Sunday afternoon we visited our friends down the road, Pittman and Jenny, and their daughter Mere. C loves their place, as they have a fantastic tree-hut, a pet pig and two pet goats, hundreds of fish (they run a fish farm) a dog and two kittens. At one stage, the two girls had all the animals dressed up in scarves, hats or flowers, including the pig. It was the kind of afternoon which turned into staying for dinner – my favourite kind.
Today it is Monday, back to normal... although as of about two weeks ago I have no idea what normal actually looks like.
The job I came here for was working at my friends’ hydroponics gardens. People have often asked me, “So what do you actually DO?” Well, everything from planting seeds - a thousand or more in a sitting – to scrubbing trays, planting parsley seedings into bigger containers, making up the chemical nutrient mix to go into the tanks, picking lettuces for customers, and delivering them around the island. All very manual, no-brainer stuff.
This is Aaron, another one of the workers. He’s a 20-year-old from the island of Manihiki – and the biggest practical joker I have ever met.The job has served a good purpose – it got me here for a start, for which I will always be grateful – and it’s been good to do something totally different. But I have recently cut back my hours a lot, in order to get back to some freelance writing. The long hours in the hot sun on $12 an hour were taking their toll in many ways (although it must be pointed out that’s a good wage for the islands!). As I said, I’m still there part-time, but will be spending more time writing – and homeschooling.
I hear a collective gasp. “Homeschooling?” It’s a long story, but basically, C was miserable at the school she was going to – I won’t go into the reasons in a public forum - and then the opportunity came up to have her tutored with a lady who used to teach there, who had pulled her own daughter out. So for terms 3 and 4 last year, the two nine-year-olds used the same curriculum as the school, but in a home environment. This worked well – in fact C got more work done in less time, and had more time for being a kid: biking, swimming and climbing trees.
This year, however, that set-up is no longer possible – and rather than have her chopping and changing schools, she is continuing with the same curriculum at home with me. So these days my mornings are spent explaining division with remainders, reminding C for the 456th time to use capital letters at the start of sentences, and discussing the differences between Celsius and Fahrenheit. The curriculum we are using has workbooks provided, so it is mainly a matter of supervising – but it turns out C needs quite a lot of remedial maths, so we are spending quite a lot of time doing drills on times tables and so on.
As well as the academic work, she has a singing lesson once a week; and we are doing a neat world history programme where you do lots of hands-on stuff. At the moment we are reading about Ancient Egypt, so last week we made a model of the River Nile, complete with grass seed for crops on either side, which are watered when the river ‘floods.’ And soon we are hopnig to mummify a chicken. A supermarket one, that is, not one of the ones wandering around our property (although a drop in the rooster population would be a good thing.)
Once a week C goes over the road and has a sewing lesson with Aunty Te’ei, who is teaching her and her friend Mackenzie to sew ‘tivaevae,’ which is traditional Cook Island quilting and embroidery. They are currently making a cushion cover. She also does drama lessons in a class with our friend Nancy, who is a very experienced performer and teacher – and they will be putting on a production this year. And sometimes on Saturdays she goes down to the sailing club and crews for some of the older members on vakas and Sunbursts.
So she has a full and interesting life – and I don’t think her education is suffering. At any rate, the experience of living on an island, and in another culture, will outweigh any negatives.
She has grown in independence and confidence, mainly as a result of the freedom children have here. A short while ago she and her friend Natalia biked to Wigmore’s Waterfall and back by themselves. This was a 10km bike ride, some of it uphill. They jumped off the waterfall into the pool below – it’s a popular place in summer as the mountain water is a lot cooler than the bath-like lagoon – and then cycled home again with the wind in their hair, no helmets required. It’s the kind of thing she could/would never have done in New Zealand – too much traffic, not safe enough, and it would not have entered my head to allow her, quite frankly.There is no law here forbidding children to be at home by themselves, so she is sometimes here alone; Saturday mornings, for example, I usually go to the market very early to buy fruit and vegetables. And I don’t have to rush home in a panic if she is going to be dropped off half an hour before me after playing at a friend’s house. It certainly makes life less stressful, especially for a single parent; and I predict we will find the transition back to our over-regulated, politically-correct homeland a little frustrating in this respect. The freedom we have here makes me realise how many rules and regulations are driven by an illogical fear – and how much we over-protect our children. In short, the risk of breaking a limb or two is outweighed by the benefits and pleasures of climbing trees.
*****
