Body Gardens and Pasifika!

For one of our math assignments, we had to teach a maths (they always call it "maths" here, never just "math") lesson about measurement. The students had to make a body garden, using measurements from their body. So, for our body garden, the kids chose their lower leg as the stem, their hands for the petals, their eyebrows for leaves, and the length of their nose to make the yellow middle of the flower. While they tried my patience here and there, for the most part it was so cute to see them create this body garden. And I'd say it turned out pretty good for a few 6- and 7-year-olds!

In case you couldn't tell, the red blob looking flower is actually a "fireworks flower" created by cute little Sefa :)

The Colwill girls (me, Anna, Jess, and Christine) were so excited, because we actually had an adventure after school today! Since we usually spend so much time at home doing homework and assignments after school, we were ready for a little more excitement. We rode the bus (another successful bus trip. woot!) to Western Springs Park for the opening concert of Auckland's Pasifika Festival 2011.

Western Springs Park was absolutely picturesque :)

The craziest thing about the park, however, was that it was FILLED with birds, ducks, pukekos, and these scary black swans. These swans had looooong necks, red eyes, and they would just run right up to us.

The coolest part of the park were all the real life pukekos! We have heard so much about pukekos ("on the first day of christmas my true love gave to me: a pukeko in a pongo tree"--this was one of the first NZ songs we learned here), and it was quite exciting to see so many!

Anna had fun trying to sneak up on them :)

But, back to the festival: It is the largest and most significant cultural festival in the South Pacific. Tonight was the Pasifika Festival Opening Night Concert, which featured the best of the Pacific's stories, dances, and songs about this year's theme--the octopus and taro leaf. We saw performances from Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Tokelau, Tahiti, Tuvalu, and of course Aotearoa (New Zealand). It really was a great cultural experience. I think my favorite performance was Tahiti's--they had just arrived from the airport right before they performed, and they were amazing! It's neat to see so many people take such great pride in their culture and heritage.

We were some of the first people there and got grrreat seats right up in front.

There was a great local Kappa Haka group. It is always so entertaining to watch them as they make their eyes bug out and stick their tongues out crazy.

This was the group from Tonga. You can't really tell from the picture, but they reminded me of the Polynesian ward I visited in Provo, with all the men in white shirts and ties but lava lavas (those straw skirts) instead of pants. It was like Mormon missionaries +the islands.

We rode the bus home, but we ended up taking an earlier bus (which ended up being filled with some very interesting people...) and it could only take us halfway. While we were waiting for the next bus, we discovered these futuristic bathrooms. We were quite intrigued...haha

This was my attempt, but for some reason they all closed and we couldn't get back inside. We're wondering if they have security cameras and were trying to keep us away. Ha!