rachelflute

Ok. Three things. Important things. First, my sister is here! Second, I’m officially an advanced open water SCUBA diver! And third, I went on a boat trip with friends to Cayos Cochinos! If you have no desire to read my blog posting, just stop right here. You got the highlights. You’re welcome. This past weekend I did my final certification dive, a night dive, so now I can do all kinds of fun dives whenever I want! I was a bit nervous before the night dive, since the whole jumping-into-dark-water-without-seeing-what’s-lurking-below thing kinda freaks me out. I had also had diver friends tell me about “bloodworms” which come out at night and swarm around your light, which sounded just delightful….. not. Anyway, after a bit of mild freaking out I jumped into the water and it wasn’t ... read more

A few weekends ago, I had the best weekend of diving I’ve had yet on the island. I’ve started doing my Advanced Open Water course for scuba diving and did 5 dives throughout the weekend, all of which were amazing. The way the course works is that I choose 5 “Adventure Dives” (a.k.a. specialty dives like deep diving, night diving, etc.), read a chapter and answer some questions about that special dive, and then do it. I did the course with a friend who works at one of the dive shops, and so far it’s been a really awesome experience. The first day of diving, I did my deep dive and a buoyancy control dive. When you dive down deep, starting at about 100 feet, there is a potential for getting “narked”, or nitrogen narcosis, which ... read more

Day 4: We got up early and had coffee on the rooftop of our hotel (which is, by the way, connected to a cinema and nightclub with is quite loud, but thankfully not really noticeable from our room). The view of the city, which is beautifully old and European-feeling, was beautiful in the morning with the volcanoes looming in the distance. We walked around the city for a while, exploring and getting lost and taking in the sights. For lunch, we went to the market and got some stuff for a picnic in the park. The weather was beautiful, the food delicious, and the park pleasantly bussing with people. A pseudo-band began playing- 2 guys on various flutes and panpipes with a backing track, and they were really good. After lunch we went to a cultural ... read more

I have discovered that living in Roatan is all about the trade-offs, weighing the good against the laughably bad. Today is a perfect example of that. Yesterday in school, we ran out of water and consequently today had absolutely no running water. No running water usually means no washing hands, and no flushing toilets. Both of which are very important things, especially in elementary school. Trust me, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone (yes, I am aware that I live in a third world country where running water is a luxury. But it’s been a tough day. Please endure while I indulge in some melodrama). Today, instead of the normal glorious running water, teachers were given hand sanitizer and a bucket. The hand sanitizer took the place of hand washing, and the buckets ... read more

(note: This is a late posting I wrote a little while ago and forgot to post. I’ll be posting a more updated one soon) I’ve had some internet problems this past month, which is why I haven’t posted in a while, but hopefully all my problems should be fixed now! I haven’t been up to anything too exciting, just the normal teaching stuff during the week and then beach on the weekends when it’s nice. I haven’t been able to dive due to a quite annoying and persistent congestion issue, but I’m getting better now and hope to be diving soon. The school winter concert is coming up soon, so I’ve been busy preparing all the kids for that. Hopefully all goes well! I celebrated Thanksgiving here with my “Roatan family”. It was really fun, with ... read more

Yesterday morning, at about 7:45 AM, I found myself sloshing down a long dirt road in the middle of a tiny island off the coast of Central America, battling torrential rain with a half-broken umbrella. Thunder and lightning crashed seemingly directly over my head, shaking the ground and illuminating the sky, leading me to mutter “I really hope this umbrella isn’t metal” while I splashed through mud puddles up to my ankles which spanned the entire road. I comforted myself with the thought that once I reached the main road, I would hop into a nice dry taxi which would take me to West End. Finally I reached the road, muddied and damp, and waited for a taxi. And waited. And looked at my watch. And waited. Apparently taxis don’t like the rain either since there ... read more