Haka Waiata and Fiafia 2016

Thomas and I went to school to see the Haka Waiata. It's one of my favorite activities of the school year. I've explained it before but as a quick recap: our school is divided into four houses. Each house has a Haka (boys performance) and Waiata (girls performance) which are scored both individually and collectively. The students are competing for house points that are gained throughout the year for the house cup.

This year, the Haka Waiata was even more special as it was the first time my students from my Whanau class last year ( form class, or homeroom class) were able to meet Thomas. Thomas, like a champion slept through the entire performance (they are linked below) of each house and all of the students fawning over him. He even slept through the kids holding him and passing him around. I, of course, with my mummy brain forgot the camera so I have no photos of "my kids" with Thomas, nor do I have video of Grey house and their Haka Waiata, which is sad as that's "my house".

Here are two of the house entries. There are four houses - Seddon, Massey, Hobson and Grey. This year, Massey won the competition.

This is Seddon house 

This is Massey House

A few weeks later, it was Fiafia. This is sort of like a dress rehearsal for the polyfest competition. The polyfest competition has many stages where groups of students from all over come to compete. Students work long and hard with tutors and musicians to master traditional cultural dances that they will then perform for the judges. Our school enters groups for the Cook Island stage, the Samoan stage, the Fijian stage, Tongan stage, the Niuean stage and the Cultural stage with our Indian dance group. Most of the students in our school are involved in one of the cultural groups. I've posted some video of the performances from polyfest as we were not able to take video at Fiafia to prevent the performances from leaking via the internet to other schools who were also preparing for the competition. 

Thomas was again a champion. We were at the back so it would be quieter with all the drumming. He spent most of his time snuggling with my coworkers getting to know all the people that will be around when he comes to visit at school. He enjoyed the drumming, smiling and babbling, but really disliked the applause which he showed by starting to cry each time. 

The Samoan Group (always one of my favorites) - this is the highlights video - about four minutes. To see the whole performance, check out the video below. 

The Niuean Group - this is the whole performance, about 20 minutes.