Birthday diving and project planning

Today is my birthday. I am now 26 years-old. I can't believe I was 24 when I started my Peace Corps tour. For my birthday, I went diving at Blue Lagoon Resort on Chuuk's capital island. They wouldn't let me dive in the morning because the dive was 150 feet and I'm a beginning diver (I only dove once in St. Thomas since I received my dive certification). I had to wait until 1 p.m. to dive but it was worth it. I went diving with 2 couples who had much more diving experience than I. One of the couples were from Australia and had just arrived in Chuuk from Yap (one of FSM's four states). For those of you who don't know, Chuuk lagoon is known for having the best shipwreck diving in the world because of the many WWII ships that are scattered on the bottom of the sea. My first dive was at the sight of a 500 foot ship. It was quite a site. The surface of the ship was covered with colorful coral and was a home for many ship and other marine life. I mainly followed my dive guide the whole time. I dove in part of the ship but I swam along the outside for the most part. On the side of the ship I saw it's name in English and Japanese which I forgot. Some neat artifacts I saw were some china plates and cups and what appeared to be an old wine or whiskey bottle. My dive guide picked up an object and then put it up to his hear so I knew it was a phone. I dove 80 feet that dive and I blew my nose very hard when I got fairly deep instead of blowing it every 3 feet. Because of that my nose bled a lot. However, that didn't stop me from doing our next dive. Between our first and second dives, we scuba dived above a submarine called Suzuki. Our second dive was only 60 feet at the sight of a sunken plan called Betty Bomber. I was the cockpit and got to swim in and out one of the windows. As I was observing the propeller 20 feet away, the dive guide pointed out 4 dolphins that swam above us. It was amazing. I had seen wild dolphins before but never while I was swimming or diving. It was a first for the other divers and guide as well. That sight will be with me for a long time. I went up a little bit earlier than the others because my guide saw blood in my mask from my nose. I was just glad that I got to see those dolphins. Too bad I didn't have an underwater camera with me. That would have been a great shot.

On to my projects now. I have a plan to write a grant proposal for a water tank next to the Catholic church that is being built in my village. The idea was given to me by the supervisor of the school where I teach. He said not only would it serve the church goers every Sunday, but it could also serve 5 families and visitors to Fefen who don't have access to water buy connecting plastic water pipes from the tank to the dock. I am working with a man who was a former city planner who agreed to sketch the tank design for me. I want to meet with him before I return to school to try to figure out the budget other information needed for the proposal. I hope to get funding through Peace Corps Partnership Program which pairs up American donors with my host country community. My community needs to donate at least 25% of the total project cost but the rest can come from friends, family and individuals and organizations in the private sector. I would like to know how many of you would be willing to donate money to this important project. My if accepted by Peace Corps, it would be published on Peace Corp's website and will allow donors to donate online by submitting online checks. If you think this is a worthy cause and you would like to help me and my community to help make our water tank project a reality, please email me at bbgruver@gmail.com. Please tell anyone you can about this project and the fact that my community is 100% behind it and all donations and tax deductible. Donors can be assured that every cent of their donation will go towards my project. I have to start writing the proposal now so my community can start building the tank at the beginning of the summer.

Well, I think I will do it for me. I appreciate the birthday wishes from some of you and your love and support as I go into my second and final year of service. I know I wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for all of your thoughts, prayers, love and encouragement. I have been thankful that I haven't had any serious illnesses or injurious, except for a swollen ankle that I have right now that I got from running. Happy New Year and I hope to see some of you when I come hope for a vacation in August 2010.