Moroni High Commencement 2014

Graduation of the 2014 class at Moroni High School on Tarawa Island, Kiribati.  There were about 100 seniors graduated and another 30 form seven (kind of a post graduate program like honors classes in American high schools) graduates.  They had their gowns and mortar boards and the whole exercise.  They don't do these in the Pacific so this is somewhat of an anomaly.  The guests were the Ambassadors from Australia and Taiwan, the President and past President of Kiribati and Elder and Sister Allend the Area ITEP Manager.  I'd be curious to know the real feelings of the Pacific area guests about the ceremonies.  Very unique to LDS high schools.

Notice the fun mat on the floor depicting the area and its culture,  

The flags are the country banner on the right and the school banner on the left.

 The students in white and suits are the form seven graduates who really graduated last year.  They looked wonderful.

This is the Graduation Theme and the speaker is Lita, the Principal.  Elder Allend picked up on the theme with an anecdote of hiking Angel's Landing in Zion's Park.  He alluded nicely to the trail, its dangers, and how the students should focus on where they are going and watch out for the obstacles in their path.  It was inspired!

One of the guests at the banquet, whose total commitment to the evening, made a lovely feast for all.  Actually, it was a tad undercooked, so Sis Waldron took ours home and cooked it up with barbecue sauce and we had pulled pork sandwiches.  

The banquet table was the length of the tennis court.  This shows the back half, most of which was dessert.

This last entree consisted of about twenty fresh lobsters and crabs.  The folks went through those like a tornado.  Nothing left but wreckage.

They had a bunch of the juniors dressed in yellow and black and tasked as ushers/waitresses.  Cute, cute, cute.  Eat your hearts out fellas.   Oh, notice the watermelon on the bottom left--compliments of the Learning Garden.  Dang, I had my eye on that one, too.  

The basketball court was decorated with this stage and the "Iron Rod" pointing to the "Fountain of Living Waters" and next to it the "Christmas Tree of Life."  The graduates changed clothes and reconvened to promenade around the court for pictures.  They are dressed in matching outfits that represented their clubs in the school.  I just put a couple in here so you could see how fun it was.  

This is another group in blue.  The fellow on the left weighed in at about 350 and they just didn't have the yardage (read acreage) to outfit him.  He is a nice enough young fellow but way, way overweight.

This is one of our favorite young ladies.  Teresa graduated form seven and is seen here with the rest of her form seven chums.  She turns 19 on Jan. 27 and is preparing papers for a mission.  A bona fide knockout!!

This is a posed snapshot of Hiba (Hee-bah--their version of Heber).  She (yes, she) is from Ghana, here with her family and attending this "Mormon School."  She wants to go to the Y.  Her parents are here on a humanitarian mission with a Muslim aid program.  We have been invited to work with them on some projects.  I hope we can.  

Sister Waldron in the "Kitchen."

This past Saturday Sis Waldron conducted a cooking class for a local "school" as a favor to the owner.  We scouted this operation out on referral from the students in one of our classes.  They said, "This school is great!  They teach you housekeeping, hospitality, sanitation and customer service.  The cost is $150 for two weeks, you get a certificate, and the guy finds you a job."  In this environment, that is something.  We drove out and found the guy, the school and kind of hit it off.  He is quite friendly and invited us to come back and cook for his "hospitality" students on Saturday.  We really didn't know what we were getting into but it came out all right and was kind of fun.

When we said we'd bake cookies if he had an oven, he said yes.  This is it.

This is his wife.  She can bake 60 loaves of rolls in this oven in a day.  It is wood frame with a metal lining, has two racks and actually, quite a bit of room.  I'll show you the oven door in a minute.

This is a shot of the pantry.  They call them food safes here and they are meant to keep the critters out of  the open food stuff like flour, rice, etc.

This is the stove top--double burner, no less.  It is also the heat source for the oven.  They just move it over under the oven and light it up when it is time to bake.

These are the kitchen stewards.  They never left the kitchen all morning.  Gave it a real campy atmosphere.

Here is a coffee pot but most importantly it is very handy to the john located just beyond in the background

Complete with cabinets and three (yes 3) sinks.  Did I say this guy was certified?  He got all his training on cruise ships.  So this may be primitive but he kind of knows his stuff.

This is the lemon/lime/orange tree.  He picks the fruit when it is really green so we haven't been able to tell from a truly ripe specimen.

A huge stock of bananas in his tree (he later cut them down and gave them to us).

Here you see the fruit.  See if you can figure out which it is.

As I walked past, I noticed his fuse box.  Well, it is a box (wood) and it does have his fuses in it.

Sister Waldron has begun mixing up the cookie dough.

The students are busily copying the recipes down.

Marie's wife is trying to coax the propane burner under the oven to greater activity.

This shows his daughter opening the oven "door"

Sister Waldron taking a pan of cookies out

Lots of room here for cookie pans.

Here is the cooking/demonstration counter.  It was a bare pine sheet of plywood for a table.  Good thing Sis Waldron brought her plastic rolling pads.  Anyway it was successful.  They loved her while she was showing them how it was done and they thought she was a goddess when they ate the finished goods.

Here is Sister Waldron with the stock of bananas he gave us as we left.  It weighs about 50 lbs.  We'll have to hustle and eat, make banana smoothies and freeze as much as we can for banana bread when they all start to ripen up.