This is Pasifika!

What a day! The hot sun in my face slightly blinding me of my view. Polyfest was great, yesterday our year 7 and 8 students got the chance to go and visit the polyfest event. Every year since 1976 schools and groups perform dances or songs representing the cultures in hope of taking home a shining trophy. This is my review of our trip to polyfest.

My first highlight would be the Police activity. We all had to sit in front of a Police van and listen to the cops tell us what it’s like to be a police officer. We asked questions and then the police officers picked two people from the audience to do ten push ups on the floor then they had to pick two people to handcuff. My friend Rosalina picked me from the crowd. I was then handcuffed and taken to jail which was actually a board cut out to look like a jail. It was fun and I learnt about what it’s like to be a police officer.

My second highlight would be the Pasifika Proud activity. We all split into six equal groups and we each had one main word to learn about and my groups word was Reciprocity. We learnt that it meant to be generous and kind towards others. Also to share if you see someone with no lunch or to respect different things like cultures, different dress codes or even respecting your siblings. I found this fun because we were fortunate enough to get to sit on comfy chairs with fluffy cushions in the shade. Lastly we took a group photo and changed to the next rotation.  

This is important to students because sometimes learning more about your own or different cultures can be hard. Some people would rather make it more fun and take part in these polyfest groups to show that they care and are interested in learning more about their own cultures. Sometimes surprisingly students like to take part in other cultures other than theirs to learn and compare the differences in how two cultures that seem alike are fairly different. I consider it a very brave thing to do!

Once the day almost ended I finally got the chance to sit down with my group and talk about what we think Polyfest is about over all.  I explained to my group what I thought and that was that Polyfest is about a time of learning the different cultures. It’s a time of families and communities gathering together to share and connect cultures. Also some parents and siblings learning and watching their older relatives performances. I think that learning about different cultures was the most important.

This post is about the Year 7 and 8's trip to polyfest. Its a reflection about some of the things we learnt and the purpose of the trip and what it meant to us and students participating! Here is my post!