Ifira Primary/Secondary School

As part of some subconscious effort to break the mold of South Pacific tourism, I wanted to visit a school while I was in Vanuatu.  The Ni-Vanuatu were infinitely friendly, which made the desire very easy to fulfill.  A stranger I met introduced me to another stranger, who told me where I could catch a boat to a small island where I met another stranger who was the sister of the second stranger's mother's brother-in-law.  Despite the chain of unfamiliarity, every person I met treated me as if we'd been friends for years and years, and I soon found myself at Ifira Primary/Secondary School on Ifira island, about a ten-minute boat ride from the main island (Efate) in Vanuatu.

The teacher I met there said later that, as I crossed the field to the library, her students (10-11 years old in "class 5") were telling her, "a white man is coming!  a white man is coming!"  We were rare on this small island.  I quickly explained to her the chain of introductions that led me to her class, that I was a volunteer teacher in Tonga, and that I had hoped to visit a school in Vanuatu.  I was invited to join the class for the last two periods, library and maths.  At the library, the kids tried to catch my eye, then shyly showed me the books they'd chosen to take home for the weekend.

Returning to the classroom, the teacher told me that the kids were asking if I could teach them.  Maths is not my strong subject (which had caused much student giggling when I subbed a math class at my school in Tonga).  Instead, I offered to give a bit of a geography lesson by talking about Canada and Tonga.  At the end of my short lesson, the teacher asked if there were any questions.  Fifteen little hands shot up.  Was I really that bad at geography?  No, the kids were just that eager to practice or show off their English.

I answered dozens of questions, including, "What's your last name?" ("Post, like Post Office," which gets laughs no matter where in the world I am), "what's your favourite food?" (it's pizza, but to keep it interesting I tried to describe poutine), "what's your favourite sport?" (I already said I was Canadian!  Ice hockey!), "do you like rugby?" (only if it's Rugby League, having just recently learned the difference), and the ever popular without fail always asked wherever I go in the Pacific, "do you have a wife?" from a little girl who actually high-fived her friend after she asked, before all the girls burst into fits of giggling with their hands over their mouths.

Throughout the course of of the Q&A, I perpetuated such Canadian stereotypes as "endless winter," "all Canadians ski," "wearing toques," and of course, "the danger of polar bears" (which the kids knew as "white bears").  I think they were a little confused to begin with, though, because one line of questioning  focused on asking if there were kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras, or sharks, in Canada.

At the end, the kids belted out, "thank you Mr. Daniel" (having apaprently fogotten about Post Office).  I was ready for nap time, but maths was about to begin.  It was my answer to "what's your least-favourite subject?", but I said it was important to try hard at maths anyways, just to help the kids who now probably wanted to grow up to be me.