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Published: January 12th 2009
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This is the season for jellyfish.
They are swimming /washing onto the shore, where these pink ones lay until the tide washes them back out. (Florida Bible Christian School)
Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve posted…but I have good reasons. We’re in Miami, and it’s been in the high 70’s or low 80’s every day. And we’re only ten miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Are those good reasons, or not?!
But let me back up a bit. Last time I wrote we were still outside of Fort Meyers; a couple days before we were to leave, we got a call from Wanda, (Dave and Wanda, leaders from last winter) just calling to see when we planned to arrive at the new project. I asked where they were, and she said they were in Fort Meyers!! We drove the seven miles to town, and we were able to spend the next two days with them, catching up on the last 11 months. They left there a day before we did, but it was so special to have that time together.
And now we’re at our new home, and it certainly has its upside! We’re parked on pavement (considerably more stable than sand) and we have grass around, the windows are always open, and there’s usually a little breeze so it doesn’t
Look closely and you can see four
pink jellyfish just above the floating seaweed. These sting, but it's more uncomfortable than painful (according to the lifeguard.) get too hot. AND I’m working in a fourth grade classroom! Can it get any better?! Yes it can~~this is a two month project!
This school has preschool (from 2yrs old) through 12th grade. The kids wear uniforms, and they look so cute in their plaid jumpers or skirts, or black pants or shorts. I don’t know what the rule is for the girls wearing shorts, because they have PE every day, and they rarely wear shorts. The shirts are polo (red or white, long or short sleeve) for the boys and girls, although the older girls wear blouses. I’d say the majority (maybe 98%) are black, but that’s not the whole picture…..there are so many different cultures of black people, and they have different accents and are so interesting to talk to. Lots of them are Island people, so you have that Caribbean flavor. It’s interesting way past any explanation I can give.
Another cute thing is that the kids move from place to place in two lines~~boys in one, girls in another (so the boys hold the door for the girls); the preschoolers travel in pairs, but from second grade up it’s boys/girls. I’ll post pictures.
The blue jellyfish sting, and it's very painful.
(again, info from lifeguard, not experience!) When they wash up, they're so light that they tend to just get washed around by the incoming tide, and they don't often float back out to the ocean. I guess they must eventually, but it was really common to see them in the drier state. See the long tentacles? We’re working with Earl and Nancy again, and then two couples that are new to us: John and Lola are from West Virginia, and Wilmer and Marilyn are from Iowa. We will be together for these three months, and then Wilmer and Marilyn head home, and the rest of us move on.
The men are doing regular men stuff…fixing fences, repairing the big bbq (the church picnic is in February!), repairing stuff that isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing. But on this project the women have the best assignments~~we're all classroom aides.
One evening we were coming home, using our trusty gps, and we ended up in a messed up traffic jam with police everywhere~~in their cars, on foot, just everywhere. Turns out the street we were on runs between Dolphin Stadium and one of the parking lots, and the Orange Bowl was about a couple hours before kick off! The street runs along two sides of the stadium, and the police nearly lined the intersections! They've had two more (bowl?) games since then, but we're smart enough to stay away from there during game times. It's about five miles from where we're parked.
Here's a blue one floating,
and there's also a pink one in the picture. I didn't see more than 2 or 3 of the blue ones in the water. We’ve been down to the beach a couple times, and the sand is very different from the Gulf side; whereas that was white and almost powdery, this is course, and gray. The water is still warm, which is always a surprise, but we were told that anyone who’s in the water this time of year is a tourist, because people from this area don’t swim until it warms up!
I got a new camera, and it’s waaaay smarter than I am. I’m reading the manual and trying to learn it, but it’s going slow, and I forget stuff! And my software program is graduate student level, I swear. I had pictures on the card, and now I don’t. And they’re not on the computer either. If you find them anywhere, let me know, ok?!
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Sara!!
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I'm not reading another blog or looking at another picture as long as you two are in Florida! :)