Under the Sea

As teachers working at a school structured around the North American school system, we still get Thanksgiving break despite the fact that our students are not positive they even know what Thanksgiving is. Oh well, they don't care because they enjoy the break from school just as much as we do.

This year Thanksgiving found me in Utila, one of the Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras. I was just there in April, so you may remember seeing pictures of the trip on my blog. This trip was much different from last time though. Instead of spending all of our time lying on the beach in the sun and snorkeling, we unexpectedly found ourselves signing up to take some scuba diving lessons so we could go scuba diving down in the depths of the Caribbean.

If you know me well, you will know that I am not a good swimmer by any means and I have a slight fear of being in water. So why wouldn't I sign up to scuba dive? All part of the adventure! We had to sit through a 1/2 hour class to learn about the dive on which we were about to go and how it would effect our bodies being down where the water pressure is so much greater. Several of the people working at this particular dive shop were originally from Israel and two of the guys there let us eat some of their traditional Israeli food called, shakshuka (eggs and pasta sauce). It was delicious. Who knew I would get to experience so much of the world just by moving to Honduras?!

After all of this and trying on our gear, it was time to head out to the sea to practice a few skills before diving down. We were dropped off a ways away from the island, but the water was only about chest deep, so we practiced skills on our knees under the water where it would be safe in case anything went wrong. We had to prove that we could empty water out of our goggles while under the water, find and replace our regulator (breathing device) and clear it of water without getting wrapped up in the cord in case we accidentally lost it under the water, and show that we could be calm and collected while doing all of this. Since you cannot talk under the water, we were taught a whole system of signs in order to communicate with our instructors. After we all passed the quick tests given to us by our instructor it was time to dive down!

Our instructor told us to follow him and off we went! On our first dive, we linked arms with the instructor and he guided us over, under, and around the beautiful coral inhabited by the most colorful fish I have ever seen! The dive lasted 30 minutes before we headed back up to the surface and waited to catch the boat.

The boat took us to another location called "Airport caves" where we jumped off the boat in our extremely heavy gear once again and dove down. This time the instructors let us venture out on our own or linked in pairs (something that is never done when you are diving for your DSD and not your Open Water certificate), giving us more freedom to look around and observe everything. I saw trumpet fish, puffer fish, a HUGE barracuda, lobster, angel fish, and so much more! The deepest we went was 12 meters (about 40 feet).

I know I have experienced so much of the world so far in my short 21 years of life, but this might possibly top the list as the greatest experience I have ever had. I am pretty sure I am going to have to get my diving certificate so that I can experience and enjoy more of God's beautiful underwater creation!

Uh.....¿Como?

Spanish tutoring started today. The Spanish tutor does not speak a word of English. I do not speak Spanish. Put us together and we are dynamite.

I desperately want to improve my Spanish because it would make life in Honduras so much easier, but my problem is I do not want to have to put forth any effort to learn the language because I already have a ton on my plate with school, so add "learning a new language" into the mix and I am left with a massive headache. Apparently this isn't enough to stop me though because I am signed up for tutoring once again and hopefully will make use of it this time instead of skipping out on lessons halfway though the year when I become too frustrated.

Today was hilarious. After the tutor realized I was basically clueless when it came to Spanish, she decided she needed to start at the ground-floor and work up. She put a pen in my hand and told me to dictate the words to she was saying to test my ability to pick up the different sounds in Spanish. After getting all of the words she spoke correct, she decided I was ready to try a phrase. She spoke, I wrote.

When she had finished reciting her phrase she looked at my paper and in Spanish said, "We have a BIG problem. You don't know any grammar."

I realized I had not bothered to capitalize the first word or put a period at the end. The result of this oversight was that we spent the rest of our time together leaning how to capitalize a sentence and use appropriate punctuation. I tried, but failed, to communicate with her that these rules are the same in English, I just hadn't realized she would be upset if I didn't do it for this particular exercise. Her next question: "What do you teach at IST?" My answer: English. Her eyes got wide and her jaw dropped and I think she said a little prayer for the 9th grade students at IST who are leaning English from a teacher who obviously knows nothing about grammar.

Someday I will get this stuff down I hope, but until then I'm sure there will be plenty more awkwardly fantastic tutoring sessions to come!