Today concluded our work at the Methodist church in Stewart Town, where we were planting small palm trees and plants in flower beds we created with stones and topsoil. We woke up at around 7:30, and Gary roused Kenzie, Rachel B., and Michelle with a chorus of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning”. Sara, Madeline, and Rachel S. made sure to get up before he could make it to their room. We were back to Jamaican food for breakfast, having journey cakes, also known as johnny cakes, and cod fish, as well as fresh oranges. Our job for the day was to plant some hardy, native plants in the flower beds we had created the day before, and we had to pick those plants off of the hillside near the manse.

We filled 4 bags full of them, and then packed everybody into the truck. We tried a new method of stacking peoples legs in the back of the truck, and it will not happen again, as it took people several minutes to get feeling back into their legs after reaching the job site. We got right to work, Carl, Nik, and Ezra taking the first shift of driving to the cemetery and loading the truck with dirt, and the rest of us worked on building a nice flower bed on the hill, with nice “undulating curves”, because they “look so much better” according to Michelle.

After 3 truckloads, people switched positions and Kenzie, Madeline, Rachel S., and I went down to the cemetery, while the others rested. We were able to finish putting dirt in the beds and planting the plants before lunch, but only with the help of the local children who joined us again after their VBS ended. As expected, the number of children roughly doubled compared to yesterday, but they were very helpful in gathering more plants.

Lunch today was another delicious meal prepared by several of the congregation members, and it included fried chicken, rice and peas, sweet potato, yams, a dumpling, and soda. All of it was delicious, especially the chicken that Gary prepared under the supervision of the locals. It was finger-lickin’ good! After lunch, we said good bye to the kids and loaded up the truck, heading out for the manse. When we arrived, nobody was allowed to go into the house before participating in the rain dance that a number of the girls and I had a part in creating. We need it to rain so we don’t have to haul water to the avocado plants that we planted last week! After that everybody showered and began the normal afternoon activity of reading or napping.

Dan

Yes indeed, I cooked the chicken today. It was fun learning how to prepare Jamaican Fried Chicken. I told the locals when I made it in Minnesota it would be “Stewart Town Fried Chicken.” I’m sad to say that we would all like to see a rainy day or night so the trees we planted last week get the water they need so desperately without us needing to carry buckets down into Egypt land, the land we slaved in to plant the trees.

It is correct that I made the team do a rain dance before they could get into the manse and shower. I have downloaded it to YouTube, the address is http://youtu.be/4OB79jqvIz4  I think you can use the address as a link if you click on it. I would suggest copying and pasting the address into the address line if you would like to see it if that doesn't work. The lyrics to the song are:

From the manse, from the manse

To the wall, to the wall

To make the raindrops fall

So all the trees grow tall.

Unfortunately the sky does not look like are rain dance is working; maybe tonight.

The team is beginning to look forward to heading back to Minnesota, but not before they can get to the beach as much as possible.

Gary