Fun in the Sun Day!

Phew! What a day! For the third day in the row, I’ve woken up in time to see the sunrise. Not on purpose, but my body has decided that I should be awake at that time and not get back to sleep. Oh well! I’ve dedicated the first hour or so after waking up to stretching and meditation. Usually I try to do that before I go to bed, but it’s a nice change of pace to do it in the morning.

Lessons this week went well; when the kids showed up. After our little 'incident,' it seems as though a lot of families figured we were taking a few days off. News travels fast! It was brutally hot this week though, so that could have also contributed to the lull in attendance. Regardless, it was a good week. We had a few kids come early every day and also show up at our house at random times during the day. It was a good week!

This morning, Ana and I decided to take a stroll around town to make sure we found kids to come to our ‘Fun in the Sun Day’ this afternoon. We put together a tentative itinerary of arts and crafts (coloring sea-critters that we cut out-super cute!), eating yummy snacks (PB&J with juice boxes), first aid and safety skills, and swimming games. It would have been so sad if no one came! Within minutes of walking, we found Chasies (pronounced Shay-zee) who presented us with a mango that he has been promising us for the past five weeks. But, he made up for his lateness by climbing a tree for us and introducing us to a new kind of ‘fruit’ called kineps? I’m not sure what they are exactly, or how you spell it, but they were yummy! Another one of our swimmers came to see what he was doing in the tree and joined us on our walk in search of other kids. They also found us coconuts and opened them for us! They explained the different stages of the coconut; they got the ones that were full of water and had lots of jelly in them. Chasies opened a few for us and went across the street to get sweet cream/condensed milk to make belly juice (minus that coconut rum). It was so sweet! The rest of the morning, Ana and I had our hair done by Lakeitra and then we made sandwiches, assembly style, to bring to the beach for all of the kids.

Our Day of Fun in the Sun was a success! I think we had about a dozen kids show up. It was very fulfilling to see the kids that we had taught in lessons show off their new swim skills! Every two seconds, one of the kids was shouting our name, trying to show us how they can float, go under water, or swim the different strokes! It was so exciting! The kids all dove for sea shells for us because we gave them lessons. I’m gonna miss them!

I am currently, pleasantly exhausted. Today was, I think, a perfect ending to our swimming lessons. Right now, Takio is depleting our supply of glitter glue and coloring pictures. I wonder how long he’ll stick around… he seems to have made himself quite comfortable.

I, sadly, am having technical difficulties with my camera, so I will have to post more pictures of my Eleutheran adventures later and with the help of Ana. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It didn’t get wet and there isn’t any sand in it. *Sigh* Oh well… At least it stopped working at the end of the trip instead of the beginning!