Tsunami Puppet Show

One of W-CAP's first projects was to create a puppet show that addressed fears of the tsunami. The facilitators wrote the script, made the puppets, recorded the script, wrote a song in both languages, learned to work the puppets, and arranged to give our show at schools around the island.

We first went to a school in Tula, one of the villages severely hit by the tsunami. Fortunately no lives were lost, but the students are still traumatized by the memory of it all and its lasting effects.

These are the six characters dancing before the show. There's a frog, turtle, octopus, clam, shark, and starfish.

This is a cute girl named Marisa (on the right) with her friends.

We performed the show 4 times in different classrooms. The teachers were so sweet to let us come.

In this picture you can see temporary classrooms set up by a local construction company. Tula School has two, one is being used for the cafeteria and the other is the preschool, since those portions of the school haven't been repaired yet. You can see that the school is right on the beach!

Here we were with the older students (grades 6-8). I thought they'd be bored with the show, but they loved it!

Here are our performing puppeteers in action!

We drove up the the NOAA station afterwards and saw people settling up in the hills. That is a FEMA tent set up next to their make shift shelter.  Just imagine facing a cyclone in that!