Last Monday I decided to go fly my kite. I have been tying myself to a rock so that the powerful kite doesn't take me away. This time I wanted to do it in the water. I found a place where the wind was going along the shore. Everyone was being very lazy so I went out by myself. A bunch of kids came out of nowhere and one of them was a 7th grader from our school. They all wanted to help so I explained to him in English and he translated for the rest of them. They were a great help setting everything up. I launched it on the shore, which is rock. I didn't expect it to pull so hard because the wind was light so it pulled me down the shore a ways before I lost control and it crashed. It took me awhile to teach the kids how to flip the kite over so it would relaunch. (Supposedly there is a way to do it yourself, but I haven't figured it out yet.) I worked my way into deeper water and I really wanted to get on my board, but it was still shallow and I didn't want to run my board into something. I launched it and let it drag me through the water, it's called body dragging. It's a step to practice kite flying in the water before getting on a board. It was much easier than flying on the beach and my body offered just the right amount of drag. The kite fly amazingly without hardly a flutter. At one point a wave broke on my head and I went completely under but when I popped up it was still flying. I got pulled into a more shallow area and so I was walking on the bottom with my flipflops. Of course everything is sharp and jagged around here in the water. Suddenly I took a step and found nothing beneath my feet. I still don't know how deep the hole was, but it was more than shoulder deep. I lifted my foot as the kite pulled me forward to try and find the next land. Suddenly a huge rock was right in front of me and my foot ran right into it. I lost my sandal and I knew I had scratched up my foot. I didn't think it was bad though. I found footing but tripped and the kite crashed. When I checked out my foot I found my second toe on my left foot was broken and curved over my big toe. The kids helped me recover my sandals and kite. I packed it away, threw it on my back and headed for the hospital. It was a short, albeit painful, walk over there. I was dripping water and blood all over the emergency room floor. It took them two hours to take a couple x-rays and and set my toe.
The next few days were very painful and all they would give me was ibuprofen and Tylenol. Typical Marshallese hospital. On Friday I had a follow up and they unwrapped up. I could move my toe so they said that it would be fine. They taped it to my other toes and told me I could take care of it now. If I ever break a toe again, I just do it all myself. There isn't much a doctor can do for you. They just tape it up.
Now that my toe is a little more mobile, I can walk a little better. Leadership has decided to encourage us to do things for the community Sabbath afternoons. I think it is great. We've been bored out of our heads Sabbath afternoons anyway. There is a huge list of stuff we can't do. Church people do nothing on Sabbaths. We are going to try and get some youth programs together and get people involved. Today we did BandAid clinic. I think I described it in an earlier post. Basically we sing songs to the kids and at the end we put bandaids on them. They love bandaids even if they aren't hurt. Kids in school where them on their faces all the time. This time Zac brought slingshots. I was worried that would go south, but it was ok. He had a bunch of paintballs. It turns out the kids love being shot at by paintballs. We used it in our skit of David and Goliath. At the end Zac handed out paintballs and it was a mob scene with them all trying to get some. Then they turned them on him and threw paint all over his legs. It was funny. I'm really glad we are spending time bonding with the locals. Sometimes it seems only a couple of us teachers are interested in connecting with students on a personal level. Hopefully everyone will get involved this semester.
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