Thursday - Free Day !

Thursday June 4, 2009
Slept well – after all the walking over the last two days and pushing myself to the limit I am really feeling good today. Got up and set on the veranda for a while then went down to the restaurant for breakfast. I decided to just lay out by the pool for the morning. The temperature is hot that is about all I can say for being so early in the day. I plan on meeting Dustin and Dwayne at Theodora to go see Dwayne’s house at noon. No one was ready to go into town so I did not have a buddy to go with. Dustin called and told me to go ahead and come on my own. We have a rule and no one leaves without a buddy so I was relieved when I got the permission to go. I took a taxi to the round-a-bout and made my way up the road to Theodora. Dustin, Dwayne and I went and got lunch and then headed to Dwayne’s house. We walked up the road – yes after all the walking I did the last two days I am doing it again and it is up hill. I am not sure what I was thinking but I told Dwayne that I wanted to see his house. We went through a neighborhood and passed a cemetery where a group of individuals were there to dig a grave. After walking a good half hour we made it up the road to where the water tower is on the left. Dwayne said to turn around and I was just blown away by the view. This is what he sees everyday walking to school. The beautiful blue ocean and the beach can clearly be seen – I could wake up to this every morning. We walked further up the road and off to the right was a dirt road that we took and finally made it to his house. He built it with his own hands going to the jungle to cut trees to use. He had a small shack on the land that he had captured and individuals from the school help him with getting some of the material that he needed such as zinc. The house was a faded blue with a veranda that he had built like a ladder to get up to it. He still needs to build steps but this works for now. It is just one room with a bed on one side of the room. He is so proud of this I am just amazed that he was able to build this with the few tools that he has. I met his dog Charlie who has markings that resemble a Dalmatian. He has some beautiful flowers planted and is trying to grow a garden for food. For him to wash his clothes he walks down the road to the water tower and uses the hoses that are hook up to the outlet. He does not have running water or electricity but he has manages. I realize how materialistic things that we take for granted are truly a luxury here for some individuals. I think this has changed me in so many ways. I believe that I will question myself before buying things from now on. Do I really need this or not. We headed back a stopped by the water tower. Dustin climbed up the ladder on the side of the tower and took pictures of the view. We then headed back and took a taxi back to summerset. I relaxed for a while and spet some time with Boomblast. He took me around the grounds of Summerset which in all the time I had been there I never wonder around and only seen it from the Thatch house. There is another section of Summerset across the street and we walked over there and then around the back side of the property where we were staying. He showed me the mango tree – now I know where the mangos are coming from. He explained the different trees and what fruits they would bare or what nut they produced. He has come along way from what I understand from last year and I will miss him. Around 7:00pm we all met at the Thatch house to do gift packs for the students. Tomorrow we are having a party at Chances a pizza restaurant on the beach. My office donated backpacks which we used to put all the gifts in. Between all of us we had razors, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, pens, pencils, calculators, playing cards, post-it, and tee shirts. It started getting comical trying to figure out how to fill the bags so we laid them out with the number of students and then started laying the gifts on top of them. We were short a toothbrush so that one got two tubes of toothpaste – we hope they have a toothbrush. We tried to make sure they were as equal as we could get them. We also had folder for each one of them which we put their story in that was printed. We all worked together to determine the size of tee shirt that our students would need. Once we got that completed we sat and talked for awhile. It is hard to believe that we will be leaving Saturday morning. I still have not done any shopping so I hope to go first thing in the morning before our party with Rebeckah who has already been shopping and can point me to some shops. Peace for now – tomorrow will be a sad day having to say our good-byes to the students and the Reverend and teachers.