Christchurch Earthquake

I first heard about the most recent Christchurch earthquake at the end of school on Tuesday. One of the parents told us he heard about it on the radio on his way over. Then I saw a bunch of teachers in the library watching the news with live coverage from Christchurch. Fortunately, I am in the north island and was not at all affected by the earthquake. I guess that Auckland never has to worry about earthquakes because they’re not on a faultline like Christchurch is. Even though we are far away from it, it still has had a big impact on everyone here. For such a small country, the current death toll of 98, with 226 people still missing is massive. It is devastating. It is also crazy to me because we were in Christchurch only 2 weeks ago! If our trip had been this week for some reason, we would have been there. I feel so blessed that that was not the case. One of the most shocking things has been to see pictures and video of the buildings and streets that I just barely saw—especially the cathedral. You can see from the before and after pictures how the tower is just completely gone. It will be interesting to see what happens to Christchurch after all the destruction. Will they rebuild the entire city? How long will it take? Where will everyone go in the meantime? I guess only time will tell.

Because the earthquake has greatly affected New Zealand, we spent most of our literacy time talking about the earthquake, discussing what we can do to help, and then writing about it. It was so neat to hear all of the students thoughts about the earthquake and then their ideas about what they could do to help the people in Christchurch. They decided they wanted to raise money, and when asked how they could raise the money, one boy said, “We could sell coins!” The funniest idea, however, went a little like this: Mrs. Eka had an idea of how they could raise money and was trying to get the students to guess her idea. She asked Sefa and me to stand up.

Mrs. Eka: Look at what Sefa is wearing, compared to what Miss Burnett is wearing. Does that give you a clue about how we could raise money?

Sonya: Oh I know…we could sell the kids!

We all started laughing, and then Mrs. Eka started auctioning off Sefa. “Who will give me $5 for Sefa? $10? $20?” Sefa seemed super bashful during this whole thing, and when Mrs. Eka asked him if it was ok to sell him, he responded, “Yeah! Because then my dad would be rich!” haha Gotta love these kids! (Mrs. Eka was trying to get them to notice that Sefa was wearing a uniform, but I was wearing “Mufti” or civilian/non-uniform clothes. Her idea was to have a Mufti Day at Colwill where students could pay a couple bucks to wear mufti instead of uniforms. Nice try on getting them to guess that one, Mrs. Eka!)

I truly just love the kids here! I finally got a few pictures of them…hopefully more to come soon.

Don't you love these uniforms? ;) Especially with those they are required to wear whenever they are outside to protect them from the sun!