Kawawada Army...

Undokai is a big deal here. It translates as sports festival and they are quite serious about it. Ours was on September 11 and so the first 2 weeks of school consisted of cancelled classes and practicing marching, events, dances and more. I've never seen so much preparation done for a one day event. I was having fun NOT teaching class and watching the kids being tortured out in the sun, day in and day out. The first day of practice, the teachers had the kids outside practicing the opening ceremonies in which the kids have to march for quite a long time. To prepare for this, the kids marched out on the dusty field for almost an hour. My VP asked me to watch for white faces and fatigue and boy did we find that. We had kids left and right coming over holding their stomachs, white as a sheet. It was quite funny actually. Some were faking, of course, but others definitely were sick. We even had one throw up on his way to the nurse's office. As they started their like 12th time marching to the same song, my VP leans over to me and says, "Welcome to the Kawawada Army!" and thats exactly what it reminded me of.