It was brought to my attention by my own mother that I haven't posted on here since May. I can't believe that it has been almost six months since I last blogged. I've been living life in St. Lucia as normal as ever. Life here has become routine and predictable at most times now. I have a schedule and I'm okay with that.
I extended my contract with the Peace Corps for a third year in August. My new COS date will be November 2011. Imagine, at one point in my service, about the year mark, I was seriously debating going back to the states and now I actually put in a request to stay longer. LOL. Typical.
Since I extended my contract with the PC, I was given a month home leave - paid for by the PC. They actually treat you quite nice if you extend and you find that they are a little more relaxed on you. I have yet to visit the PC office since prior to my leave almost two months ago and they have yet to contact me. I guess they have eased up a little bit since I earned the third year.
Work is coming a little slow right now. It is the start of the school year for CARE and my counterpart for the NGO is in Trinidad on holiday leave. Since my work is different than the last two years for the majority of the work, it is dependent on the interaction with the two organizations before I begin the bulk of my work.
It is nice to be doing the majority of my work from home now. Less transportation money, and more time to do the work that I actually am signed up to do. Less busy work. The first two years, in addition to the valuable work that I was completing, I was filling the spare time with additional "busy work" just to make sure I was working. Now, I am purposely focusing on the work that I am signed up to be doing for my third year and not spending the extra time wasting my energy and steering off track.
I am very much excited for the next year and I am hoping that I get some valuable work done like the first two years.
Over the last month there has been a lot of crime increase in St. Lucia. There is a case of the missing Blackberry in my own apartment complex, about 4 shootings in my neighborhood (including one at the Prime Minister's office) and a few outside in the Castries area, quite a few robberies in my area and attempted break ins. I am not sure if it is the time of the year (with the holidays coming up) or it is actually getting worse. I am hoping it is the first of the two.
Other than that, volleyball is going well except we have a case of the missing team spirit. That is something that I miss about high school and college volleyball... we always were a family. With the teams in St. Lucia it seems that we lack the team unity that we need to succeed the way we can. First on the agenda: Come up with a team name.
