Saturday

We hit the road early today and drove south to a small town about
forty minutes away. We got out at the massive baobao tree and everyone
got snorkeling gear. Then we hopped into three boats and headed out.
About twenty-five minutes later we spotted a pod of dolphins. Almost
everyone jumped in and swam with them (though Jake found that
witnessing dolphin intimacy was too much for him). We followed the pod
for a while and everyone was thrilled with the experience. I wish we
could send pictures of it but as I will explain later, it wasn't
possible.

After a bit, we were taken to a coral reef for more snorkeling.
Amazingly blue coral and tons of colorful fish made us all very happy.
And then we had a lovely breakfast at an ocean side cafe.

In the afternoon, we did more painting. It is hard to describe but try
to imagine painting decaying concrete walls in inferno-like heat and
you get some sense of what we're going through. It is great to see the
progress we are making though and we hope to have at least two of the
classrooms completely done when the kids come back Monday morning.

The town we are in, Jambiani, is very small and is basically one main
street which is, like most of the streets, a dirt path with massive
hunks if hard and sharp coral sticking out at random places. There is
so much coral here that you see huge piles everywhere that people gave
collected themselves to use for building. When they have enough rocks,
they build the walls but then they gave to save up for a roof and
furnishings so there are a lot if unfinished roofless structures
around town. The town only got access to electricity 19 years ago, and
even now it is pretty sporadic.

Everyone is friendly beyond words. We must say, "Jambo" (a common
greeting) 100 times a day. Because this is a very strict Sunni Muslim
area, there is pretty much no alcohol except at the hotels, which
makes the overall atmosphere much friendlier than it might otherwise be.

It is very hard to get a data connection in Jambiani. There is an
Internet place but that is really a small room with two laptops, only
one of which works. And it isn't always open or free (today there was
a woman working there and she said she would be a few hours). So we
can really only send images from the iPhone which isn't the best
camera and then we need to wait until we are at the school before the
message and pictures actually send. So please be patient with us. The
students have been amazing and we feel good doing good work.