A day in our life while in the jungle

Yesterday was a really great day. Christopher and I went to campus to register him for his classes. At registration it began with us filling out information on who your hurricane buddy was going to be so that in the case of a hurricane the school could get a hold of you by your cell phone or your buddies cell phone. After that we had to make sure he had turned in a bunch of paper work that had to have been done prior to coming and then it was off to the registrar. I am really not sure what they did there but they took his name and did something. After that we went on to get his Ross account set up for his school email address. Following that we went to the security building to pick up his ID. They are very peculiar about having your ID on you so that the only people on campus are the students, students families, and the faculty. I have not gotten my ID yet because we have to wait until next week. They like actually ask you when you come in the gate to see your ID so in the meantime we have had temporary ID's until they can be made for us. But I guess that is good so we know that the campus is a safe place to be. Following all of this we went to get Chris's books, dissection kits, lab coats, and well more books. It took both of us to carry his stuff back to our apartment which is like a 15 minute walk from campus.




So it was an exciting day. Christopher also was able to play volleyball all afternoon yesterday, which if anyone knows him that is like his most favorite thing to do. So I watched them play volleyball until it got dark and then we headed back home to cook some dinner.

So we have been trying to eat the food from the island but we are just having a really hard time. In order to save money you have to eat the fresh fruits and vegetables otherwise you will be spending a fortune on canned food. For a can of green beans it will cost us $2 US for one can so we have been trying to alter our style of eating. But we have found that is not working out really well because all of the food that we bought from the market on Saturday went bad. The bread had mold on it by the third day we had it, probably because we didn't put it in the refrigerator. The carrots just went bad even though they were in the fridge, we don't know why. We just feel like the fresh stuff goes bad really fast which makes it hard to only go to market one day a week. We also had a disastrous attempt with the fish that we bought. Now don't get me wrong we will probably still try and eat it but I don't know. We first cooked the blue marlin fish and what we didn't realize is that it is extremely tough. When I say tough it is more tough than a steak, so we were kind of shocked when we expected it to be like the fish we are used to where it just falls apart. So we looked it up on the internet to see if we just cooked it wrong and sure enough the blue marlin fish is just extremely tough fish. We bought the marlin because 3rd semester student here was at the market when we were and was just saying how great the marlin is and that it is rare here so if they have it you should get a lot, so he bough 10lbs. of marlin. So we thought well gosh if it is that good we should get a lot too. We are a little disappointed with that purchase. But since we also bought some salmon we are hoping that it will be a little bit better.

Now back to the fact that it is hard to eat the island food, haha. The last 3 nights we have had kraft mac and cheese with each meal. It has been our taste of home. We hope that it doesn't get old because right now it is the most delicious thing we are eating. But we are really trying to adjust to the food, it is just so different.

We don't have washers and dryers here, well when I say that, we don't have access to washers and dryers. So we have to send our laundry out to have it done. So I called Hermina (the laundry lady that our neighbors use who say she does a good job and does actually use machines to wash and dry the clothes) and she came this morning to pick up our laundry. Now when I say she came and picked it up this morning she came at 5:45 this morning. Our neighbors said to just leave it outside the night before because they come so early but I guess since they haven't picked up our laundry yet they didn't realize that that was our laundry waiting for them at our front door. So we got up at 5:45 to help them get our laundry. We hope it turns out well because we have heard horror stories about sending the laundry out. One lady washed their clothes in the river and brought their clothes back with holes in all of their clothes from scrubbing them on the rocks in the river. So we are hopeful that Hermina brings our clothes back tomorrow morning in good shape.

Now that I have kind of given you all an idea of what this island life is like I hope you have a great day and remember to be thankful for everything you have.