Stepping Out of the Boat

We found out recently that there are still pirates in the Caribbean! In fact, just the other day, a ship was robbed by these pirates in Boca Chica Bay, which is very close to us. Isn't that funny? I doubt the pirates who robbed the ship at Boca Chica carried swords and scabbards, but they participated in the age old pirate activity: thieving.

Pirates aside, we've been having a particularly hard time lately because in the month of December, the workload at school has sky-rocketed, but there is no time to do anything because there are so many extra things going on during the school day - not to mention the fact that the students have completely checked out for the rest of the time left until break.

We're really missing all the Christmas stuff that we would be doing back home. We were just simply not going to decorate for Christmas here because it's silly to buy stuff when we're just going to leave, but it's so sad to come home to a barren apartment when it's Christmas time. So, we bought a tiny pre-decorated tree and some lights. Unfortunately, the lights we bought are flashing lights, which we didn't realize. They flash so sporadically that we call them "seizure lights." They are hanging in a very tacky and crooked fashion all around our living area, but -hey-it's better than nothing.

It's really sad to be here during Christmas time. We're trying not to let it get us down. We're just trying to think about the fact that John's parents are coming to visit in two weeks, and after that, we're coming home to Bloomington for a few days for Joel's wedding. Someone is going to have to shove us onto that plane when we're getting ready to come back here. We're really not going to want to come back after being home for a few days.

Last weekend, we went with a group from school to a city called San Juan to do some work for Habitat for Humanity. Here are a few pictures. It was nice to see another part of the island. The mountains were beautiful, as you can kind of see from the picture taken from the roof of the house.











As for the work, there were a few too many people and not enough work to go around, so we spent the four hours we were there trying to make sure everyone got to work. Basically, we rode a bus for six hours total that day and worked for four. It didn't seem to be the best use of time or resources, but we enjoyed the trip. Our construction experience from other service projects served us well.

We're counting down the days until school is out - only two or so more weeks!