Wednesday, March 11, 2009


To give you an idea of the sort of way that things work at the school. I came into my classroom yesterday to find the doors open, the windows removed and all my posters piled on the desk. The walls had been scraped somewhat, and dust and dirt was all over the desks and the floor. I guess they decided to start to prepare the room for a paint-job which is good, because it really really needed it. It would have been nice to have a little forewarning. Second day, I came in to find half of the walls and some of the ceiling painted. It really smelled and the students didn't want to have class in there (who could blame them). We did some stuff, but I generally cut my classes short, tomorrow will be much the same.

Joel and Judy kicking back in class, what's new.
Me and a student, Nathan sort of high on the paint fumes in my classroom.

This is the men's bathroom at school. It is sort of unpleasant place to go, and often there is water on the floor and strange dirtiness on the walls. The hole to the hallway is the best part though. These toilets don't flush, you use the bucket method.

Many of the classrooms (not mine) have these really odd posters on the walls, I'm not sure where they came from, but they are quite amusing. Topics include medicine (pictured), making and breaking habits, drug use, etc...
I sometimes enjoy chewing a betel nut or two. It's something that I didn't realize is so widespread in the world, not just on pacific islands, but also in the Indian subcontinent. Here is pictures the betel nuts, the lime powder that you put inside the betel nut and the lime leaf that you wrap the betel nut in. Many people put a piece of a cigarette (not pictured) in the betel nut as well, I choose to abstain from chewing the cigarette. I tried it once and very nearly threw up on the porch of our house.
Turning the camera over to Relian at Wilfred's house resulted in this shot

Day trip to Awak Pah, just a little community nahs and place for swimming. Some places have these giant PVC tubes that float that are endless entertainment to play on in the water. Andy, Beth, and Sara demonstrate how to enjoy oneself.

Fuzzy, but zoomed in shot of Ant Atoll, view from Black Coral Island

Sunset on Black Coral Island. Ant Atoll in the right hand and mid background

Getting ready for beach fun. I really like all the facial expressions in this picture. It's almost staged but not quite


Waiting for the boat to pick us up, Matt went into the mangroves to rescue the Frisbee. Little did you know, a mud puddle a foot and a half deep awaited his unsuspecting self.


2 comments:

cody said...

Great photos! Cool to see the betel nut, I have heard of them before but never had any idea what they were. It looks like the immature fruit of some kind of palm tree, which is interesting. I laughed when I read that you almost puked chewing on a cigarette, since that's probably exactly the same thing I would have done. ;) It is so cold in Pullman now, we just got another 8 inches of snow over the past week. It's nice to see photos of the tropics and know that somewhere in the world, people are wearing shorts!

Marty said...

It is so, so good to see photos and catch up with your day to day. I love you!