The Rains Came Down
and the Floods Came Up!       April 16, 2003

Hi everyone,

I've been planning on writing you all for a little while now, but I recently had my computer pretty much quit on me, so I had to take it in to Telecom and they downgraded the system to accomodate the lack of memory, which means they cleared out everything without saving things, and I lost all my emails, addresses, pictures, my grade book, etc. So it's been fun trying to get that all set back up and going again, but I've finally got it done.

Well I have to think back and remember the news I wanted to share with you. Guess the most recent would have to do with the subject of this email! The end of this last week we had a tropical storm come by our island (it's now escalated to a typhoon and is headed for Guam) and we got some serious rain. It started about Wednesday, and we got rain all day and night and on into the next day. We were wondering if we'd have school with all the puddles starting to get bigger and bigger, and no sign of it stopping, but we were told yes, we would have school, so we grudgingly got out of our comfy beds and got ready for the day. Who doesn't want a day off?? We ended up getting dismissed at noon though because the rain just kept coming down harder and harder and things were starting to flood around the campus. It's a good thing we dismissed when we did, because we had a raging river (ok I'm exaggerating a LITTLE, but really! it was pretty crazy) flowing over the sidewalks, driveway, and main entry to the office area, which caused the office to completely flood. People grabbed brooms and started sweeping water out of the office and out of the area in front of the high school classrooms. It still kept coming through though, so then we started loading rice and plastic bags with sand and trying to make a barrier to divert the water. We grabbed some small picnic benches, the sand, buckets, anything we could find, and built up a barrier in front of the main entryway, then had to take some sand over to the computer lab and the pre-school room as well because they were starting to get water in them! It was pretty hectic--people running around in the pouring down rain, the water so high it was up to our ankles and shins in places. I grabbed my camera and umbrella and set out to take a few pictures. Megan got some digital pictures, so I'm sending you a couple of those so you can see what some of it looked like! We had a veritable lake on the front lawn of the campus, and the kids made good use of that and grabbed flat pieces of board and some mats to go surf and slide through it. Some of the high school guys challenged the teachers to a game of football, so they were all out there playing in the rain for a while. After carrying sand and sloshing through the puddles for a good hour or so I was chilly enough (go figure--one of the few times!) to want a shower, so I headed for my apartment and dry ground. Well all that rain made a big enough mess that all the schools were still closed on Friday, even though it had stopped raining. So we spent Friday morning transporting sand back to the sand pile, and mopping out places that had gotten wet. They've actually replaced the carpeting in the office with tile now, as this isn't the first time it's gotten wet and it was really started to smell. Good idea I think!

This week is a shortened one. We had school Monady and then we only had a half day Tuesday because it's finally spring break for us! Don't ask me why it's so late... I could have used this long ago, but it's finally here and I'm happy to relax a bit. So Tuesday my class had an Easter party and I told them all to decorate and bring a hard boiled egg for an easter egg hunt. :O) Several actually did, some just brought an egg and then colored it with colored pencil or marker. We had a contest on best decorated egg, and then I went out and hid them in the bushes and such, though I couldn't go too far because it was raining a bit. They paired up and went running out to find the eggs and were back in about five minutes! Oh well. We just let them play the rest of the time (since they'd had a Bible test and reading quiz earlier).

Sunday afternoon all of us girls went and played a game of soccer against the local girls' team here--they wanted to challenge us. So without any practice, and pretty much all of us being completely WITHOUT practice for the past who knows how many months or so, we took to the field on a hot Sunday afternoon. Thankfully some clouds came so we didn't die of heat exhaustion. It was a pretty fun game. We actually won 2-1. The first half nobody scored--it was pretty unorganized and everyone was just all over the place, but we pulled it together and made the goals in the second half. They want to play us again next month I guess...so we'll see what happens then!

Almost all of us SM's went out to dinner at The Village Sunday night for Michelle's birthday. It was the first time I'd been there for dinner, and it was really nice. We got to see a beautiful sunset, and then enjoy the peaceful evening just talking and relaxing while eating good food. We were there quite a while--service here is on island time. Slowwww... :O) But that's ok, we weren't in any hurry. The later it got though the more people I saw reaching under the table to scratch legs and feet (myself included), and we were ready to leave the mosquitos behind by the time we finally got finished.

Well I think the only thing we have planned besides work (because the school's evaluation is the end of next week) is a two day, one night trip to Pakine, starting tomorrow. It's an outer island, but it's pretty far away so it's going to take a couple of hours to get to, and if the swells are high or the weather is bad it's not going to be fun. Hope I don't get sea sick! We're not even sure if we're going right now though, because the boat driver who's taking some of us in a faster boat hasn't returned from Pakine yet and we're not sure he's going to! So we might just make this a trip to Ant, and possibly go to Pakine another time. The Kolonia church (whoever wants to go) is going camping over the weekend to Lenger Island--that one is really close. So I might do both, we'll see how energized I'm feeling. :O) Today was pretty fun. I woke up late and worked in my classroom for a bit this morning--cleaning things up for the evaluation, then a few of us drove out to Nan Madol and Kepirohi Falls. I hadn't been to those falls before and they were just amazing. Sooo pretty--best one I've been to here! And it only took me 9 months to get there! ha ha. Well between the hour and a half trip there in the sun, hiking around Nan Madol, swimming in the falls, and then getting rained on, soaking wet, and cold on the trip back I'm just exhausted. It's nice to be on break though. :O)

I hope you all are doing well and enjoying your nice spring weather! A little less than five weeks from now I will be leaving... I can't believe it. Please keep the school in your prayers with the evaluation coming up, those who are in Guam (and the typhoon) over spring break, and me in my classroom. God bless!

Love,

Lindsey

picture 1--the barricade in front of the office Thursday afternoon
picture 2--"the lake" over by the pre-school room with Lesia, Stephanie, and Heidi playing in it
picture 3--Megan and I and the sunset from The Village Sunday night
picture 4--half of the dinner group at The Village. From left: Michelle, Kristen, Megan, Jackie, Melissa, me, Stephanie, Lesia, Heidi, JJ.

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