Why are you wearing green??

Happy St. Patrick's Day! One thing I have learned here is that Americans take every single holiday more seriously than anyone else. While I've been here, Valentines Day was almost nonexistent, and today, none of the kids even knew what St. Patrick's Day was. A few of the teachers got into it and wore green (one even wore ALL green), but it wasn't ever talked about unless one of us brought it up.

Earlier this week I had worn green, and all the students chastised me because they thought I was supporting the Harakeke team. At Colwill, all of the classes are divided into three teams: Harakeke (green), Kowhai (yellow), and Pohutukawa (red). So, when I wore green earlier this week, they kept reminding me that I should only wear red. When I came to school today wearing green again, I think they were pretty disappointed that I was "supporting the Harakeke team" again. They kept asking me, "Miss, why are you wearing green? Why are you wearing green again, miss??" Luckily, when I explained to them that today was St. Patrick's Day and if you don't wear green on St. Patrick's Day anyone can pinch you, they decided it was ok for me to wear green, but ONLY today. They are so funny.

One neat thing about today was that I was able to sit in on the Rainbow Program, a weekly class/meeting for all the refugee students. There are actually a lot of refugees at Colwill, and around 15 of them came today. Three girls from Iraq, and one girl from Congo spent the first little bit explaining some key aspects of their culture. Each one dressed up in their traditional outfits and it was neat to hear them talk about their significance. I think the most intriguing thing to me was when the girl from Congo, Linda, (and a woman who interpreted for Linda) talked about the importance of the drum in their African culture. They use the drums as a means of communication from village to village. They used the example of a death. If someone dies in one village, they start beating their drums a certain way to let the other villages know there has been a death. It was very interesting to learn about. It is so intriguing to me the different ways people live all around the world.

To celebrate our own St. Patrick's Day, Jess and Christine came over to make a green treat. Anna and I thought it might be fun to make the steamed pudding that Raewyn taught us how to make because we could so easily die it green, but it didn't turn out as good as Raewyn's. Ours was a lot denser than hers was, and looked more like play-dough with the green food coloring. Whoops! At least we tried to be festive :)