Wow. I was tired this morning. I woke up at 5:30 which was just a little too early. I felt like I was slow moving. Everyone was. The energy on base this morning and really all of today was just… tired.

I was assigned to a new roof today, with Sisco. However, they wanted to have the group that stayed on base yesterday for inventory to stay and finish it. The idea was to hold is back an hour to combine everyone’s individual lists into master lists for each location. It didn’t take an hour. It took ALL day. Going through each list, combining totals, reading other people’s hand writing. It was a long day. Frustrating for me because I definitely had some thoughts on how we could have improved our process. Plus, the energy from others in the group wasn’t good either. Clearly some people didn’t want to be there and instead of just making the best of a bad situation, they just got lost in their unhappiness and let it run the show. I found that frustrating.

There were two other teams on base, one cleaning it and one prepping it for hurricane season. All three base groups had a rough day. There was this adorable little white dog that kept sneaking into base that everyone kept taking her back off. Meatball, who we call our base dog can’t actually come on or stay on base. No dogs/ animals can for health reasons. But this poor little lady was less than a year old and recently had puppies. They were giving them away on the corner yesterday and today she is looking for them. It is so incredibly heartbreaking. She wouldn’t take food or water anyone was trying to give her. She was just searching and crying and it was awful. No one liked it. TK, one of the volunteers who stays on base and runs base duty, lived a previous life of working and rescuing dogs from no kill shelters. This was particularly hard for her and she just broke into tears. Like I said, it was a rough day.

After the last plyer was added to the list, we were done. I went and laid in a hammock as other teams got back. Slowly, one at a time our little group of friends appeared. Tom got in a hammock when he got back, folllo d by Nora upon her return, and eventually Zoë came and sat with us too. We talked and hung out until the afternoon meeting.

The meeting was sort of tense, with lots of discussion and debate around the little white dog that’s been searching base. If you’re here volunteering you most likely (I would hope?) have a caring heart. Animals can fall into that category for a lot of folks. The struggle came between rasing funds to get her spayed and updated on shots versus giving that money to the community that we are all here for. It was tense. Everyone said their piece and it felt unsettled.

On Wednesdays they do volunteer of the week, apparently, and today they passed off the crown. The crown is literally a purple hard had that has “Volunteer of the Week” written on it in sealent. It’s adorable. We had all voted and this week it got passed to TK! She deserves it. I can’t find words to describe the energy and love that pours out of her. She loves hard. Whether she has known you for five minutes or five years. She’s a single mom of an adult child who raised her own her own in Wyoming. Winning this had TK in tears again. Good tears this time though. It had just been such a bad day and this was such a good part of it.

After the meeting there was a group of us going to a nearby waterfall! I was so excited to go!

Until I was actually on my way and had the worst headache and was so incredibly sick. Road here, not so hot. It’s scary driving. They’re narrow to a point where two cars can’t fit side by side, not to mention everyone who parks on the shoulder adding to the madness. They are windy, filled with pot holes and super hilly.

But wow, was it beautiful. The drive was eye opening to the island. You saw so much beauty and at the same time where so much damage had taken place.

We got to the spot, followed a small trail back and WOW! A little slice of paradise just waiting to be swam in. And swim, we did. The water wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t warm. The rocks were slippery and took some manuvering. Mohammed and I agreed to just drive in together all in one go. It was the best way to do it! It felt so nice! Zoe just jumped straight in from the top of the rocks, Tom was already swimming around and everyone was just making their way into the water. I swam over to be under the waterfall behind Mohammed. Oh my gosh, did he have the best time. He got under it, turned around and the excitement and smile on his face was pure, authentic, and genuine happiness. It was sweet to see.

After a while, some people started to climb up and past the waterfall. I was not planning on joining…but.. I couldn’t resist and I caved. We followed the water back for quite a while, sliding and falling a few. It was beautiful and so fun! After we got far enough back, we turned around knowing everyone would be waiting for us. There’s also a volleyball game tonight.

We scurried back down the waterfall, got back to the trucks, rinsed off muddy feet at a house across the street and headed back. This time I rode shotgun.

Back on base, we rounded up whatever dinner was left and devoured it. I walked over to the Volleyball game to watch and cheer on everyone. The volleyball game is played weekly against a group of players from the local middle school. They definitely kicked out butts. They even tried to extend the game to allow our team to catch up. It was so bad, but so fun. Afterwards, they did a thing I’ve never seen before. They had two players from each team crouch down, almost in childs pose, with all four heads face down but in the middle. Everyone else held hands in a circle around them, rotated the circle with sort of a run to it, then ran at the four people in the middle and started patting their backs really hard. I have no idea what it means or represents. Noone on base does. But they do it every week 🤷🏼‍♀️

After that, I came back, showered and crashed.