Even though most days on Namu follow the same routine I think that it might interest somebody to know what the Namu Boys do on a normal day. Because there is no A/C in my house we have windows that are level with our beds and allows a gentle breeze to keep us cool during the night. Unfortunately the only negative thing about this is that when we sleep we are also level with the horizon, so as soon as the sun creeps over the ocean it smacks me in the face with its rays of light. No need for an alarm clock because the sun never fails to show up. So I jump out of bed (more like crawl) and walk outside to see what the weather will be like that day. Next I grab a bucket and walk toward the well. I wash my face and then fill up the bucket to water my plants in my garden. Yep, I planted a garden! I started growing cucumbers, jalapenos, tomatoes and oregano. Unfortunately since I have been on Ebeye I doubt that anybody has watered my plants so most likely I no longer have a garden. Its ok though because it didn’t look as if they were going to make it much longer either way. Depending on the day the water tank in our bathroom is either partly full or empty. So sometimes I have to carry water from the well to the bathroom to shower or use the water that is already there to shower. After I shower I head back to my house, change, and then sit down to have some breakfast. Breakfast is usually anything that is leftover from the previous day that will go bad or some oatmeal. By this time it is usually between 8 to 8:15. So after breakfast I brush my teeth, get my stuff together for teaching, and head out. Sometime in the morning one of us usually carries our car battery to our neighbors house to be charged so that we have light at night.
When I first started teaching I rang a little metal bell so that my students would know that we’re starting school but now as soon as they see me heading to school they know we are about to begin. While I have 23 students to teach all day, Fernando has only 2 students in the morning and 7 after lunch. When Fernando heads to school his two students, Maggie and Nina, usually hide. They’ve become quite creative in their hiding. Sometimes Fernando finds them under tables, behind coconut tree, between my students, and I think they even tried to hide in someone’s backpack or bag. So as soon as he rounds them up we start school. We start school with prayer and I usually take the first 10 minutes of class to have a short reflection. Next we dive right into Bible class for the next 45 minutes. This first semester for Bible class we talked about the different characteristics of God in the Old Testament. All we did was read through the first couple books of the Bible and talk about the stories and what they tell us about God. The next subject is Math. It was quite difficult at first to decide what to teach for Math because half the students were not at the level they were supposed to be while the rest were ready to advance to more difficult concepts. What Fernando and I ended up doing was to divide my class in two math classes. Fernando took the students that were behind and I took the students who were ready to advance. After we both finish our math classes Fernando goes to lunch and I start with English. My students have weekly spelling words to help them build vocabulary and we are learning grammar too. At about 12:15ish I have lunch.
The next subject is Science. We read out of our textbooks in class and then I give them the questions for that specific lesson for homework. At this point Fernando has his second wave of students and teaches Bible, Math and Science to them. We have P.E. to end the day. We play a lot of volleyball and capture the flag. But before we can play my students drop down and give me 50 push-ups, 100 jumping jacks, 100 squats, and depending on the day 10 minutes of running. We take every Wednesday and just exercise for P.E. (something I learned from Mr. White, my P.E. teacher, when I was in grade school). After P.E. my students are free to go home for the day.
We usually have a few students each day that don’t feel the need to do their homework at home so Fernando and I keep them after school and make them do their homework. Also, the students that we feel need a little more help stay after school so we can help them. On Mondays we have NSA meetings (Namu Student Association) where we sit down with the officers and plan out school activities. Our NSA officers have organized a volleyball tournament, after school intermurals, community service day, school picnics, and they helped enormously with Week of Prayer. In the next update I’ll expand a little more about the amazing Week of Prayer we had but our officers helped us with every aspect of Week of Prayer. They came up with the morning and night programming, organized and lead praise groups, met every morning to pray for the Week of Prayer, made a prayer wall, made a banner with our theme for the week on it, and set-up and cooked for our Agape Feast on Friday night. I cannot even begin to express how much Fernando and I depend on them.
So by the time we send our after school students home and finish after school volleyball we head home. It is about 4:30 pm and hat usually leaves 2 1/2hrs of sunlight left. We fill the rest of the day with a variety of activities such as carrying water from our well to fill our tank in our bathroom, climbing coconut trees to get our coconuts for that night and the next day, getting breadfruit for our meal that night, getting out battery from a neighbors house, running around the island, walking down the road to the end of the island and back, sitting on the beach, reading, drinking coconuts, and making dinner. These are just some of the normal activities we preoccupy ourselves with in the afternoon. When it gets too dark outside we connect our light to our car battery and eat supper. Supper is usually better than lunch but it really depends on how we are doing on supplies. I remember by the end of October we eating rice, breadfruit and coconuts every night because we were saving our ramen for lunch and there was nothing else to eat.
At night we usually try to listen to a little music, watch a movie, or a TV episode on our laptops but it really depends if the day was sunny or not because we charge my laptop with our car battery. If it was a sunny day then there is a good charge and enough to charge my laptop a little. If it was a cloudy/rainy day we usually only have enough charge for light and spend our night reading. Whenever we have any free time during the day we usually fill that gap with reading.
It may not seem so exciting but this is a typical day for us Namu Boys.Weekends are a little different but this is basically a normal week day. Honestly there is not much to do after being accustomed to having internet 24/7, phones, cars, theaters, and anything else you can think of. On Namu we don’t have any of that and I remember being a little scared of the silence, tranquility, and slow paced life but somehow I see God more clearly now then I ever did back home. Not only that but I feel better rested, I exercise more, I eat healthier, and I appreciate my church, friends and family even more. I think everybody should spend some time on a “Namu” of their own. I believe Jesus called it a “secret place” and mentioned it to His discipled when they asked him about prayer. So if you haven’t spent some time in your secret place this week I would encourage you to join me on “Namu” and I promise you that there is no better place to be.
-Saul
