The adventure begins, July 30th

This is a sunset, the first one that I saw on Pohnpei. Sadly almost 3 weeks after coming to the island. But it was beautiful anyway.


July 30, 2006

I awoke at 2:30 a.m. when my mom came up to my room; considering I had gone to bed at midnight I was in no mood to be awake and functioning. Kristin was still asleep so I didn’t want to wake her up. I tip toed out of my room and started getting ready for my extremely long day. My flight was to leave at 6:00 that morning from BWI. Kristin had stayed the night and I was really glad, cause we are like best friends and well we aren’t going to see each other for 10 long months…we did everything together at southern and the thought of not being around each other for the next ten months was a really hard, same with a lot of my friends, when I saw them on Saturday I couldn’t really believe that I wasn’t going to be seeing any of them for several months. Anyway around 3:30 we hit the road, it was way too early to be out and about. Felicia, Kristin, and I were in the back seat, my dad and mom were up front. The drive took a little more than an hour to get to BWI from my house. Once we got there we got to stand in line and I looked around not wanting to say good-bye. Once I was checked in I got ready to go through security and to say good-bye to my family and Kristin. I really dislike good-byes and everyone was crying, I hugged everyone twice and clung to Kristin…we were just crying not really wanting to admit that it was time for me to go. All too soon I had to go, as I walked through security I looked back once and waved at my family then I turned and continued on my way. I talked to a lady in line who was on her way to Detroit; I brushed the tears from my eyes and was determined not to cry. Once through security I got to my gate just in time for the first boarding call. I was in the last row next to two little black boys, they lived in Houston and we chatted for a little bit, right before the plane took off, I was nerves cause I don’t really like to fly, but I knew that I would by the time I got to Pohnpei. The flight to Houston didn’t take too long…it was a 3 hr. 40 min flight; we made great time, and arrived at Houston early. I love the Airport in Houston not because of the size, that is a little annoying, but because the runway goes on a bridge right over a road and it is so cool to look out the window at the cars below and the thought of the drivers that get to see a plane go right over you would be so amazingly cool. At least that is my opinion.
Once at the Houston airport I found my gate and started to look for other SM’s which took some time but the first person I saw was Charisa, she is from Ohio and she was going to Palau. I waved her over to where I was sitting and we sat down and started talking. Soon we started seeing more SM’s and we called to them and started talking and laughing and having a great time. All too soon it was time to board the plane for Hawaii, now I was very excited cause I had never been to Hawaii before and even though the flight to Hawaii was 8 hours long, I was so ready to be there.
I got to sit next to this guy and his family; how the seating was in this jet was two seats, four seats, and then two seats. So it was me and then this really cool guy, across the aisle was his wife and their adorable baby (this baby was so cute) his wife’s parents and then in the next two seats were some random people that I have never seen before. But they were on their way to Hawaii…totally an awesome place to go. The flight was very, very long, I slept a little bit and watched a movie called bench warmers, it was funny, but I don’t think that I would want to see it again. I played video games and slept and watched more TV and played more games and tried to read, but wasn’t in the mood, I wrote Tim, but soon decided that it was too bumpy to write anything. Every few minutes the screens in the middle of the plane would flash up how far we had gone, how much farther we had to go and how long it was going to take, it started to get very depressing. We got to eat wonderful air plane food which made me feel sick and I’d look out the window and see blue water and sky for countless number of hours, ever hopeful that I would see an island somewhere in the great expanse of blue ocean, but I didn’t until we came to the first of the Hawaiian islands. The first island was big and green looking, the second we flew over was slightly smaller and was brown and not all that pretty looking. The guy next to me pointed different things out to me as we flew over them; he had been to Hawaii before when he was in the military. We saw big gray-blue navy boats and planes too, the landscape looked a lot California from above, rather brown in the city areas, but green on the mountains, the beaches looked wonderful and all of us wanted to jump into the water…our landing was rather bumpy, but at least we were safely on the ground.
Once out of the air plane I found Gene and we started walking to the baggage claim, the Hawaiian air port is indoor and outdoor, really cool. My computer bag started to hurt my arm, cause it was so heavy, Gene decided to carry it, I protested only a little bit, giving up I told him that pink was such a great color on him…he just smiled and said that it wasn’t a problem. Joy Brown was waiting for us at the baggage claim she gave us Leigh’s (by the way how on earth do you spell that?) and we started looking for other SM’s and our luggage. I started seeing random southern people and the guys were being such gentlemen, I started to enjoy the help (coming from a stubborn person that is totally a compliment to all the guys that were such great help in the air port) I was so happy to see my luggage come, I was standing next to a guy from southern and he was a little shocked that I was able to lift it off the belt…both bags weighed 50 pounds. I started meeting the other SM’s from the different schools. I met a guy named Travis and his friend they were going to Majuro…I knew that I had seen Travis somewhere so finally I asked if he had ever been on a mission trip with the Chesapeake Conference to El Salvador. I was correct on how he looked familiar to me, four years ago we had been on a mission trip together, as I recall he had a major crush on Ansley Howe. He hasn’t grown since that time, but he is very sweet, I hope that he enjoys his time in Majuro.
Once all the SM’s were found we all piled our luggage and ourselves into the bus and headed for the Adventist school in Honolulu. The school was about a 30 minute walk from the beach and all of us were eager to get there, but first we had to go through registration and that was more or less fun, it took a really longtime and it wasn’t as enjoyable as one might think. There were about 90 SM’s all together and we were all packed into the cafeteria and we were all tired and ready to be out of there and at the beach. Once we were done with registration all of us grabbed or luggage and headed for our rooms. Missy (a girl I met while registering) and I dragged our bags up the stairs to room # 36, once we set up camp we got into our bikinis and board shorts and tank tops and headed out the door to meet up with the guys. We were totally ready to go to the beach. Once all of us were together we made our way to the beach, certainly took some time, I mean stop lights and all of that and it was so hot outside…it took us about 45 minutes to walk to the beach…but by the time we got there we were so ready to get in the water. All the girls stripped down to just our bikinis and Larry (a guy from SAU) asked WWEWD? (What would Ellen White Do?) Our response was laughter as we ran into the ocean. The guys complained that the water was too cold, but it was just right, I totally loved it. Larry, Abner, Missy, and I swam out to a border of rocks that protected us from the rough water; it also made the water really salty. Once out at the “rocks” we found that the rocks weren’t rocks at all but dead coral. Knowing how stupid it is to walk on coral we swam back to the shore and decided to explore…that was fun, around 5 we decided that it was time to walk back to the school. That took some energy; I was starting to notice how tired I really was, I hadn’t really eaten all day, not since Saturday night, and that was a long time ago. Once back at the school we quickly changed and got ready for supper, which also made me feel really sick so I didn’t eat really anything, Gene asked if I was alright and I told him that I was fine, but didn’t really feel the best. The girls that I had gone swimming with left to take showers in the gym, I went with them cause I felt rather salty from the water. Now the showers in the gym had to be made for girls that were like 5’2” I mean the shower head was nine inches too short, it was playing limbo, trying to lean all the way back to get one’s head wet, oh and the water was cold too…only four out of the nine showers had hot water, and the shower that I had, didn’t have such a luxury as hot water. After our showers we had worship and it was just about all that many of us could do to stay awake during worship, I mean by then it was like 1:30 a.m. back home, I would look around at the other SM’s and many of them were asleep or close to it. After worship we got together with our principles, by then it was 9 o’clock at night or 3 o’clock in the morning depending on what clock your body was on, mine was on the 3 o’clock time. We all sat there looking at our principle and really not understanding anything that he was saying, we were so tired and jetlagged, so our principle decided that we would talk more the next night. All of us totally agreed. I got to bed at 10pm by then I had been up 25 ½ hours, I was so tired I thought that I was going to be sick. Apparently I was out in little less then 5 minutes. I was so thankful for sleep.

July 31, 2006

Breakfast was wonderful, I hadn’t eaten a real meal since Saturday night and the fruit and pancakes and links tasted so wonderful. After breakfast was worship and southern was doing song service, so I went down to the chapel early and practiced with everyone and then we started song service, we started out with making melodies, not my favorite camp song in the world, in fact I hate that song, but it was a good ice breaker song, and well it was something that needed to be done. The rest of song service went well, then when we were done the guy who was doing worship got up. I got bored pretty quick so I started to doodle on my folder that they had given me, I like to doodle it helps me keep my mind on what they are talking about instead of drifting off into space.
So the meetings were rather fun in a totally boring way. Really it is called how to become a teacher in all of two days, got to love that. After the morning meetings we went out to see the sights of Hawaii. We saw the Punch Bowl Memorial and some other place with this awesome view, but I really can’t remember the name to it. But the view was beautiful, and I really enjoyed it. The Punch Bowl Memorial was very interesting, but we only had 20 minutes there, I would have liked to have stayed longer so that I could find out a little bit more about it. But at least we got to see some of the island, even though it was very quick and we weren’t able to see much. But when we got back we got to sit through more meetings and another supper and worship (well actually before worship they made us get into our island groups and we then had to work as a team to go something. Those groups that were too big had to split in half, Pohnpei became girls against guys…the point of the game was to balance this long white piece of pipe, like the kind used in plumbing, on your two index finger and raise it as a team over the shortest persons head. So to make a long story short it is actually harder then it looks and the boys wanted to challenge the Pohnpei girls and they one…but only by 30 sec. We were close behind them…but they won so they got big heads from the whole thing…) So after worship we got to go to bed. Sleep was a very welcomed thing.

August 1, 2006

We awoke early yet again, but most of us felt rested. Tuesday was going to be long and packed, but we did get from 3 to 7pm off to do whatever we wanted, which helped us get through the long morning of meetings. In the morning we spent time learning how to teach lessons and to do that we were put into four groups, from there we chose a teacher and subject and then the rest of us were the students. Our group chose Abner to be our teacher and the subject was spelling. His class was all girls and we were learning the words “sit, hop, and run” we decided that we should act them out and then write them out on the board, we were first graders and it was rather fun to be silly and just act up and be very annoying.
After lunch we got to sit through more meetings and pictures too. They had to take pictures of all the different schools, islands, and then one group picture (that honestly took too long) When three o’clock came around people were literally out of there. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, personally I was getting tired, but then I was like…”I’m in Hawaii, I can’t just sleep” so a bunch of girls decided that we should go to the beach and I was like “why not?” so after I talked to my mom on the phone I went on my way with the other girls…it was a coldish day, it had rained all morning and was rather overcast, but we decided to get into the water anyway. A short time later two guys from Walla Walla joined us and we enjoyed swimming and talking in the water, it was too cold to sit outside of the water, so we sat in the water so that only our heads showed. Very refreshing and cold, you aren’t suppose to get goose bumps in Hawaii. After supper they had this communion thing. Southern was doing the music, so I helped out with that. And you know I didn’t have a problem with being up front and singing, I mean I was actually enjoying it. After we sang they had us get a partner so that we could wash each other’s feet. The other person had to be from a different island then us. Missy and I were partners; we washed each other’s feet with cups of water and dried them with paper towels. It was just great. We talked for awhile and then prayed and told each other that we would stay in touch, although I really wish that I had her e-mail address, cause suddenly it is really hard to stay in touch with her, cause I don’t know her address or anything. Anyway then we all came back in and broke the bread, actually we tore it, all of us at the table put one hand on the bread and then at the count of three (once a picture was taken) we pulled and ate whatever was in our hand. Then we talked about time that God had opened our eyes to his power, and there were some amazing stories. From there we poured the grape juice and then while we drank that more stories were told. It was just a really nice evening. They took all 90 of us outside and we prayed for this school year, it was totally awesome.
All too soon it was time to get moving, those of us that were leaving at 4:30 in the morning had to go and pack our suit cases and get them on the truck, I had to totally re-pack the smaller of my two bags. I packed everything except the cloths and toiletries that I would need in the morning. Then I dragged my two bags down the stairs (all three flights) and got them weighed, they were underweight according to those scales, but those scales were slightly off…in reality one bag weighed 50 pounds and the other 51.1 pounds. Yeah I did one amazing packing job. Once I loaded my gear and walked around the campus until I was tired, then I went to Room #36 and lay down on my green egg crate. I had packed all of my bedding so I was in for a cold night.

August 2-3, 2006

I awoke freezing at 3 a.m. I was so tired, yet I couldn’t sleep because I was cold. Only one hour left until I had to really get up and get ready for the day. I flipped over on my stomach and tried to get a few more winks in before 4 a.m. I was unsuccessful. At four the other girls that were leaving early started to wake up. We packed up and got on the bus. Joy came to me and asked me if I had seen Raz, I had to think back and then I told her that he was on the phone and on his computer on the back stairs. She hurried off to find him. As I watched her go I thought of what Brian had said a few months before, something about keeping Raz out of trouble, so if our stay in Hawaii is anything to go by, these next few months should be rather interesting. At the airport Raz and I were among the first few to get checked in, it honestly took forever for the people to check us in, I mean I have never really seen it take that long to get a mission group through line, but then again things work differently in Hawaii. Well we went through security and Raz got searched so I took his cell phone and of all things his tweezers and sat on the other side of security and waited like 10 minutes until he was released from the search of his bags.
At the gate we sat and waited for quite sometime, once on the plane I found out that Raz was sitting next to me on our 10 hour flight (the girl next to me wanted to sit next to her friend who was behind us, so Raz just switched, what a gentleman). We really weren’t all that talkative on that flight, reason? Rusty, Raz and I slept during the four hour flight to Majuro…Raz hadn’t slept the night before, and Rusty and I were just tired…but it certainly made the flight to Majuro a lot quicker. Once in Majuro it was Thursday morning, shocking isn’t it…leave at 6:55 Wednesday morning, travel all of 4 hours and find yourself face to face with early Thursday morning. Anyway Island hopping was kinda fun, the landings got worse and worse as the islands got smaller and smaller. Our landing onto Pohnpei was something to behold, we hit so very hard, a double bounce (the other landings just gave us whiplash, but this one…well it made you think that you were about to die), but we did survive that landing, although we were wondering if the plane was going to stay in one piece much longer. Those runways are so short that it is really hard for those planes to stop, we almost ended up in the ocean in more than one occasion, island hopping isn’t always the greatest thing.
Once on the Island of Pohnpei we got to go to through customs and the baggage claim (I’ve got Pohnpei’s stamp in my pass port now!) the baggage claim made us all laugh, it was so little and pick up trucks brought us the luggage and then they threw it onto the slanted metal thing so that we could find our luggage. No one was missing luggage, which was a good thing and soon we got through the second part of customs and were greeted by the locals that were waiting for us. Almost the entire church was there to great us and they gave us these welcome wreaths called Mar Mars (they are very pretty flowers that are tied together on this paper band that you put on your head and they are so pretty. I have so far gotten two of them. Once we were all out of customs we headed out of the air port and put our luggage onto these little red and yellow fire trucks from Japan (they are so cute and fun to ride in) most of us piled into the little Van like bus (also from Japan) and we were on our way to the school, I was wondering what it was going to look like there and I just couldn’t wait to stop, I was so tired of traveling. I wanted to be there and honestly I was thankful that I wasn’t going to have to travel on an air plane for the next 5 months or more (totally depends on where I go for Christmas).
Once there we found what apartment we wanted to be in and all we had an hour to unpack before we needed to go to town and get food for our apartments. Watching the guys shop was the funniest thing ever, I mean they are going to be eating nothing but rice and Ramen for the next 10 months…that is all that they know how to cook or are willing to buy. It is so funny to shop with them and listen to them argue about the things they need to buy and what they should or shouldn’t get while waiting in line. These are certainly memories.
Supper was a Mr. B’s house (he is our principle) and it was pizza and Asian type food, it was good and we got to sit around and talk and have fun and it was really fun.

August 5, 2006
(What we did on August 4 and 5 are combined into one entry)

Hey all,
I am safely in Pohnpei, in fact I am writing to you from my apartment. There are five of us in all in our apartment, two in one room and three in another. We all get a long great, Nadine is from Germany and she is terribly homesick, Marla from PUC, Becky is from Walla Walla (she just graduated), and Joan (Joanne is how you say it) our wonderful cook (she cooks for us 4 evenings a week, talk about being spoiled) is actually a native…she teaches at the school and well you would just have to meet her, you’d really like her no two ways about it.

Every morning we are awakened by the pigs and the roosters next door…they start squawking, grunting, and screaming around 3:00 in the morning. Most of the apartments have rats and cockroaches in them, we don’t have either cause Joan has this chalky stuff that kills the cockroaches and the rats well we don’t keep any of our food in their original containers, everything is put either into the fridge or we have plastic containers, zip lock bags, or big buckets to put the food in so they are out of luck.

We have a school pet that lives in a random ditch that is usually overflowing with water and oddly enough shrimp; it likes to eat PB+J sandwiches, but hates frogs. It would love to eat your fingers and toes if you are dumb enough to put them into the water. The kids love to feed it and as a result it is about three feet long…now girls don’t scream when I tell you what it is. The school pet is a fresh water Eel. Pretty cool don’t yeah think? Also gives you pause for thought, cause where there is one Eel there is prob. More somewhere on this island, of course we discovered it right before we went swimming in the river (by the way, the river is so refreshing and it was really fun) it rained while we were swimming, but it was still really fun, the girls were all screaming and shrieking cause the water was cold and we couldn’t touch and the current was really swift, but once you found a rock, all was good, well if you could keep your balance. The boys were trying to find some way to kill themselves; they found this wire/rope swinging bridge and decided that it would be fun to jump off of into the water. They would climb up the support and then walk across the bridge to about the middle, from there they would shout down to their friends who were diving under the water trying to find out how deep it was, they would come up and shout up to those waiting on the wire…then they guys would swing down and just hold onto the wire with both hands and drop into the water. It was very interesting to watch, all the girls were standing on rocks and just watched the guys fall into the water, Becky and I (both lifeguards) would cringe every time that they dropped into the water, hoping that we wouldn’t have to go and save them from certain death. But all went well and no one got hurt. It rained the entire time that we were in the water, one guy wouldn’t get in because it was raining…so he got soaked just standing there on the bank…all the girls but two were in the water, and it took three of the guys about 15 minutes to get into the water…Raz (the oldest of our group…he’s 26) jumped off the bridge about 5 minutes before we had to leave to get ready for vespers…we decided that he couldn’t let the younger guys out-do him, but later he said that it wasn’t all that exciting, but the younger guys were really enjoying themselves. Friday was a totally awesome day. Now back to today. At the moment we don’t have any water. I mean we could, but we don’t cause it has rained a lot and well now the water is muddy and not all that great for drinking (not like we drink the water here) or using it for cooking either, so the water lines have been shut off. So for our Sabbath activity we went out to the ocean to swim. Now I like to swim it is a lot of fun, and the water looked kind of clear, I mean it was in places, but in other places it wasn’t…people started jumping off the big cement dock and after a little bit I jumped too…the dock was about 10 feet high…and so it made some SM’s not want to jump. But I finally was like “now or never” so in I jumped. The water was of course very salty and kind of cold. But I was enjoying myself until Rusty came to the surface and said “Hey I think that there is a dead SHARK down there!” shall we say that the water cleared as Rusty went back under to get a closer look and bring up the shark. We were all on the shore looking down as Rusty wrestled the dead shark to the surface and held it over his head. (Must be a guy thing) It was only a little shark, about 3 ½ feet long…but that was big enough for me…I wasn’t going to get back in. If a shark couldn’t even survive in that water, I knew that I didn’t want to be in it. Most everyone was ready to leave after the discovery of the shark, the water wasn’t all that beautiful or anything anyway and I for one was not about to jump back in.
That evening Raymond and his roommate Sam came over and we played board games and had a wonderful time, then after the boys left (leaving us with the invitation to come over for breakfast) us girls watched a movie, it was alright I guess but not all that great…they said bad words, like in every sentence and sometimes every other word. I mean it wasn’t the best movie, anyway we were hoping for something to keep us awake…instead we were like put to sleep.

August 6, 2006

Sunday, meeting at 9:00 and work assignments after that, I got the pleasure to clean out my classroom and of course Sunday was on the warm side. It took most of the morning and part of the afternoon to get everything done that I needed to get done. I had to clean out and move my desk, the very rusty filing cabinet, the book shelf, the cubby whole stack shelves; I had to clean the wooden desks, benches, and square block shelves (eww not all that fun) from there I had to move everything and then I had to sweep the very bumpy and very dirty cement floor…there was so much dirt and grim there…so very gross…I can’t believe that I am going to be teaching there for the next few months…anyway it looks better now. It took quite some time to clean; I would stop and talk to other teachers when I took a small breather between lifting furniture and cleaning. Around 12:30 I stopped my intense cleaning to head back to my apartment to change for our afternoon activity just in time to get drenched by a passing rain shower. But I so didn’t mind, I was just so excited to get wet; I had been so hot while cleaning. Once back in the apartment I got ready for our afternoon activity, we were taking a boat out into the ocean and going snorkeling, I was so ready to go, I mean I love snorkeling it is so fun…besides this time I would be wearing rash guard so my back, shoulder, and arms wouldn’t change shade and turn a lovely red color…which isn’t all that attractive on this island, no one wants to look like a cooking lobster.
Now for some reason only four of us thought that wearing or for that matter even bringing a rash guard with us to Pohnpei would be a smart idea. I was the only one that had a long sleeve rash guard, and Kelli you are so right, long sleeve ones are certainly the way to go…so comfortable, I did not get cold on the boat ride back or even sun burned yesterday on my arms (except for this 2 inch spot between my hand and the edge of my rash guard…oops), my knees got a little burnt, but that is because I put sun block up to my board shorts…so when I sat down there was a slightly bigger gap between my knees and my shorts…so um while on the boat I got a little burned…but I will know better next time. But the rash guard totally did its job.
The boat ride was totally amazing, first off there were two boats and we were segregated by sex (girls on one boat and boys on the other…sorta reminded me of HVA…wonder why!) the sky was cloudy, the water was a deep blue, the island popped out a lot more and there were big fishing boats anchored here and there…we just skipped by, laughing and waving at those that we saw on deck. It was a good 30 minute boat ride to where the breakers were and where one of the good snorkeling spots was. Once there all of us started putting on our fins, masks, and snorkels…those that were going to try and catch some waves headed off across the slightly rough water towards the breakers…the rest of us fell into the ocean and headed off towards the reef to see what there was to see. The fish were beautiful there were red, green, blue, yellow, black, brown, blue-green, orange, silver, purple, and then all of those colors combined. There were starfish big ones, small ones, some with six arms others with the typical five. The coral was beautiful and I really enjoyed paddling around and looking through my mask at the things below me, and sometimes wondering if I was going to see a shark cruising along the bottom…safely out of reach, but close enough to see. (Thankfully I did not see one) While I was snorkeling I found Gene and we explored the reef until both of us were tired of battling the current that was pulling us out to sea (the tide was going out) so we headed back to the boat. From there we just watched people swimming around and trying to surf and got some sun…The boat ride back was very nice, we were not segregated time so we had a little more fun then we had before. Once back on campus we hosed off our stuff and headed back to our apartments. That night we just all collapsed, we were all very tired and ready for sleep.

August 7 through 11
(Working on classrooms)

This entire week I have been working on my classrooms…it is Friday afternoon and I am so tired, ready to stop painting or organizing, or making lesson plans (I still have more to make) but I don’t want to. Tuesday I started painting my room…it is very pretty and fun and exciting. I have yellow flowers with green stems painted on two of the walls…then I have red, green, yellow, orange, and blue fish swimming among the flowers and on the other two walls. The desks are painted green and the chairs are yellow, the cubbies are green and the reading bench is green and yellow. My desk isn’t that pretty; it is grey and likes to fall apart if you move it. But the classroom has certainly brightened up. On Wednesday I painted my desks, without the help of my aid…she left and didn’t come back…it took a long time and I wished that someone else was there. Thursday in worship Raz asked me “have you been painting?” I was like “no, how could you tell?” in a joking manner of course…but he was like “you have yellow paint on your arm.” So I told him that I had been painting since Tuesday and that the paint wasn’t coming off my arm because it was oil base paint. After worship I went back to my room and my aid was there (surprise, surprise). We finished working on my room. Friday I got to do lesson plans, not really all that fun. They took me forever to do and most likely I will have to redo most of them. Try simplifying an American first grade lesson to a preschool level. It is tons of fun.
Nadine left today for Hawaii and then on to Germany, she was so homesick that she decided to go home. We all tried to cheer her up and ask her to do things with us, but she wouldn’t. So today we went to the airport to see her off. Our apartment really misses her. I hope that she will be happy in Germany, we all are going to miss her.
But that is what I have been working on as of late, I am really tired and it is almost time for vespers…so I should go and get ready.
August 12, 2006

Happy Sabbath all! Today was a very nice day. Sabbath school was nice and church was good too, although song service could have been better, I really wish that people knew how to sing on key. A lot of the youth can sing, but the adults, they are all off key, but at least they are praising God, right?
After church the SM’s had a potluck, we all cooked a lot of food and then ate and talked in the teacher’s room. We also found out that we don’t have just one eel living on campus, but three. Totally makes you want to wade in streams and rivers doesn’t it? Our afternoon activity was driving 40 minutes to this waterfall, we had to pay $3 to get in, but it was worth it. The water was cold and my lips turned blue pretty quick. The guys decided that it would be totally fun to climb the rocks of the waterfall and jumped off them into the really shallow water. Not really the smartest thing to do, and even some of the guys said as much later that day. There were tons of little fish swimming around in the water and biting our feet and legs…at different points and time a scream from one of the girls could be heard. The guys seeing this would swim underwater and grab at our feet getting a satisfying scream from the girls, but they would also get a kick more often than not. All too soon for the guys, but not soon enough for a lot of the girls it was time to go. On the way back the girls decided that we wanted to stand up in the truck and hold onto the cab of the truck. The guys always want to stand and so the girls always have to sit on the hardness of the truck bed. And since us four girls out numbered the three guys on our truck load at least, we decided that they could enjoy the comforts of the truck bed while we stood. And that is what we did, and as we drove a long we would always scream when it looked like we were going to hit another car, or a chicken, or a dog, or a person. We would talk to each other and tell stories, laugh and then scream. They drive crazy on this island and so there are times when you are sure that you are going to die, but yet hoping that you will not die and the other car or animal will move off the road
Once back on campus we had all of 20 minutes to get ready to go to a concert the youth of the church was putting on. Three girls had to get through the shower and eat in 20 minutes. And we just made it, I was surprised. And we were only 10 minutes late, not too bad for us honestly. It was a nice concert and the youth had worked so hard to put it together. Once back at the apartment we all went our different ways. Becky was on the internet, Joan was watching Sex and the City (I joined her later), Marla was working in her room, and I was writing Tim. But because I joined Joan later in Watching Sex and the City I didn’t go to bed until midnight. But I also knew that we were going to sleep in Sunday morning, so I wasn’t worried about getting enough sleep.