Monday

A great start to the week with Matt and Sophie appearing to be super organised when they had their family ready to depart 30 minutes early (7am!) because their room clocks were 30 minutes fast. In contrast the local volunteers were slow to arrive but eventually we had 6 strong men ready to dig holes.

And dig we did! The sand under the top clay layer made for easy digging but it was still hot hard work. Sophie enjoyed comparing the work site to her role at home writing Safe Work Method Statements. Here we have kids, dogs, grinders, bare feet, thongs, power cords, chainsaws all in the mix.

The team kids spent the day in various classrooms after having to sit at the front of assembly (99 students) and introduce themselves. The children sing so loudly that our kids would have blocked their ears if they thought it wasn't rude. Byron didn't enjoy the classroom (class 7-8) as it was so hard to concentrate on his own work and the classroom work "was way too easy". Tarli, Jess and Kiarra were all in the same classroom (class 3-4) with plenty of Australian worksheets to tackle, but faced some challenges with the noisy environment. Noah attended class 1-2 and did a great job playing with his class mates at recess. Tane went to kinder and taught them thumb war games. They were all straight in with no fuss - well done kids!!

The hardware deliveries arrived, but were incorrect - three visits later all materials on-site and ready for construction.

Morning tea and lunch was fantastic traditional Fijian food - dalo, bush bananas, roti parcels, fruit, coconuts, cake, curries. Byron and Riley played rugby with class 2,3 and 4.