DAY 26

Friday morning was a mad rush of getting plans together and everything in the office settled. On Monday, Brenda and KP will be leaving to join Abe in the states to go to Atlanta for a conference, and then we won’t be seeing the three of them again until we are in Nassau. Therefore we must have as many plans as possible squared away before they leave. Between working on petty cash forms, making schedules, and getting the Nassau notebook together, it was a busy morning. I also called all the new interns that will be coming in to check in with them before they come, found all the air mattresses to check to make sure they work before taking them to Nassau, and made a sign for the dining hall that talks about ways to stay connected with BMH (which all of you should check out—pretty please).

Stay Connected With BMH

Despite the business of this day, I definitely had the easy way out, because four of the interns went with Manex down the street to work on a man named Benson’s roof. In exchange for us repairing his roof, he was going to come to camp the following week to help us burn some of the bush that surrounds camp and work on the garden. Since it is a prep week, Brenda had been preparing a long list of chores for us to take care of around camp while they were gone, and that was part of our list.

Two of the other interns went on excursion day with the two groups, and dropped one off at the airport half way through the day, so our closing was with only one group that night. I always learn something at the Bible Study at Abe’s. Whether I learn it from Brenda’s preaching, the fire, or the moon and the stars, it is probably the most peaceful time of the week.

DAY 27

Today was another early morning to see the groups off. After breakfast at 5:15, we started our cleaning and joyfully finished by 7:30. We then set up the projector in our room and watched a movie with the AC on while napping. It was glorious and well deserved (because cleaning camp is no fun—trust me).

After lunch, we packed up our stuff and hitch hiked to Abe’s where we swam and napped and read. Madison, Maggie, and I swam left from Abe’s dock and found the most beautiful reef I think I’ve ever seen. It’s basically a sea fan garden, with hundreds of bright purple sea fans blowing back and forth in the waves. The fish were everywhere, and the coral was also beautiful. It also started raining while we were out there, and there’s just something about swimming in the rain.

Pretty Starfish

Nassau crew for life

Maggie, Madison, and me

Our favorite reef. A sea fan garden

My twinny

Around dinnertime, Brenda came and picked us up in the bus and took us to her house, where she had planned Mexican Night and a cantaloupe tournament to thank us for all we’ve done so far this summer. After showering in the outdoor shower, Brenda had guac, queso, and salsa for us to eat, which was Heaven on earth. After a wonderful dinner, we listened to music and played cards before heading back to camp.

Heaven is a place on earth

DAY 28

This morning we slept in and then went to church. This morning, KP’s son Kenron was getting baptized at church, so the entire BMH community was at church. Mrs. Pauline, Mrs. Maxine, and Vonnia (KP’s wife) led the singing, and Brenda and TJ were both made godparents. After the service, we went to KP’s new house and had a luncheon to celebrate. It was another delicious Bahamian meal, and we saw some of the kids from After School and other people we know from the community.

Vonnia, Pauline, Maxine

The team

Since this week is a prep week for camp, we didn’t have any teams coming in on Sunday, so we were able to enjoy another day off. After walking back to camp, Brenda came and picked us up and took us to Surfer’s Beach on the Atlantic side. We swam in the big waves for a couple hours, did some snorkeling, and walked down the beach to some cliffs. It was a beautiful beach.

Surfer's Beach

We came back to camp and watched a movie, which became a nightly tradition since we don’t have campers to entertain at night this week.

DAY 29

Brenda left for the States at around lunchtime, so we had a staff meeting that morning to discuss our chores for the week and future plans. We spent most of the day deep cleaning camp since it was raining, and I spent about three hours cleaning the girl’s showers. We cleaned the kitchen, office, bathrooms, and grounds. After work, TJ and Smitty took us to Abe’s to go spear fishing and swimming and cool off after work. The water was completely flat today, which we had never seen before at Abe’s, so it was very different. Madison and I swam out to the sea fan reef again, and it took us a while to find it since the waves weren’t breaking on the reef this time (since there weren’t any waves). We saw a stingray, a starfish, and Madison saw a baby sea turtle for a few seconds before it swam away.

We stopped at the store on the way back from camp and bought hamburgers and fries and made the most American meal possible, and it was wonderful. Then we watched a movie before bed.

DAY 30

Today, Benson came to work with us in the garden. I had to catch up on some office work in the morning (since Brenda is gone), but by eleven I joined up with them. We pick axed and hoed away all the weeds around the banana trees, and picked up rocks and got rid of weeds by the compost bins. It was a lot of really hard work. Also, Benson was working to burn the brush that surrounds the camp (to help keep critters away from camp), so the camp was extremely smoky the whole time we were working in the garden.

It was a long day

After a looooong day of work in the garden, Patti and Denny offered to take us to Club Med Beach to cool off, which is about thirty minutes away in Governor’s Harbour. I was riding in the truck with Denny, Tom, and Jordan when about midway between James Cistern and Governour’s the clutch gave out on the truck and we were stuck. We pulled over to the side and called TJ to come pick us up, which luckily he was free. So TJ dropped us off at the most beautiful, pristine, pink sand beach on the Atlantic side went to spear fish while we swam. We all just sat in the water and talked and it was so relaxing. It was a good way to end a long, difficult day.

DAY 31

Today Benson came to work with us again, and we cleaned out the area behind the chicken coop. We spent all morning weeding and cleaning, and then continued to work on our chores list throughout the day. I weeded the garden bed below the “Holy Ground” cross, weeded the beds by the front BMH sign, and Tom taught me how to drive stick shift!

The other interns weeded the garden, painted the roof, and worked to maintain the trail out back to the Atlantic among other tasks.

We were so beat after this day of work that we just chilled at camp after working. We rode bikes down to the store to get stuff for dinner, and I rode down to the beach to collect seashells, since the beach right across from the church is the best place in the Bahamas to collect seashells. It was Josh’s birthday, so Mrs. Pauline cooked the most delicious pineapple cake for us. We watched a movie up in the office before sleeping.

Yummmm

Sally sells seashells by the seashore

DAY 32

Today was our day off, and we didn’t really have a plan of what to do because we didn’t have a ride anywhere. We wanted to go to the Blue Hole up north, but TJ wasn’t available to drive us and we couldn’t hitch hike there because it was too far off the main road. We still hadn’t come up with a plan by around 11, so I texted Derek for advice and he said “Rent a car and drive to Lighthouse Beach.” So what did we do? Rent a car and drive to Lighthouse Beach.

Lighthouse Beach is a beach on the southern tip of the island that is the most beautiful stretch of land I think I will ever see. After renting a car in JC, packing food and water, and driving two hours south, we finally got to the beach. The last four miles was super rough road and took over thirty minutes.

We parked the car and walked down the road a ways. We walked over a hill to get to the pristine beach bordered by cliffs. We could climb up on the cliffs and look out at the water. We saw was a three foot diameter sting ray swimming right below the cliffs. After we left the cliffs, Madison and I swam out to the reefs to snorkel where we saw barracuda, parrot fish, huge sea urchins, and other such animals. The other interns swam around the point of the island through a little cut to a cove, so after Madison and I finished snorkeling we started to swim through to join them. There was quite a current pulling us through the cut, and about halfway through we both saw a five foot shark swimming directly in front of us. We weren’t sure what kind, but we knew for sure it wasn’t a nurse shark. We couldn’t swim backwards because of the current. So we kind of froze and kept floating toward it when it saw us and quickly swam toward us and past us to the side. Once it passed us, we climbed out of the water onto the coral and walked back to meet out friends.

We spent another couple of hours exploring the beach before driving back. We had been driving for about thirty minutes when we came around a turn and saw the sun setting over the ocean. Definitely a spectacular view.

We hadn’t had dinner yet, so we drove to Hatchet Bay for dinner. After going all summer without transportation, we were thriving under the freedom. We had dinner and then came back and watched Harry Potter in our room. It was my last full day and last night in Eleuthera, and it was a wonderful one.

Life is better on the edge

Huge sea urchins

Big fish

Parrot Fish

We saw a shark!!

If you look up "freedom" in the dictionary you will see this picture

Huuuuge sting ray

I could stay a while

Those clouds though

Unforgettable day

DAY 33

Today was the day we had to pack for Nassau. I thought it was going to be an all day adventure, but somehow we finished by 11:30. We had to pack air mattresses, sheets, pillows, utensils, plates, bowls, office supplies, coolers, tools, camp store stuff, and all of our own stuff. But somehow we did it!

At 11:30 we were done, so we asked Manex to drive us to Gregory Town so we could go to the Island Made gift shop before we left, then he took us to lunch at Twin Brothers in Hatchet Bay again.

Saying goodbye to the office

We got back to camp and finished packing, said our goodbyes, and Tom, Josh, Jordan and I left with TJ and Bush (basically me and all boys) to drive to Hatchet Bay with the van full of supplies and the truck to catch the ferry to Nassau. The ferry was on Island Time (about an hour late), and since it was a five hour boat ride we didn’t arrive in Nassau until midnight. Luckily we were able to see the most beautiful sunset over the water as we left Eleuthera and watched our island shrink in the distance. Then we read and slept in the van and truck for the next five hours. I woke up right as we docked in Nassau, and we hopped in the truck with TJ and drove to the church.

It was a sad goodbye

I have a thing for ferry boats

Bye Eleutra

The boys and em

If I have ever experienced culture shock, this would be the time. Eleuthera is quiet, peaceful, has one main long road that has never experienced traffic before in its life, and would be mostly quiet on a Friday night. The traffic in Nassau is chaotic to say the least, and exists at all hours of the day. Nassau is located on one of the smaller islands of the Bahamas and is extremely overcrowded because everyone moves there looking for jobs and opportunity. TJ grew up in Nassau, so he knew how to drive and deal with it all, but it was hard for me to process in the middle of the night when he was weaving in between cars through all the city lights. We arrived at the church were shown to our room upstairs that had wifi that connected on the first try, air conditioning, and a tv. It was heaven and we were spoiled. We fell asleep quickly that night after a long day.

DAY 34

We slept in the next morning, and once TJ and Bush showed up the boys started unloading tools while TJ took me to Wendy’s to get food for everyone. There is nothing even close to fast food on Eleuthera, so it was a big change to have fast food accessible. Pretty soon after we got back, KP, Brenda, and Abe arrived from the States and we got to work setting up.

Brenda and I went grocery shopping for most of the day, while everyone else unloaded and set up camp at the church. We weren’t used to having grocery stores with options for food, so again we were in culture shock. Nassau is simply a very different Bahamas than Eleuthera.

We finished unpacking and all took a good long nap, which was much needed. Then Josh, Jordan, Tom, Abe, Brenda and I went out to dinner (we chose chinese) and then we went to Dairy Queen after for Blizzards. We were in bliss.

DAY 35

We woke up and went to church (at the church in which we are staying), and Brenda was preaching. I also read the gospel lesson and Josh prayed, so it was neat to be able to be involved. Brenda preached on the freedom we find when we turn all of our worries over to God, which was helpful because I had been very worried about all the responsibilities of this week, so I felt peace knowing that it would all work out.

After church, the church served breakfast to the congregation, which was grits, tuna, and sausage (a Bahamian classic), and then we had some rest time until the group came. I worked on finances for a while (dealing with the past week and preparing for the next week), then took a little nap. We decided to order pizza for lunch, but the delivery would take too long so we decided to pick it up. Nassau is very difficult to navigate, and we went to four different Dominos without finding the one we ordered from before we finally just ordered a new one. Once we got back and ate, we had a staff meeting and finished setting up the church for teams coming in. We had two teams come in this week (Buford FUMC and Blountsville UMC) with a total of 35 people.

They arrived, got set up, had dinner, did orientation, I gave devotion, and it was bedtime. Everything was the same as it is at Camp Symonette, just in a different location.

Well. Almost the same. It’s a little more crowded here. We had planned on me sleeping in a little room upstairs and the guys sleeping in a room off the kitchen downstairs, but the girls were too crowded in their room, so we put four of them in my room and I moved downstairs and the guys moved to the other building with the volunteers, which all sounds fine, except that the little room had been deemed “rat room” because TJ saw what he called a “HUGE RAT” the first night we were there. So now Brenda and I were staying in the rat room for the night. It first showed itself around 11 when I was sitting still in the room on my computer. And it was definitely big. Later when Brenda and I were trying to sleep we would hear it start thumping. I tried to set up a barricade to keep it in the closet area (and I just pretended that it couldn’t jump or climb) but it definitely didn’t work. So the first night in the rat room was definitely an adventure that didn’t lead to much sleeping.

DAY 36

The first full day with the teams here was a mad rush. At camp I could answer questions easily and I knew where everything was and what we had, but in Nassau I have no idea. So in the morning everyone was asking questions and I didn’t know how to answer them and it was hard (especially on little sleep). We got pretty behind, but we caught back up! And luckily I knew that the first day is the hardest and we will get in the swing of things more.

A team of volunteers is working at the church in the mornings helping out with VBS and then in the afternoon are either going to visit a children’s home or a nursing home, so in the afternoon I rode along with Abe to take them to the children’s home for disabled kids. We were planning on taking the kids to the beach, so we had to wait for a taxi to arrive for a while, so we played duck duck goose in the backyard of the house.

After dropping them off at the beach, Abe and I went grocery shopping and then picked them up from the beach and took them to a different beach to meet up with the other teams for beach time.

When we got back to camp, I did finances with KP and then realized quickly how difficult it is to buy groceries for 45 people (because I had forgotten a lot of stuff), so I convinced TJ to take me back to the grocery and Tom came along. We miiiight have stopped at Wendy’s on the way because we were starving, and then we went and picked the team up from the beach again and brought them back to the church.

I worked on finances even moooore after that, tallying up all the receipts from the day and making sure we were on budget. Then dinner, Abe talked about BMH, we had devotion, and again bedtime! Luckily tonight I moved to the office upstairs, so I slept wonderfully (with no rat).