Mud, Mud, Everywhere!

Founders Day! A day off from class work! We started school at 8:30 am instead of 8 and ended at 12. Instead of having a normal day, we all got split up into 4 teams. White, Blue, Green, and Red. I was on the White team with Danny and Kaylie. We had a few kids from each grade to represent their class. We played educational games where 2 kids from Kindergarten in each group had to race over to someone and answer a question. This went on all the way through high school. We didn’t have a lot of high schoolers show up for the White team so that affected a lot of our races. We also had tug of wars, and junk scrambles! The kids seemed to be having a lot of fun! Amanda was our MC for the day and she did a fantastic job! She was creative and very fun! The teams were given points for creativity on cheers, and for the various games that we played. The field was pretty muddy because it had rained pretty much all day the day before so all of us SMs had really muddy feet and legs from running around and helping with the various activities! I was worried it would rain again all day, but instead it was really really hot!! I was very hot and sweaty by the time 12 o’clock came around! The order of winners for the day were Blue, Green, Red, and then sadly, White. Blue team didn’t have to wear their uniforms today so that was pretty cool!

After most of the students had left and the SMs had put away the chairs, we all got ready to go to a short waterfall hike so we can get all the mud off of us! Mr. Betts told me that is was a short easy hike so flip flops were fine. A few of the older high school students came with us and we all piled into the back of the dump truck. Pastor Tim drove us and man does he like to drive fast! It was a wild and fun ride! It took about 45 minutes to get there. When we got there, the road was super muddy and we couldn’t go any farther in the truck so we started walking. I thought it was muddy back at school, but my word! It was SO muddy hiking to the waterfall! My flip flops kept getting stuck so I ended up just hiking barefoot the rest of the way! Poor Roy lost on his flip flops in the mud and we just could not find it! The mud was way too deep and thick to see it or feel for it. It was mostly just a straight road going down the trail, but we also had some down and up hills. And in thick slippery mud, it really isn’t very easy. Needless to say, by the time to got to the waterfall and hour later, we were very sweaty, tired, and VERY muddy! The waterfall had a cliff to jump off of which was about 35 feet high. Pastor Tim went down to see if there was anything in the water and when he cleared it, people started jumping off one by one. Oh goodness I was scared. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to do it, but I did, screaming the whole way down and instead of doing the pencil dive like I was planning, I kind of scrambled around in the air and landed in a sitting position. Oh goodness that hurt so bad!!! Some of the guys ended up doing the jump several times before we left, but once was enough for me! Besides the climb to get back up to the top was more work than I wanted to do at the time.

Going back to the truck was a lot easier because it was uphill mud climbing instead of down. Much better on my knee! I was once again hiking barefoot because there was really no reason to put on my flops. Part way through though, Riley, who was walking in front of me, gave me his flip flops to wear because they actually stayed on the feet when walking through mud. They weren’t the cheapo Pohnpei ones that I had that broke every time I got it stuck in the mud. It was really nice of him! I ended up giving them back to him after a while though because they were much too big on me! And he knew my knee was hurting so every once in a while he would stop and wait for me to make sure I was doing alright. Amanda on the other hand, had it way worse than me. She had hurt her ankle pretty bad before coming to Pohnpei and it has never been the same so her ankle was really swollen and painful to walk on. She didn’t have her shoes since she gave them to someone else to wear. So I gave her my flip flops to wear since we wear the same size. Getting back in the truck, we were all super muddy and felt really gross! Getting hosed down and showered at the school felt really amazing! I still can’t get all of the dirt from under my toe and fingernails out though!

Wednesday was a fairly good day I think. The kids are really learning to like me and even the boys come up and give me hugs! J Today I started something new. I got each of the kids a paper cup with their name on it and I keep them by my desk. Also on my desk, I have what I call, the “Jar of Respect” full of beads. (I kind of copied Riley on this one. He has the “Bowl of Respect” full of candy.) If I see someone being nice by sharing, complimenting someone, or helping some one with something, I put a bead in his or her cup. Once they have gotten 25 beads in their cup, they can pick a prize from my desk. But, if I see or hear something negative like a negative comment, they lose 2 beads. If some one hits another person, that is one bead gone and 5 minutes of recess. The kids seemed to like this concept and immediately started acting upon it. The only problem is, that some kids want the beads so bad, they let me know when they do something nice. I told them that if they tell me what they did, I won’t give them any beads no matter what they did. Now I have to work on the tattling. Any suggestions for that?

Some of my kids that were very good in the beginning of the school year, are starting to not listen very well anymore. I’m not sure why, but I have to scold them a couple times every class now which is getting ridiculous! They’ve had to start losing recess time too.  The girl in class, Yuree, who doesn’t speak much English and has a really hard time focusing and doing her work has started to cry for no reason at all other than someone accidentally bumping into her, or someone raising their hand before her! I’m not quite sure what is going on. Since the elementary teachers are able to get a free hot lunch, and there is pretty much only meat selections, I just order something for Roy to eat and he comes and picks it up from the apartment during his and my lunch break. So today he came by my classroom to get it since he got off for lunch earlier and all my kids were sitting in a circle on the floor waiting to listen to a story. When he came in I had them say "Hi Mr. Drusky!" and also had them name off the shapes on the board since Mr. Drusky is the math teacher for the high school. As he left, the kids all said "Bye Mr. Drusky!" So cute!! 

I got a whole bunch of packages today from various people! Kira, Carolyn, and Craig sent me one, the Estradas, and my parents! I’m so loved! Thank you guys!! I miss all of you terribly! Have a fantastic day! J