Island School

Definite highlight here...

We got to visit and stay for 10 - 15 minutes in the village school. It consisted of a smaller building divided into two rooms. The room I spent my time in was filled with elementary students - the oldest was 9 years old. There were about 24 students in this room. The other room had maybe 10 students that were middle school aged. The younger students were studying the numbers 1 - 12, writing as well as speaking them. They were also learning to write the letter 'e.' Obviously, there were some other studies mapped out on the board, but the lesson we observed concerned the numbers and letters. The headmaster had a leather strip that coiled up into a circle, and when the students misbehaved, he marched over to their area and forcefully slapped an end of the coil on their desk. I've never seen students quiet down so quickly. The burning question on my mind? Where can I get one of those leather coils for my classroom???!!!

Island Living

We also visited a traditional island village on our pirogue tour. Children followed us all over during our walking tour of the village, asking for a cadeaux (a gift)!

A Muddy Job

At one point on the pirogue tour, we pulled up to a wet 'sand bar' to witness some families digging through mud, collecting small clams to eat and sell. We joined right in, digging away and collecting our own pile of mollusks (okay, I honestly only contributed two to the bucket). It was dirty work, and there was a girl as young as 4 1/2 digging and collecting as well. The most amazing part were the conditions... all of us promptly sank into the mud as soon as we stepped off the boat. I went down a bit more than the others and had to be rescued as I tried to pull myself out of sucking mud that was knee deep! Anyway, the work is hard and the ladies and kids were all smiling and seemed to be having a good enough time. Unbelievable to me how easy my life is. I wanted to clean the kids up and take them away from such back breaking work.

Winding Through the Mangroves by Pirogue

We rented a pirogue for a day to explore the mangroves.