when mountains take off their clouds

So, the other day I stumbled out of bed and onto the deck clutching my coffee, my new morning routine, when I realized that someone had rearranged the horizon while we slept. A whole mountain ridge had appeared overnight. I called everyone over to see if they noticed anything different. Kindof like when I move the paintings around at home.

We all agreed, thank goodness, that this was the first time in the almost three weeks we have been here that the mountains slipped the clouds off their shoulders and gave us a peek. By mid-morning they were all proper again and fully cloaked. It was strange. My writer mind immediately went into metaphorical overdrive, but I am resisting the temptation to point out all the obvious life/faith/God/mystery/revelation/watch-where-you- are-boating object lessons. You can send me thank you notes!

Monday was the dreaded first English class. The little school room was packed, the wind was howling and rain was pelting off the tin roof. I yelled “I am not a teacher, but I do speak English!” ha ha ha. Thankfully things went uphill from there. Most of the people there, ranging in age from 12 to plump matronly housewife age that is impossible to pin down, do not speak any English at all. So, where does one start? Well, with Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes of course. I’m going to remember that the next time one of our dinner parties goes stale.

My confidence was buoyed by the presence of Brent and the kids, who had pledged to bail me out if I started bawling or anything. The kids were at their most awesome, acting out verbs like “die” and other English must-knows. Brent played his guitar like the funny guy that he can be, and it reminded me of when he used to play at the kid’s birthday parties as filler material. We taught them “Here I am to Worship” and it was quite touching to sing along with them in the gradually over-heating school room.

Tuesday was Canada Day and we celebrated by having a brush with death in the form of a leaky gas truck, a narrow road, and the guy’s signal light that doesn’t work. Picture swerving, screeching (swearing…shhh!) and general residual weepiness by the trembling mother and you get the picture. We immediately took ourselves to a cafe with hammocks and chilled. The day was sweet as could be after that, as tends to be the case.

Brent had his second seminary class on Tuesday night. It’s wonderful to see him in both of his elements, the two-thirds world and teaching, all in one package. It probably doesn’t get much better for him. As he left tonight for a Bible survey class he is teaching, we said we need to sit down with some of the students and gather their stories for you (and for me!) to learn and explore. They are rich that is for sure.

Today we drove to Oak Ridge on the east side of the island. There are these moments when we are driving down these island roads, through the lush green, and I am reading out loud from the Lonely Planet travel book determined to make my kids learn the History of Absolutely Everything, that I think of the Brady Bunch episode when the Bradys went to Hawaii and things got all funky with Greg and Bobby finding the idol. Remember that? What I remember knowing, even back then as a kid, was that I was supposed to be learning something about Hawaii in this show, when really the tension surrounding that idol was just enough to make me pass out on our living room gold carpet. Or maybe they had already made that mistake with the white carpet. Regardless, I decided to give the history lesson a break and buy the kids a coke instead.

We rented a boat (think long, rickety, peeling, cumbersome) and a driver (think tall, warm, broke) to take us around this harbour town, and then through the water trail cut out of mangrove trees that takes you to the nearby town of Jonesville. Many of the houses we were seeing had been rebuilt since Mitch tore through town. No one in this town was killed, but Alex, our guide, told us they had fished 11 bodies from the harbour that had floated over from the mainland. Really hard to imagine.

Travelling through the mangrove tunnel was breathtaking. Someone said it was “very Narnia.”

Most of the houses are right on the water, built on high stilts with front doors that you could dive out of. Holly wondered about that. I had just shown my dorky side by asking about pirates, so I just couldn’t bring myself to ask the question about people diving out of their front doors. Maybe next time.