SIX MONTHS- AND NOT COUNTING!
Pictures are of Swim Jamaica lessons at James Bond beach, Oracabessa
School started September 6 so my schedule is pretty regular now, but before school started I took a little vacation! Dian, Juanita and I treated ourselves to 2 nights at the SandCastle Hotel in Ocho Rios. Air conditioning, hot water, a pool, walks on the beach, rum punch, free internet access, cable TV, and great company! A real treat! Our reason/excuse was to give us time to work on 2 Peace Corps reports due in September. One was our Community and Sector Inventory and the other was our trimester report. These are to enable our PC supervisors to read what we have learned and what we need help on, and to report to the US government statistics about how many lives we have touched etc. I found both to be helpful.
I also took Diann on a turtle hatching- this one was unique in the Mel had 3 nests to open so we had 3 buckets of hatchlings and we got to count and release them. Mel had been keeping an eye on some local fishermen who had a huge net out in the bay. So after we released the turtles we all went with Mel to visit the fishermen. They had caught 2 juvenile green turtles in the net, so Mel untangled them and we got to see them before he released them back to the sea. Even though catching turtles is illegal in Jamaica, most likely they would have been eaten if we hadn’t been there. This coming October the whole bay where the turtles are nesting will be a designated fish sanctuary. Mel has been warning the fishermen about this deadline, and some effort has been made to offer the fisherman some training in landscaping with the opportunity of jobs with the nearby hotels.
School starts at 8:30 am with devotions, usually outside with students lined up by grade with the boys on one side, the girls on the other. There are grade 6 monitors to keep kids in line. They sing a few hymns, have a prayer and usually end with the Lord’s Prayer or sometimes Psalm 23. Classes begin at 9AM. I am pulling out small groups of 4-6 kids from grades 3, 4 or 5 and bring them to the library for about 45 min twice a week. I work on sight words, decoding skills and reading stories ending with comprehension questions. This year I plan to use the computer room as a reward for good behavior and progress in their skills. I also hope to have a “Treasure Chest” with special prizes for when the kids have read 20 books or other noteworthy accomplishment. Donations would be lovely! Items such as fancy pencils and erasers, matchbox cars, or fun little games would be so nice. These low readers have been passed from grade to grade and they don’t have much self esteem. And when I say “low” I mean grade 5 students reading at primer level or maybe grade 1!
Besides my pullout groups (currently 36 kids, school has about 270 kids) I plan to open the school library 3 days a week at lunch and after school. I have asked the grade 6 students who would like to be library helpers to submit a letter to me by this coming Monday. I like working with the grade 6 students and this gives them a chance to help out their school and gives me help! School is out at 3PM except Thursdays when school is out at 2PM to give teachers an hour for lesson planning and staff meetings. I also am in the process of developing a computer lab course on word processing for the grade 5 & 6 students. I hope to find a college student or parent to take over this Friday program.
At the moment, I am not needed at Swim Jamaica for fall; I ended the summer teaching 3 days a week when one of the instructors left for work in Canada. I miss the water! I am still hopeful that we can get lessons started in Ochi this year.
Success! I made 2 screens for my 2 windows- I bought screening= referred to as mosquito mesh, made a frame of cardboard and stapled and tacked Velcro to the frames. Velcro makes it possible for me to undo a section to lock my windows when I am going away or for hurricanes. It’s wonderful to be able to leave my windows open and not have a herd of little tiny and quiet mosquitoes munching on me!