Fit to Fly

As we wait for the "fit to fly", my research project burns a hole in my mind.    

                                                  

I intend to research the use of traditional and renewable art materials in Samoa.  Since February I have been volunteering in a Preschool and Preschool Teacher Training College.  I offered to share some art making with them and the principle of the college informed me that I would be instructing the student teachers on how to weave a fish out of coconut fronds!  I raced home and asked Lily who looks after our house and just happens to be a master weaver if she knew how?  She didn't!  So we googled it.

Lily already knew the first step and amazingly I worked out the last.   

The finished i'a (fish)

She is so good at weaving I took her with me and we instructed 60 student teachers on the technique of the woven fish.  None of them had ever made a fish, yet they mastered the form and created exceptional examples.

The "flamboyant one" assembled the fish into an exquisite headpiece and performed a short dance.

The next week we shared the fish with the Preschool children and I found myself singing "1,2,3,4,5, Once I Caught A Fish Alive" first in English and then in my very limited and to the laughter of the children, I attempted to sing it briefly in Samoan!

Aren't they beautiful, I miss them.