David's third week

Ended the week on a disappointing note when I looked at student performance on some very very basic math. They are not ready for much of the actual syllabuses yet. But there are occasional signs of thinking so I have to be satisfied with that and hope! Thursday was first meeting of the new chess club. I was expecting 20 students but only 5 turned up, and none had played before. We learned the moves of king, queen, rook, and bishop, then started playing. This led naturally to looking at K+Q vs K forced win. I've been trying to order some sets from online but the postage does seem to be prohibitive despite what I first thought. I may have some sets delivered to mainland USA and sent on from there - fixed price $15 mailing box should work. Meanwhile we're making do with a couple of cheap sets. Yesterday, Friday, teaching periods were shortened in the morning to make time for student dance performances after lunch. Some were quite entertaining and the WorldTeach teachers may be expected to dance at a future event - aaarrgh!  Kate and I did get some practice making idiots of ourselves at karaoke at the staff social last night singing 'My Way' with a respectable score of 94/100!. We enjoyed ourselves after surviving, parched, until the drink arrived a bit late. And the first drinks to arrive were not soda which was what was needed then, but huge bottles of cold wine! Got quite sozzled by the end of the evening! Food was good - breadfruit and various coconut dishes.Today we had arranged to hike to Nu'uuli Falls again with a local couple we met last week, but they cancelled, which is fortunate because it has been bucketing down with rain all night and morning and shows no sign of stopping.