I'll start off with a quick rundown of all the people that I've been mentioning/will probably continue to mention a lot because I know it's confusing and there are a lot of different names. Smith and Almitta are my host family, their daughter is Kokok, and she usually hangs out with Falan. Falan is Smith and Almitta's neice; Falan's mother is Ruth, and Ruth is married to Smith's brother. There are a ton of other people in the family, but those are the ones that I see the most. Jess, Jesse, Aidan, Sandy, and Brandi are the other teachers in WorldTeach with me; Paige is the field director. Paige's boyfriend Kevin is sort of a personal teacher for one of the kids at Nautilus, a resort on the island. I live with Jesse and Aidan in a house right next to Sandy. Jess is living with a host family, and Brandi has been here for a couple years now and lives in a house with her husband Miguel, who is teaching at the college right next to the high school.
Now for the last couple days of fun! Yesterday and today were awesome! I started out with a pretty lazy day yesterday morning, just woke up and hung out around the house for a while, did some yoga, and then Miguel was going surfing, so a bunch of us tagged along. Jesse has been out a few times and is learning, but Jess and I wanted to try it. Brandi, Miguel, Jesse, Jess, Aidan, and I all went out and while Miguel and Jesse were out, the rest of us hung around in the shallows and just watched. Jess paddled out with them at the beginning, but it was her first time, and the water was really choppy and not exactly suited for beginners, so she came in after a while. I was going to go out, but when she came back in I decided I would try another time because it just seemed really tiring and not an easy place to start. We just hung out in the water for a while and watched Miguel and Scotty surf. Scotty is one of the sons of the owner's of Nautilus. Apparently it wasn't a great day to surf, so they didn't catch very many waves, but I was still very impressed that they got any at all. After that, we went to yekela waterfall and climbed the banyan tree to the top of it. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. I have some amazing pictures, but I can't upload them because the internet is so slow. It was unbelievable. The tree climb was pretty difficult, but it was really fun! You should google image banyan tree; they have a lot of contact points with the ground, and the one we climbed was really tall and right next to the waterfall. They are pretty cool trees, and perfect to climb because they have a lot of places to put your hands and feet. We got to the top, then came down the other side, where there is a rope and you kind of repel down the rocks. It's angled down, so it's not totally like repelling, but we used the rope to get down. Once we came back down the other side of the waterfall, we hung out under it for a little while and swam in the pool beneath it. The water was really cool and refreshing, which was weird because all the ocean water is really warm. Right under the waterfall it comes down really hard and it was fun to just let it hit your back because it felt like a massage. It was a very cool experience.
This morning we went out snorkeling with Doug, the owner of Nautilus. We went out on the boat into the open water, which was very cool. We saw a lot of fish and even a couple eagle rays. One eagle ray came very close to us, which was super cool! Since we were out in the open water, the water was cooler and we could wear real bathing suits since nobody would see us. After a few weeks of swimming in sorts and a rash guard, I was very excited to actually let my skin see the sun. I'm hoping I got at least a little bit of color from today. After we snorkeled, we drove around on the boat for a little bit looking for dolphins, but didn't see any. Hopefully next time we can see some! There are usually some out by where we were, so I'm sure we will see some at some point over the year. It has been a very exciting and fun past 24 hours, and we might even go spearfishing tonight! The past two days have been awesome, and I just can't believe all of this is real. I can't believe that I'm here in this amazing place doing all sorts of amazing things for the next 10 months. I look around and just can't believe it's all real. Seriously, who gets to surf, climb a tree, see a waterfall, go snorkeling, and spearfish all in a matter of 48 hours? Man, life here is hard...
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