Thursday - One Love

Thursday May 28, 2009
Today we are doing a big push to get the students to complete their stories. Once they have them completed we will start the editing process. As usual we eat breakfast and then at 9:00 am we all load in the van. We arrive at Theodora and I was given permission to finish typing Leon’s story. So to the computer I went. We were also waiting on Dave to come in – he did have my camera! He finally showed up about 10:15 and I was relieved to see him. The camera needed to be charged and once we started saving his pictures I started laughing because he had taken 187 pictures in one night. No wonder the camera needed to be charged. Dustin said never give your camera to a Jamaican because they love to take pictures. He was right! Carrie walked with Kerean to take pictures for her story, she has been working on editing hers which has been a great help. Once I completed Leon’s story I asked another student to do some editing on it. I then went to help Nicola. She has been pretty much working on her own and has had help from some of the teachers. I felt like I had to spend most of my time with Leon and failed with really helping the other two. But we had all the stories typed and ready for editing by noon. I felt much better and I know tomorrow we will all be there to do the final editing and inserting pictures they took into their stories. A feeling of accomplishment and relief I think was felt by all of us. After working I left with Dwayne and Cody and we went fishing off the cliffs. We stopped and picked up shrimp to fish with. I am not sure how far we went but I can tell you flip flops were not the best thing to be wearing. We were at a place that looked as if it was damaged by one of the hurricanes and had not been repaired. A lot of damage could be seen along the shore line of the cliffs, but we also walked by a new hotel on our way to the fishing spot. We walked across jagged rocks that had remnants from the ocean embedded in it from years of formation. Again flip flops a bad choice. I sat and watched them fish as we only had two fishing poles. Cody caught a few small fish that had to be thrown back. I was only there to watch and take pictures. I think it may have been on of the hottest days we have had or at least it felt like it. The water started getting choppy so we decided that we need to go further down the shore line. We were walking to the Light house which was about a 15 minute walk and I was just dripping with sweat. I must have looked bad because Dwayne kept asking me if I was OK. I just informed him I needed something to drink because I had already drank the water that I took with me. We stopped at a little store and we all got something to drink then proceeded to the light house. We walked through the gate and around to the back of the Light House – yes more jagged rocks, I really should have worn tennis shoes. While there both Cody and Dwayne caught a fish. Cody caught a colorful red fish – not sure what name of the fish is and Dwayne caught a goldish yellow colored one. Nothing like I have seen back home. At about 4:00 we decided to leave to take a break. I need to go to the bathroom and Dwayne wanted to cook fish soup for us. We took a taxi down to Miss Yvonne’s house which is not far from Summerset. Yvonne and her husband both joined the Peace Core and were assigned here in Jamaica. They are from Alaska but she grew up in Texas and Brian grew up in California. They have lived in Alaska now for over 20 years. They are a really neat couple and allowed Dwayne the use of their kitchen. Dwayne and Cody were in the kitchen making the soup. When it was done a bowl full was brought out to me. They used a lot of things from their garden and I have to tell you it was some of the best soup I have had. I was just amazed. Dwayne walked us back to Summerset and he took Cody back down to fish as I was done for the night. A cold Red Strip hit the spot after a few large glasses of water. A few games of dominoes and to bed I went. No problems sleeping. Tomorrow we are at Theodora until we have the stories completed.