Realized I forgot to Post Friday!

Friday May 22, 2009
Today is a big day for us because we are taking all of the Theodora students to the beach after we work with them on their stories. As usual we all ate breakfast then loaded into the van. Today we made it without running out of gas! We worked with the students till noon and since it was a free day some of the students came in later. Kerean started typing her story on the computer and Neon who I finally found out is really named Leon worked on his story. Today is the first day that Nikki worked on hers. She wants to tell about the problems for the youth in Jamaica and what needs to be done. I told her to start writing and we would go through it and rearrange it and add to it once she got her thoughts out. She was just not sure where to start and Dustin told her to start anywhere she could just write and the story would be created. Dustin and Libby are just great to go to when you have questions or do just not understand what the students are saying. I have gotten smart though because I will call for Dewayne who is the oldest student that they have and ask him to translate for me. He is very good with English and listens to the student once and then translates it. As they walked into the school some of the students had their children with them and they are so cute. I gave some of the crayons to the mothers to give to their children. Kerean left to go get her little girl and as soon as she got back we walked with all of the students down to the beach were the locals go to. The park is there but it does not have a lot of playground equipment for the kids. Kerean’s little daughter is just adorable and Nikki brought her son Jay who is five. Jay latched on to Cody really quickly and I spent the afternoon with Kerean’s daughter who is one. Although Kerean told me that she talks she did not the whole time we were there but I did get her smiling and her smile would just light up her face. We took a cooler that had drinks and some bags of chips. Then the Pizza’s arrived and everyone got two slices. The weather has been holding out for us as today was just beautiful for the beach. Since there is a bar right there we also had music and the students were dancing and singing. I was great watching them. Most of our students do not own a bathing suite. The girls would where their bras and shorts or just shorts and a sleeveless top. However they thought nothing of it as you can walk along the beach and see women topless and men completely naked. I have not seen it but the other students have, and it was when we were all together so I guess I was not paying much attention to my surroundings. The beach was a great bonding experience for us with the students. We had a really great time, took pictures, which the students love it when they get to take pictures with our cameras, and wound down the afternoon around 3:30. We said our goodbyes and exchanged phone numbers in case they wanted to call us over the long weekend because we will not meet back up until Tuesday. We walked down to the roundabout and caught a Taxi back to Summerset. We were suppose to go down to Ricks Café on the cliffs. This is where the platforms are for jumping off of. But the rain rolled in and we all just ate at the restaurant at summerset. Dewayne had stopped by and one of the rules that were made this year is that the students were not allowed at summerset because of some issues that they had last year. But Dewayne formed a bond with Pam last year and they had kept in touch. I believe he is jealous of Dale a worker at summerset that Pam will ask if he wants to go eat when she has also invited Dewayne. So we had a few small issues tonight and as I was walking up to the house Pam called out the Dewayne wanted to talk to me. We were outside the gates by the sidewalk talking and Rebekah came out wondering what was going one. We explained to her what had happened and we both sit out there talking to Dewayne. Rebekah is his partner and he really has not opened up to her and she is concerned about his story. Dewayne told us a lot about his life and since I knew Rebekah would be fine just at the gate I excused myself, and went to the house. It has been a great day and I am ready for bed, we have a busy weekend so I will try to keep up with giving all you back home updates.