This is the third day we are in New Zealand, and another enjoyable one. Despite some of us still suffering from jet lag, we still performed quite well. We had breakfast at Empire, our accommodation for the last night, and made our way to Green Bay High School. And now, the pictures.

It was the day that we would be welcomed to the Marae, which is the gathering place for local Maoris. It is also their social, cultural and spiritual community centre. The one at Green Bay High was the first one to be built in a school.

For many, if not all of us, it was the first time being welcomed and going into a Marae. It was a formal and solemn ceremony. The students gave us a song, and a welcoming speech, which were part of the welcoming ceremony. Something to learn from them was that they were proud of their culture and were not afraid to say it. We exchanged our cultures and we were talking about the story of our country .We learnt a game from them and we got the chance play them. Everyone was having fun playing the game. Next, we got to choose a buddy from the Maori class. Or rather, the buddy chose us. Haha. The Maori way of greeting is called the hongi, where both parties'
foreheads and noses go into contact with each other's.

So, with our buddies, we went to classes to their lessons. In their school, the students were the ones who walked around, not the teachers. And different students have different schedules, so we were split up.

Then, there was the PE class we had with one of the classes.

After that, it was the 3 hour bus journey to Tauranga , where our next place of accommodation was. There was a debriefing, dinner, and we were introduced to how volcanoes were formed.