Meet Jaimie Myaing-

August 31, 2008

Last night we found out that cockroaches can fly. Well, more like Jaimie found out. I ran to the other side of the room while she killed it. She’s the braver half of me. She’s the peanut butter to my jelly, the cheese to my macaroni. We’re like two peas in a pod. She wrote a blog about me, therefore, it is my turn to write a blog about her. Jaimie and I hit it off from the start. She’s a little shy before you get to know her, but she opens right up after awhile. We’ve had some rather interesting times already, and it’s only been a month. I’m sure we’ll have more fun times ahead. I don’t foresee us killing each other anytime soon. I think the cockroaches would kill her before I would. J

I think my favorite thing about Jaimie is that she cares about everyone and sees the best in everyone. She also doesn’t judge. I like that. We make each other laugh. She helps me survive. I can’t cook. She took care of me when I was sick. She made me eat lots of food when I was taking Prednisone. She found me on the floor when I was passed out. She’s the Splenda to my iced tea, the air conditioning to my humid life. Haha. My favorite part about this picture below is that we had no idea that we were both doing the same thing. Talk about being the same person! Right now I’m frustrated because the Internet has stoppedworking completely. How obnoxious. Jaimie is patiently reading a book outside, while I sit here wishing the Internet would work. She’s also a very patient person. It takes pretty special people to work with 2^nd graders and maintain that patience. This week is a short week. Hallelujah! I’m looking forward to having my first day off! 

I decided I like that the weeks go by so fast. I can’t lie, I’m constantly looking forward to the weekend. Next weekend I get to relax and enjoy an extra day. Friday is what they call “Dri-jerbal” day. (It’s not pronounced Dry Gerbil, but that’s how we Americans say it) It’s basically their labor day, just like we have in the US. 

Ah, good things come to those who wait! The internet just started working a little bit. Maybe I’ll be able to post this today. What a concept! You know, here are the resort there are always white people around. I’m always wondering why people are here. It's not exactly the ideal vacation spot. I mean, I know there are a lot of Mormons here. I always see them walking around in their ties and stuff. There are other white people teaching at the school right next to us, called Co-Op. I wonder what they do for fun. Anyways. Life is basically not super exciting right now. I’m just getting into the routine of things, I guess. 

Allow me to post some more pictures: 

Sunsets are absolutely beautiful on the other side of the island! 

What I love about these pictures is that they are completely unedited. The only problem is that the nicer, sandy beach is on the other side of the island, called Laura. I thank God that we're on the Delap side though, because Laura has a million more mosquitos, and there is no breeze! Delap is so nice because there is constantly a breeze, except for after a big rain, and the mosquitos are only out if there is no wind. 

This, my friends, is the allergic reaction I had about 3 days after the overnight visit in the ER. This was probably the worst hives I've ever had, covering both legs from thigh to mid-calf. It was so weird! I would take the prednisone that the doctors gave me, a really strong version of benedreyl, and the hives would be gone by about 11 AM. It was so crazy. I praise God that it finally went away! I'd say the rash stopped about 2 days after this picture was taken. The only thing that sucks is that I still have no idea what I'm allergic too. Pray for that. 

These are my apartment-mates. As you can see, Jaimie and I are in the middle.. The girl on the left is Grace Park. She's a Senior at Pacific Union College. :) The girl on the far right is Elisabeth. She's from Austria! She just graduated from High School. She's teaching 1st grade, which is impressive because she's basically teaching them English, even though English is her 2nd language! Pray for her though, she's having a tough time with her kids. They run around and don't really listen much. These girls are all so sweet, I couldn't have asked for better mates ;) 

Meet Pooty. She's one of the many dogs that abide on the campus. She's the cutest, I think. There are about 6 dogs who guard us fairly well. They sit in the classroom with us, they follow us to our apartments, they eat the leftover scraps in the cafeteria, and they keep all intruders out. No one's really sure who she belongs to, the Spivas I guess. 

This is Pete. He's somewhat of an outcast. The other dogs are mean to him. That's probably why Jaimie and I like him so much. We let him eat our leftover scraps too. He sometimes hangs out outside our door. He's also the laziest of all the dogs. He'll lay in your classroom, and when you try to get him to leave, he won't get up. Jaimie locked him in her classroom for a few hours once, came back, and he was in the exact same position. Silly dog. 

As you can see, the dogs are pretty much part of the staff. They're there for morning worship in every school day, they even sit in church! They're quite the little characters. And good protectors too. 

Well, that's the end of it, for now. I'll be bringing my camera to class with me this week hopefully. I want to take pictures of my kids. On Thursday, I'm having the kids bring in something that they feel represents them the best, then I'll be taking their picture for art class. Hopefully it'll work out. I'm wanting to be able to have them get pen pals in the states. Dad mentioned one class at Valley might be interested. I think that'd be good for the kids to practice their English. They need a bit of work on that. They won't want to mess up in their letters, so we'll be going over it together I think. 

Well, it's been nice to be able to share some pictures with you. I hope you all are doing magnificently! :) I miss you and love you all! Hope to hear from you soon! God Bless! 

-Carrie

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Pictures!

This is my roommate Jaimie and I on the first day we arrived in Majuro. She's from Southern. She's way cool. We love each other. Haha.

Shoot, for whatever reason, that was the only picture the internet is letting me upload. I guess I'll try more later. :) 

 

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Just another update:

Hi again,

The resort here makes things a lot easier to be able to update more often. It's only about a 15 minute walk from the campus, it's air conditioned, and you can order like a $2 bottomless iced tea and enjoy the internet for hours. I'm only staying for a short while tonight, just to get a little bit done. Tonight, since the internet is being really fast, I might even be able to get some pictures up :) Well, today I got ANOTHER student. So, if you're paying attention, that makes TWENTY TWO. Yikes. It's been intense. Today I had to lay down the law: some of my kids had to sit out during recess. Miss Carrie is so mean... ;) Things continue to get better... I've been trying to take a quick swim in the ocean almost every day... it's very refreshing. Yesterday I even was able to tread water for awhile, so I got some exercise out of it too! ;) Ah, yesterday I made quite possibly the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever had! It was made with some of the fresh bread I made, and Tillamook sharp cheddar.... Mmmmm. I had been in my classroom for almost 3 hours after school grading, took a swim, and had grilled cheese. Best sandwich ever. Did I mention I was teaching 8th grade English? It's a lot of fun. That class only has 14 students, so once a day I get to take a break from my 22. And, it's nice to be able to teach some more advanced English, since it's pretty much my favorite thing ever. This week has already been exhausting. It's only Tuesday! Hey, if any of you have SKYPE, be sure to add me so we can talk! My screen name is CarrieCloke. Real original, right? So add me, and we might be able to chat it up! Also, I have MSN messenger which works pretty well too. It's itscarrie@hotmail.com. So yeah, I guess that's all for now. I'll let you know if anything more exciting happens. Feel free to email me and let me know how things are going with you! It makes my day to get an email! It just feels nice to feel loved! :) Haha cheesy. Well, I'm out! Love you all! God Bless! 

-Carrie

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It's been awhile....

Hello World!

I’m sorry that I haven’t written in so long! Time sure flies by here! I’m sitting at a table at a resort about a mile from the campus. It’s been a crazy past week! As some of you might have heard, I had to make a last-minute trip to the Emergency Room about this time last week, because I had acquired some CRAZY allergic reaction to who-knows-what, and my ankle and hands were ridiculously swollen, thus the trip to the ER. 

When I got there, I was actually surprised at how nice it actually was. It was air-conditioned and relatively clean. However, after I had waited for about an hour for a doctor, (it was about 10pm by then) they decided to keep me overnight to make sure that my reaction wouldn’t get any worse. (IE- no trouble breathing, or any more swelling) Anyways, I was released from the ER the next morning around 9:30AM, and was given some steroid (Prednisone- for the swelling) and a stronger version of Benedryl (for the hives). I went back to the campus and slept ALL DAY long… I was really groggy because of the medicine, and the next morning, I took a shower hoping to be able to go back to work, but I felt a little funny. (I think the medicine was making me a little nauseous and dizzy). So I decided to take the day off to try to rest some more. At one point, I had gotten up to do the dishes or something, felt a little funny, and the next thing I knew I woke up to my roommate standing over me, going “Carrie, are you OK?” Well, apparently I had passed out. But, I drank about a MILLION gallons of water, and ate a LOT of food, and I gained more energy. The next day I was able to go back to work, even though I still had woken up with a crazy rash. The rest of the week went by fairly well. I can say that I look forward to the weekends! Teaching is a LOT of work. I have a newfound respect for all of you teachers out there! I honestly should be working on my lesson plans right now… but I thought an update might be nice for you. Haha.

Hmmmm… okay well my kids! I have 21 in all, 11 girls and 10 boys. Let’s test my knowledge to see if I can name them all….. I have: Airi, Sunbeam, Sherina, Pete, Sechi, Leah, Junior, Rolinda, Romina, Andy, Neijen, Juslina, Dorcas, Shaelynn, Tim, Lennin, Kairirieta, Ebilla-Joe, and… oh boy, I am missing 2 of my students. I’m a horrible teacher. Oh well. Well, as you can see, I have a pretty diverse group. I have 4 Filipino girls who finish like in 5 minutes, the rest of the class takes about a half hour to do things, and I have one boy who doesn’t do anything in class…. At all. All in all though, my kids are really good kids. Their English is a lot more behind than I thought it would be by 5^th grade, but that’s okay. Last week we reviewed sentences and non-sentences, verbs, and subjects. They can be quite a handful. I mean, 21 5^th graders to 1 teacher is quite a challenge. I don’t have like one student who is like a “problem student” or anything, but if one student in the class acts up, the rest tend to follow until I feel like I’m having to yell to get their attention. I’ve adopted the ever-so-famous clap that we used at Summer Camp. I’ve also adopted the Q.U.I.E.T technique from my 6^th grade teacher. (If they get all 5 letters spelt out in one day, the whole class has to sit out during recess) Pray for my kids. I have 3 Christian students, and the rest are not really any religion at all I guess. Pray for me to be able to reach them. This is a mission school, so reaching them for Christ is my first goal.

 

Well, a few of you have asked for things that I might need. Well, here’s a looong list (please don’t send me all of these, haha these are just ideas!) I did sit down and make a list this morning.

Here it goes:

-       Hair-ties (I’m running out! I keep losing those stupid things)

-       Instant food (Mashed potatoes, pasta, ANYTHING! Food is soooo expensive here)

-       Recipes (I need to learn how to cook! We’re really into making bread in our bread maker here, we’ve made like a loaf a day, it’s amazing. I could always use new recipes or a cookbook!)

-       Any 5^th grade activity ideas you might have! I’ve been having a hard time making lessons more interesting. I mean, the stuff is, let’s be realistic, boring. But I need to able to make learning fun. Any ideas?

-       I can always use more skirts! (As long as they’re past the knee, they’re OK. We’ll be getting uniform shirts soon, so skirts are basically all I need)

-       Music tracks (They’re always asking for special music like 5 minutes before church starts. I’m really wanting to find a music track for songs by Selah. I’m wanting to sing Wonderful, Merciful, Savior or Hiding Place. But anything goes!)

-       Books. (I brought a grand total of ONE book to read, and I’m going crazy! I am a big fan of like Christian novels and stuff)

-       Peanut butter! It’s soooooo expensive here for like a little tiny jar (it’s nasty stuff too. Like the sugary unnatural stuff)

 

Well, my list was a lot longer this morning, but I can’t really remember it all… Anyways, I hope you all are doing well! I’m sorry I haven’t been updating this as much as I’d like… things have been really hectic and crazy here. I’m sure I’ll start to get used to it soon… Love you all! Keep me in your prayers! ;)

 

-Carrie

 

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I'm here!

Hello to all!

Well, as you can tell, I have successfully arrived in Majuro. It’s been quite the interesting journey so far. I’m sorry I can’t upload any pictures today, the internet here is so so so slow. Hmm. Where do I start? Well, there is a very diverse group of us. There are 2 girls from England, 1 from Austria, 1 from Australia, and a guy from Sweden. In addition to that, there are students from Adventist colleges all over the US. I am sharing a “quaint” little apartment with 3 other girls. We seem to be getting along nicely. We seem to have inherited a boy’s apartment from last year, thus our walls were covered in mold. Gross. In addition to that, our Austrian girl, Elisabeth, seems to have a scent that attracts the cockroaches. She has found a few in her bed the past few mornings. Thankfully, the worst I’ve had to deal with is waking up with more mosquito/ant bites. My skin has an interesting pink speckled pattern to it. Again, gross. It’s hard to describe the beauty of this island. Except that when I look out my window it looks like something that was taken straight from a postcard. Needless to say, morning devotionals facing the ocean are quite the experience. The people here are so nice. When we drive through the town, the children run up and smile and wave saying, “Yokwe, Yokwe!” (That means hello in Marshallese) As most of you know I was originally planning on teaching the 3rd grade here, but when we arrived on the island we realized that there was an extra 3rd grade teacher, and no 5th grade teacher. In the back of my mind I was thinking what my answer would be if they asked me to teach 5th, and honestly I don’t really care because I’m here to serve whoever God asks me to. To make a long story short, today I was asked to teach 5th grade, and I said yes. So in 4 days I’ll be teaching 5th grade. Pray for me! I was prepared for 3rd, but God will provide. The internet here is so slow. I’m typing this up in Word as the webpage loads. I hope that you all are doing well. I’m sorry that hearing from me is so sparse, I know that I’ll be even more busy when school starts up. I’m hoping to post some pictures soon, the computer guy says that we should be getting a new IP address, whatever that means, so that we would be able to hook our laptops up. Yesterday we drove the other side of the island, named Laura. It took us a super long time. The island here is about 34 miles. We were blessed to witness 3 baptisms of some of the former students from the Delap SDA School. They were baptized right in the ocean! How cool. On the way back from visiting a beautiful beach over in Laura, apparently our brakes went out and thus we were driving for about 5 miles with no breaks. Our vice-principal was driving, and we were praying that no one would jump out in front of us. We ended up getting back here just fine, but it was a little scary. Today has been a pretty laid-back day. We got up and had pancakes at our principal’s house. Him and his wife are really nice. Well, it should be an exciting next few months. I’ll try to update you as soon as I can… Hopefully I’ll get on later to share some pictures of my journey so far. God Bless and I hope you all are doing well!

OH and PS-
In case you want to send me packages full of food and presents, ;)
My address here is

Carrie Cloke
Delap SDA School

P.O. Box I (The letter I, not 1)
Majuro, MI
96960

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