Another lazy post: an article I wrote for post.
As I was nervously anticipating the commencement of my assignment, one common piece of advice was consistent amongst the other volunteers who had returned from Fiji. This advice was loud and clear: take a back seat, get to know your colleagues, take time to talk to them and don’t enter the workplace with all guns blazing. Be prepared to do “nothing” for the first 3 months. Being a person who possesses an inability to sit still, I knew I would find this incredibly challenging. So I readied myself to move slowly, reserve all judgements and decisions and welcome a slower pace with open arms – essentially doing “nothing”. However, doing “nothing” didn’t prepare me for my first day at school.
I was cruising for the first 2 hours. I sat myself at the back of one of the classrooms and observed. I said “nothing” and I did “nothing”. I think I was getting used to the idea that I really could handle this “nothing” concept. Little did I know that “nothing” doesn’t quite apply in the busy hive of activity at Hilton Special School.
Recess arrived and I noticed the teachers rushing for their daily serve of morning tea. The teachers cautiously stepped around me with mumbled “tulou, tulou”s and eagerly reached over for their lemon leaf tea with one hand while performing a balancing act with a generous pile of bara and fried taro in the other hand. One of the teachers pulled me into sit next to them and pointed furiously at her food and edged closer to me. Keen to try local snacks and attempting to be polite and interested, I asked “and what is this we’re eating? It smells lovely!”. As I was mid-sentence, the teacher turned away and ignored me completely! I leant over gently and enquired again: “Sorry, excuse me. Um…” She still had her back turned to me. I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to the friendly face of the assistant head teacher. “My dear, Teacher Leona cannot hear you, she is Deaf.” And with a sudden loud smack onto the tea room table which made me jump high enough to send me catapulting over the school’s fence and into Suva harbour, the assistant head teacher had successfully gained Teacher Leona’s attention and interpreted my question in Fiji Sign Language.
Before I could even find out the answer to my question, my counterpart, Linda, had approached and had a student and his mother behind him. “Yadra, Amanda. This is J – you can do something for him now?” I peered around Linda to get a better look at the student. Before me stood a large boy breathing heavily, clapping his hands and looking blankly into the distance. Having no knowledge about the child or without any briefing, I was ushered into a classroom and watched as the child’s mother pulled him onto a chair. Following in after us was Lauren, the Speech Pathologist who was also on assignment at Hilton Special School. “Ladies, you can tell us something we can do for J?”. With a bewildered look over at Lauren, both of us were now expected to do something to help this child. The idea of “nothing” was slowly fading. J’s mother and his teacher weren’t going to be satisfied with vague solutions to addressing her son’s needs, so Lauren and I did our best to offer only basic advice and stressed the importance of further assessment.
The bell for the completion of recess rang and after questioning J’s mother and performing basic assessments, I excused myself to return to another class to attempt to return to doing “nothing” at the back of the class. I was hoping to get used to the idea of doing “nothing”. It was comfortable and safe concept in a foreign country where I only had a patchy idea about its culture and customs. Once again, “nothing” was not to be as another teacher was beckoning me from the doorway of the classroom that I had nestled myself into.
“Kerekere, Amanda – I need some activities for my class, can you suggest some activities for me?” The Transition teacher had appeared at the classroom entrance and I was promptly ushered into the Transition class where the children with the highest support needs had their classes. From my first glance, this was a class for children who had major mobility and physical concerns. Half the class could not walk independently and most had issues with muscle control in their hands and a small proportion had global intellectual delays. From this moment, “nothing” was thrown out the window and over the fence into the banana-plant and ivy covered cliff that Hilton Special School sits on.
Since then, it has been non-stop assessments and activities with students, a constant barrage of writing wish-lists and recommendation reports to improve student’s mobility needs, a battle to maintain a hydrotherapy pool and keep inquisitive students from entering without my knowledge, juggling a large shipment of donated equipment and assisting students and teachers in their classroom environment.
I’ve grown so close to Hilton Special School and the children are endearing and call out my name in sing-song voices as I pass their classrooms at the school. I’m no longer lost in translation with Fiji Sign Language gradually de-mystifying itself through repetition and practice with the hearing impaired students. Most importantly, I’ve grown to know the school inside-out, including its overhead roof-cum-storage area space which is accessed somewhat precariously by a wobbly ladder. The mothers, aunties, teachers and students have become like an extended family. In Fiji, I’ve learnt that you drop everything for family and doing “nothing” would never be an option for my Hilton Special School family.
