11 was the first year that I didn’t have a birthday party. Anyone who knows my mom knows she is uber creative, but when I informed here that I wanted to invite 1 girl & 10 5th grade boys, it was just too much for her. : ) I remember that year we spent Christmas in Canada with the Olmsteads, but I still remember coming home one day from school and my mom had decorated the whole living room for us and I remember being in awe of how beautiful it all was! We had a fireplace in that house and she had decorated the mantel with pine and her musical angels. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday.
In January, we packed up the trusty Astro Van and road tripped down to Lindale, TX, to start our Mercy Ships training. I was picturing tumbleweeds and prairie desert, but the Mercy Ships base was huge and green and tons of woods and pastures and lakes that we spent hours exploring. And the climate was so much warmer than CT had been! I quickly learned that TX was a totally different culture than New England. People were super friendly, they all were VERY proud of TX, you had to say “Yes sir & yes mame” instead of "yeah", they said “Ya’ll” and they still allowed corporal punishment in public schools (my mouth dropped when I found this terrifying fact out). We started attending Lindale Public schools where I quickly became made a sweet group of friends and we were taught how to square dance during gym class. The one thing I really struggled with those 3 months is that everyday my dad would pick all the Mercy Ships kids up from school and everyday I was TERRIFIED that they would forget me for some reason. Of course he never ever did, but I had major anxiety about it EVERYDAY as I frantically searched the cars for the one he was driving.
After 3 months at the base, Outreach time came. We first drove to Houston to meet up with Mercy Ships' M/V Good Samaritan. I fell in love with ship life right away. You lived in this little contained world with all these other fun people. Then they gave us a shot in our butts (literally- we used to have to line up for our gamma globulin injections before Hep A & B shots became popular) and we flew off to the Dominican Republic. Let’s just say my first international travel experience was not a good one. I got SO sick. For weeks. I got so skinny that I hate looking at the pictures. I hated international travel, I hated plantains that they served every way imaginable. I hated culture. I hated roasters crowing first thing in the morning. I was proud to be an American and I just wanted to get back to the States where I could drink the water and not get sick and where they had chocolate and not everyone stared at me and touched me because of my blonde hair. It is a good thing that that was not my last travel experience or else I would have never left the USA again. The one happy memory I have from that 2 months was that there were these baby lizards in our house and there was one that would always come hang out on my pillow during the day.
I survived my first International adventure and we headed back to Southington, CT, for 6 months to pack up our life and prepare to join Mercy Ships full time. A benefit of starting 2 school years in CT and ending them in TX we discovered was that CT starts school almost a month later than TX and TX ends their school year almost a month earlier than CT.
Another thing I realized is that somewhere within that 6 months I was away was that 5th grade boys think very differently about girls than 6th grade boys did. All of a sudden instead of being picked last for the kickball game because I was the worst player, I got picked first because I was the cutest player. They also loved giving me presents for some reason. Jewlery and the Ace of Ace tape randomly showed up on my desk. That first half of 6th grade was so fun. In Southington, 6th grade was still in the elementary school and we ruled the school. I helped run the school store, I gave the 2nd grade class their spelling tests, we played Oregon Trail, we made music videos of UB40 songs and did the Nutcracker as a play for Christmas.
In January, we packed up the trusty Astro Van and road tripped down to Lindale, TX, to start our Mercy Ships training. I was picturing tumbleweeds and prairie desert, but the Mercy Ships base was huge and green and tons of woods and pastures and lakes that we spent hours exploring. And the climate was so much warmer than CT had been! I quickly learned that TX was a totally different culture than New England. People were super friendly, they all were VERY proud of TX, you had to say “Yes sir & yes mame” instead of "yeah", they said “Ya’ll” and they still allowed corporal punishment in public schools (my mouth dropped when I found this terrifying fact out). We started attending Lindale Public schools where I quickly became made a sweet group of friends and we were taught how to square dance during gym class. The one thing I really struggled with those 3 months is that everyday my dad would pick all the Mercy Ships kids up from school and everyday I was TERRIFIED that they would forget me for some reason. Of course he never ever did, but I had major anxiety about it EVERYDAY as I frantically searched the cars for the one he was driving.
After 3 months at the base, Outreach time came. We first drove to Houston to meet up with Mercy Ships' M/V Good Samaritan. I fell in love with ship life right away. You lived in this little contained world with all these other fun people. Then they gave us a shot in our butts (literally- we used to have to line up for our gamma globulin injections before Hep A & B shots became popular) and we flew off to the Dominican Republic. Let’s just say my first international travel experience was not a good one. I got SO sick. For weeks. I got so skinny that I hate looking at the pictures. I hated international travel, I hated plantains that they served every way imaginable. I hated culture. I hated roasters crowing first thing in the morning. I was proud to be an American and I just wanted to get back to the States where I could drink the water and not get sick and where they had chocolate and not everyone stared at me and touched me because of my blonde hair. It is a good thing that that was not my last travel experience or else I would have never left the USA again. The one happy memory I have from that 2 months was that there were these baby lizards in our house and there was one that would always come hang out on my pillow during the day.
I survived my first International adventure and we headed back to Southington, CT, for 6 months to pack up our life and prepare to join Mercy Ships full time. A benefit of starting 2 school years in CT and ending them in TX we discovered was that CT starts school almost a month later than TX and TX ends their school year almost a month earlier than CT.
Another thing I realized is that somewhere within that 6 months I was away was that 5th grade boys think very differently about girls than 6th grade boys did. All of a sudden instead of being picked last for the kickball game because I was the worst player, I got picked first because I was the cutest player. They also loved giving me presents for some reason. Jewlery and the Ace of Ace tape randomly showed up on my desk. That first half of 6th grade was so fun. In Southington, 6th grade was still in the elementary school and we ruled the school. I helped run the school store, I gave the 2nd grade class their spelling tests, we played Oregon Trail, we made music videos of UB40 songs and did the Nutcracker as a play for Christmas.
I am also guilty of owning an Ace of Base cassette, and of course I represented on Oregon Trail and in later years Amazon Trail.
ReplyDeleteErin,
ReplyDeleteThis picture is how I remember you on the ships. :o)
I enjoyed reading your thoughts and perspective. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.