Swimming at the olympic pool with my deaf students - last day!

And here I am at the olympic swimming pool in Suva on my last day at school - with my deaf students from Gospel Primary School for the Deaf. We had a great time!

The children were keen to show me lots of tricks in the pool, swim laps with me & we all dived off the divers block to see how far we could swim after diving. Ha! I felt like a kid again diving off that block but they wanted me to do it - so I had to do it or else I would have been a boring Aussie girl to them. Ha!

When we finished our swim, the children played with my hair - put loads of gel in it & styled it with their fingers! Ha! They also posed for lots of photos! And gave me lots of hugs to say goodbye. They really hope I will return to visit again this October to watch their performance for the school 10-year anniversary event. I said I will try to visit but cannot promise as there are things I must do upon my return to Australia. It was a sad moment to part & leave. Some tears too. I have grown so fond these gorgeous happy & generous deaf children!

After bidding farewell to these children - I caught a taxi back home to get ready for a night out to celebrate end of Fiji project & end of university with deaf friends of the Fiji Association for the Deaf.

Farewell to Gospel High School ... & presents!!!

My last day at Gospel High School! And my last day of university!!! Whoah!!!

A sad but lovely day! So many beautiful farewell speeches from students & teachers. And so many gifts!!!

Here you see photos of a special farewell morning tea event held for me & my interpreter. All the school staff (about 40x staff members) bid us farewell, said prayers to god to wish us well, & also invited us to return to the school anytime in the future. A lovely feast of tea & snacks were provided for us - but as I was so busy chatting to everyone I had no time to eat!!!

The gifts I received was a lovely wooden art piece with an image of Fiji & 'bula' engraved on it. Also, some clothes from a teacher colleague & Indian bracelets!!! And a gorgeous surprise gift from my students - a fijian 'masi' print wall hanging & a folio of all their wonderful hand art images. I was so moved by this!!! I did not expect to receive so many gifts!

I was rather tired on this day - as you can see in the photos! This last & final week at the school was rather exhausting as I tried to make sure I had time with each & everyone of my students & colleagues before leaving. And I also had a few nights out socialising with my new fijian friends.

Last 2x photos you see below are images of my interpreter (& me behind the camera) saying goodbye to Gospel High School (at the back of the school) & to Gospel Primary School for the Deaf (behind the high school on same block of land).

We were very sad to go but at the same time I was very excited in knowing that university is over at long last & was looking forward to a night out in Suva to celebrate!

Rhythm & Art Class with form 3 students

Here are some images for you to view - from my form 3 art class at Gospel High School last week.

We explored rhythm & movement in line drawings & used music for inspiration - in particular the 'meke' music of Fiji.

Lots of diversity in the drawings here!

Some students struggled with this task as there was lots of freedom with this topic. However, I thought the task was useful & beneficial to the students as they dont get many opportunities to explore & express themselves so freely.

Enjoy the photos!

It's showtime! Deaf drama at Gospel Primary School for the Deaf

And my last task for today involved putting on a semi-polished 'Deaf Awareness' performance for all the deaf children at Gospel Primary School for the Deaf. Including the deaf performers, there are about 55x deaf children at this school.

The children performing were so excited & nervous - including the deaf & hearing teachers who are performing in this show also! All have never done this before! In fact, they have never done drama before!

They loved it, were such great performers & signed beautifully. The audience had a really great time too!

We also invited the school principal from Gospel High to come & watch the show. She was impressed & said they are so good at it! Oh I do hope they will do more drama at the school now because it is a wonderful way for the deaf students to express themselves! I am glad I found the time to put this show together with the students - within 1-week (approx. 2.5hrs per group)! Now the students have a good excuse to do more drama between now & October. They will need to rehearse this show up until October - to give their final & best performance at the school's 10-year anniversary event - which will be held on 'World Teacher's Day'.

Something interesting for you to know. One boy is 20y.o in this school. This boy only started primary school when he was 17y.o - just 3-yrs ago! Up until he was 17y.o he might have been isolated in a Fijian village somewhere. But it is better late to start school than never! So this is why some of the deaf students at the primary school look so big! There really is a need to get more deaf awareness out in the villages so we may get deaf children into school earlier & so they may learn language asap - as like hearing children do. If deaf children are left in the villages, many will not develop language skills. So this has been one of my challenges when working with deaf primary school children - communicating clearly because some have only just been introduced to language & are only just learning to sign. But having worked with the children a bit now I can see they do pick up the sign language very quickly, go on to be smart & very keen learners! This is clearly evident amongst deaf students who have been at school for at least a couple of years.

Tomorrow, the deaf children are thrilled to know that I will finally be joining them at the olympic swimming pool in town. They are so excited & have been asking me to join them for awhile now - as part of their regular Friday sporting activity. I have not been able to attend before because up until now I have been teaching at the highschool on Fridays. The children were keen to know what I will wear. I told them I only have bikinis but will cover up! They giggled & laughed. So the trip to the pool will be a nice way to finish my last day in school & my last day of university! Yay!

Indian snacks & masala tea with my Indo-Fijian colleagues

Finally some chillout time again - this time with my colleagues from the language department at Gospel Highschool.

The ladies are all Indo-Fijian women - often talk a mixture of Hindi or English or both.

We had some great laughs & lots of girly talks! These women love to chat & talk about girly things just like us western women do.

We also talked about sari's - Indian dresses. And how much of their social times involves dressing up in beautiful sari's for weddings or special events. Their next big sari event is 'Diwali' - the 'festival of lights' this coming October. If I return to help the Fiji Association of the Deaf in October for 3-months in preparing & delivering their national deaf awareness week event - I will also be invited to celebrate the 'Diwali' with the girls in a 'sari' at their home. Oh how good would that be - to dress up in sari! I never got to do that when I was in India in 2004 for 4-months.

Deaf drama at Hilton Special School (for the little ones)

Here are some photos of me with the little ones - deaf children at Hilton Special School. We had lots of fun playing drama games. This was a new experience for them as they have never played drama games before. Lots of laughs especially when we played 'duck, duck, goose!' - we sat in a circle & tapped each other on the heads & sometimes tapped twice to chase each other around the circle.

After this, I finalised my deaf awareness training for staff at Hilton Special School & discussed ways teachers can provided better support for deaf children for when they go on to highschool - Gospel Highschool.

*** Something funny for you to know - the teachers of this school said they have a problem! They can't use any of their computers because some of the children sneaked into the computer lab room yesterday & took the balls out of 'all' the mouses - for the computers - including the new box of mouses! These children like to use the balls to play marbles! (How clever & resourceful are these children! Ha! But not so good for the teachers or their school finances or for other students who may want to use the computers!)

Finally, at the end of my visit to this school, my interpreter & I had to make a quick run - by taxi - to get back to Gospel Primary School for the Deaf to get students ready for their show - in front of an audience! Busy time, wailei (tired from hectic schedule) & rather hungry as I havent had much time to eat this week!

Some group photos with students & colleagues

Here are some group photos for you to see - taken today:

(i) Left photo: me with one of my art classes
(ii) Next photo - below: with my deaf drama students
(iii) Bottom photo: with one of my deaf poetry / english students, my interpreter, a deaf colleague at the deaf primary school at my favourite location - the Raintree lodge for coffee, chat & some much-needed chillout time!

Hmmm ... my day today? Busy!!! Two art classes - collecting students final drawings & playing a drama game for some fun as it was my last day with the art classes; Deaf Awareness Training for Gospel High staff; & then deaf drama with the children in the primary school.

We had some interuptions today during my deaf drama workshops at the deaf primary school - too many visitors!!! So many people are fascinated to meet my gorgeous deaf Fijian students. I dont blame them really!

Yesterday we had visitors from America's Gallaudet university - the all-deaf USA university.

Today, we had some elderly deaf Australians from Brisbane & Caboolture region (near to my Aussie home!!!) stop in to visit - as part of their stopover trip in Fiji via a P&O cruise ship. The children were fascinated to see these visitors, my Aussie interpreter & myself all signing 'Auslan' (Australian Sign Language). Some of the children would ask me what this or that Auslan sign was. It was fun to be able to translate for them so that they would understand.

Also, my deaf Fijian colleague nudged me on the elbow & said he has never seen elderly deaf white people before - that signed. He was really intrigued by these elderly deaf & white Aussie visitors. Hee!

After my deaf students & I posed for lots of photos for the deaf Aussie visitors, the visitors finally left so we were able to get on with my drama workshop - cos its showtime tomorrow!

To wrap up the day, my deaf colleague, my interpreter & one of my deaf students went out for coffee to relax at the Raintree lodge - in amongst the rainforest, birds & 'large' water ponds. Very nice!

By the way, I am pleased to say - I get lots of big hugs now - each day from my little deaf Fijian students. I love it - cos I miss my hugs sometimes whilst I am here! Hee!

(Part 4 - Final) Hand Art Classes - Theme "Fijian Identity"

Here is my final collection of hand art & aboriginal-inspired art images from my Fijian art students. Enjoy!