Highlights from the year

As I am finally packed up and sitting in my room so many memories are flooding through my mind so I am going to share a few of the highlights of my year with you. My first one will be “Just Play”. “Just Play” is a program that my students were involved in for the second half of the school year. This program focused on getting students eating right and excercising daily. Something my students are not very good at. For example I rarely see my kids doing any sort of exercise and after lunch most of my students have a can of soda and uncooked ramen noodles with some kind of BBQ flavoring. One day I was curious and read the label on these ramen noodles and they contain over 400 calories in each bag. That’s insane! Anyway just play had the students do three different games in twenty minute time period. Which means my kids really had to hustle through the activities to get it completed in this time frame. We spent over a month preparing these activities and perfecting our transitions before the judges came to judge us on our performance. If you do well on the first round you move on to the championship, which takes place on the main island. We blew the judges away and moved on to the championship. The championship was so much fun. We took around forty students across the channel on boats and then on about a forty minute bus ride. The bus was so full. We had kids sitting on each other’s laps and people sitting on the floor but the best part of it all is the kids were singing the whole way to town. I have never seen my kids so excited for something. After all ten schools do their performance it was time to announce the winners. We slowly were getting closer to first place and you could feel and see how nervous all the kids were about this. When they announced that we won the feeling was similar to when our high school won the state championship. The kids were jumping and screaming and chanting. I was so proud and excited for them at that moment.

            The next memorable moment would be Lucifer. We have had a rat in our house for over three months and this is the smartest rat I have ever met. Somehow Lucifer can take a peanut off of the trap without setting it off. He can also lick the peanut butter off the trap without setting it off. He is one smart, little rat. We have tried all kinds of ways of trying to kill him and have been unsuccessful. At this point we have just given up. He has made his appearance known in the house. He has taught me to put every single piece of food away or he will destroy it in the middle of the night. He also likes to make an appearance once and a while. For instance when we are watching a movie he decided to come out and join us. He ran under our feet and we screamed for dear life. We also got a nice little surprise that night because we found out he has a little friend too. Yes, we have two rats in the house now. There might be more we are not sure because I can hear them crawling through the walls in the middle of the night and lets just say it is similar to the sounds of cats fighting. I can hear them hissing too. It is a very comforting sound when you are trying to sleep. Lastly, going to the bathroom in the middle of the night is terrifying. You never know where that stupid rat is and you don’t dare want to encounter it. So you take a mad dash for the bathroom and pray that you don’t run into the rat. Props to Lucifer because he has gotten Dana and I standing and screaming on top of the furniture multiple times.

            Saturday drives around the island is something I am really going to miss. On Saturdays we always wake up early and head over to the main island. The best part of riding in the car was the fact that we could sit in the bed of truck for the whole day. On one of our last days on island we decided to go to hidden cove that only the locals know about. Locals rarely go to these places because the drive/hike to these places are not usually the best kept. We had to drive about four miles on this “gravel road” and then hike for about twenty minutes to reach the beach. This beach was absolutely breath taking. I love how clear the water is here. Like always the beach was completely empty because locals rarely go to the beach. We found a very tall rock and were jumping into the deep part of water into the ocean. It was a lot of fun swimming in a new place and seeing new things.

            I am also going to miss the sense of community I feel on the island. This island is more like a big family to me. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone helps out everyone. I also see a lot of people every day. I may not know the names of all the people on the island but I can recognize them and know that they are from the island. I am going to miss when I walk outside I have multiple people yelling my name and coming up to me and seeing how I am doing. I am going to miss the little parade of kids that always follows me around.

            Alright I finally made it back home and I some what adjusting to the cold weather we are having here and the time difference. I wanted to share with you about our crazy ride to the airport. Last Wednesday I was dreading leaving the island so bad because it was going to be my last time being there for a long time. I remember the moment Lusi looked at me and said you have to put your stuff on this boat or we are not going to get a boat across. Every time that I saw a boat I would be like I am not ready to leave lets just wait for the next boat to come back. We had Tupperware’s and suitcases full of all of our stuff all sitting in our front porch. We had told the kids that were waiting around that we had to go. As soon as we said that they all grabbed our stuff and carried it down to the boat for us. I did not have to carry a single thing, which was a good thing because I was too busy giving people hugs and saying goodbye to everyone. I was sad to say goodbye but I had to keep telling myself that I am going to be back someday. Once we got into the back of the truck we had to face yet another problem. It started to rain. It was no light rain. Luckily my coat was water resistant so I put that over my head and just ducked down in the back of the truck waiting for the rain to pass. I had gotten fairly wet and Dana and Lusi were soaked from the rain. Despite the rain and getting our entire luggage wet it was a nice distraction from the fact that we were leaving. Getting to the airport put an instant pit in my stomach because the worst part was approaching. The goodbyes. We had like a group of 15 of us to say goodbye and we were the last ones through security. I literally had gotten through security and boarded the plane and twenty minutes later I was flying over the island with tears in my eyes.

            It was a great year and I would not have changed a thing! I can’t wait to see everyone back home!

With Love,

Abby