Day+5+18+July+2011

Day 5 was warm and sunny definitely up around 25 degrees. Students up early and dropped at CREIPAC for their lessons. With early morning traffic and cross town communtes one or two are their by 7.15! Some finding the early starts a little hard and a few tired faces but the end of lessons at 11.45. No time to rest though as on the bus and off to our Exchange school Riviere Salee 15 minutes from the language school.

We were met at the front gate by Nathalie Moreton the PE teacher who took us through the school and up some stairs to the school canteen for lunch. It was lunchtime and a little scary as we walked across the quad area with students everywhere clearly very interested in the group calling out things in English. The buildings were several stories high with bars on the windows with kiwi eyes it looked a bit prison like. Almost no green spaces all concrete. A staffroom and library half the size of ours.

The best comment of the day was ' Mr Smith is right Waimea College really is a good school'. Everyone was a little shocked about how different the environment was from Waimea College. Important though to see how other people live compared to us and while it might seem 'weird' it is just different and might even make us realise how lucky we are with everything we take for granted in Nelson.

Before lunch everyone washed their hands and then lined up and took a plastic tray with built in dishes for the food. Rice and beef stew with carrots and a beetroot and corn salad with tuna was on the menu. Not a normal lunch at Waimea College for sure but probably much more nutritious! The students certainly need it with lessons starting and 7.15 and finishing at 4pm (1.5-2 hours for lunch) Staff and students were very welcoming. At afternoon breaktime everyone was surrounded by loads of students with heaps of questions Cameron's post cards of Tapawera were very useful and they all thought it looked like Lord of the Rings.

Students went to lessons with some of the students- maths in french proved interesting- Year 12s finding it easy dispite the language barrier. Several students thought they were in history only to discover that it was French! English was fun though some of the students wanted ours to do their work for them. Music also went down well with some singing in French.

We certainly enjoyed celebrity status for an afternoon and are looking forward to welcoming some of their students to our school in August.

Bus was late picking us up so many of the host families waiting for us when we arrived back in town. The days are flying by with only 2 to go.