when i finished my final semester of chemistry last year, i was absolutely certain of two things: hell is temporary and i'm never going back. however, much to my surprise, last wednesday found me in a local high school, trying to teach juniors and seniors about the joys of inorganic chemistry, of which there are none. i pretty much couldn't remember a single thing. who's avagadro? aren't moles animals? i was relieved when they started asking me physics questions, and i'm pretty sure they were too.
later that day, we began the first of weekly house visits to families on the island. two other girls from my program and i were assigned for the semester to an elderly woman who raised 6 kids and 5 of her 16 grandkids, and has the trophies and medals all over her house to prove it. i guess she has some sweet genes, because the medals ranged from track to chess to academics and there were a lot of them. i was feeling a little like an underachiever, but then i remembered that my parents have a "participation" ribbon from when i ran cross-country as an eight-year-old. i haven't seen it around lately, but they're probably just getting it framed.
she had some crazy stories too, all of which had morals, which i deduced were nearly always "don't go to the doctor." take, for example, the first story she told us. about thirty years ago, she had a terrible pain in her side, and she had to be flown to grand turk (the capital of the turks and caicos islands). at the hospital there, the doctors discovered she had appendicitis, and rushed her into surgery, during which she lost a lot of blood and was pronounced dead. as is protocol in these cases, she was wheeled into the morgue and her husband was called to pick up the body. a day later, he flew into grand turk and went to see his dead wife, who he found in the morgue with her lips moving. he called the doctors and was like "uhhh i think she's still alive guys," at which the doctors questioned his emotional stability, but he was like "nah i'm serious," so they visited her in the morgue and found her alive and talking. surprise! don't trust the doctors.
on wednesday night, five of us got to accompany our ecology professor on a research trip to tag sharks. understandably, almost everyone was drooling over the prospect of seeing elasmobranchs in the flesh, but as there were only five spots, the sign-up was posted at a random time and whoever was quickest or most aggressive got to go. since i'm neither quick nor aggressive (jk about aggressive guys, bio or death, but i'm really slow), i didn't get my name on the board. but as my old gaffer likes to say, it's better to be lucky than good, and one girl ended up having to back out at the last minute, so i got to go along after all.
we took a van to a stunning bay on the other side of the island, and set up the shark net (which is the length of a football field) by the light of the almost-full moon. aaron, our professor, told us to "get comfortable and start talking about our feelings" (that's a direct quote), but before i could begin telling the group about my troubled childhood and delinquent outbursts spurred by emotional instability, we caught a shark. and then another. and then four more. we caught six freaking sharks in the first hour!!! aaron says in a usual night of sharking, they catch maybe two sharks. dad, you were right about the lucky thing.
sharking, of course, is not all glamour and gills. it also involves a lot of wading through mud, tripping over worm-mounds, detangling angry lobsters from the net, and sitting and waiting for sharks to hit us up. but oh gosh, when you catch one…....if i was a crier, i would have been in tears for sure. we were catching baby lemon sharks, so they're not terribly big (the biggest was probably only three feet), but they have these cute sharp teeth that they'll use if you give them the chance, and the rumors are true about their skin! it is smooth one way and the other way feels unnervingly like a cat's tongue. i went home that night smelling like a shark, i kid you not. if i start growing gills, stick a tag in me and put me in the shallows.
on thursday we had our first identification exam (see guys i am going to school here), and to celebrate, a bunch of us went out to town that night. that was real fun, as i got to get to know some of my classmates better, attempted to salsa dance, and practiced my super rusty spanish with a few of the men from haiti. it did make me very tired for class the next morning (i wake up at 6 here, which means my bedtime is approximately 8 pm), but it was well worth it. especially as that day was valentine's day, and i got to celebrate by spending eight hours in class with my boo, bio. it was pretty romantic. we may have made a few people behind us uncomfortable, but it's not true love if someone around you isn't gagging.
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