The sunrise on the beach was lovely! Although, I must admit, it was all I could do to drag my body out of bed at such an ungodly hour. And I struggled to remain conscious after getting only three hours of sleep last night. But as the orange sun peeked over the horizon and sparkled brilliantly on the clear, blue waves, I found it much easier to stay awake as the wildlife sprang to life all around me. The beauty of God's creation never ceases to amaze me as I watched the sun rise, the gulls swooping and diving in search of their breakfast, and the waves gently lapping the shore. Simply perfect. But the serenity remained for only a little while, as there is an enormous celebration happening today in Luquillo. I am not entirely certain what all the hype is about, but I do know the town is going crazy. Caution tape restricts areas all over and tents cover the "square" of the town. It must be some festival to deserve so much to-do. Even to the extent that people arrived at the beach before we did this morning, just to claim their spot on the beach--and it was still pitch black outside! With everyone going somewhere to celebrate, we maneuvered around road-blocks and swerved around policemen. When we arrived home at the school--we came to stay. We have not ventured even so far as the mailbox. And we are now holed up in our dorm, avoiding the square of Luquillo at all costs!
I did however, take advantage of the time after we returned and took a quick nap before our work day began. Betsy, Laurie (a friend of ESD's who's staying for two weeks), Rosa (my friend who will be staying to teach for the next year), Tess (a college student who stays at ESD), my mom and I all joined forces and tackled the task of reorganizing and redecorating the recently painted chapel building. It took us hours to sweep the floors, rearrange furniture, stack tables, put away random school items, and set things up for chapel services--all while blasting worship music. Yeah, my kind of cleaning (it never seems like a chore when I rock out to worship music!) We then put our heads together and managed to come up with some neat ideas on how to redecorate the room and added some surprises for when the students return in a week and a half.
Several of my assigned duties were to go outside and hose the paint off of paintbrushes and to scrub down a shower curtain. No problem, I could do that. So I took advantage of my "aloneness" and not only scrubbed down the brushes and curtain, but I sprayed myself as well, relishing the feel of the some-what cool water on my legs and arms; which served as a nice reprieve from the blazing sun. (I didn't care that my shirt got slightly wet, it would dry within seconds in the heat!) And it made me feel like a child again as memories of my brother and I running around the yard spraying one another with the hose in the heat of summer, slipped into my mind.
But eventually the brushes and the curtain were clean, so I was forced to quit "playing" in the water and return inside to be of some use. So while we were on a roll and feeling overly ambitious, we took our over-active imaginations to the library and put ourselves to work, reorganizing and rearranging the room. And when I say, "rearranging the room," I mean moving practically every desk, bookshelf, cabinet and drawer in the room. It took a majority of our afternoon, but I thought it fun, and enjoyed joking and talking with the other ladies as we worked side-by-side. Hopefully the students will be surprised and will like the way we remodeled their classroom.
And tomorrow is supposedly a relaxing day...although we have to reorganize our bedrooms and prepare for an onslaught of visitors who will arrive tomorrow evening; a Deaf Church group that will be coming to stay until Sunday, bringing with them, twenty-some people. I am excited to meet some new Deaf people and will be looking forward to the church service that they will be conducting in our chapel on Sunday morning!
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