April 3rd - 7th

To be honest this week's teaching was not the greatest. It was really basic stuff, and it wasn't very exciting. It was extremely hard to stay awake in class and the teacher reminded me of a really bad teacher that I had in highschool. So I'm not going to tell you all about what I learned, cuz it's really not that exciting. But some other exciting things did happen to me this week.
One thing I did learn outside of class was never spill a 5 gallon bucket of soap all over the floor!!! One day for work duty we were cleaning out this old room and in the closet was a bunch of old cleaning supplies and there was a huge bucket of soap that had been slowly leaking for who knows how long....like probably over a year!!! So it was ALL over the floor. We started to mop it out but one swipe with the mop just made a bunch of bubbles and got the mop full of soap! So that idea didn't work. Then Roxann had the idea of just pouring some water on the floor to dilute it and then we'd just push the soapy water out of the room with a broom. It was really funny! And it was working alright but it was taking us forever. All we could do was laugh though, because it was just so ridiculous. The more we swept up the water the more bubbles it made!!! It was like the dishwasher had overflowed! Eventually we got a hose and sprayed a TON of water in the room and swept most of it out, all that we could, and then just let it dry! It was quite the adventure!
On a whole other note Wednesday afternoon we didn't have class so one of the leaders named David took anyone who wanted to go with him to an inner city community just like 20 minutes away in Montego Bay. The community is called Canterbury, just like how I live in Silverwood. If any of you remember me talking about Majesty Gardens, the inner city community in Kingston that I stayed in for a week during my DTS, it was similar to that. The houses were just shacks...wooden walls with tin roofs. The objective of our time their was just to talk to the people and let them know that someone still values them enough to take the time to sit and talk with them. And David had been there plenty of times before and he told us what to be careful of. One thing was to stay away from the drug lord's houses...which are of course the biggest ones...because there's usually some guys out in front of the house protecting it, and they're gun men/bad men. Chelsea, Steve and I went off to find someone to talk to after David had warned us about everything. And we found a group of children that were SOO cute, so we played with them for a bit. I found a worm and was freaking out some of the kids by picking it up with a stick. They were sooooo soo cute! And then we went walking around some more and we saw a bunch of about 4 little boys about 3 years old all running around in there underwear. It was cute, but I wondered if they really had any other clothes, which is totally a possibility. As I walked around 2 different guys, on two separate occasions, asked me my name and said that they liked me, and the one said that he was going to take me away from my boyfriend...I said NO. He was also smoking marijuana while he spoke to me...not the appealing thing to be doing! I love spending time with the kids in inner cities. They seem to just cling to us "white people" cuz we give them attention that I don't think they get very much. So that was a really good afternoon. I hope to go back there again sometime soon.
I've also been playing alot of soccer this week. I played 3 times this week. My knee and shin are all healed up now and my thumb still isn't totally back to normal but very slowly it's getting there.
Last night a group of girls went over to the leader of the base's house to dye his wife and daughter's hair. It took such a long time, but it was really fun. There was 6 of us girls in the kitchen talking and laughing and thinking of other makeover things we should do another night! It was some good old girl time!
Things are really great here. This morning after I played soccer, I sat on the porch of the Great House and looked out at the ocean and just thought about how lucky I am to be here. I get to wake up and play soccer and then look out at the most beautiful view I've ever seen! God is so good! I can't thank Him enough!
Blessings to ya'll.