A Lego Party

On Tuesday of this week I realized that we had talked about throwing a belated birthday party for Justin on Saturday.  (His 7th birthday happened while we were in the village.)  So I quickly emailed out invitations to his friends and tried to come up with ideas for a party.  Then it hit me.  Lego!  My boys love lego and spend hour after hour playing with them.  So a lego party it was!

As I looked online for ideas, I once again felt how hard it is to party plan here in Ukarumpa land.  Back home, all the shops and such are just down the road where you can buy party decorations or favors or whatever you need.  Not here.  Here, basically I have to use whatever we might have managed to bring over, or what I can make myself.  So I had to get creative.  Thanks to Pinterest, I found some ideas (and tons more that I just couldn't possibly do here).  I'm totally kicking myself now for not buying several Lego minifigures while I was in Australia in August to get Elijah's teeth fixed.  I literally stood at the Lego section in Target for a good 20-30 minutes staring at them, not able to figure out if I should buy some or not (the curse of returing to the excess of the 1st world after living in the 3rd world for so long!).  I ended up not buying them, and now I really regret it!  They would have made awesome party favors and game prizes!

We ended up with several Lego-themed games.

A "Guess how many Lego are in the jar" game.

Pin-the-Head on the Lego Man.

As usual, E had to get in on the fun.  Getting him to head the right direction was a challenge though!

He finally went the right way, and ended up being one of the closest!

A Lego relay race where the teams had to carry the all the Lego from one bucket to another, using only a serving spoon, and once they had all been transfered, be the first to build a tower using all the Lego.

Then we had presents........

E commandered J's new birthday cars!

 .....and cake.

Lego brick cake

"Lego"-men Jigglers

After the kids had eaten their fill, it was outside for a Lego pinata. 

Apparently, a pinata made out of a cereal box, toilet paper rolls cut in 3rds and tissue paper is just too strong.  We finally resorted to Matt pitching it to Nathan like a baseball, and that did the trick!

Candy!!!

We ended the party with Lego play.

Our Village Stay in Pictures (Fall 2013)

It's always easier to show than tell, so here's a look at our last village stay in pictures.

The Helicopter Ride:

We keep busy most days with school:

While Matt works on translation with our co-translators and a few others:

October is a busy birthday month for us!

 Miscellaneous shots: 

Mud, there always is mud!

 Visitors and a Care Package!  See http://christytaylor.blogspot.com/2013/10/visitors.html for details.

Saturday hikes and trips to the river to play:

Playing in the icy cold river!

Carnival Time!

Every year, one of the highlights for our kids is the annual Carnival put on by the secondary campus.  The campus is decorated according to the theme for the event (this year, it was 'Movie Mania') and all the kids are dressed up, and the booths decorated according to the theme.  Every year the money raised at Carnival is given to some ministry.  This year, it went to the Lae prison ministry.

There was a dunk tank, homemade Ferris Wheel, mini-golf, face painting, and food, lots of yummy treats that I didn't have to cook!  That in itself is probably the highlight for every parent there! =)

I didn't get any pictures of Kaitlyn as she got her tickets and ran off to hang out with her friends for the whole time.

The Ferris Wheel:

 Julianne decided that she wanted to ride the Ferris wheel this time.  After watching some high schoolers flip around as the wheel turned (really fast!), she was so cute as she said, "I'm scared!"  I asked her if she still wanted to ride it.  "YES!" she answered. The whole time we waited in line she kept telling me that she was scared, but that she still wanted to ride it!  And she had a blast!  (Since there a bunch of us parents with a small child on our lap, the boys spinning the wheel kept us at a 'safer' speed!)

"Lord of the Rings" themed mini-golf:

A cutie in a tree:

Nathan and Kaitlyn got to fly some R.C. airplanes!

Ice Cream!!!  (I think the ice cream was way more interesting than Mom trying to snap a picture... thus the 'deer in the headlights' stares!)

Exam Week

This has been a busy week in Hamelengan village.  There have been lots of extra people visiting here as this is the week of the Grade 8 school exams.

 

We have seen the school here in Hamelengan grow and flourish in our almost 10 years of working with the Nukna people.  When we first came, it was fairly ‘normal’ to have a school year where only 3 grades were offered (such as 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th) due to a shortage of teachers and classroom space.  But now, the school is growing and thriving.  Over the past few years they have added grades 7 and 8, as well as built a separate “Elementary” school (for the equivilent of grades 1 and 2).  And it’s also exciting that at least half of the teachers are from the Nukna area—something that is rare indeed – usually teachers are brought in from other parts of the country.

 

In many ways, school here is similar to any school you might find in the US.  In many other ways, it’s extremely different.  Aside from the lack of electricity in the classrooms, dirt floors and bamboo walls, and school starting with the kids working for half an hour or so cleaning the school grounds (ie:  weeding or cutting the soccer field grass with their machetes), one of the most stark differences (in my opinion) is the Grade 8 Exam.

 

In my home culture, Grade 8 is just one more year in the long 12 years of school.  It’s a bit exciting… it’s the finish of the “Middle School” years, where kids leave childhood behind and enter highschool as teens.  But there’s nothing terribly important or distinct about Grade 8.

 

Here, that’s not the case.  Every year, about this time, all the grade 8 students here in PNG must take an exam.   This exam is of the utmost importance to the students and their families.  When the results of the exam come back, the grade 8 students find out whether their school career is over, or whether they can continue on to Grade 9 and beyond.  (Grade 9 is not a grade currently taught at the Hamelengan school.  For those students who pass the grade 8 exam and continue on to 9^th grade, they must go to Derim, a several -days hike from here, where they board and only come home on school holidays.)  So this exam is a HUGE thing!  (And if they pass and go on to grades 9 and 10, they have to take another big exam at the end of grade 10 to see if they can move on to grades 11 and 12.)

 

So this week here in Hamelengan the Grade 8 Exam was given.  Last year, every single Grade 8 student here in Hamelengan passed the test – 21 out of 21!  That was a proud moment for both the students and their teachers, as a 100% pass rate is extremely rare.  This year, 23 students took the test.  About half of the students aren’t from Hamelengan village, so their families hiked here for the week to support them.  Some came from the beach, a 2 day hike from here, and some from over the mountains to the east.  All the local families from here in Hamelengan who have Grade 8 students just stayed home this week – no working in their gardens - cooking extra special foods for their kids so that they would have the energy and brain power for the exam.  Two of our main co-translators, Simendi and Muransi, have daughters who took the exam this year. 

 

So the village has been overflowing with guests who are staying with relatives and friends so they can encourage and pray for their kids while they take their exams.  On the last day, lots of men  went to Siang village (a 3-ish hour hike, one-way) to pick up a pig and carry it back for a feast for the kids to celebrate the end of their exams.  All the parents pooled their money to buy the pig as a special treat for the students.  Once the feast was over, the afternoon ended with prayer, speeches, and gifts such as homemade spears and woven mats for the exam proctor.

 

Today and tomorrow the village will start to shrink back to it’s ‘normal’ size as parents head back home now that the exam is done.  School will continue on through the rest of the school year (following the school year in Australia where the school year starts in Jan and ends in Dec).  And the students will wait, probably until January, for their exams to be graded at the educational admin offices in the provincial capital, Lae.  Once the grading is completed, the results will be carried back, first by airplane and then by hand over the mountainous jungle trails.  Only then will they find out which students are eligible to continue on to grade 9, and which have failed and are finished with schooling for the rest of their lives.  Talk about nerve-wracking!  But after last’s year’s incredible success, hopes are high that most or all will pass this year too.