This past week at school I had multiple students missing from the classroom. Making teaching a little more interesting because I didn’t want to move on without all the students present but I also needed to keep the others entertained throughout the day. We also had parent teacher conferences this week. For conferences here we have them in the middle of the school day while the students are having class. The teachers told me this is how they get most of the parents to come in for the conference. I held conferences and tried to keep my class busy at the same time on Friday. Once the afternoon rolls around it is very hard to teach in the classroom. The main reason is because it gets very hot in the classroom by the middle of the day. The students lose focus and to be real honest I lose all my energy! i decided to let my students out a little early and go play some volleyball. We recently got a donation for new volleyball nets and it is so nice. Everyone loves to play the game and its fun to watch them play!
We got home from school on Friday and our house had a funny smell to it. I had no idea what the smell was but i just figured it was something that had happened outside and didn’t think much of it. Well I should have been a little more concerned. We went to our bathroom and noticed that we had water all over our floor. Our toilets were somehow leaking water everywhere. We then went out to the screened in porch where we hang our laundry and it smelled like sewer and their was water all by the pipes. These are the moments that I really miss being at home. I know for a fact the second that I saw all of that I will be quickly calling my dad to come to rescue because I have absolutely no idea how to deal with that. Well since calling my dad was out of the question I called one of our local friends to come help us. Sure enough an hour later we had like five or six guys walking around our house and trying to figure out what had happened. They had fixed in like a half hour and I have no idea what they did. I am so thankful for all the help these people give us.
So you all remember how we had this slight rat problem about a month or so ago. Well while the guys were here helping us fix the pipes they had asked if we had a wrench and so I went upstairs in search of some tools. I was upstairs looking around when I came across the rat trap with a nice little rat trapped in it. Sadly this rat had been trapped for a long time because it was decaying and like stuck to the floor. Yeah, I was sooooooo thrilled to see that after knowing that the down stairs of my house smelled like sewer. I told Virginia and we slowly went upstairs and disposed of the rat. I am not even creeped out by the rats anymore. I guess I am finally getting used to having them in my house.
On Saturday we needed to go across and go to the mart to get some groceries. We are slowly learning the ways of the island. For instance when the locals tell us we need to go across early on Saturday morning you really do need to go early. We ended up waiting for a boat for about 45 minutes. Once we got across we decided to wait for a bus at the bus stop. Well turns out the busses don’t really run in the afternoon. We had waited for about an hour and decided that it wasn’t worth the wait and we would just go to the small mart close to the boat. We did find some entertainment while waiting for the boat. I found an empty bowl on the ground and Virginia and I had a competition to see how many rocks we could make in the bowl to kill some time. We also grabbed a speaker and put on some music while waiting. People out here are always always always listening to music and we are starting to do the same exact thing. After our little grocery trip we watched some T.V. and then hung out with the locals at the Wharf for the night.
Sunday was full of rain. We were in church on Sunday morning and it had just started pouring. It was pouring so hard that you couldn’t even hear the preacher. The best part of the rain out here is that right before it rains it gets windy and the breeze is so cool. It continued to rain all afternoon. After church was finished we noticed that all the kids went home and changed clothes and grabbed umbrellas. Sure enough the kids walked all the older people home and made sure that they didn’t get wet on the walk home. It was so cute seeing our students walking around the village completely soaked making sure the older people didn’t get wet in the rain. I don’t think that I will ever get that image out of my head. This island is like a little family and everyone helps each other. They are always willing to help when someone has a problem.
With Love,
Abby
No comments:
Post a Comment