Wednesday - With Respect!

Wednesday May 27
Up early again – that internal alarm clock just will not shut off. 5:00 am here 6:00 am at home so I don’t feel too bad about it. Love the quite time because the other students have to set the alarm on the cell phones to get up. We all ate breakfast then loaded up in the van to go to the beach. We meet Captain Mike on the beach and he had his crew bring the glass bottom boat to where we were on the beach – yeah not much walking! We all got on the boat one at a time and then headed out. We were going really slowly but we found out why - they were waiting on another boat that had the mask and snorkels. Yep we definitely need them! They turned around and meet up with the other boat and off we went. The glass bottom boat has like a six pane window in the bottom of the boat. We seen all sizes of star fish, jellyfish and someone saw a stingray. We made it out to the reef and got our mask and snorkels. Off the side of the boat we went and as we jumped in we were in a pool of tiger fish so beautiful. The colors were just amazing – fish in a bright blue, some gold, red, and striped. We saw a snake on the bottom of the ocean and I have to tell you the colors were just amazing. Although I loved the scuba diving the snorkeling was a blast and we seen so much more color and actual fish and creatures of the ocean. After spending an hour snorkeling we were taken back to the beach and dropped off at Travelers so we could shower off and change in order to head to school. After we all showered outside together we changed and headed of to grab something to eat before making our way to Theodora. I worked on rewriting Leon’s story so he could type it. Carrie helped me with Kerean and Nikki was typing her story on the computer. I think we are going to make the Friday deadline but we still have a ways to go. I gave Dave my camera so he could take pictures to put in his story. I told him to guard it with his life and to be sure to bring it back Thursday morning. The one thing I have had to get use to is everyone calling you Miss. I know it is their culture to do this and it shows respect but I just want the students to call me by my name. I just associate this with all the slavery that they also endured but I am getting use too it and it is not bothering me nearly as much as when we first arrived. We wrapped up at 3:00 pm and headed back to Summerset. Libby left after snorkeling to get everything set up for our trip to Belmont so Dustin had to deal with all the ladies. We had a group meal planned for dinner with Gladstone. He is a Rosta who is a coffee farmer (Blue Mountain Coffee) and he also makes his own jerk seasoning. We had dinner as Sips N Bites and Gladstone talked to us about what the coffee farmers are going through. His talk was so informative about the culture and history of the Jamaican people. He talked a great deal about the troubles and up rising of the people; when one individual was killed who was an activist for the local farmers. We had a great group meeting and got to place orders for coffee and jerk seasoning. We headed back to Summerset – more dominoes and then to bed. This laid back life is great! But the immersive learning is even better!