Category: Uncategorized

7:21 a.m.

My phone alarm’s muffled ring comes from somewhere buried under the sheets. In that momentary burst of energy that comes from a sudden arousal from sleep, I dig through the bed sheets, tossing pillows aside and hitting the snooze button almost immediately. 

The alarm now silent, I exhale softly. Rolling back over, I close my eyes and doze off for just a few more minutes as the bustling street sounds of pedestrians, school children, traffic, and the incessant early morning crows of what seems like a thousand roosters echoing outside my window.  

I was never much for the snooze button. For much of my life, I had always set my alarm for the last possible moment to ensure the longest duration of uninterrupted sleep. But in my apartment here, just about everything outside my window interrupts my sleep anyway. Consequently, I’ve come to relish in the powers of the snooze button.  

After finally climbing out of bed, I prepare a quick breakfast. Chopping up tomatoes, onions, and peppers, I throw them in a frying pan as I scramble some eggs that I purchased from the market. Served with a dash of the local hot pepper sauce, it’s just the kickstart meal I need for the school day ahead.  Locking my door, I step out onto the road and begin my walk to school.

8:30 a.m.

Walking in through the gate at the compound of the school, the bell rings as screaming and laughing children dash in every direction to their respective classrooms. After greeting my principal, Mr. George, I slip off into the stage area behind a pull-out chalkboard wall. Taking a seat, I check the log book I keep of my lessons. Looking through my supplies box, I ensure that I have all the materials for that afternoon’s pull-outs. I pick up my bag and step back outside.  

My shades dim the hot, early morning sun as I hug the walls of the corridor, staying within the shade it provides. Without much shade cover in my five-minute walking commute through the streets of Gouyave, I’m already sweatier than I care to admit. 

Climbing up the stairs to the second floor and turning a corner, I step into my classroom with a soft knock on the door.  

“Good morning,” I say. 

“Good morning, sir,” my counterpart, Ms. Pierre, responds as she looks up from behind her desk. 

I’m welcomed by a chorus of “Good morning, sir!” or “Good morning, Mr. King!” from the students, who reach out for my hand or wrap me in a hug as I walk to my small desk in the back of the room. 

9:00 a.m.

This is the time our first Language Arts lesson of the day typically begins. The Language Tree textbook, workbook, and their exercise notebooks are the foundational materials of all our lessons. Looking around the room, various posters and charts my counterpart made out of colorful bristle board decorate the front and back of the room. A soft breeze rolls through from the forested trees outside the windows, partially blocked by a large, immovable bookcase. Adjacent to my desk is the “Activity Corner,” a small table on top of which are hand-drawn alphabet memory cards, magnetic letters, dry erase boards, and beginning blend and vowel team sample sheets sealed in plastic wrap. The Activity Corner has been a recent endeavor of my counterpart and mine to liven up the classroom. The kids have finally started buying into it, too.  

“Sir, can I lend the cards?” 

It’s a question I’m often asked now during any downtime in class. It began at the beginning of this school year, when on a stack of notecards I hand-drew letters of the alphabet and created poorly-drawn pictures corresponding with each letter sound (i.e. Aa, apple). I used the notecards in a few pull-out lessons for some of my students in the beginning of the year, those who needed further instruction in letter recognition and sounds. With the cards we’d play a “memory game,” flipping them over and trying to match the letters with their example sounds to win the game. One day I brought it back with me into the classroom and it’s been a hit ever since. 

My counterpart calls the attention of the students as the lesson is about to begin. Standing up, I take my place beside her desk along the windows. Leaning back against the shutters, the breeze from the river outside rolls in with a soothing relief. I follow along as my counterpart introduces the lesson.  

Our working relationship in the classroom often works in a “One Teach, One Assist” fashion. Ms. Pierre often takes the lead in the first lesson of the day, during which I provide support from the side. Once the instructional part of the lesson is completed, the students have time to work on their in-class assignments. During this time, we circulate around the room to provide support and further explanation for the students, particularly guiding the ones we know tend to struggle.

10:00 a.m. 

The bell rings, concluding the first part of the morning. The students scramble from their seats, running outside for their break time. The laughs, shouts, and cries of students reverberate endlessly outside, the prototypical sounds of the schoolyard. If a student lingers back to finish their work and needs guidance, I’ll stay alongside them until they finish. Otherwise, I return to my desk in the back of the room and pull out whatever book I’m reading. 

I’ve made it a resolution to read more books this year, an alternative to wasting time scrolling aimlessly through the apps on my phone. I’m on my fifth book and counting now, filling little gaps of time in my day to escape to wherever each novel might take me.  

Students often come and go, curiously stopping by to ask me what I’m reading, see what I’m doing, or show me something they created.  

10:25 a.m. 

The bell rings again as the students rush back into the classroom, sweaty and riled up from their time playing outside. It takes a few minutes for them to calm down, their excitement bubbling over as they drink water from their plastic bottles and finish their snacks.  

It’s time for the classes to switch, as we have two grade three classes in my school. The first lesson is typically a shorter version of the second lesson, but since the schedule alternates each day, the lesson time balances out over the course of the week.  

My counterpart and I try to bring technology into the classroom, whether it be through the school’s Smart TV, my laptop, or Ms. Pierre’s Bluetooth speaker, and a downloaded song or video. It’s important we have everything downloaded, as the Wi-Fi connection is not always reliable in our part of the school compound. The way we use the technology varies, whether it be a song about similes, a dance routine with verbs, or a simple phonics lesson video for the students to watch. We’ve come to incorporate it as much as we can, as it engages our students’ interest much better than the standard style of, “chalk and talk.” 

In the second class, I typically take the reigns of introducing the lesson while my counterpart provides support. After a Literacy Workshop hosted by Peace Corps for the Volunteers and their counterparts, our chemistry in the classroom has blossomed. As it turns out, our styles of running a classroom are very much in-sync. We feed off each other and aren’t afraid of asking each other questions, while addressing the needs and concerns of the classroom together. 

After conducting the lesson at hand we’ll assign the class work of the day, typically a couple sentence or story problems out of the Language Tree textbook. Walking over to one of the students that typically struggles, I crouch beside him. 

“How are we doing?” I ask. “You understand what you have to do?” 

“Yes, sir,” the boy smiles. 

“Sir!” another boy raises his hand, catching my attention. “I don’t understand.” 

I take my place beside the next student, tactfully helping him along in a way that he still finds the answer himself. It’s a delicate process, as I don’t want him to have to rely on me entirely for each answer. After all, there will come a day where I won’t be there to help him. Consequently, I encourage him to sound out and read the sentence problems on his own, before asking the necessary questions to guide his understanding.

“Okay, now try the next one on your own,” I say with a pat on the shoulder, standing up and looking around the room. 

Another student has her hand raised, so I move over to her and begin the process all over again. It’s in these little opportunities during their school work I try to reinforce the lessons from my pull-out sessions. It’s also a time for me to see how well they’re understanding the material and progressing in their school work. If they struggle with a particular word or phrase, I begin a call-and-response process for them to remember what to do: 

“What happens when we have a ‘Silent e?’” 

“The vowel says its name!” 

 “And what happens when two vowels go walking?” 

“The first one does the talking!” 

“What do the letters s and h say together?” 

“Shhhhh,” they respond with a finger to their lips. 

As I work around one end of the room, my counterpart is working her way around the other. This continues for the remainder of the class time. 

12:00 p.m.  

Again the bell rings, the students breathing a collective sigh of relief as everyone in the school begins assembling outside for prayer. After prayer, the students scatter in all directions. Some run to the kitchen for their lunch, others straight for the footballs or cricket bats and wickets. The principal gets on the microphone and repeats that morning’s announcements over the laughs, calls, and cries of the playing school children. 

I reach into my backpack and pull out a book and walk to the staff room. In the staff room, a few teachers are gathered around the table and eating their lunches. I join them there, having either what the school provided for lunch or something I brought from home. I try and make the most of that hour off at lunch, taking part in conversation with the other teachers or reading my book, sometimes both.  

1:00 p.m. 

After the bell rings again, the students freeze momentarily before scrambling in a frenzy back to their classrooms. I walk back up to my classroom, gathering my backpack and going downstairs to my designated area by the stage. The students recognize what I’m doing, gesturing and calling after me in hopes that this time it might be their turn to, “get a try.” 

I smile and pass it off with a simple shrug and a “maybe,” “we’ll see,” or “I’ll let you know.” 

I never knew how to navigate that conversation with them. I don’t want them to know that the students I pull-out for lessons downstairs are the struggling readers. As far as they’re concerned, I might as well be choosing them at random and the same ones I always take are just supremely lucky. For as long as possible, I try to keep it that way so none of my students would be teased because of it. The other students can be jealous at times because the ones I do take often come back with tales of the games they’ve played and large stickers proudly displayed on their uniform.  

1:05 p.m. 

Downstairs, I organize the stage for the lesson. I join two desks together with two chairs for the students, and one for me on the other side. While I do this, a student’s voice nervously comes over the loudspeaker, prompted by a teacher. It’s the “live-reading” that takes place immediately after lunch every day. A grade is assigned to it each week, an opportunity of showcasing students’ reading capabilities in front of the school. 

When the third grade is assigned for the live reading, my counterpart and I try and to give an opportunity for students who haven’t done it before. Coincidentally, these are typically the students I work with in my pull-out sessions. You may recall my experience with one student last year, in my post Little Victories.

A few weeks ago, in thanks to live reading I’ve had a similar experience that I had with the student mentioned in that post from last year. During our live reading week, we had three students who had never done it before read to the school: T, S, and A. T was the first one from that group of improving readers to go. He had struggled through most of the first semester, seemingly lacking motivation. Yet since the start of the second term, he’s been improving in his efforts. Due to this, I believed he was ready and could really benefit from the live reading experience.

“Hey, T,” I said to him one morning. “How would you like to do the live reading today?” 

“Yeah!” His eyes glimmered with a mix of surprise and excitement. 

I picked out an excerpt from a short story from one of the larger books in our classroom library. After practicing the reading and rehearsing some of the tougher words, he was ready. 

“Can I go tell my mother?” he asks. 

“Is she here?”  

He points through the window across the school compound, where I recognized his mother talking to his older sister outside of another classroom. 

“Go ahead.” 

Moving over to another student, I kept him in the corner of my eye as he approached his mother across the way. After a brief exchange, his mother immediately fixed his collar and pulled out a comb, running it through his hair. A smile cracked across my face, although the live reading would be done hidden away with the sound system in the staff room, he was going to look the part.  

The live reading with T went well, as my counterpart worked alongside him for it. In the weeks that followed, T began staying inside during break time and lunch time. Unprompted and independently, he was delving into that large book I had given him, reading his live reading story start to finish and reading new ones. Ever since his live reading that day, his motivation in the classroom has taken off and it has shown in the progress of his work. I used to have to monitor him regularly on in-class assignments. Now, he’s bringing his completed work to me on his own like the rest of the class. That right there, is why an opportunity like live reading is so important for a young student. 

On the weeks the other grades conduct live reading, I simply prepare for my pull-out lesson during that time. I review my log book again, a record of which students I met with last and what we covered, how it went, and what they’re ready for next. After determining a plan, I’ll wander the school compound, looking to connect to the Wi-Fi to load a literacy video, or set up a literacy game for them to play.

1:20 p.m. 

When the live reading is finished, I walk back upstairs to the classroom. On the way, I pass the fourth grade classes that are typically lined up outside, about to exchange rooms for the afternoon. These are my students from last year, whom I don’t have much direct involvement with anymore. They welcome me with calls of “Sir!” and outstretched fists. I reach out to give each one a “bounce,” knowing what’s coming.  

“Jellyfish!” one girl laughs, pulling her hand away at the last minute, moving it like a jellyfish. 

“Snail!” another student ducks under my fist-bump with his hand and two outstretched fingers. 

A next one fakes me out with a dab. 

“Wave!” another boy exclaims as he waves his hand over my outstretched fist.

“Squirrel!” One boy, with a broad grin says as he chases his hand up my shoulder.  

“Aha! Good one!” I laugh.  

I can’t help but smile at that one. Last year, a scene was made when one of the boys faked me out on a fist-bump in front of the class. In turn, I took that opportunity to teach them a few creative ways to pull the same trick. When I first mentioned the squirrel maneuver, they had all looked at me with confused, dumbfounded faces. Then it hit me. 

There aren’t squirrels here. They’ve probably never seen a squirrel before in their life.

So I looked up a few photos of squirrels online and explained to them what they were and how they move. Since that day, let’s just say the squirrel has become a fan-favorite.  

Moving past the fourth graders, I step into the doorway of one of the third-grade classrooms. With a soft tap on the door and confirming with the teacher (sometimes my counterpart, other times the other third grade teacher) that the students aren’t taking an exam and are available to come with me, their hands shoot up in the air as all eyes light up with eager anticipation. I call out the names of the students I want, as they celebrate victoriously between themselves and hustle out of the classroom while the rest sigh dejectedly. Giving them a bounce as they step out into the corridor, they take off in a sprint downstairs to the stage. They know the drill.  

Downstairs, I conduct my pull-out lessons. They largely focus on phonics, ranging from the magic e, bossy r, vowel teams, and everything in between. With one or two of them that struggle the most, we’re still working on CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant words, i.e. cat, dog). Based on their reading levels and personalities, I’ve paired most of them with another like-minded student. A few others I take individually, as they benefit more from the personalized attention. Admittedly, most of the activities I use with them comes from Pinterest, an unlikely but honestly well-equipped source of materials, ideas, and resources for phonics lessons. For those that are paired, I use games in which they compete against each other. They love the opportunity to challenge each other and come out victorious.

When the lesson is completed, typically after about twenty minutes, I dismiss them back to the classroom as they run off. I record in my notebook who I had and what we did before returning upstairs. After selecting another set of students, the whole process begins again. On most days, I’m able to conduct three separate pull-out sessions in a single afternoon. 

2:30 p.m. 

The bell rings a final time, a conclusion to the school day. I pack together my things and close up the stage, returning back upstairs to my classroom. I sit down with my counterpart as we discuss the events of the day, review our students’ work, and discuss our lesson plans for the next day. When this is done, we close up the classroom before heading home.  

Some afternoons I’ll linger on the campus, hanging out with a few teachers in the pre-school, chatting with the caretaker, or playing cricket with a few of the older students that have stayed back after school to play.  

“Sir! I’m gonna hit a six off you!” one student exclaims (a six being the cricket equivalent of hitting a homerun in baseball). 

“Oh, you think so?” I smile back, tossing the tennis ball up and down in my hands. “I’ll show you a six.” 

With a soft step I bowl the ball to the boy, who hits into an out, the ball having been caught by another student playing the field. The boy hands me the bat as I give him the ball. I take the bat and stand in front of the wickets. 

“Sir, this isn’t baseball!” another laughs after seeing how I was holding the bat. 

I just smiled. Although cricket is somewhat different than baseball, they’re more alike than they are different. Not to mention that before I came down here, I did play a year and a half of collegiate baseball; they were about to find that out. The boy runs forward with a start, flailing his arms as he releases the ball toward me. The ball veers down to my feet, just in front of me. I throw my hands out, the flat side of the bat connecting with the ball as I lift it into the air. Powering through, the ball launches over the roof of the school to the carpark on the other side. 

“Now, that’s how you hit a six!” I laugh as after a momentary shock, the boys chase after the ball.   

“Mr. King!” my principal appears, gesturing for the ball as the boys return a moment later. 

The boys toss him the ball excitedly, anxious to see what will happen. My principal grasps it strategically in his hands as I take my stance in front of the wickets, honing my vision on the ball in his hand. He runs forward and arms flailing, releases the ball toward me. I start my swing, following the trajectory of the ball into the ground as I look to play it off its bounce. Then just as it strikes the ground, the ball takes off in a tailspin and slips under the flat front of my bat and strikes the wickets behind me.  

The kids roar with laughter and excitement, as I grin sheepishly and begrudgingly congratulate my principal on the out.  

What goes around comes around. 

4:15 p.m.  

I typically arrive home around this time. Immediately undressing into something comfortable, I down a cold glass of water and take some time to cool off in front of my fan. After collecting myself, I set out on the tasks I have in mind for the day. This varies greatly from day to day, week to week. Sometimes I spend the afternoon reading, other times writing, sometimes running errands, hand-washing my laundry, cleaning my apartment, or picking up groceries in the market down the road.  

4:45 p.m. 

Honk! Honk! Honk! 

A very distinct horn sounds above all the traffic on the road as a small white van cruises to a stop. Happy Time Bakery is painted in bold red letters across the door, which slides open as pedestrians flock toward it, including me.  

“Ehh, Scott!” The driver smiles broadly, wearing a dark t-shirt and a flat-brimmed cap. 

“Kelly! How you doing, man?” I ask him. 

“Good, man. Good.” 

I reach inside and pull out two of the cheese rolls, my absolute favorite item from the bread truck. I slip a few dollar coins into his hand and head back to my apartment, waving to a few students waiting for a bus on the side of the road. Sometimes, catching the bread truck is quite literally the highlight of my day. 

6:00 p.m. 

I pull the chicken out of a bowl of water, where it’s been thawing and soaking with freshly-squeezed limes, a tip I picked up from a neighbor. Taking out a knife and cutting board, I chop up tyme and cilantro and throw them into another bowl with the chicken. Shaking various spices and pepper sauce on the chicken, I mix them all round so the contents are spread evenly across it. I put them on a pan and slide them into my gas stove oven.  

Walking out to my verandah, I peek at the sky for a glow in the clouds. If the sky is taking color, I walk down the road to the Sea. Stopping and chatting with community members I see along the way, I pause on the seaside rock-line or the small beachhead to watch the sun fade below the cloudy horizon. Pedestrians and traffic go by, hardly paying mind to the colorful display overtaking the sky. A peaceful transition into the night, it’s just what I need to step back for a moment and appreciate where I am. Not to mention right now it’s cruise ship season and it’s pretty wild watching those “floating cities” drift by on the horizon.

7:35 p.m.

Digging through the vegetable drawer in my refrigerator, I set its contents on my counter: cabbage, onions, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. Coming fresh from Esther, the lady I purchase them from in the market next door every Saturday, I make myself a salad. After throwing some plantains on a frying pan with some jerk seasoning, I pull the chicken out of the oven.

On most nights this is my dinner: roast chicken, a tossed salad, and sometimes fried plantains or homemade bakes. It’s pretty lean, but it’s also pretty healthy. It took some time, admittedly, but I finally learned how to cook well for myself on my own. Occasionally, I’ll mix it up with a local dish of saltfish, tania log, or walk down the road for fish and chips if I’m feeling for eating out.  

8:30 p.m. 

Depending on the time of year, I’ll watch a game from home; whether that be the Cleveland Indians, Columbus Blue Jackets, or my cousin’s basketball team at Mississippi College. I have pretty reliable Internet connection at home and can find most games using Reddit. Growing up, there always seemed to be a game on the television in the evenings, so in that sense it’s my way of maintaining that connection to home.  

Other nights, I’ll continue reading or writing. Other times I’ll edit photos or videos for various projects I might have going on. Sometimes I’ll connect with friends or family from home via FaceTime.  

Some nights, I’ll walk up the road to Mansa’s. There I’ll watch whatever game or movie is on the television while intermittently shooting a few games of pool with the guys there.

10:00 p.m. 

I settle back into bed, reading to wind my day down to a close. My eyes start getting heavy, despite the resonating sounds of the crickets, the distant crashing of the waves of the Sea, the dogs barking endlessly in the night, or the occasional voice of a passerby or vehicle, I fall asleep. 

7:21 a.m. 

My phone alarm’s muffled ring comes from somewhere buried under the sheets. In that momentary burst of energy that comes from a sudden arousal from sleep, I dig through the bed sheets, tossing pillows aside and hitting the snooze button almost immediately…

The days are flying by. 

Time is marching on.

Cheers!

Note: Below are a few photos from the second “Story Night” I hosted at my school last week. We also had a recent all-Volunteer gathering to celebrate, thank, and properly send-off our Peace Corps Eastern Caribbean Country Director, Mary Kate Lowndes, who will be taking another position with the Peace Corps in Washington D.C. Enjoy!

“A feeling generated by the mystery of water; water that seems alive, always rushing past yet never going, always the same yet ever different.” 

* * *

My time at home began with a long, quiet plane ride from Grenada to Miami. The gentle whirring of the plane’s engines provided a monotonous comfort. There’s always been something about long, solo trips that have given me the peace of mind to relax and reflect; not only on where I’m going physically, but holistically. So I gaze out of the small plane window, peeking at the stars above and the clouds below. Inside, different emotions were churning: excitement, nervousness, relief, curiosity. Outside of a brief, six-day stint the year before, I had spent the past year and a half down in the Caribbean, living over 2,000 miles from home. The time I never thought would come was finally here, yet it didn’t feel like it was supposed to be. Questions raced through my mind. 

“What was it going to be like?” 

“Would I feel a reverse culture shock?” 

“Will I be able to see everyone?” 

“How will I feel when I have to return?” 

Just then the bright, blue monitor on the headrest in front of me caught my eye. A small plane was pictured crawling on a trajectory from Grenada to Miami. According to the screen, we were flying directly over the Bahamas. I leaned over to the window and took another peek. 

The clouds below had dissipated, leaving an endless expanse of hazy blue sea. On a closer look, however, a sprawling dark mass seemed to have been splashed upon the surface. A childish excitement coursed through my veins as I glanced from the monitor back to the window and determined that the dark mass was, in fact, one of the numerous islands that make up the Bahamas.  

A short while later the small plane on the screen penetrated the border of Florida. Again looking out the window, the hazy blue sea was gone, replaced instead by a sea of blinking, flashing, colorful lights of the greater Miami neighborhoods. A true testament to the vibrancy of the holiday season, I may not have seen anything so welcoming.  

Reality began to sink in: I was going home.  

After landing, clearing customs, and a quick change over to a connecting flight, I boarded another plane headed for Charlotte.  

Another hour later I was stepping out of the Charlotte airport, a small SUV sitting idle in front of a departure gate. A small, blonde figure was standing outside the open driver’s door and looking back. 

“Hello!” I call with a smile. 

“Oh, Scott!” the figure turns around, my Aunt Colleen.  

After a warm embrace, we climb into the car and she drives me back to her home where I was to briefly stay the night, as my final connecting flight to Cleveland was slotted for early the next morning. We only had a few hours together, but we made the most of it by staying up late into the night and early into the morning, sharing stories over a serving of homemade buffalo chicken dip. We laughed about the rescue mission just a year ago, when she and my cousins picked me up after I was stranded in the Miami airport after missing my return connecting flight to Grenada. By the time we turned in for the night, we awoke only an hour later to return to the airport. After all, this was one connecting flight I couldn’t afford to miss.  

The plane that morning took off into a burning morning sky, orange and pink colors streaking across as if cracked from an egg. Ascending over the brown foothills and mountains of Appalachia, I leaned my head back and nodded off to sleep. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The subtle commotion of the preparation for landing roused me awake. Passengers strapped on their seatbelts as the flight attendants made one last pass down the aisle. Looking out the window, the coastline of a faded blue Lake Erie appeared in the distance. A few skyscrapers protruded from the dormant-brown landscape below and stuck out into the mid-morning sky. The downtown skyline was complete with stadiums, bridges, buildings, and roads where cars and people alike crawled like ants around a hill. Excitement began bubbling up inside as I looked on with a child-like awe at the bird’s eye view of downtown Cleveland. 

Collecting my things, disembarking, and walking out of another departure gate, a green Subaru pulls in front of me. It was my mother, arriving nothing short of perfect timing. And just like that, I was home.

Just like that, my life in Grenada seemed like an off-distant dream. 

A lot of people asked me, “How is it being back?” 

“It’s really nice, honestly,” I would reply, oftentimes with a joke about cold weather (which was actually pretty mild considering typical Cleveland winter weather).

But it really was nice, something about the word nice just seemed to fit. I finally had time to catch up with a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a long time. For many of them, things have changed since we had last met. It was nice for me to see the trajectory with which everyone is taking their lives. Some are taking on new jobs, others are getting engaged, a few are even getting houses. Some are in transition, finishing school, or still figuring out what they’ll do next. But everyone is getting along, moving at their own pace.  

It was kind of numbing at times, witnessing your home life as if it were a movie. All the same characters are there, all existing within a certain setting. Yet each time I’ve come back, although they’re largely the same, their stories are always changing, always different.  More importantly, though, was that this was a time for me to catch up on all the things I’ve been missing for the past year and a half. It was a night out in Cleveland, reuniting with old high school friends and a gathering of old, familiar faces. It was riding around the country roads (and momentarily getting lost), in rural Ohio with a friend. It was sitting on a sofa, eating takeout pizza and watching Netflix with an old roommate in Columbus. It was meeting up with an old friend for lunch, a new one for coffee. It was laughing over a game of What Do You Meme? and watching a football game on a friend’s TV.

A particular highlight was tailgating and attending the Browns game with family and friends. Having watched every game this season from abroad and even going so far as to recruit locals to become Browns fans, this was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. There’s something special about standing outside a tailgate in the Stadium parking lot, the feeling in your toes going numb in the frigid Ohio air. It was incredible experiencing a sold-out crowd at First Energy Stadium, buzzing with excitement as they watched their young team defeat the home-state rival Cincinnati Bengals. I loved every minute of it.

Another highlight was getting to see my niece and nephews again. One thing I was admittedly concerned about, was coming home to see how much they’ve grown since I’d last seen them a year ago. And grown up they have, but it wasn’t as unsettling as I was afraid it was going to be. Although they did get bigger, they’re still the energetic, exciting children that they were a year ago. This was okay with me, for I had experienced them at their previous ages; this was my time to catch up on all I missed at their present age.

So I laid back on the kitchen floor, having been tackled by a seven-year-old and a four-year-old, both of whom were now pinning me to the ground. I couldn’t help but smile and relish that very same moment when my niece spontaneously began walking on her own, a feat she had only recently accomplished. I took comfort in this, having borne witness to yet another step (sorry, pun intended) in their growing up. 

We had our laughs when, on my final afternoon at home we went ice skating together. Much of my first half hour was spent cautiously shuffling along the wall, as I was conveniently masking the fact I was an ice-skating novice while supporting my nephew Collin (4) by his raised arms. We soon, however, found a plastic ‘seal,’ one that he was able skate with and even ride on when he got tired. So taking the seal by its upstretched tailfins, I skated along as Collin rode in front, his skates scuttling across the ice. Soon thereafter, I was skating confidently on my own, racing Connor (7) across the rink and waving at Collin who rode past, being pushed by my brother. After becoming a bit too confident, however, I took a dramatic and sprawling fall to the ice. Collin couldn’t help but giggle with sheer laughter and a pointed finger, laughing at his uncle’s expense. It was moments like these, and moments like sitting in the penalty box with them to “take a breather,” that I’ll be able to remember and cherish as time marches on and they continue growing up.

My time wasn’t finished without some even bigger news, however. My extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends had all gathered around the TV to watch the Clemson-Notre Dame Cotton Bowl game, a ‘house divided’ of sorts considering my family’s deep connections to Notre Dame and my sister’s graduation from Clemson. At some point during the game, the highly-anticipated phone call had arrived as my mother snuck away into another room. She returned with the news of the holiday, that a new princess had arrived in the King family.  

On New Years Day, I made my way back down to Columbus to meet Riley Elizabeth King, the first child of my brother Jeff and sister-in-law Joy. I spent part of the afternoon simply holding Riley in my arms, enjoying the few precious moments I would have with her at this time. I was leaving in just a few days to return to Grenada. When I finally do come back at the end of next summer (or “baseball season,” as I later told my nephews), I knew that she’ll certainly be a lot bigger.  So I savored the moments of holding her, peacefully asleep in my arms. By the time we said our goodbyes and walked out the door, I was already looking forward to the time I would be able to see her and the rest of my family again.  

And sure enough, just a few days later I was back in Grenada. Suddenly, now it was the past two weeks at home that felt like the dream. I took my time re-acclimating myself to my life down here, laying low and enjoying my own company in between visits to other Volunteers and community members.  I even stopped at the beach, swimming out into the cool, shimmering waters as the sun dropped gently over the sea’s glowing horizon.  

“Scott, you look good,” a fellow Volunteer had told me earlier that day. “You look refreshed.” 

As I settled back into school, my counterpart teacher actually told me the same thing. I had returned to my regular school routine, co-teaching Language Arts lessons and playing games with my students in their pull-out sessions, games that made them learn without realizing it. I was back in a familiar world, a world that oddly didn’t seem so exotic anymore. Coming back this time was a lot different than the last. I’m established now. I know where I’m at and I know what I’m doing.  

“You look refreshed.” 

When I was first told that, truthfully it kind of caught me off guard. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized how much I really needed that time at home. But although right now it’s my time at home that seems like the distant dream, its effects have remained strong. I’m comfortable now, re-energized and re-vitalized by a little time away to not think about the everyday stresses that come from being 2,000 miles from home.

This past weekend, I traveled across the island to compete in a pool competition. Mansa’s, the bar I frequent, had challenged another bar in Grenville. It was a Gouyave vs. Grenville team competition, bragging rights and prize money on the line for the two Grenadian towns participating. We went over to Grenville, and won the singles and doubles matches for a final score of 11 matches to 5 (I contributed a victory for Gouyave in one of the doubles matches). We left the bar victorious, climbing into the back of the pickup truck we came in. As we huddled inside and took off over the mountains, a heavily-clouded sky began to clear away. A full moon was shining large and bright, almost blinding to the eye but illuminating the night. A faint, faded shadow, however, appeared like a growing blemish on its side. 

“The eclipse is starting now,” someone says, as all our eyes are cast to the sparkling heavens.

Then it was in this moment, the cool breeze of the night from the moving vehicle, the palm trees blurring past, the looming shadows of the mountains, the illuminating glow of the moon and a solar phenomenon taking place above us in a crystal clear and star-scattered sky, that I felt a very distinct feeling inside. 

It was a feeling that was kind of hard to explain.  

It was a feeling that I felt before.

It was a feeling that I believe, is what lead me to feel, “refreshed.” 

I tried to come up with the words to describe that feeling, yet struggled to find them. 

But looking back into a journal, I found just the one:

“A feeling generated by the mystery of water; water that seems alive, always rushing past yet never going, always the same yet ever different.” – Jane Goodall (A Reason for Hope)

Suddenly, it all made sense. 

This, I realized…was the feeling of home.  

Cheers!

Dear Reader,

There’s that old idea that if you put a letter in a bottle and cast it out to sea, it will cross the entirety of the ocean to its recipient on the other side. As the Christmas season is fast approaching, messages are being sent from all across the world. Trees are being decorated, the old-time carols of Bing Crosby and Dean Martin are playing around the clock, and schools are preparing to close for the holidays.

Last week, I attended a Christmas tree-lighting in my community. There were toys for the children and holiday performances by a steel pan band and a dance group. After spending the night watching the performances, playing dominoes with a few of my students, and shooting pool at the bar, you can say I’ve caught the Christmas spirit. Consequently, I wanted to share with you that next week I will be returning home for the holiday. This time I will be home for two weeks, as opposed to the all-too-brief six day hiatus that was Christmas 2017.

Last year, I figured six days would be all I needed reuniting with friends and family before returning to Grenada. But those six days went by like a flash and just as I had stepped off the plane into the frigid Cleveland air, it seemed I was stepping back into one. When I left for Grenada, I was by no means mentally, physically, or emotionally ready. Those six days were a stark reminder of all that I had given up to be down here. Truthfully, it hurt more saying goodbye the second time than it did the first. So when I finally got back to Grenada, I was overwrought with homesickness and it wasn’t until school started again that things began to go back to normal.

Now it’s hard to believe that 2018 is nearly over and I’ll be going back home again for Christmas. This year was supposed to be the long-haul, the difficult and longest stretch of time away from home in the grand timeline of my service. Although 2018 did bring some of the most challenging and difficult experiences of my life, this year has been nothing short of incredible. I have gotten to explore some pretty amazing places, but more importantly have met some even more amazing people.

I became fully established in my host community of Gouyave, which I can now comfortably call ‘home.’ I no longer stress over the things that I worried about when first trying to integrate. People recognize me, as I recognize them. Early on in my service, I would hustle home from school, anxious to return to the comfort and privacy of my own apartment. Now, I hardly find a reason to rush home at all, oftentimes stopping on the side of the road for half-a-dozen conversations along the way. The activities I originally did just to ‘show face,’ in the community, such as playing basketball or shooting pool, have become things I now enjoy and look forward to each week. In fact, I no longer feel right if I don’t do those things, as they’ve become such an integral part of my routine.

As it pertains to school, I am tremendously proud of the progress my students have made this past year. At the onset of the new school year in September, I took on an intimidating workload of struggling readers. Over the course of the term, we’ve had some unavoidable challenges that led to a number of days away from school. Nonetheless, for the past month since we’ve returned, my students have blown me away with how much they’ve retained and progressed in the short time I’ve had them. For some, I am now covering lessons that it took my students all of last year to complete. Although at times they drive me crazy, in the way that kids have a way of doing, my work with them has been one of the most rewarding and enjoyable experiences of my life. They truly brighten up my day; my time away from them during the teachers’ strike proved that to me.

Anyhow, I digress. Ultimately, it’s amazing to me how much has happened in a year that seems to have gone by so fast. There’s been moments of pure joy, but not without moments of immense sorrow. But as the great inspirational coach Jimmy Valvano once said, “If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day.” That being considered, God knows I’ve had plenty of full days down here. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t trade any bit of this experience for the world. It’s been a tough, wild ride, but each day living and working down here reassures me that this was exactly the experience I was looking for.

However, I am very much looking forward to coming home. As much as I have come to love it here, I’m ready for a break to re-charge the batteries. After all, the holiday season is meant to be spent with the ones you love and I fully intend to do just that. So with that I wish you nothing but joy and happiness this Christmas season. If you’ll be traveling home, I wish you a safe and successful journey. If you’ll be staying where you are or enjoying it in your own company, I hope it’s a time of well-deserved rest and reflection. Before we know it, we’ll be back to our routines and the year will be 2019.

I’m grateful for what 2018 has taught me, but I look forward to what 2019 will bring. As this year closes and the next one begins, I also want to thank you for taking the time to read these posts. Whether you’ve only read one, five, or all, I appreciate the support as it helps me still feel connected when I’m so far from home. I hope you take away as much from these stories, as I’ve taken away from experiencing them.

So again, I wish you and your family all the best during the holiday season, in the new year, and the many years to come. Consider this a simple Christmas wish, coming to you as a message in a bottle.

Cheers!

Scott William King

 

P.S. I recently went on a hike to the Welcome Stone in St. Patrick’s. From there, you can see the various islands that make up the St. Vincent Grenadine chain. I have included pictures from the hike below. Enjoy!

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It’s like that time you were a kid; that hot summer day in the middle of July. School was out so you had time to kill. You’re at the top of the steepest hill in the neighborhood, straddling the bike that came as a birthday gift two summers ago. The road seems as long as it is wide, dropping sharply down and sneaking into the distance like a storybook sketch. You click the buckle of your chinstrap and adjust your helmet. Taking a deep breath, you whisper to yourself:

“Ready. Set. GO!”

You kick the bike forward and push the pedals as hard as you can, sprinting on the top of the bike. A breeze brushes past, your bike picking up speed as you approach the descent. You stop pedaling abruptly, crouching low over the top of the handlebars. Feeling the weight of your momentum take you over the peak of the hill, you break into the sharp descent. The chains of the bike whirr beneath your feet, the soundtrack of your ride. Leaning left and leaning right, you cascade down the hill with a smile on your face. Excitement builds up in your chest, the type of exhilaration that comes from a high-speed thrill. You weave past the broken pieces and pockets of the road, the remaining evidence of the past winter’s toll. The streaming wind feels warm against your cheeks as you careen around a bend in the road.

Just then a vehicle blows past you on your right. Startling you, the bike nearly tumbles as you flinch to your left. Overcompensating back to the right, you wobble back into control. Quickly easing back onto the seat, you press onto the brakes of the handlebar. You pull off into the apron of a driveway, skidding to a stop under a shaded tree on the sidewalk lawn.

Placing your feet on the ground, you take a moment to slowly gain back your breath. You know that road receives traffic, you just usually hear it coming first. As your heart rate settles back down, you begin to think…

Sometimes it seems we get too comfortable. Sometimes when we’ve done something for a long time, we just kind of fall into the routine of things. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and all of a sudden, it’s another year gone. Lost in routine, we sometimes lose sight of what we should expect; then are somehow surprised when they actually happen.  We know better, but somehow whether it’s the thrill or the routine or both, we still manage to lose track every time.

This year, much like riding down that hill, has been nothing but a thrill. I had gotten comfortable, though, quickly cruising along this road to who I am becoming. However, things as they often do, began moving fast. Almost too fast. Then just like the day I was careening down the hill, something I should have expected caught me off guard. 

It’s nothing new. Just as I should have expected traffic to be on the road, I should have expected the year to be approaching its inevitable end. These things should be expected to happen, simply because they always do. That doesn’t mean they still can’t surprise you when they come. 

I recently took the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). I spent the past few months studying and preparing for it, adding more stress but less time to my days after school. I’ve been making time to figure out my next step, trying to keep moving fast and stay ahead of the game. But as exciting as the future can be, it can also be overwhelming.  

There’s been a teachers’ strike taking place on and off for the past two weeks across the island here. The details of the strike I won’t get into, as I’m certainly not in a position to divulge in either way. So the few days I’ve had off from school have been spent studying and now that the test has been taken, I’ve been exploring the different possibilities that the future might hold for me.

During that process, the realization has come that 2018 is almost over and the final homestretch to the finish of this journey is right around the corner. I got comfortable in my routine of life and school, cruising down a high-speed hill. Then just as the thrill of the ride seems to peak, an unsuspecting reality check forced me to pump the brakes and regain control. These reality checks, although sometimes surprising, are often necessary. Sometimes when they catch you off guard, you just have to pull off to the side of the road and recapture your breath. 

I think I’m ready to discover what 2019 has in store, but I’m not exactly ready for 2018 to end. It seems like I’m caught between worlds, just needing a little bit more time to figure all of this out. I’m almost to where I want to be; but there’s more work to be done. I’m not there yet.

And that’s okay, because there’s still time. I still have the rest of the hill to go. And I know exactly what I need to do to get there.

Sometimes you just have to catch your breath first.

…so like that July afternoon, I’ll walk my bike back to the curb, kick forward, and careen the rest of the way down the hill.

Cheers!

 

 

(A few snapshots of my students’ work over the past couple of weeks).

Pacing back and forth from the classroom to the gate of the school, I peek once more to see if anyone else is coming up the road. A few children chase each other around the carpark beside me.

“You guys coming in for Story Night?” I ask curiously. 

“Yes!” one of the boys exclaimed. “We’re just waiting for our mother.” 

Not sure if I should take their word for it, I walk back down the corridor toward the classroom at the end of the building. Reaching the final door, I step in and take another look around. Four families sit scattered throughout an assembly of empty chairs. A feeling of uncertainty bubbles up inside me. To the right my laptop sits on a small, brown table next to a projector. A large, canvas screen is stretched across the stage. The words, “Welcome to Story Night at St. Peter’s R.C.!” shines brightly from the humming projector.  

“What do you think?” Teacher Rita, my counterpart teacher, asks me. “About five more minutes?” 

Glancing down at my watch, it read 4:42 p.m. 

Biting my lip, I hesitate. The first-ever “Story Night at the RC” was scheduled to begin at 4:30. We were already behind schedule, but I didn’t want to start just yet. I was still hoping more than just four families would show up. As many as eighteen families had indicated interest in attending when I had first announced the event just a few weeks prior. 

“There has to be more coming,” I think to myself. After all, scheduled events do tend to run on their own time here in the West Indies.  

“Yeah, let’s start in five more minutes,” I finally concede. 

I pace back down the corridor, climbing the stairs to the second level of the school to see if I could get a better vantage point of the road. The same kids continue running around the carpark, still without a parent to accompany them.  

“Oh!” I exclaim, remembering something I should’ve done already.  

Hustling back down the stairs, I slip into the principal’s office and grab the keys to the library. Running back upstairs, I hurry down the corridor to the library at the far end of the school. Unlocking the padlocked gate and turning loose the deadbolt on the door, I poke my head inside to see if everything is in place. Content with what I saw, I switch back off the lights and close the gate softly. 

A light rain had begun to fall, the soft sprinkling sound of the rain on the rooftop subtly drawing my attention. Looking out to the mountains beyond the school, the rain visibly fell from the approaching gray clouds and into the rugged, green landscape below. The palm leaves of the banana trees in the small farm adjacent to the school rustles in the breeze. Just beyond a house in the near distance, a bright rainbow appears like a promise, waving its way from the clouds to the trees to assure me it was all going to turn out all right. 

“That’s gotta be a good sign,” I exhale hopefully.  

Returning downstairs, I step into the classroom and pick up the microphone. It was time to get the Story Night started.  

“Good afternoon, and welcome to the first-ever Story Night at St. Peter’s RC!” 

After welcoming the families, I explain the itinerary for the evening. As I do this, a family appears in the doorway at the back of the classroom and quietly takes a seat. A few minutes later, the children from the carpark walk in with their mother, who evidently had finally arrived. Then another family walks in, followed by another. My heart began to skip with excitement, relieved to have more families arriving.  By the time all was said and done and the story was about to begin, thirteen families were seated throughout the assembly. The rainbow’s promise had held true. 

Handing the microphone to Teacher Rita, she takes a seat in front of the audience. In an animated and enthusiastic fashion, she reads Chicken Licken (a spin-off tale of Chicken Little), the featured story of the night. On the big screen behind her, the pages of the story appear, as I had taken pictures of the pages and put them in a slideshow for the audience to follow along (a tip I picked up from fellow PCV Deb Campelia). With a green pointer, I trace underneath each word on the screen as Teacher Rita reads along. With every voice change and exaggeration Teacher Rita would make with each of the characters, the children would giggle to the delight of their parents. Taking a peek back at the audience, all their eyes were fixed on the screen, anxiously following along to see what would happen to Chicken Licken and his friends. A few fellow staff members, evidently not having left the school yet, discreetly linger in the back as they, too, listen along to the reading. When Teacher Rita finished the story, the families erupted in applause.  

“All right, thank you Teacher Rita for such a great and enthusiastic reading of our story,” I say, taking back the mic. “Now that we have finished our story, I have some questions I’d like us to answer.” 

Picking up my list of questions, I ask the audience various questions specific to the characters and events of the story. Hands shot up, some eagerly, others hesitantly. Sometimes a murmur of opinions would break out with each answer; other times, applause. There was one particularly difficult question I had selected, however, to challenge the audience to see who was really paying attention to detail. In the story, it was to be one of the character’s birthdays the next day; I wanted to know whose. Guess after guess, answer after answer, no one seemed to remember whose birthday it was going to be. Then a boy in the middle of the room timidly raises his hand. 

“What do you think?” I ask him, as Teacher Rita passes him a mic. 

“Ducky Lucky?” 

“Yes! It was Ducky Lucky’s birthday, he’s correct!”

The audience boomed in applause as the boy sheepishly smiled, his mother giving him a celebratory high-five. All the questions having been answered from the list, I began explaining the follow-up activity we had in store for the night. 

“Upon arriving, some of you would have received a cut-out of one of our characters from the story. Now, we are going to re-enact the story ourselves. So who does the story start with?”  

“Chicken Licken!” the audience calls. 

“All right, so who has Chicken Licken? Where is Chicken Licken?” 

“Here!” A mother jumps up from her seat, waving her cut-out picture of Chicken Licken excitedly. 

She walks up to the front and faces the audience. Taking the mic, she mimics an acorn falling on her head and proclaims, “Oh! The sky is falling! I must go and tell the King!” 

Laughter breaks out at the passionate performance. 

“Okay, very good,” I laugh. “Now who’s next? Where’s Turkey Lurkey?” 

A boy in the front row cautiously raises his hand, unsure of what’s about to happen. The mother scurries over to the boy. 

“Turkey Lurkey! The sky is falling and we’re all going to die! We must go and tell the King!” she blurts, remembering verbatim the lines from the book. She grabs the boy by his arm and pulls him up to the front as laughter once again breaks out among the audience.  

Handing the microphone to the boy, he then timidly meanders into the audience to the next character. He recites his line to the girl playing the next character, Goosey Loosey, who follows him up to the front. This goes on and on until each of the characters are brought to the front, some reluctantly, some excitedly.  

Finally came the turn for Foxy Loxy, the villain of our story. A small boy apprehensively walks up to one of the older boys, who was playing the role of our villian; the small boy mumbles into the mic that the sky was falling and tells Foxy Loxy that we must all go and tell the king. The older boy, completely in sync with his villainous character, confidently and smoothly asserts, “I know the way to the king. Follow me and I’ll show you the way.”

Standing up, the older boy places his arm around the small boy’s shoulder. He walks him back to the front of the room and to his “den,” where Foxy Loxy’s family then consumes all the poor, unsuspecting birds to bring about the tragic end of our story. The families chuckle in amusement and cheer for the participants as they return to their seats, smiles spread across their faces. 

“Now, Chicken Licken,” I say, taking back the microphone and turning to the mother who acted as protagonist of the story, “How did playing Chicken Licken make you feel?” 

“Bad,” she says.  

“And why did it make you feel bad?” 

“Well, because I thought the sky was falling and in panic, I led the other birds into Foxy Loxy’s den.” 

“Very good!” I reply, surprised and amused by the quick and impressive response. 

We continued on down the line, the parents and children sharing their experiences acting as each of characters, until finally once again reaching Foxy Loxy. 

“And how did being the fox make you feel?” I ask the older boy. 

“Good!” he answers excitedly. 

“And why is that?” 

“Because I just fed my family and didn’t even have to work for it!” he beams proudly, the audience erupting once again in laughter. 

“Well done! Give yourselves all another round of applause,” I laugh. “Now, at the end of every story, we should always ask ourselves a certain question: What was the moral of the story? For those that don’t know what I mean by this, the moral of the story is the lesson to be taken away from the story we just read. What did we learn from our story of Chicken Licken, that we can take and apply to our own lives?” 

The boy who played Foxy Loxy, sitting in the back alongside his mother, raises his hand. Teacher Rita walks the microphone over to him as he announces, “Don’t believe everything people tell you, in case it’s not true.” 

“Good answer!” the audience applauds. “It’s important that we take the time to make sure something is true before we believe it. If one of the characters had simply asked how or why the sky was falling, they might have realized Chicken Licken’s mistake and would never have been tricked into going inside Foxy Loxy’s den.” 

“This concludes the first portion of our night. You are all now invited to come upstairs to our library, Paradise Space Rocket. For the next hour, you can sign out a book to read together, or to each other, as a family. The couches and sitting area in the library are available to you, as well as Teacher Rita’s classroom next door.” 

The families bustle out of their seats and make their way upstairs to the library.

The rest of the night was spent in what would be any librarian’s dream. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, whole family units and single-family units, strong readers and struggling readers, all huddled over books and reading together. I bounced between the library and the classroom, surveying the interaction between the families and the books. My heart was still skipping beats, but it was no longer skipping out of nerves, but out of excitement.

To be perfectly honest, Story Night was everything I could have envisioned and more. It’s hard to believe that a simple idea conjured up in a Literacy Workshop back in February had finally led to this. The idea in February had turned into a phone call in April to my Aunt Nancy, who as a librarian, I sought advice from in how to make my idea of a Story Night a reality. The phone call in April had led to an idea pitch in June to my principal, counterpart teacher, who both fervently and immediately bought into the idea for starting the Story Night at the onset of the new school year. The June idea pitch led to a September announcement to the RC families, as I spoke at my school’s Parent Teacher Association meeting, declaring a date and time of the upcoming Story Night and taking a list of interested families. The September announcement led to this early October night, where parents and their students were huddled together, reading as a family. It all came together so smoothly, so simply, I still almost can’t believe it happened.  

At the start of the night, I was nervous, unsure as to what sort of response I would get from the community. After all, when beginning an event like this, you almost have to start small. When only four families had arrived at the beginning, I’ll be honest when I say I was a bit disappointed. The reception I had received at the PTA meeting was so encouraging, that I just wasn’t convinced we would have so few families show up. But seeing that rainbow in the mountains beyond my school, moments before Story Night began, I was comforted. I took it as a sign that everything would turn out all right. 

And boy, did it. With thirteen families and the presence of various staff from my school, I was blown away by the support I received from not only my school, but my community as a whole. Witnessing the laughter, the joy, and the time spent reading together as a family was such an incredibly humbling experience. 

To have something begin as an idea and come into fruition with enthusiasm, support, and excitement was beyond encouraging; it was inspiring. We now plan to host Story Night once a month for the rest of the term, with our next one in early November. If all goes well and the attendance grows, the sky is the limit with an event like this.

I can’t wait to see where it goes from here. 

Cheers!

 

 

 

Note: Earlier that same day, I had the pleasure of hosting students from Sea|Mester at my school. Sea|Mester is a study abroad program where students engage in academic, leadership, and service-learning activities. I had been in contact with one of their Program Directors when I heard they would be stopping in Grenada. We then arranged for the Sea|Mester students to visit my school, spending the morning in various classrooms teaching the RC students about ships, sailing techniques, marine conservation, and geography. Below are some snapshots from their visit.