We actually went to the island about a quarter to four. We walked around for a bit, saw some of the island, saw a small boat construction which was pretty cool. No blueprints, all from memory, and apparently the traditional boats had no nails either.

Monday, February 15th, roughly 8:20 PM local time

Resumed at 9:20 PM

I got called to dinner. Anyway.

So we saw that, there was also a construction vehicle covered in vines which almost looked like a planned piece of art, it was that good. We walked a bit more, got offered more coconuts, Nasseef showed me how the locals drink straight from the hole, no straw, and I ended up downing two. They're delicious, but wow they hold a lot of milk. We lazily headed towards the school, sat and waited, kicked a gourd of some sort around, the professors showed up, lots of shaking hands on the way into the school, and then into this big classroom.

We sat up front, adults sat on one side of the audience, students on the other side (girls up front, most with headscarves but not all, boys in the back, all with these sort of light teal-blue shirts with green trim on the boys), Denny did a short introduction and then split us into four groups. There was a bit of chaos figuring that all out, but it was fine. Anh, John, Vince, Liz and I were with 6 female students first, along with a couple of the adults, Denny was in there too. We had some trouble figuring out how to get ourselves set up, but finally we were talking to the students one-on-one or one-on-two, I was talking to two girls whose names I'll misspell, Ishaba and Satu. All of the girls were quiet, shy, kind of giggly, I'm not sure they knew how to talk above a whisper. They did have some good questions, though they asked through the teacher – that might have been a language thing though. It was better when we went back to more-or-less whole group again, I didn't have much headway with my two. Not sure if I was doing it wrong, or the language barrier, or if they were just shy. But it did work out well towards the end, some interesting questions about human evolution and other things.

After about a half hour of that we went to another room with a larger group of students, mixed, who were a lot more ready to ask us questions. Man, did they ever want to know about plants. If plants had brains, if any plants caught people, how plants caught insects, how those plants disposed of waste (we didn't think they had any waste), how plants responded to touch if they didn't have brains (Vince did a good job explaining it in terms of our reaction to a burn), but the best one was when they asked how global warming was going to affect coral reefs. We had covered that just this morning, so three of us (John, Vince and Liz, I think?) each took one of the three and answered it.

After that it was about time to head outside, where Denny took us on a “field trip” to the garbage dump. I mostly talked to teachers en route, all of the ones I talked to were from India. They come here on 10-month contracts, apparently. Another teacher was Japanese, and one told me some teachers are Sri Lankan as well, but very few Maldivian teachers. Apparently, students here study commerce or science, those are their two choices. These kids were 13-15, already basically had a “major.” They can also study art, but only two specific places in the country. So we saw where the garbage is dumped, Denny explained how it's swept out and then back in by the tides, and the effects of erosion and how they relate to global warming, we talked to the kids (mostly, Nate and John talked to them about football, real football, while I pretended to know a little bit. The kids tended to like Chelsea or Man U), Nate got a bunch of their facebooks, and we started heading back.

I talked to another teacher from India, he was a history guy, that was cool. When we got back there were MORE coconuts, I downed one and however much Becky had left that she shoved on me, talked to the teacher a bit more, he wanted my e-mail but Nate had lost my pencil to the students, so he ushered me into his office. This seemed a little shady at first, the guy grabbing me and walking away from the group, but I thought about what I knew about Indians and personal space and figured it was probably not malicious. He actually wanted to give me his e-mail, but I got mixed up, anyway, he should be sending me one soon. Looking forward to that.

After that we went back to the store, I grabbed my stuff out of the homestay Matt and I had shared, went back to the store, picked up another gift and a small, nice journal for myself. I debated getting chopsticks, but finally decided on the journal, which is made from banana leaves and some other trees, all local, very cool. Headed back to the pier, nearly capsized the boat getting in (sorry guys), had a precarious ride back, and dinner. Shells pasta with the best damn sauce ever (that we had had a few nights ago, but still, so good), papaya, some delicious broccoli-cauliflower thing, and chicken.

After that I played a game with Swaffy, one round each, neither of us quite made it but we both came close. Sat around, fiddled on the guitar, which is difficult as always to play as a bass, talked with Allen, Jacob, John, Caitlin and Nate (Brenna was mostly quiet) about various things, including invasive fish in Lake Erie, and here I am writing this on the deck now. I'm probably going to go to the upper deck and stargaze soon, after all, it's the last night I'll have a chance to stargaze on a boat for a long, long time. (I'm hoping the view will be as good when we're out in the wilderness in Tanzania and/or Egypt.)

Again, the ship is rocking, but in a nice way, the breeze is fantastic, whatever powers the thing shooting water out of the boat is a pleasant hum in the background.

Finished about 9:40 PM