My spring break is quickly coming to a close and I'm remorsefully looking at my calendar at the days of this week crossed off with a red sharpie. A symbol that my week of freedom has slipped through my fingers way too fast and it’s back to the books for the last 7 weeks of this school year. It has been a really good week, with a lot of relaxing, hammock naps, a beach day, hang outs, and town trips. I am trying to think back and simply summarize the days into one lump sum but I do not think that that is going to suffice so come with my on a journey through this past week by the day:)
Sunday: Eyes fly open, I'm wide awake at 6:30am, dripping in sweat and realizing it’s way to hot to go back to sleep so I might as well get up and start the day as the sun rises with me. I really wanted this week to be a productive week so I head straight for the dreaded part of the house for me. The Kitchen. Okay, I am a very OCD person (ask my mom if I was a neat freak when I was in High school and she will deny this fact, so it's probably a trait I acquired in university). Anyways so living in this house has been a bit of a challenge for me, especially the kitchen. It’s usually full of dishes and very much in disarray. I was eager to see it transformed in my hands with some Pinesol, elbow grease, and three new sponges. I cleared the counter of dishes, sterilized the floors, organized the fridge, redid the Tupperware and hot beverages cupboards and sat down with a satisfied sigh on my couch. I glanced at my watch to see what time it was, thinking it would be around 10 or 11, and was shocked to see that is was only 8:55am! I still had the whole day ahead of me. Rychelle, my housemate has gone to Palau for spring break but left book #2 & #3 of the Mark of the Lion series by Francine Rivers here for me to read so I began that book fervently remembering how the last book ended in seeming tragedy and loss. I didn't see how there was going to be a comeback from how the first book ended so I was reluctant to start the next one. I had read the first book on my kindle (I adore my kindle thanks to BrittanyJ) and absolutely fell in love with this author. My love was actually sparked a year ago when I read "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers and remember not being able to put the book down for hours on end. Anyways, after a while of getting back into book worm mode I decided to get a work out in but was distracted by the teachers down stairs in the process of making coconut oil. I grabbed a mat and sat with them for an hour or so in the backyard watching them husk the enormous coconut out of their broad shells, then slamming the coconuts to crack the inside, draining out the "bad" water, letting them dry out and then using the small carving stool to scrape out all the meat to boil and create the famous Yapese coconut oil. It was fun to just sit and watch them work. Joy (our very happy and hilarious Gr. 6 teacher) made me try my hand at the husking ordeal of the process. I looked like such a tourist but eventually got the hang of it after two or three coconuts. They laughed at me and had a grand time yelling in Filipino to each other, probably making fun of me as I struggled to stab these behemoths and tear off the dried layers of husk. A few of us decided to walk to Tom's store to grab some juice or snacks. We were going to take the car but decided against it, realizing the exercise was needed after a pretty dormant day. The way to Toms store is a difficult walk for me still. It passes right beside Kirsten Wolcott’s memorial. (a coconut tree with a flower wreath hanging from its trunk) She was an SM here from Southern two years ago who was murdered while jogging one morning. I remember when I first heard the news I was shocked and never in a million years thought I would be walking past her memorial in Yap. That day in convocation at Southern, when the announcement was made of her passing, I said in my heart, "Lord, I will never go to Yap." Boy was I wrong.....
Monday: Again we replay Sunday morning and my eyes shot wide open, this time at 6:45am. I'm doing better at this "sleeping in" concept, I laugh to myself. Now this is productive morning #2 so I set hard to work at cleaning out our living room and bookshelves by the door. This time I quickly finish my OCD job (if you live with me you'd see this side of me:) aka Nicole Ley:) and Sabrina was still fast asleep. I decide to go for a run. (I consider this a Yapese run because it consists of 4 circles around my tiny campus before I get dizzy and just plain bored). As I write about this spring break a lot of other details come to mind. Like how I can't leave this campus unless it’s with 3 other people. Most people I tell this too fact to refer to my living conditions as a prison, and yes I have said the same thing myself. We can't get off campus much except for town trips and church so we have to make due with the confines of this place. I understand why it is this way so I can't really argue. I have tried to loose weight since the moment I arrived in the islands but I was told "girls gain weight, and boys loose it." I was determined to defy the odds and normality and be the SM who comes back fit....well let's just say it again "Boy was I wrong." So I ran a few laps, till I could barely stand the heat anymore and took a break with my puppy. I call him my puppy but really Coby is a big dog now. I remember the day he was handed to me by one of my grade 3 students, pathetic and flea infested I was ready to give him back at the end of the day. But he stayed with us and I'm so glad we kept him. He has been a source of joy and comfort for me over these past few months. To know I have someone waiting for me, tail wagging, eyes full of joy lets me know I'm still loved, even if it's only a puppy:). He’s a fighter though and I wrestled with him in the grass for a while till the other two dogs came and tried to play too. I can't say I enjoy their company as much as I do Coby's cause one is a bit mental and the other has a deep gash on his ear that never heals and he's always shaking his head, spraying blood around him in waves of red. It's gross. Around 5pm Lorraine came over to our apartment saying that Village View had called her and said we could stay the night there if we wanted to. We had tried to get a condo there Sunday night but a big German group of tourists came in and they were stock full. Instead of staying in one of the beach condos however we were graciously invited into the owners of the restaurant there and given their room to stay in. Yes, we squeezed 6 of us into one room and three in the other of this small but oh-so-cute house. I drove the green van with everyone packed in with their stuff over to Tom's store to wait for the owners there so we could drive back with them since they were in town and weren't home yet. We waited there for about 45min for them to arrive and then they still had to do their laundry at the laundry mat there so we waited another 30-40min in the parking lot just hanging out. It’s funny to be with the Filipino teachers cause they talk so fast and they all have different dialects so they poke fun at each other and laugh SO loud. All the while Lorraine sits beside me and translates what they are saying. Every once in a while Joy will punch me in the arm and I just laugh with her cause its contagious. I was in a very quiet mood that evening and didn't talk much.
Village View
Tuesday: I woke up this time at a decent hour of 7:30am since we went to bed pretty late the night before. We arrived at Village View around 9:30pm and I had taken a walk out to the beach to watch the moon on the ocean. I was soon joined by Sabrina and Andrea while Arcee and Lorraine went swimming in the dark midnight blue water. We sat in silence, just in our own little worlds till about 11:30pm so I was pretty tired the next morning. Joy and Sarah had already started on breakfast so I knew not to interrupt their kitchen furry and jumped into the shower to try to wash the "sleep" out of me lol. When I stepped out of the shower I wondered to myself why I hadn't just gone and jumped in the ocean. Probably because they said they had warm showers and I haven't had a warm shower for 8 months (except for hawaii) so I jumped at the chance. After breakfast Sabrina, Andrea, Lo, Kirt and ArCee went swimming but I decided against it (still being in my quiet and "I want to just go home" mood) and went to set up my hammock by the water with my book and journal. I quickly fell fast asleep until Sabrina woke me up and told me it was time for lunch. I got quite a chunk of my book read after lunch before we left around 3pm. I drove us back to school and decided to start on my long awaited project that has been put on my back burner to-do-list for the last few months. It started as a dream when I was in Pohnpei to repaint all the court lines in the gymnasium and transferred with me to Yap when I saw the faded lines of the volleyball and basketball courts here on campus. I had wanted to repaint them since my arrival but had never gotten around to starting this project till now. So I began by finding the white paint, brushes, and scissors to clean out all the weeds that had grown through the cracks. I had the help of the Thomas son, Jason. I was nervous to let him help me paint since I didn't want a mess being made of the lines or any paint spilled on the court. But that fear quickly left me when he got bored of painting the lines and just began painting his shoe in the grass. I only completely one line before decided A. I was way too hot and B. I wanted to go read more of my book. So I cleaned up, an ordeal in itself with oil based paint and headed up to my lonely apartment. Rychelle, Jesse, Dr. Martin and Mr. Alex and his family have all gone to Palau for spring break so it's been a pretty quiet campus...
Wednesday: Waking up bright and early I decided today was the day! (like the song in finding nemo "today's the day, the sun is shining, the tank is clean.....!") Well today was the day I would finish painting the lines on the volleyball court and basketball court by the middle school. I had high hopes of being able to complete repainting both sets of lines before the day was over...well at least I tried. It was really refreshing to be outside so early and getting some alone time to take in the fresh air as I worked at getting the paint and supplies ready. I was happily sitting and working meticulously on the lines when the principals son came bolting around the corner...Now there is something I have to explain. I like to think of myself as a pretty patient person...but this kid loves to push my buttons beyond my own comprehension and threshold. To say the least, my morning was no longer quiet but full of questions, random comments, and hyper activity as I tried to tune it out and concentrate on the lines. It was hard enough to find where the old lines had been since there were so faded and in most places non-existent. The sun was getting really hot as I worked and I wondered why I had neglected to put sunscreen on. Just the day before I had walked outside, stretched my arms towards the bright heavens and screamed at the top of my lungs "I am living on the surface of the sun!!" as my bare feet roasted on the sidewalk underneath me. So by 10am my back was getting pretty toasty. Lucky for me, and my sanity, Andrea came out to help me. With a camera in one hand and a butter knife in the other she set to the hard work of weeding and cutting away all the grass that had grown out of the cracks and over the lines. She also provided the ipod deck so we could listen to music while we worked. It was a huge help in many ways. She also kept Rajain (principals son) very busy and distracted while I worked and I know that there is no way I could have finished in the time I did without her moving ahead of me pulling and hacking as those stubborn weeds. Finally by 12:30pm I made the last stroke of my paintbrush and fell into the grass exhausted. My lower back was screaming at me from all the standing and bending over in awkward positions to paint. We painted our hands and left our handprints in the corner of the court, satisfied with a morning of hard work. Then Lorraine was in the office working on stipends and asked if the town trip could be made today instead of tomorrow so we piled into the white van, this time with Andrea driving:) and headed into town for our weekly "town trip." I yet again have to interject here for a second with a sidenote. This trip is usually done in our white, benched van, where we all have to sit on these extremely uncomfortable wooden benches facing each other along the sides of this Yap SDA vehicle. But every time we pull out of the campus I look longingly as this brown, African-safari like truck, that sits under our garage overhang and I wish so badly we were driving to town in that. It has an awesome cover roof with padded benches along the side like you would see on an African safari (maybe its also my mind nagging me as to why I didn't go to Africa this year...) but nevertheless I think it would be fun. Unfortunately it doesn't run great and the seats are falling apart....Sooo town trip was the usual run from store to store, waiting for everyone to get what they need and piling it all on the floor and under the benches in the back of the van. This is also the time that Sarah buys all the weekly supplies for the school canteen so it can get pretty crowded back there with everyone and their groceries. We had been trying to plan a bonfire for weeks and finally decided to make it happen this particular still, hot night. So we gathered all the coconut husks from the campus and began a booming fire (you can never go wrong making a fire in the islands, just light a coconut husk on fire and its easy timber!) It was just the female teachers all out there by the deck and we had a good time making smores with giant marshmallows, talking about the hunger game craze (I don't understand it...) and laying, watching the stars. I saw a shooting star and remembered the night we laid out in the parking lot in Pohnpei and watched the stars shoot across the black sky.
Thursday: Okay since this is getting really long I'll spare the details of this day cause it was basically me procrastinating on getting lesson planning done all morning, another trip to town (I just slept and read in the back seat while Lorraine and Andrea ran around getting more stuff) and actually getting some lesson planning done finally in the evening. I am trying to get two sets of lesson plans done for these last few weeks of school. A set for a week of grade 3 to give to the new SM coming to teach gr. 3 and then my own lesson plans of High school sciences (physics 12, chemistry 11, biology 10 and physical science 9) plus PE and health. It’s a bit overwhelming and I’m not looking forward to trying to squirm through another 7 weeks of science classes but I am so extremely grateful to be going back to teaching highschool!!!
Friday: NOW here is the day that the title of this blog post is ALL ABOUT. I was really excited to find out that we would be going out to swim with the manta rays today!!! This is such a huge mark on my bucket list and I was super excited to get it checked off my list. We were asked to make a list of 100 goals we had for the year in Pohnpei during orientation and I just found that list this morning with one of the goals being "to do something I fear" which would encompass swimming with 20-25ft manta rays for sure! We left bright and early at 8:30am with George, a local, as our captain. BUT of course we CANNOT have an outing without SOMETHING going wrong, so about 10-15min out of campus we sputtered to a halt...out of gas. George was just laughing as we drifted with the current towards shore. That's really all we can do here in the face of "problems" or challenges that arise, we just laugh. So we washed up on shore and George and the principal took the jerry can and wandered off to get enough gas to take us to the waterway gas station by YCA. By the time we actually got speeding out into the open water it was 10am. I closed my eyes as we drove along and could feel my thoughts drifting towards camp. I am really going to miss that boat dock this summer. I've worked at camp the last 8 summers of my life and will be missing it a lot. The sun was blaring down on us and the breeze was a very welcomed relief. George found our sweet spot and we stopped the boat. We all started jumping into the clear blue water with the reef below. I didn't have a snorkel since I gave mine away last week to a church member who needed it for spear fishing and was going to wait till a set of goggles and snorkel became available from someone else who got to tired and would let me use theirs. But I was able to get a set and jump in with everyone else. I turned around at the call of my name and saw that Raijan was getting ready to jump in and wanted me to swim by him. He had his big life jacket on and small plastic snorkel set ready to take the plunge. He stomped his feet back and forth on the side of the boat with nervousness. I reached out and told him to jump thinking he would just come in and swim beside me. That was not the case. Instead he jumped in and proceeded to panic. A panic we are warned about in WSI and Life guarding class as a "distressed swimmer". They can be lethal weapons even to someone who is a strong swimmer. When panic takes over someone they loose all logic and straight thinking and that's exactly what this child did. He immediately pushed me under, trying to keep himself afloat. Grasping at my hands and arms he prevented me from being able to swim myself. I felt myself begin to panic as well being held underwater. Luckily I was able to grab his lifejacket and rip him off of me and hold him at arms length, yelling at him the entire time to stop screaming and calm down. "I'm drowning, I'm drowning" was all he was screaming. After I was able to catch my breath and stop coughing up salt water I took him back to the boat which was now a ways away due to its drifting. It was a pretty scary event for me and I had to hold onto the side of the boat for a few minutes regaining my composure. I then swam out to where Sabrina and Andrea were already exploring. When I stuck my mask underwater I gasped. No, there wasn't a sea creature looming up at me but rather a vast spans of nothing. Yup, I was in the pacific ocean. It's a scary thing to see…well nothing. Just deep blue water below. I was beginning to get nervous. The manta rays we were in search of can get up to 25feet and I could just imagine this LARGE black creature coming up from the depths of my goggle vision and floating past me...but we quickly were back at the reef and I was actually relieved to see the sponges and spiny outcroppings of the coral with its fish inhabitants. At least it wasn't just a deep blue. I laughed as we quoted Finding Nemo lines to each other and looked for clown fish so we would be able to point and scream "I found NEMO!" George jumped into the water too and took us to a place where stone money had been dropped by a trading canoe. Stone money is what this island is centered around. It is the large circles of rock carved out from the rocks in Palau and brought to this island many years ago as forms of currency. You can see them littered all over the island, by houses, koyengs, huts and lining the road in villages. The moment George had jumped in the water I had felt calm. He is a professional diver and just his presence made me at ease with seeing these giant creatures (and reef sharks). We swam around for a bit in search of the Mantas but couldn't find anything. A little disappointed we jumped back in the boat and George decided to take us to the South end of the island, Mapp, to see if we could see some there. We got soaked in the small boat as we took on the ocean waves and it was quite the adventure. But in the end, no mantas :( BUT I did see a SEA TURTLE!!! I have wanted to see one since my arrival and I got a glimpse of the shell before it dove under about 20feet from our boat. As we headed back to the school we had to go the long way around the island and I could feel that all my sunscreen had washed off in the salt water. I literally watched as the sun baked me, and everyone else in the boat. We had a potluck supper tonight and I could see the red, leathery skin of all those who went out today and had baked on the way back. I have a distinct line on my legs and arms. When I compare my arms to my stomach its like two completely different people.
I am really trying to get pictures uploaded with this blog but the interweb is NOT cooperating with me tonight sorry :(
So in conclusion, I end this extremely long blog with both fear and gratefulness. Fear of the upcoming week, the week BACK from spring break as there will be a lot of changes and transitions but also of gratefulness for a week of relax and sleep! Now I look at my wall and see 7 links left in the chain my best friend, Brittany, has sent to me signifying that I have 7 weeks left on this island of Yap to finish off my 10month SM year. I am ready to go home.
