Steven: July 23

So here we are, our last week at the school. These past few weeks have been a lot of fun with the staff and the students. T-bone, some of the staff, and I have gotten several intense games of b-ball versus the local pro team. Although we have yet to take home a victory we’ve had some good games despite the cheap play of our opponents. Before the games we take a run up this really steep hill leading to the concrete court, which probably is not a good idea since it significantly drains us.

All the students speak to me in Visayan now, I’m sure they enjoy it when I have no idea what they’re saying, but I’m learning. Also over the weekend the kids had a quiz bowl. The competition was intense and saw many heated intellectual battles covering nutritional topics. Afterwards they had a dance party which was pretty hilarious. They put on really loud techno music and proceeded to go crazy, you really just had to be there.

I’ve also taken some time to enjoy the island a little more. I went for scuba dive #2 this past weekend right around White Island. I saw some amazing coral formations along with a nice stingray just to name a few of the sights. Then I took a mountain bike ride around most of the island. Every five seconds some locals would shout something to me. It’s going to be odd to go home and not be treated like a spectacle anymore, but alas.

In other news it’s still hot, all this nonsense about a rainy season cooling things off is false. Today when we walked up to the school my shirt was soaked through with sweat, a nice thick blanket of wet, hot air was the culprit. Although some rain finally did come through the mountains today, but it stopped a little while ago and now it’s just hot again. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the tropics is simply not somewhere I’d want to live for a long time, cold weather is definitely preferable.

I’m a little worried about training the performers for the show at the end of the week. We’ve agreed on three songs and a dance. I suppose I’ll play guitar, but I doubt anyone else, especially the kids, actually has the lyrics memorized. Then for the dance I still need to teach them a ton of steps… Well last minute is typically when I get everything done so maybe I shouldn’t be worrying. Tonight a huge spider decided to crawl into my bag, and then some gekkos stopped by to stare at me from my ceiling, and I heard some rats behind the dresser again. I think it’s fair to say there are certain things I won’t miss about my nepa hut up here in the mountains. Yet I certainly will miss the unique people I've met here at the school during my time here.