The best Laid plans

Hurricane Rina was fortunately not all she was cracked up to be. Thursday morning brought blue skies, and calm, clear water again. In spite of there being no tropical storm to speak of, school was still closed. The residents of San Mateo had been evacuated as the homes in that community were at risk. They are mainly constructed from scraps of plywood, and sit on stilts over the lagoon. Most of the students at Holy Cross live in San Mateo, and were not back from the mainland yet. Many teachers were also absent, as they too took advantage of the government's evacuation to the mainland.

Friday brought more blue sky, more calm clear water, and heat. Wow. We're talking about having to change your t-shirt multiple times throughout the day out of necessity heat ! We arrived at school happy to find the doors open, and the chatter of the children again. There were still many students and teachers absent, so the day had to be put togther as best as possible.

Zack and I again returned to the student /teacher resource room, dreading the dust and no air. The lights were out. Off we went to find Mr Freddie , or Mr. Jason the maintenance men. The lights were discussed and fussed over, and finally the light in the resource room was working.We reaquainted ourselves with the system we had planned, when, the lights went out again. We made our way through the dark library, through the semi dark computer lab, towards the exit door to the outside. As we did so, we both heard the word fire(in a relaxed kind of way) and quickened our step.

Yes ,there were some sparks going off at the transmitter. The resource room, would be in the dark for the morning, or day , and therefore need to remain closed. We were ready for shirt change number one after our ten minutes in there, so we weren't too sad.

Zack spent his time helping Mr. Freddie and Mr. Jason clean out the sewing room, as that's where many outdoor supplies were kept during the hurricane scare, and I helped the sewing volunteers start to put their room back together. As I did so we chatted, about sewing, kids, the difference between girls and boys, normal mom stuff. Zack and Jason talked about life and work, and the difference between each country's system.We read again, to Infant 1, and when we were short on books, we told tales about our very naughty dog named Jasper

We walked home with a little guy from the Infant 1 class that we had read too. He told us about the large fish he had caught. His dad had caught lots more, but he assured us that his was really, really big

We planned to work all week, that didn't work out so well. We planned to organize a resource room.... not so much. We didn't plan to talk to the sewing volunteers, or Mr Jason, to read to Infant 1 again,and walk home in the heat with a 5 year old and discuss fishing. Somehow, we are the ones that are better for it.