LOVE to do the same for you. I do all the layout and leave room for you to journal unless you would also like me to do that too. If so, it'll look a lot like my scrapbook.

I'll ask them if it's okay to share them on my blog and I'll let you know.

Enjoy!

Sharon

October 10, 2008

Hello,
I just finished out the week at school and the kids started going home early, so we were send on our way. The teachers presented us with ei's and and a long flower necklace. Then, we arrived at the assembly that they have every Friday and thanks us for volunteering at the school and presented me with a pareau, and one of my students tied it on me and then, they proceeded to play some music and sing and I was instructed to dance ("just shake your hips")with him. That not being embarrassing enough, then they sped up the music and had me dance more and at a much faster pace. I'm so thankful I didn't bring my camera, no blackmail pictures for anyone to download...haha
So, here is my last chance to blog, I think tomorrow will be spent at the beach, last chance for it, and then packing. I will spend some more time in town today too and see what I haven't had a chance to see.
I hope everyone is well and I will see you all soon.
Sharon

Tuesday, October 7,2008

Kia Orana!
We are winding down to our last week as Global volunteers and also to the last day of school on Friday. Thursday will be their "Athletic Day" with other schools. the school that I am volunteering at is competing with other local schools. Then, on Friday, they will have an "Island Dance" as a celebration for the end of the school year.
Many of the children we tutor will be performing so we asked if our farewell dinner that we will have on Friday can squeeze in going to the performance afterwards.
It's wierd only having 4 people in our group after having 6 for the last 6 weeks. Yes, I miss the car the Gevenie had rented and drove us around in, but I am making it with the bus, making sure that I tell him where I want to go instead of frantically reaching for the call button at the last minute before my stop. I am also trying to walk more and today am planning on visiting the Cook Island Library and Museum. It is open from 9-1pm then from 4-7pm, so I am planning on running errands, then exploring the library and museum and then trekking it home for a good couple of miles to get some exercise. It hasn't been too hot and it's not raining, which is a good thing, so I think my walk will be a good one.
i haven't taken any new pictures lately, so nothing really to post this time, just some more "Cook Island" words:

judder bars=speed bumps
tuck in=dig in
chilly bin=cooler
takeaway=take out
torch=flashlight
carpark=parking lot
jelly=Jell-O, can't say peanut butter and jelly, "It's peanut butter and jam!"
booking=reservation

Oh, and when I was in Aukland, New Zealand, as I was in the Airbus, I saw on the pavement the words," Mind the Child" in white letters like we have "Ped Xing" Interesting choice of words, huh?
Well, hope all is well with everyone and am looking forward to more travels with my mom and sister Betty when we embark on our NYC and Washington D.C. visit.

Mei taki,
Sharon

Lazy Sunday!!!

Kia Orana!

I slept in today until 9:00 and leisurely strolled to the lounge for a quick breakfast. Everyone was done there including the motel proprietors, Pauline and Harry, such a nice couple they really take care of us.

I'll have to take a picture of them and post it later.

We had a "ei" making class (said like saying the letter "a") which is the Cook Islands version of the lei on Thursday night after dinner and Debi encouraged us to go and pick some flowers. so off Megan and I went and we asked Pauline where the best places to go. She said that a lot of the flowers were in people's yards, so we had to be careful of that. She sent us off walking to the "SuperBrown", a gas station nearby and to take a right after that and walk along the "backroads"

So, here is what we saw as we walked for about 20 minutes, then suddenly we started to feel some sprinkling, then rain and so we ran back to the SuperBrown, whick by the way sells:

and we waited the rain out on their picnic benches.

Soon, we saw Pauline zoom by in her van, obviously looking for us, but we couldn't catch her. So, as the rain let up, we started back to the motel and found pauline ready to make a second round to find us. She also said that she didn't realize until she went on the bsckroads that there were more houses than she remembered and we would have been picking flowers out of people's yards. So, she directed us to a house across the way where she knew the owners and we picked some wonderful flowers. Frangipani, Gardenias, etc. they all smell so good.

So here is my ei:

Too bad I can't keep it, but it was fun to make. Any one for a ei lesson when I get back?

Yesterday we said goodbye to 2 members of our group who were only staying 2 weeks and the remaining 4 are finishing up our 3 weeks.

The plane doesn't leave until midnight on Saturday, so we had the whole day to spend with them. We opted for a tour of the sacred grounds and some history of the Cook Islands. It was really interesting. Here are some shots of our tour guide that actually is a descendent of one of the original settlers.

Beautiful landscapes and the organization that was founded by the owner is now run by the daughter and she is keeping up with the tradition and the passing on of the historical information to us tourists.

And if anyone knows what kind of plant this is, let me know. They use it here in the Cook Islands like Ben-Gay for injuries and a cure-all for other ailments.

So, onto a language lesson:

Here are some words they use here in the Cook Islands:

pikelet=pancake

tic=checkmark/a second

rubber=eraser

heaps=lots

pushbike=bicycle

Make Way=Yield

motorbike=scooter

Learning more every day and will add to the list later. We watch the "superbowl" of rugby yesterday and the poor team from Melbourne was shut out 40 to 0.

It was interesting to watch. If anyone knows anything about rugby, please pass it on. It is nothing like American football, I'll tell you that.

Ta ta for now,

Sharon

Vaka 104 RULES!!!

Here is my group "Vaka 104" the 104th team to come to the Cook Islands. It's sad though, Debi, the director thinks that the numbers will probably decrease as time goes by with the state of the economy these days. They have already determined that this program in the Cook Islands will be only part time next year. How sad that the children will not be receiving consistent volunteers to help with their reading. So, if anyone is interested in this, I highly recommend you try it out. Let me know if anyone is interested, and I'll have Debi send along a pamphlet for you to peruse. No pressure, that is all they will send you, no phone calls or anything else.

After taking the picture, we all went out to eat at the Rarotongan and watched the lovely sunset, had a fabulous dinner and saw an island show complete with "fire dancing."

Isn't this sunset beautiful? I love how the sun is shining out of the clouds, it looks like a volcano erupting.
Yesterday I took a break from the kids and visited the "mamas" or elderly women of the island. There is a program where Mary, a retired nurse opens up the house on Tuesday through Thursday. Mary greeted me and promptly did not let me help her do anything. She treated me more as a guest than a volunteer. It was cute. I kept asking if I could help and she kept telling me to sit and she would be "right with you."

There were 6 of the Mamas that came in a van, all varying in their mobility. One had a walker, a couple used canes and some were walking fine on their own.

They arrived and promptly sat in "their" chairs on the covered porch. Mary had placed a small book on each chair and promptly began the day with the devotion and they all broke out in song. It was beautiful. Then, on to "exercise" time. Mary said, " get your book" and we proceeded to exercise with our book. 15 times over our heads, 15 times with the left hand, then 15 times with the right hand. Then, "books down" and we stood up and did 15 twists to each side, and sat down and did leg lifts and we ended with what Mary said was "bicycle race!" and everyone stomped their feet over and over until Mary declared, "finish!"'

Then, one of the Mamas broke out her embroidery and another her crocheting and the rest sat and listened to the radio.

i sat and talked to a few of them and offered up a game of cards, but no takers. Until one of them said yes and wanted to know if I knew how to play "Uka", I said no, but she could teach me. Well, I passed out some cards to each of us and she put down a club and said "clubs" I said that I didn't have andy clubs, so she answered with, "then put down any card" And that went on for a couple of rounds until Mary announced that lunch was ready.

Here are the Mamas at lunch.

Today, I returned to the school to listen to the readers again. We were kind of double booked today as Gevenie and Rei were yesterday with me gone. Today, Rei went to be with the Mamas.

So, here is a sign that is posted right outside of town on both sides, so you see it either when you arrive to town or when you are leaving town.


Some good reminders, eh?

Haha.

So, I have the "thought of the day" tomorrow, I must peruse the internet in the 20 minutes I have left to find a suitable quote.

Thinking of everyone fondly and missing you all,

Sharon

Week 2! I can't believe I'm almost halfway through!

Okay, POP QUIZ...what's wrong with this picture?

HA HA! Nothing according to the Cook Islands. Yes, the driving wheel is on the right side of the car and we are driving on the left side of the road. They keep laughing at me because I keep going to the right side of the car to get in. Even the minivan that our director Debi drives only has a sliding door on the left side and I keep standing on the right side and she always asks, "Do you want to drive today?"

And, boy are weekends relaxing. I have already finished all four of the books that I brought. Bad planning on my part. Good thing they have a library of books that other people that have stayed here have left behind for people like me.

If only the rain wasn't falling so much on Sunday and Monday. We are talking BUCKETS! These two pictures were taken within a half an hour of each other. It just suddenly started POURING.

and the wind got really going...it was really a storm. We started to really get a little down yesterday thinking that the rain would continue today, but ta-dah!!! It is a beautiful and sunny day.

So, some of the kids didn't show up for school on Monday since the only way for some of them to get to school is my scooter, they just don't come. I don't blame them, I don't like it and I ride on the bus and in a car.

Instead, we got to make pockets and library cards for some books that were donated to the school. It's funny, me being me, I immediately was thinking of a better solution for this and was thinking how we can make the pockets better and then somehow put it in a program so that when we put in the information about the book, ( the title, author, ISBN, etc.) we will just have to print up the card that goes in the pocket instead of writing it out.

Of course, I remember what we are here to do, and that is what they ask of us, not no to improve it, change it or anything else.

Here are some more of the kids I read with: Mariana, Memory(a very popular name here), George and finally I met Fariarii!!! He had missed all of last week and finally showed up on Monday.We read a book about Christmas decorations and there was a lantern, so we ended up making a paper lantern for him to take home.

One thing I wanted to show you was that the kids brush their teeth after their lunch. It is a very cute sight. They each have a water bottle with their toothbrush inside it and someone is in charge of the basket of brushes/bottles and the dispensing of the toothpaste and they all go out to the water spout and brush their teeth.

Something you hardly ever see in American schools, huh?

As promised, here is the "spread" we get at dinner from a local Cook Islander who cooks our dinners unless we go out to eat. Look Mom, RICE!!!

Tonight, we are going to the Rarotongan and will enjoy an Island show too. Hopefully the weather is good enough for the fire show too. You know, when they dance with fire on the beach.

So, this I had to take, don't ask me why. I was using the bathroom in a local restaurant and saw the sink.

Don't know why the rocks are in the sink, but I guess it adds to the look of it all. What do you think?
I hope all is well with everyone and I am missing you all.

Sharon

Weekend's almost over!

It's Sunday and JoAnn and I walked to the nearby Maori Church. What an experience. They have lots of singing in the church which has FANTASTIC acoustics and all the men and women are harmonizing and it sounds like you are listening to a record.

Lots of ladies or "mamas" as they call them come out in their Sunday Best and the hats are really beautiful. After the sermon and songs, they invited us "visitors" to the hall right next door for a snack. We are talking potluck. No snack and tea here. LOTS of food. From cakes, doughnuts, breads, chicken, corn, salads, etc. It was a feast.

Then, I walked to town to blog today since there is nothing else open today. We are planning on having an early dinner around 2 and then just relaxing the rest of the night until we start work again tomorrow.

This is the lovely sunset we saw on Thursday night.

And yes, we did go to the EMpire theater and see HellBoyII. And even had our intermission ice cream. We left about 5 minutes before the movie ended because we were afraid of missing the bus and having to wait another hour for the next one, so we had to ask the motel caretaker, Mary what happened at the end of the movie.

JoAnn, Megan and I also walked to the market yesterday morning after breakfast and saw some neat sights. Coca Cola cans in a different language, and fresh local fruits and vegetables all on display and for sale.

Funny sight here, they spell "tire" with a "y"

So, it's TYRES for sale.

Ta-ta for now.

Will post in a couple of days.

Sharon

I survived my first week!

Kia Orana!

Last night our host Debi took us all to the Coral Club for a GREAT dinner. It overlooked the ocean and there was a pool on the deck. I had the chicken and it was lightly breaded and baked with a sweet onion gravy, served over some really great fries and a salad. Mmmmm...

Then a few of us headed toward the Staircase Restaurant for a bargain of $5.00 we got an island show with dancers and all. Luckily none of us were chosen when they go out and grab volunteers from the audience. The MC said that if they do even if you shake your head "no," it means "yes," and if you nod your head, that also means "yes," so you have to dance either way.

I really didn't want to show off the lack of skills I learned at the dance lesson on Tuesday. That stuff is hard to do.

Here another volunteer Gevinie, who ended up renting a car and has been driving me and Rei to to and from the school everyday. But she is only here for 2 weeks, so the last week, Rei and I are back to the bus again. Gevinie is from Piedmont and is retired from Levi Strauss.

What a cute car, huh? it's a Cabriolet. The only bad thing is that because of the humidity and the past few days of rain, it's quite musty and moldy smelling, quite like the library and the reading room we are working in. It's pretty bad. I hope I don't develop some respiratory problems because of it.

Here are Rei and Megan. Rei is a retired nurse originally from Norway with a great accent and a good sense of humor and she makes me laugh every day. Megan just graduated College and is from St. Louis. We were exploring the beach near our motel yesterday and I took this shot.

I've been playing with Shelley's camera and took some pictures with the "cloudy" setting and the black and white setting and the sepia one too. I was having too much fun. Those pictures you'll have to wait for, I took way too many trying to figure out the camera.

So, here are some of the kids I work with. There is Tiki, Melissa and Tyrone.

Tiki is reading from a Pokemon book, Melissa is proudly showing one of the books she finished and Tyrone is playing Sight word Bingo with me. They not only like to win a "regular" bingo, but then proceed to "blackout" the entire board before we can end the game.

Today, we had an athletic competition, they split up the school into 4 teams, red, blue, green and yellow.

Here they are marching onto the field.

they even dressed up one of their pets to support the Blue team.

I was measuring the "ball throw." Just throwing a tennis ball as far as you can.

Then, here is the awards ceremony. All the teams are grouped together and the awards for both junior and intermediate boys and girls were given along with the team with the most points.

Funny, when they come up to receive their awards, they have to dance to some random music they play over the speakers. They really liked it when this one boy, Reese, danced like they do in music videos, I guess that's what you would call it. Then all the younger kids would join in too.

It was a fun, but exhausting day. I am spent, but wanted to share with you what has been going on.
We have the weekend free, so I think a few of us are going to go on an island tour tomorrow and maybe a movie later on. There is only one theater and by coincidence the owners of the motel also own the theater. I think HellBoy is premiering tonight, but I think we will see either Tropic Thunder or request another movie. Debi says that sometimes Harry will just pop a movie in for you as a special request. Another funny thing, they break after an hour of the movie, no matter what part of the movie you are in and everyone goes out and buys ice cream before heading back into the theater to finish the movie.

I think I also will have to do laundry soon. I have a choice of using the motel to wash my clothes, but they don't have dryers so you get your clothes when they dry after hanging on the line in this climate. Otherwise, walk a bit down the road and pay a little more to have your clothes wash, dried and folded. i think it'll be worth it to pay more to have dry clothes.

Well, thanks for checking in, I'll try and blog again soon.

I've been coming to the internet place every other day for an hour instead of every day for half an hour.

Mei taki,

Sharon

I'm still here!

(My motel room)

(My view from my motel)

"Kia Orana" (Hello) from Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

I'm a regular worker now, waking up at 6:30 (!!!)each morning, having breakfast with my other members of my group and taking the bus along with locals and school children. This time we actually made it to the school, yesterday we forgot to tell the bus driver our stop and when we saw the school go by, we all yelled, "Stop!" How embarrasing, but a lesson learned. I'm sure we were the talk of the rest of the bus riders after getting off...I'm sure they thought, " Such Amateurs!"

We are the Vaka 104, the 104th group to volunteer at the Cook Islands. Volunteers have been coming for the past 10 years.
Sorry I didn't blog yesterday. I spent the I work from 8-2 and then spent the rest of the day with another volunteer, Megan, a recent college graduate who majored in Anthropology, and we explored the rest of the town that we haven't had a chance to see. What a great way to spend her time before going to graduate school. She has her whole life ahead of her...I'm a little jealous. Ah, to start all over again...uh, nah...I changed my mind. =)

I will try and take more pictures of my group and the kids I work with. The school is having an athletic competition on Friday, so most of our time will be helping take times and measuring out long jumps and such. No reading this Friday. Then next week, they are having a inter school competition at ther local stadium, it's all very exciting and the kids are really anxious to participate.

I helped with measuring the long jump and said to the other local teacher, that "It's almost like the Olympics." The kids were having a ball and they even had the preschoolers running their own "races" even though they are technically not in the competition.
It's a funny thing, they don't have a bell for breaktime, recess, lunchtime and dismissal, they have a couple of older boys beat on a drum. On the first day, every time we heard the drums, we had to ask, "What's that one for?" It was always one for the beginning and one at the end of the break.

I volunteered to type up the journal that we are all writing in for the rest of the group and will be having that in a blog off of the Global Volunteers site. That blog will be written by every member of our group and you'll be able to hear from different people with different points of view and see what they were doing on their work projects.

Yesterday, before dinner we also went to the Cultural Center and took a lesson from some young children, boys and girls. They were really cute.

We have a couple of local young ladies that cook us traditional American breakfast (eggs, french toast or pancakes) and dinner. The dinner is usually a local cuisine, lots of seafood and local vegetables. Very yummy!!! I'll take a picture of the "spread" tonight and post it on a later blog.
Stay tuned.

Thanks for the comments, I really look forward to hearing from all of you. I don't really have the time to answer emails, so feel free to leave a comment. It's truly a really bright part of my day.

Meitaki (Thank You!)
Sharon