A hike with Class 8

There are a lot of fantastic qualities surrounding class 8 that made me extend education for 2 weeks. But, two of the best things about my class and students in the school in general is they are so intrigued by other’s cultures and want to share as much of theirs as possible. They are continually taught to always provide good charity and help those less fortunate than themselves, regardless that they don’t have access to clean drinking water and half their school is still missing from a cyclone, they have never once viewed themselves as people in need but rather put their effort into learning about others.

During one of our many lunch sessions, in which they consistently try to push food onto me because they swear we don't eat enough, it came up that I enjoy the occasional hike. They informed me we could go on one as a class.

A few details they failed to mention prior to the agreement to go Wednesday morning:

1. There is a chunk of the trail that seemed to be at a complete 90 degree angle and I know they know what this means because we JUST finished a chapter on triangles in maths class.

2. Although leaving in the morning is the coolest part of the day, this is still the tropics of Fiji. So the first hour was in direct sunlight with no breeze all uphill in what must have been 80 degree heat.

3. Their idea of fun is literally running down the steepest parts of the mountain and peer pressuring me to do so as well. Hysterical, right?

Well regardless of my qualms with the mountains it was still my best day here. The highlight was getting to know some of the shyer kids much better an witnessing all of them assisting my apparently old butt up and over the mountain...

Louisa took my water bottle and hooked it onto her backpack so my pants would stop falling down... Tema put her headband in my hair because I missed the memo to wrap a sulu around your head to stop the copious amounts of sweat from blinding you... And Vite held my hand the entire way down the steep mountain because I'm pretty sure my not so impressive running skills concerned her too much.

The only downside to the day was when the resort on the other side of the mountain refused to sell us ice cream because they were running low and had guests at full capacity until their next shipment.

But it's okay because we came up with an epic plan to steal a boat, go to a neighboring island's resort, then steal and eat their ice cream all day long.

Sadly we didn't go through with our flawless plan but I did bring in a cake later that week to make up for it.

The last 30 minutes of our over 3 hour hike was down the beach where I was given the prettiest shell.

We finally returned to the school where I collapsed in the middle of a field, gobbled down an egg bun made by Lice, then shouted "ALL RIGHT LETS GO AGAIN!". . . To I was profusely booed at.

It's cool though, because deep down I know those angsty teens loved the day as much as me.

A hike with Class 8