Nudity!

I know I just update my blog with a looooooooong post about teaching, but I need to post a new one now...
Every Saturday night the class officers plan a school-wide event for the students. Last night was capture the flag, which was really cool because there are about 100 boys here on campus and the campus is great for it. However, they do things differently here in Micronesia. It's a tradition that they strip down to just their underwear and smear themselves with baby oil. Yup. So, from a safe distance on the roof, some of the other JVs and I watched the campus grounds sprawling with half naked Micronesian boys, gleaming in the few lights that were still on, running and screaming.
If you know the rules of Capture the Flag, there is a line that divides each side. If you run onto the other side and are tagged, you go to jail. However, most of the fun for these kids involves a bunch of them gathering at the line and trying to pull each other across the line so they can be tagged and go to jail. That's where the oil comes in. And it is also a fun thing to try and rip each other's underwear off. Yup. So we had completely naked boys running around or just chillin while they were guarding the flag. And they didn't care. There was none of this sexual tension or embarrassment here. The boys were just being boys and having a great time. It was really funny to watch though.
At one point Joe, Arienne, Jaclyn and I started throwing water balloons at them from the roof. At first the kids had no idea what was going on, and we scared them some times. But soon they thought it was fun, and they yelled at us "Good! Shower time!" However, the waterballoons had little effect because they were already half nake and covered with oil.
And mind you, these are tough kids. Really tough. For instance, when they were pulling each other over to their side, there would be gravel, roots, hard ground, and other rocks all over the place, and they didn't care. I heard one kid say "Oh, watch out for this area, there is broken glass. Ok, let's try to pull them across over there." And they would tip toe around the glass and continue pulling kids over. I saw kids walk around today and saw scratches all over them. But another note about their toughness: after we threw waterballoons at them, I think they were dissapointed that we were not throwing other things at them, like rocks or sticks. They would have found that to be more fun. So they started throwing some rocks at us, playfully, and us snipers on the roof backed away right away.
This went on from 7:30-10:30. I went to bed around 10:15, but I lay in bed listning to the final cheers and yelling of the game. As the 10:30 bell rang, everyone started cheering, and then they all shouted out that cheer I mentioned before, which was really cool.
Before I tried to go to sleep, however, Joe came down to the JVI house and came out side my window and said "AJ, get up, this is the best part." So I walked out onto our patio and listened. Suddenly, all 100 boys started signing Amazing Grace. Joe told me that they get in a big circle, arms around each other, and sing the first verse. It sounded amazing. Really beautiful. I wish I was there to see it, but even though our house was probably 100 yards away from the front of the school where they were signing, it still sounded phenomenal. It was really moving. Then one of the loud seniors yelled "St. Francis Xavier..." and the rest of the boys screamed "PRAY FOR US!" And they all cheered and went to bed. What an amazing finish.
I wish that happened in the states more often. Not necessarily singing Amazing Grace, but the whole part when we come together after a competition and become united and ... just feel good together. It was really moving. I can't wait to be part of that next time.
Take care.