Peace Corps St. Lucian Life

A look in

2011-05-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

Lately, there has been a lot of coversation over the effectiveness of Peace Corps. The onset of the 50th anniversary most likely has Peace Corps under the microscope. Or it could be the outrage of the murder case in Benin. Either way, I have been debating this since my first CD asked the question, "Should PC still be in the Eastern Caribbean?". Truth is, originally I wanted to scream out "NO!". After being here for a third year, my answer has changed.

It's been three years of arguing with people about these 3 things:
1. No, I am not a tourist. (locals)
2. No, I am not just on a two year vacation sitting and drinking margaritas on the beach. (Americans)
3. Yes, I do have a REAL job. (both)

After three years, I just learn to laugh at all three. What surprised me the most before was that no matter what you tell people, they just continue to say it. People listen, yes, but have a hard time understanding.

I have said that before, and I will be saying it for the rest of my life: you can say all you want, but the only person that understands Peace Corps is Peace Corps.

On to the next....

I was recently asked by my new CD why is it I chose to extend? And what contributed to me wanting to stay? My answer was surprising. I said, "Even though there are ups and downs in service, I have learned how to have balance...and this balance is what makes me love the island." Of course, there was a little more to it than that, but that was the jist.

At the same time I was saying this my new CD has sent out a letter written by a PCV in Mali from 20 years ago. His entire letter was about the importance of creating a balance in your service. You truly are the person that decides what your service is going to be. Even 20 years ago in Mali, there was a huge expat community and plenty of opportunity to spend time with other PCVs. It is up to you if you use the time to spend with locals. It is up to you to choose how much effort you put into a project. It is up to you to gain something from the experience.

This does not mean that Peace Corps has lost its significance. If anything, it has gained some. Nowadays, people have so much to do and so little time, they forget about the importance of everything they do. This is an opportunity to remember. People have gotten so wrapped up in how much money they make and what kind of car they drive. This is an opportunity to push that aside. People lose the face to face contact with others and work behind a computer. This is an opportunity to get back into the community. People think development work means to build something, bring in new technology or introduce ways to make money. This is an opportunity to know more.

There are plenty of areas in which the PC can improve in. But let's talk about the areas that PC does well in. While they have gotten a little too big, PC has allowed more volunteers to experience whatever they choose to experience. This is where I feel the PC is not the one that is disappointing like most articles will contribute to. It is up to the individual to take what they have and make something out of it. Yes, we could use a little more training prior. However, it is impossible for development work to be traced out 100% prior to the experience.

To be continued....

Hurricane Tomas

2010-11-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

Recently I experienced my first hurricane. Here is the account for it:

____________________________________________

CASTRIES, St Lucia – At least 12 people were confirmed dead and several communities across the St Lucia remained cut off today following widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Tomas over the weekend.

Government said that the damage caused by the storm could surpass US$100 million.

(Currently rumored to be at 300 million US$ - Nov. 17th)

The southern town of Vieux-Fort was among the worst hit by the Category One storm, while five bodies including those of the owners of a popular craft shop in Soufriere, recovered from the wreckage of their homes that were hit by landslides.

“I would say to you right now we have 12 confirmed dead…unfortunately there are still people who are buried….,” Tourism Minister Allan Chastanet said on local radio.

He said that the roads to the town, where the famous Piton Mountains and the world’s only drive in volcano are located, are impassable and that the death toll could rise further.

Prime Minister Stephenson King had earlier said that an American visitor whose named was not disclosed, drowned on a north east coast beach while a 31 year-old woman died after her vehicle ran off the road and fell down a precipice.

King said he had taken an aerial survey of the storm damage and it is clear that there had been extensive damage.

“From the air, the southern town of Vieux Fort appeared to have received the brunt of Tomas’s fury and we will have to go into this area which was still blocked by landslides and virtually inaccessible to carry out a more detailed account of the damage,” he added.

Prime Minister King said that there were other persons missing from the town and that search and rescue teams were in the affected area.

“Soufriere is devastated, everyone is locked in and no one can leave or get in by road or by phone, so that there are persons who need help but cannot be reached,” the Prime Minister noted.

“It’s not just a question of clearing these roads because there are sections of the network that have completely disappeared so that we are just going to have to find another way in and out of the town,“ he said.

King said that a preliminary assessment of the damage caused by Tomas suggested that it was likely to cost the country in excess of US$100 million.

He said he had already contacted the United States government and Work Bank which had requested that measures be put in place to sources the emergency funding.

_____________________________________

Since then, most of the island has been without water. The dam had some major damage done to it and the water is greatly contaminated. Cholera has had a minor outbreak so far; we have yet to experience anything like Haiti. It has been a learning process for me since this is my first hurricane. I have learned the following:

1. The government does not account for enough funding in their disaster relief plan.

2. You see the best and the worst in people during and after a natural disaster.

3. It is absolutely necessary when living on a tropical island to prepare a disaster kit ahead of time complete with candles, first aid, and clean water, water, water. You can never have enough water saved up.

4. Humor really helps during the clean up efforts. Some people have the amazing ability to get straight to work to clean up with no questions asked and a humorous attitude to provide to everyone.

5. Things can always be much worse than they are.

It's been too long.

2010-10-12T12:16:00.001-07:00

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.

SLU DSP Volleyball

2010-05-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

Well beach volleyball has pretty much taken up all of my spare time aside from work for the last few months... It has been some good training and preparing. My partner and I won 2nd place in the LIME/SLVBA tournament two weekends ago and a few of us are now preparing for the regional tournament next weekend. Exciting! I still have quite a few things to learn out on the sand, but I am really starting to love playing beach. Somehow it has pushed court volleyball further from my heart and taken over. :D Now I just need to start training harder and getting back into real shape. Time.

Ode to Carnival- the case of the real you

2010-05-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

ODE to Carnival :

There once was a girl
that was just like a pearl
all shiny and sweet
from her, men eh never get any treat.

This girl wanted to dress up in satin and lace
and even put some paint on her face.
Her mother told her to keep it clean
Her pastor told her she was still just a teen.

Her father told her to wear them tights
and her boyfriend gave her just a few frights.
But when she heard the loud music so
Her hips starting rocking to and fro.

The boys on the block watched her slow wine
the girls even thought she was looking so fine.
Her movements were steady and slow to the touch
but eventually the rum got a little too much.

Her eyes were looking tight and dreary
her hair was looking sloppy and scary.
Her backside was starting to slouch
all she needed now was a couch.

She started to speak and couldn't say a word
but she could swear she was flying high as a bird.
Her smile got crooked and legs started to ease
And all of this just to be a tease.

Her clothes started falling off to the ground
all of this with all of Castries around.
She had a secret though you see
that there is something the boys couldn't free.

She was wearing a push up bra and a backside panty
everyone thought she was looking like candy.
When her bra fell of she was flopping like a slipper
and her backside was dropping just like a flipper.

So you see this pearl was really a stone
One that you might find all alone
Carnival costumes are sweet how they are
so girls don't be stretching too far.

Just be yourself- the real you is always up to par.

Impotence is not relevant

2010-04-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Funny things that happened to me:

- A teacher falls asleep while talking in mid-sentence during a staff meeting. Yes, it sounds like a movie.

- When giving a presentation at one of the schools in front of 50 instructors and counselors a man said "the key to achieving success is, in fact, impotence". He meant "importance", but in St. Lucia the "r's" are soft.

- (Ear muffs for this one if you are under 21) When I was leaving the office, I passed over the sky bridge on the main road in St. Lucia in the north. It had been raining for the first time in months so I did not have my umbrella. As I started to walk down the stairs, I was grossly surprised at the sight that was before me. A NAKED vagrant "jerking the chicken" was going at it quite reverently. He was wide out there in the open for all to see. I presumed that he wanted the free lube. The man who came down the stairs after me had to talk him back into his senses.

Siren.

2010-03-21T13:19:00.001-07:00

I am still speechless when it comes to this full grown cat that showed up on my porch last week. It's weird! I have never in my life seen a male cat come into another house with an already existing male cat. Amyys has always been protective about his home and his mother and yet or some reason he has no problem with this cat. Odd. Well, I'm not sure what is going to happen when I leave back for the states. Am I even able to bring back two cats realistically speaking? I don't think that this cat is going anywhere anytime soon so I might just have to.

Amyys is the one on the left and Siren is the one on the right.

Yes, I am the old cat lady. Thanks for reminding me.

Waiting for nothing

2010-03-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

This culture is all about waiting.

-I wait for the bus to fill up
-I wait for class to start
-I wait for people to show up to a meeting
-I wait for the girls to start working
-I wait for my ride to training
-I wait for water to come
-I wait for my mangoes to ripen
-I wait for work to happen
-I wait to see what will happen

The first time that I realized how much this culture relies on waiting was during a tropical rain storm two months into my service. I was on my way somewhere and I got stuck in the rain with no umbrella and no ride home. What did I do? I waited for three hours under a tarp out in the middle of nowhere with a woman I did not even know (as of yet).

The refresher was just last night when I was outside on my porch waiting for nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was there with three cats (two of which are mine), one frog, and one horse. What were we all waiting on? Again, nothing. But we were still waiting.

People wait all the time for things to happen here. They wait longer than they need to for a bus just to catch the one that they want. They wait for friends to pass by in town just for a little bit for company. They wait for something to happen.

This is a nice change from the fast paced world of the States. There is never waiting in the states that is patient. When you are waiting, it is not a good thing. Here, waiting can be your life. I love this idea of waiting. In fact, I love it probably a little too much. I must sit out on my porch for hours every night just being and waiting for nothing.

This is the time when it is just me, when I am all alone except the toads, cats, horses and lizards running around. This is the time when I collect my thoughts from the day, prepare for tomorrow, and see things in a light I have never seen them. Why? Because I never slowed down in the States.

Just when I was on the brink of not slowing down here, I was gently reminded by another PCV that maybe life should be different than it was in the states for us. In fact, that is true. Slowing down and really enjoying this life while I have it here is what I need to do.

That is why I wait. Wait for nothing and wait for everything.

Rains-a-comin' !!!!

2010-03-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Rains a comin!!! That might be the biggest overstatement of the year, actually. The rain came for a half an hour and it was in American terms, "sprinkling". Not enough to replenish my water source but it was a nice sight to see anyway.

In other news, Amyys has befriended a male cat. I was worried for a second there that he had a multitude of girlfriends that have been coming to my porch every morning. I thought, well, it appears he really is a Lucian male. :P This one though has the same markings as Amyys and he behaves in the same manners. He meows too much though. Amyys is quiet compared to him. I have named him "Siren" because of this. I thought he would be gone this morningafter spending all night outside on the porch but much to my surprise he was still there. I may have unknowingly taken in another male cat. Uh-oh. This might give him a little preparation of getting used to cats when I introduce him to the cats I have back in the states.

Yesterday I decided to invest in a new pair of volleyball shoes. I have gone through an amazing amount of tennis shoes here. I don't know what it is exactly but the soles of the shoes keep coming right off. I find myself slipping back and forth here and there all around the court. After the tournament on Sunday, I just realized I don't want to deal with it anymore. The last thing I want is an injury from rotten shoes. Geez. The shoes are most likely going to cost around 200ec...pretty pricey for us little PCVs. I might just be bankrupt after this purchase.

Here and now

2010-03-11T05:52:00.001-08:00

A PCRV recently told me that I should start writing more as my service is winding down..and not for other people but for myself so that I can remember things when I leave. I think that this is a good idea. So if things don't make sense to some of you reading this, well, deal with it. It has now become more of my personal memory bank than anything else.

Last week we held a Peace Corps Exhibition. It involved months and months of planning but it finally materialized. I was coordinating the event and in the end, it was worth it. I was skeptical about how it would turn out. Up until two hours into the event I was nervously sweating at the outcome. We planned for stations, activities, and displays. Things got complicated as we hadto plan out all of the little details. Brian, another PCV, was a great help with all of the little details. He thought about things that I overlooked, such as would there be water at the venue the day of the event when we are smack-dad right in the middle of a drought?

We had a schedule for the event that was very full. When it came to the morning of the event, we had a few flies in the mud, but nothing too big. First off, the town hall double booked the venue for the day. Thank god we got there ten minutes before the other group, otherwise we would have been out of a venue! The other event was supposed to be a fashion show try-out. The apparently needed the stage. We felt bad, but hey, the show must go on. They ended up using the upstairs for their event and we used the open space.

After setting everything up, we made a coffee run and then opened the doors. For the first hour there was hardly anyone there. We made the schedule flexible and held off on the welcome address (of which was televised) and the trivia. Once people started filing in, we started the activities. There were plenty of interviews that were also televised. It was good publicity for the Peace Corps.

I'm glad that that is over so now I can have a somewhat clearer schedule. Someone recently told me I should slow down and enjoy the rest of my service, and that is exactly what I am going to attempt to be doing. I didn't get much rest after the event, as we went out for drinks to celebrate at "The Lookout" (one of my new favorite places to go for a drink- it's got an incredible view of the Castries basin and the vibe is good). We attempted to give one of the new response volunteers a "tour" of rodney bay afterwards, but since it is Lent, it was pretty dead. So we went back to my place after a few Pitons and slept til I had to leave for my volleyball tournament the next morning. Ah, those twin size mattresses I have and the foam chair pads to sleep on are just miraculous for your back. Not to mention, I only have one pillow so the other volunteers had to deal without. They say PCVs can sleep anywhere, anytime, and anyhow. Try sleeping by me and you might change your mind.

This weekend is looking like some relaxation is going to come into play. Since I have been so busy with work I have been very much out of the loop with the volunteers. I am hoping to somehow get back into the loop, if that is how you can say it. So tomorrow I am looking at taking the day to the beach. I need to shift my energies and rejuvenate. I've been feeling a little blah and need a little pick me up day. Saturday will be beach day too. Yep, that's right people, two beach days in a row...you jealous? Well I have been working my butt off lately and I need it. Beach, beach, here I come. Let's just hope I can work on this uneven tanning thing I have going. My arms and my legs are a much different shade than the rest of me because I never have beach days and that's really the only part of me that ever sees the sun. I might have to put out a press release for people to wear sunglasses this weekend so they don't get blinded. (A lot of St. Lucians don't wear sunglasses ever). So here's to rest and rejuvenation.

Hamper project

2010-03-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.thevoiceslu.com/features/2010/march/04_03_10/Grow_Well_Brings_Smiles_to_Senior_Citizens.htm

Last month we held our second hamper project for Club 60. It went off very well yet again. We decorated the room with blue, yellow, black and white St. Lucian colors. The presentation went flawless and the elders were ecstatic with household goods to take home. All in all, another good day at Grow Well.

Derek Walcott at my work

2010-03-09T11:00:00.001-08:00

http://www.thevoiceslu.com/features/2010/march/09_03_10/Derek_Walcott_visits_Grow_Well_Library.htm

Volleyball tournament link

2010-03-09T10:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.thevoiceslu.com/sports/2010/march/09_03_10/TOP_CLASS_VOLLEYBALL.htm

On Saturday I participated in an Independence Day volleyball tournament. My team, DSP, came in third. We played well but I was hoping for the win. Next time, Le Club, it's on.

The drought of 2010

2010-03-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

We have not received measurable rain since January 31st, 2010. It has been almost a month and a half since we had even an inch of rain on the entire island.

For me, it has been longer. In the north of the island it hasn't rained for nearly 2 months now. I was lucky enough to have water from Thursday to Monday morning, but I was without water for almost a month and a half with the allowance of a few hours here and there. Those hours also happened to be during the day while I was at work so I was not at the benefit of receiving the water to use.

It has been all bucket baths for me since the beginning of the year. I think I am officially a professional at using less than one litre to wash myself with. It's a good thing I have locks otherwise my hair might be very very oily right about now. When it comes to having clothes to wash, well, let's just say my extra room is full. Not with furniture since I only have my one twin size bed, but with clothes that need to be washed when the drought is over. I have managed to plan a conservation schedule of my clothes. I have to wear the same skirt or pants three times during the week, air them out every night and then run water over them for the next week. At the end of two weeks, well, I wash them fully. For those of you not in the PC, or never have been, you may be saying gross. In actuality, this is just something I have to do to deal.

Water is so much taken advantage of in the states. I would like to say that I was not one of those people that used too much water, but I admit I was one to leave the sink on when I am brushing my teeth or washing the dishes. Coming to St. Lucia has really forced me to examine my water use and take into consideration others' as well. With 8 people in my apartment building and only one small tank for all of us, I have to be very conservative. But hey, I deal.

Drought emergency officially declared in St Lucia

SOURCE: Caribbean360

Castries : Saint Lucia | 12 days ago

0 2

St Lucia, February 25, 2010 – The St Lucia government has declared a water-related state of emergency which went into effect yesterday, amidst a prolonged drought that has also affected other Caribbean countries. The move is aimed at managing and protecting the island’s potable water supply...

2010 thoughts of COS

2010-01-18T10:49:00.000-08:00

It's been almost two months since I have even looked at my blog page. As life gets more and more involved here, I find that there is less to write about. Not because life is less interesting but because the things I want to write about are far more personal and delicate to write about. Instead of writing about things that I see everyday or how I feel about something "foreign" to me, I have found myself identifying those things as part of home.

A lot of returned volunteers that I met before service had told me about what it would be like to leave your host country at the end of the 27 months. I never expected that I would begin to feel like this with still nine months to go. Right now, I have absolutely no idea how to describe this feeling in words, but I am sure that some volunteers would identify with me without me having to describe it. This is home now, as much as I still remember Seattle. I have built a life here, I have worked hard to adapt myself to the life here and I find that in many ways I mesh better with this life than the life back in the states.

Sundays are much better here, that's for sure. In the states, on Sunday, people prepare for the week to come. The stores are open late so that people can get their shopping finished and their errands completed before Monday morning. In St. Lucia, Sunday is family day. Sunday is a day of rest and relaxation. Plenty of food and companionship. It makes you prepared for when Monday comes. This concept is one that I can attach to for the rest of my life.

As I was saying before, with nine months left in my service I am beginning to feel the sorrow of leaving. :( I know if this is how I am feeling now, imagine how hard it is going to be in October (if I decide to leave). We'll see.

Places I want to go in my life

2009-11-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

1. New Zealand

2. Costa Rica

3. India

4. Ireland

5. Vietnam

6. Coral Reefs

7. Grand Canyon

8. Venice

9. Every state in the US

10. Chile

30 things I want to do in my life

2009-11-20T10:04:00.000-08:00

The “30 List”

(Not in any particular order and always subject to change)

1. Have children

2. Work in veterinary medicine or with animals

3. Finish the Peace Corps

4. Marry someone who is my best friend

5. Work in HIV/AIDS

6. Hike part or all of the Appalachian

7. T-shirt non-profit (Fashion for an Action)

8. Own my own coffee shop (Infusion)

9. Be a primary or secondary school teacher

10. Have an art/photography show and sell at least one piece of artwork

11. See 5 ancient monuments

12. Learn to play the guitar

13. Live in a Latin American country

14. Learn to speak another language fluently

15. Be on a reality tv show

16. Travel to Ireland, Africa, India, Costa Rica, and New Zealand

17. Write a book

18. Earn my masters degree

19. Create and lead an outdoors club for youth

20. Work in at least 3 foreign countries

21. Own my own home

22. Learn and compete in ballroom dancing

23. Go bungee jumping over water

24. Learn to really cook

25. Stop biting my nails

26. Be a volleyball coach

27. Take a road trip around the states

28. Work on a cruise ship

29. Take part in a cribbage tournament.

30. Live in the outdoors for a couple of months straight

What am I up to???

2009-10-23T15:35:00.000-07:00

CARE Classroom at Grow Well

A LITTLE BIT OF THIS, A LITTLE BIT OF THAT

So it's been awhile since I have blogged about anything. I think that the last blogs I wrote about was the emperor and kickball. Ha ha. Okay, well some of you have been asking so what have you been up to, stranger? After summer took it's full course, it started to get busy!!! No more sleeping in on days I didn't have to do work, no more going to the beach a couple days a week, and certainly no more days of doing nothing!

So what have I been doing, then? Well, four days a week I am at the CARE programme working with 14-18 year old at-risk students (mostly males). I work with the remedial and intermediate groups in mathematics and language. We do everything from addition to spelling combinations. I also work with all of the students in arts and crafts (doing various different activity skills), sports (we have done football and cricket so far this term), and computer skills.

Me and some of the trainees at the CARE centre

Aside from the CARE programme, I also continued the After School Club that I started last school year during the second term. In the ASC we do everything from literacy and numeracy skills to making coal pots that will be used for survival cooking skills. It is a very time consuming club in terms of logistics and discipline, but the youth that come are developing themselves every session.

This past Monday marked the continuation of the Girls Circle (peer support and empowerment group for young girls 13-18) with Grow Well. I am working with an amazing woman from the community to get it going again. I am excited, as this term we are working on peer bonding and have a variety of activities lined up for the girls to participate in. I am currently still in the planning process for a summer workshop for next year in the area of HIV/Healthy Lifestyles and sporting as well for the girls to continue their development.

I have been trying to cut down all of the little projects that I was doing to focus more on the main projects at hand. It was starting to get a little overwhelming and getting more work done in specific areas promises more progress in those areas for the last year I am here.

I also have been working as the committee "chair" with other PCVs to arrange for a Peace Corps Expo in March of next year. It is a little time consuming, but it will be well worth it when we get the finished project in place. I have been linked to some of the other islands to help them get one started up as well. After seeing how great the Japanese Volunteers did with their "Japan Day", I was hoping that we could do just the same!

Aside from work, I have been playing volleyball every Tuesday and Thursday near my new apartment and have been thinking about joining a dart team down the road at the local bar. I have gone on a couple of memorable hikes with the hiking group I've been with for over the last year as well. Steel pan has started up again and I managed to get a few of my students to start playing as well! Now that I am living much further away from work and my community, I have had to make my new living community part of my work as well. I play football with the local youth on occasion and am thinking of ways to involve myself more into the community there.

It is that time of the year when all of the holidays are coming! Now that it is the holiday season that means the rest of the year is going to go by so incredibly fast! I have less than a year left here! 11 months and something odd days left in St. Lucia!

I found out my mom is coming for a week in December and I cannot be more excited! I can't wait to share my life here with her and show her the culture and life here.

It's been a rough couple of months in terms of funding. I have been living on cents at the end of the month for the last couple of them. Visiting the states and moving to a new apartment has really taken all of the money that I had managed to save from being frivolous. At least I am enjoying the life here while I can.

Oh, and it's been about two months since I put in my locks! They are really starting to take form. I'll have to blog about the social perception aspect of a white girl in St. Lucia having dreadlocks. Quite interesting, really. Here's a few pics showing the transformation from the start to now.

Me so far in the locking process, they are looking much tighter overall....

Other than that, just working on a pathway for future success and enjoyment!

What is kickball?

2009-10-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

The other day I taught my students at the CARE school how to play kickball. Apparently St. Lucians do not know what it is. What I had thought would be a rather easy thing to do, turned out to be exactly the opposite. Turns out, if you don't know baseball, then you won't understand the concepts behind kickball. So I spent the first half of our sports session explaining the basics of baseball and the second half attempting to play. It turned out rather decent, and the kids got into it by the end of it. Sharing American culture is just another fun part of the job that we are here to do.

I met an emperor.

2009-10-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Walking in town I ran into another PCV, Jeff. After a few minutes of catching up, we had the pleasure of a stranger walking up to interrupt our conversation. Oh, but this wasn't just any stranger, no. This was an emperor.

He started by asking us a bucket full of questions about ourselves. Apparently to him we were "special looking". We did not look like Lucians, but then again, we did look like we lived here. I had to laugh when he thought that Jeff was the "manager" of the Peace Corps, and that I, was "just a volunteer". Ha ha. Naturally, my response was, "why didn't you think I was the 'manager'"?

After a few minutes of talking about ourselves we had decided to ask him a few questions in return. We asked for his name, where he is from, all of the basic questions that you ask of new people you meet. Everything seemed normal, yes. He carried a conversation well.

Then came the BIG question of the day,..." so "W", what is it that you do?" He responded with, "I am an emperor, of course." I looked at Jeff all rosy cheeked and all, and realized I had to bite my lips rather hard in order to keep myself from laughing. After all, what if this really was an emperor???? I would hate for the guy to get a bad impression of PCVs, after all.

I asked, "so what are you an emperor of?" And he simply responded with, "Social hierarchies". Well, after a couple minutes of this banter, I couldn't carry it any further. I relied on Jeff to make an exit to the conversation after this "emperor" asked far too many questions about my living location and my contact information. After the emperor went back on his merry way to his mighty throne, I turned to Jeff and let out a big smile. "I've never met an emperor before, how about you?" was the first thing that came out of Jeff's mouth.

It was a rather entertaining day, all in all, and this added the final icing to my already baked cake.

A washing machine and two TVs

2009-09-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

After a year and a half handwashing my clothes, I have received a little blessing from the sky!

When I say the sky, I am referring to my landlord that lives in one of the apartments above me. He was gracious enough to bring a washing machine down for me!!!! Woohooo!!!! On the same day, I was awarded not one, but TWO tvs from my neighbor below me who is moving to Cuba tomorrow. Aside from the fact that I have no cable, I am pretty much set! No use for the tvs as of yet, but I am half way there! I will admit, I like not having tv or internet in my home most of the time. It helps me to get other things done; like drawing, reading, etc..

Oh, did I tell you that I finally moved? Let's just say: I am 100x more comfortable in my place now than I have been for the last year living in my last apartment. I was constantly avoiding going home and always felt too overwhelmed with the stress of issues with my landlord to get anything else done when I was home. Now that I am into a better fit, I am finding myself getting more things accomplished and generally loving my home life much, much more.

I thought life in Castries would be much worse. Besides the 200 dollars in transportation costs, it really isn't that bad. I live in an actual community neighborhood, my neighbors actually talk to each other, and I don't have to unlock a stupid gate everytime I have a guest come over. Oh, and I can actually have guests over with my water not being turned off! My last place was very luxurious, sure...but that doesn't always make for a good life. A good life is having fresh juice made from the neighbor above you, being able to have a friend over for coffee without hesitation, and wanting to go home to relax. One suggestion for the PC from now on: never put a PCV in a "community" with the name "Heights" in it...as good of a "deal" as it sounds.

A few random things I haven't told you about St. Lucia

2009-09-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

1. Public urination is an everyday sight. No one thinks it out of the ordinary when there is a man in town peeing on the town hall building.

2. Lucian dogs could quite possibly be hornier than the men. On average, I see 3.7 dogs humping another dog per day. Sometimes they have group orgies. I saw one this morning at 7:30 am.

3. They only have escalators going up. Never down.

4. The bank machines take back your money after 5 seconds and you cannot access the money again until the next working day. The next working day implies a week from then. Not so good for PCVs when rent is due.

5. There are often too many people working at a given store. Many of which are just there for security purposes.

6. When you have locks and a female, you are automatically an empress. :D

7. Soy milk is often cheaper than regular milk.

8. You typically only eat one meal on a Sunday.

9. "Julie" mangos are quite possibly the best thing on this planet; and I get to eat a ton!

10. The macheneel tree is everywhere in St. Lucia. One of the most poisonous trees on this planet. The leaves alone will leave your skin burning for days.

I Am Metricized!

2009-09-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

I went to an Anger Management workshop with the CARE programme in Castries last Friday at the Presentation Brothers house. I was expecting quite the bulk of the work we discussed to be on anger management, however, the first half of the workshop for that day happened to be regarding metricizing St. Lucia. What?!?! Why?!?! Okay, so I found out the schools are in need of changing their systems to the metric from the prior used, imperial system; but still!

So after three hours of sitting in a chair I successfully know how to convert my weight in the metric system. Congratulations me! I also have a nice mug reminding me to metricize that I can add to my lonely little cupboard at home. In addition, I have a new pencil, ruler, and bottle opener. The bottle opener has already come in handy when the bartender at Happy Day bar couldn't find his. I told him, "Don't forget to metricize!"

Metric system conversions:

1 g = .004 oz

453.59g = 1 lb

1kg= 2.2 lbs

1cm= .39 inches

2.54 cm =1 inch

1 km= .62 mile

1 mL= .035 fl oz.

1 L= .88 qt

0 degrees C = 32 degrees F

27 C = 80.6 F

So, I am 56.5 kg.

Ode to Metricizing:

Oh, my darling metric system, my dear

It's often you, too much we fear.

We know the pound and the mile so very well,

That what a kg or a km is we really can't tell.

Your conversions are set to a "tee",

I'm not sure if they really quite fit me.

I'm willing to try and use you often,

but I can't promise you anything; not now not then.

When I am running or flying I am going to be slow,

Almost the time that it takes to make dough.

You will be used for sure when I am shopping,

perhaps from time to time even when I am mopping.

St. Lucia needs you to import and export,

Whether it may be for food or another sort.

You are needed in bottles, bags and also cans,

And apparently you have more than your fair share of fans.

For now, I have no choice here,

but to put up with you, my dear.

If ever you grow old and tiring to me,

You'll be out of my life so quickly you see!

Ode to 77s of St. Lucia!

2009-09-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

Ode to the 77s of St. Lucia

You met us at the airport in t-shirts and jeans,

Now I know what “business casual” means.

To us you were the people we had to look up to,

Oh, the countless conversations all about poopoo.

You taught us all how to go about hitching,

You warned us that Peace Corps won’t like our bitching.

You showed us how to eat food that’s 60 days past old,

All you need is a knife to scrape off the mold.

Endless advice on dating a local,

Because with these men, you see, we’re the focal.

To the sssssssing and kissing you said to ignore,

We raise our brows secretly hoping for more.

You warned us about drinking too much or too little,

And if you get dengue your bones will get brittle.

We’ll never forget a sports bra to wear every day,

Because it must mold after two years, you say.

You taught us in training how to budget our money,

With your phone bills at 900 ec; Ain’t it funny?

I’ll never forget one of the guys borrowed a dress,

On that same night there he was among a Rasta empress.

There were free dinners and drinks at a hotel so far,

“Chairman’s Reserve” you ordered at the bar.

Your camping on the beach offered quite the fun,

But with just one transport, it could all be done.

The same camping trip there was a little game on the beach,

Little blocks so skinny for which we had to reach.

“Jenga” was the name of this truth and dare,

Brought upon nakedness, yet a camera was NO where!

With you we were able to have a little heart to heart,

But eventually after two years you have to part.

Your smiles and friendship will be missed indeed,

But always remember you’ve planted the seed.

You may not have changed the world in the way you thought,

But don’t you fret, your impact cannot be taught.

You made a difference that you cannot ignore,

From which now above all, people will be asking for more.

Now you’re all back in the states,

Probably finding a job or looking for mates.

But your mind I’m sure is here on this land,

Wishing you were here with us in the sand!

Ode to Homelessness

2009-09-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

It's for true, I have to confess,

I'm without a place, yes.

I may be stinky and grungy all day.

But my smile still looks good, I really must say.

There's a storage unit in a car

with my name on it not too far.

Bags upon bags of toiletries and clothes,

of which my mind secretly loathes.

There is nothing so special about any of those things,

they are just materials that life continually brings.

Not having a place to call "home" is different though,

I'm positively certain that some of you know.

At the end of a long day,

you just want to play.

Your mind wants to settle,

on that hot water kettle.

My toes and my feet,

aren't smelling so sweet.

My hair and my knees

are smelling like peas.

I don't have a bed,

but I won't end up dead.

I don't have a room,

but I don't see my doom.

I don't have water or food,

But that ain't so crude.

I have my heart so content and full,

That my eyes you'll never ever see dull.

People ask me what's it like,

and I tell them my life is at a turnpike.

All in my head during the day,

I can't help thinking what if it stayed this way?

Friends of strength and friends of passion,

These ones you know, don't wear out of fashion.

They move me and house me,

With not one word of a repayment fee.

My guitar is so cold,

in that car so I'm told.

There's mosquitos settling in,

but for them there's no din.

I'm homeless you see,

but that can't really be.

I blessed and I'm cherished,

but I'm not yet perished.

I can be smelly and gritty,

and still look pretty.

I could lose all of my stuff,

and frankly not give a huff.

I'm homeless, you know

but still have plenty of places to go.

I'm just in transition,

So check what I'm dishin.

Ode to "Lox"

2009-08-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

Lox, Lox, you really take your time.

Hours and hours of a backcombing lime.

You are as stubborn as me on a frustrating day,

Your sparatic nature; I refuse for you to be any other way.

You're tangling, and tearing,

tedious and overbearing.

You're obnoxious and fuzzy,

lustful and scuzzy.

The lucious, long hair that was there before,

you stole with conceit in all of your lore.

My head wants to thank you for all of your pain,

because after all this work, your ferocity will be my mane.

After days upon days of devoted care,

Your architectural design will cause quite a stare.

Once you committed to me,

others will see

that you and I are an irie pair.

Put on some Peter Tosh- let's shake our flair.

One Year. Part 1

2009-08-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

A year has passed by as quickly as the wind sweeps away leaves on a blustery, fall afternoon. In some aspects the last year has felt like decades. My experiences here have been plentiful and powerful. Each day in the Eastern Caribbean brings about a new lesson, a new friend, a new experience, or a new feeling. Overflowing with opportunity and generous with risk, St. Lucia has offered me the chance of reviving a fraction of my vitality that I had lost somewhere along the way in my long, tedious workdays back in the States.

It has been an ongoing battle with the nature of time in Gros Islet. One moment, I find myself gasping for air from the hectic work schedule of the day while the next afternoon may present itself with ample enough time to include all of the following: the beach, a painting session, reading half a book, and sitting out on the deck lost deep in thought for hours. More often than not, time presents itself in chunks according to weeks rather than segregated days, here and there, yet these segments are still very unpredictable in their rationales. Each opportunity that I have for some “down time” I welcome immediately, due to the continual threat of chaos in my schedule. Not knowing what to expect day to day is just another ingredient to being a volunteer for the Peace Corps.

One of the advantages, and disadvantages, of living in the north is the type of people that I meet. My life has been sufficiently stocked with friendships of all natures during the last year. I have been blessed to make a few meaningful, intimate relationships in such a short amount of time. Aside from the immediate, close-knit bonds that we as Peace Corps volunteers form with each other, the friendships that I have invested in are ones that have managed to influence my life in positive directions. Many of the people up north have a certain framework of mind. They are into travelling, education, and broadening their opportunities. A few of the close relationships that I have formed have been with people that have plans to travel outside of St. Lucia. Again, that is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Just when you start to feel comfortable with the friendship, and intrigued by what the bond can offer, new friends disappear just as quickly as they arrive. I have made friends from England, Norway, India, Africa, Ireland, all over the Caribbean, and the States while in St. Lucia. While I am greatly appreciative for these people’s presence in my life, however short-lived it may be, I have found myself saying goodbye over and over again throughout the year with only a hope in my mind that one day I will come in contact with them again. I have concluded by these farewells that this is just another guarantee of travelling; the hellos and goodbyes of attachment. In the south, you may find people travelling to England or the States here and there but the North of the island yields itself to a more concentrated group of travelers. This has made my life here both entertaining and challenging.

When I applied for the Peace Corps, I made a promise to myself that when I was in service I would be the “yes man”. Now before you get carried away in your thought process, there are limitations to this promise. Anything comprising my health, my safety, etc. (to the extreme) would be ruled out, of course. However, generally speaking I would make an effort to say “yes” to things that I might normally say “no” to. For instance, within the first month of living in my own apartment I was invited to a dinner with a church choir group. While I was attending church from time to time back in the States, my involvement in the churches in St. Lucia had been somewhat limited. Now, my initial reaction was to say “maybe another time, but thank you”. However, I did not say “no” but rather, “I will see you at 7”. My night with the choir group was pleasant and educational. I have no regret about attending. There are many more situations similar to this one that I have found myself in, and I have found my life expanding in ways that I have never thought possible because of it.

Despite my lack in musical proficiency, I found myself joining a steel pan band in Gros Islet at the beginning of this year. This was another response to being that “yes man” that I discussed previously. Because of the band, I have made a few valuable connections and intimate relationships. My “persuasive” nature brought three other volunteers into the band as well, and they have had similar rewards. Not only did I participate in my first ever musical performance (not including my STAR performance on the recorder back in the first grade), but now I have expanded my artistic hand to not only drawing and painting but music as well. My skill level may still be in need of a life’s worth of lessons; nevertheless, I have introduced a new curveball into my game. Opening myself up to new possibilities, despite the risk of falling flat on my face, has only strengthened my portfolio.

Now, some of the hardships about being a volunteer are invisible to our communities on the island and our friends back home. There are many rules and regulations that we, as PCVs, need to abide by in order to remain on the island. While we may not agree with every one of the policies and procedures, it is just another thing that we get used to during our stint. For example, some basic no-no’s: no drugs, no excessive partying or drinking, no abusive actions, no leaving the island without prior okay from the Peace Corps Director. Those are obvious. Then there are policies like: you have to take a vacation day for every week you have a visitor (and get it approved two weeks prior), if you change housing you have to find a new place on your own (and it has to be equal or less to what you were paying before), no riding on motorcycles, no driving cars, and my favorite, the easiest to overlook (because we are grown adults), is letting your APCD (associate PC director) know that you will be out of your site for the night. Adjusting to these “teeferies of freedom” may be tricky for some. It is difficult to adjust from your independent-can-do-anything lifestyle back in the States to the guideline-by-the-book way here, no doubt. Not having that freedom to just leave for vacation anytime you want to puts restraints on you. Regardless of the fact that most of us would never take that opportunity to travel “anytime we want to” back in the States, not having that freedom certainly is felt. Now, as much as I am explaining how these policies can take away, I also need to reinforce the idea that they are necessary. Without them, unsafe things might happen. So, despite the occasional feeling of containment in ways, I understand completely.

Going back to what I was referring to about “invisible” hardships, I was referring also to volunteers leaving. As a PCV, you form a special bond with other volunteers. That connection is one of understanding, compassion, and relevance to your work here. There are many things that you do not have to explain to a volunteer that you most likely would have to explain to friends back home or friends in your community. One of my favorites is the “five minute rule” when it comes to food. Most people would use the “five second rule” when they drop food on the ground. As a Peace Corps volunteer, we use the “five minute rule”. Even after the ants have sufficiently overtaken the reign of my pasta, I am still going to pick that pasta up and eat it for dinner. Often times it is stressful attempting to explain in detail what our life is like on the island (specifically as a PCV) and when talking to other volunteers, that stress is absent (except for maybe when someone from Gros Islet is trying to talk to someone from the Valley).

Fresh Air Fund

2009-08-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

A great organization and a worthy experience for both youth and the counselors that work there. Check it out!

http://freshairfundcounselors.smnr.us/

Visiting Seattle 09: Part 3 Family time!

2009-06-19T13:14:00.001-07:00

SEATTLE, SEATTLE, SEATTLE!

View of downtown Seattle from Interstate 5

When I was back in Seattle for a visit, I was lucky enough to spend a little bit of time with my

family. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend much of my time with one of my best friends, my own brother, Tyson! I didn't realize how much I missed my family until I got to see them again. As I have written about in past blog entries, my family is very unique and very eccentric. I think I love them more because we are not the typical family.

My dad took me out to lunch with my bro

and a family friend...delicious food in a

train!!!

During the two weeks, I got to do a variety of things. My dad took my brother, me, and Brian to a baseball game at Safeco stadium in Seattle. We had great seats and being back at the stadium was incredible! It was perfect weather and despite the loss, it was a really good time. We had good beer to enjoy, veggies dogs were only 4$ US, and, afterwards, we all had aching abs from laughing so much during the game! I haven't seen my dad act that young for a long, long time!

Safeco field!

My dad lookin' goofy!

My brother and I had a good time at Wal-Mart. Yes, that is right, Wal-Mart. We stayed over at my mom's house for a few days and I had to do a little shopping in preparation to return to St. Lucia. My brother suggested that we go to Starbucks first, which I took him up on/. For some reason, by the time we had our coffee we were cracking up hysterically! By the time we reached Wal-Mart, we were stilll laughing. My brother made it worse when he saw a little house outside and decided to pretend he was a giant in it. Ha ha. Only he would do that! We must have spent about 6 hours inside of Wal-mart because by the time that we left it was dark outside!

It's his new apartment....

During my stay with my mommers, I got some incredible food, got to go play golf (even if it was in the pouring rain), got to share in my grandma's birthday dinner, see some of my other family members, and got to spend quality time with my moms and my dogs and my cats. Topper now resides with Brian and Delilah (Dell) is the office cat at my brother and Dad's drug testing business. It was so good to see Dell looking so happy- a little overfed, Dad- but happy and healthy! My childhood dog, Macaroon, reached 16 years of age and I knew it would be my last time

that I would be seeing her. :( Mac has always been that dog that runs up to you each and every time she sees you. She got to see me grow up through the years, as I did her from the time I was 9.

When I checked my email a week or two later upon returning to St. Lucia, my mom sent me an email to let me know that Mac had passed. She held on to see me one more time, to see my family in whole one more time. I love you, Macarooners!!!

The family camping trip was great! We went to my uncle's property, well one of the two. It is on a river, complete with plenty of camping space, four horseshoe pits, and a space for a live band to play. We celebrated my uncle Patrick by unveiling a totem pole that was made in his memory.

My family is what I have been missing living abroad. Without them around, there is always something missing. Though I am starting to get used to them not being here, I will never be 100% okay with them not being here. My family is my center, and without them I find myself a little inbalanced, at times!

There are many more stories that I have just from the few short weeks I spent back in Seattle, but I will save that for the book!

My crazy bro lookin' fresh!

Visiting Seattle 09: Part 2: Best of Friends time!

2009-06-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

Me at Greenlake embracing the sunshine!

While being in Seattle, I got the quality time that I wanted with family and my best friends. It was nice to just spend the time with the closest of my friends. Sorry I didn't tell most of you that I was going to be home. I only had two weeks, and I wanted to spend the majority of it with my family.

FRIEND TIME:

Me and Jay hanging out at Greenlake.

One of the first outings, besides the Benveridge Place Pub, was to Greenlake with Jay. Greenlake is a 3 mile around lake in the area nearby I used to live for the majority of my independent life. Greenlake offers rollerblading, tennis, running, football, plenty of good sites and opportunities to talk to people. I love it! Plus, it is always beautiful; in sunshine, rain, snow, and sleet.

Let's just say, I got to "stop and smell the tulips".

I picked Jay up to go with me to the DOL to get my license renewed. Luckily, he had the day off and I got to surprise him by showing up on his front doorstep. I did not have a phone the entire time that I was in Seattle so this happened quite a bit. Anyhow, after a very quick in and out at the DOL, we went to Greenlake for a little walk. We spent the time laughing and catching up. Though, it felt as if I was just hanging out with him two days before. That is how it always feels with the best of friends- like no time has gone by at all!

Jay always manages to brighten my day...AWAHHHH.

Along the walk Jay pretended to be a turtle and said AWAHHHHH a few times, acted like a monkey swinging from a tree in the path and got to be my model for photography. It was a great time. Just what I needed.

Me and Rach (and Spartacus) catching up.

I was fortunate enough to get to spend time with Rachel and Taylor (and Riley and the Spartacus). I went out to dinner with them at a good Mexican restaurant and went straight to Taylor's hockey game. After coming back to St. Lucia, I realized that I have spent too much time in St. Lucian bars and restaurants because I forgot to tip the server! In St. Lucia, most of the bills include the service charge and at the bars, you generally do not have to tip. So, I was pretty embarassed to figure out that I totally just forgot to leave anything for this woman. It was good, fast service too. Ah well....I was a foreigner that day. Ha ha. At Taylor's hockey game, me and Rach got to catch up a little bit. I became much too excited for the new baby that is kicking around in Rach's belly. So much, I am really sad that I am going to miss his birth!!!

I friggin' love this girl. 100% ourselves with each other.

On the Friday night that I was in town Tessa and I planned to meet up and celebrate her birthday and my visit. It turned out much bigger than planned. I got to see a few close friends and had probably one too many tequila shots. But it was totally worth it. Met a few randoms from around the area. Overall, it was a great night. I woke up in the morning at Tessa's and we had to start planning the next camping trip to my uncle's property that day. Good thing we were all sluggish from the night before. :D

Two of my best friends and I with our other best friend; tequila.

Hey! I'm still in my mid-20s....I've got a couple more good yrs of shots left.

The second camping trip was great too! My uncle has two properties in Eastern Washington. This new one was just as nice as the first one. It has a huge open area for tent camping, an area for a band to play, firepits, horseshoe pits, plenty of drinks available, a river on the edge of the property, and plenty of good company. Every Memorial Day he has a big celebration camp out. There is always a horseshoe competition and a band that plays. This particular year was the first time that we were celebrating it without my uncle, Patrick. He had passed just before I left for the Peace Corps. In honor of him, a good friend made a hand-carved totem pole with some significant markings. A Jack card and a 7 card in honor of his favorite drink, a harmonica in memory of the instrument he played in his band, and a few other nice markings. It was very nice. I think Patrick would love it.

Grandma, Manman, and Bro (and me) with the totem pole.

The band was fantastic, the company was great, and we all had a lot of laughs! We had to go shopping for beer twice, food once, and we finished every ounce of it. Hey, we were out in the middle of nowhere with family and good friends!

Towards the end of my visit, I got to see a friend of mine, that I think is just so fantastic!!! Jacob has a heart of gold and I love the conversations that I get to have with him. I didn't know if I would get the chance to see him for sure, but with the extra day due to a delayed plane ride I got to see him just before I left!

Jacob was camera shy, but I got one anyway!

Nothing more I can ask for besides all of this quality time. It was the slow life...and I enjoyed every second of it.

Oh, Tess!

Visitng Seattle 09: Part 1 Lake Crescent

2009-06-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

Overjoyed being outdoors in the Northwest!

Last month, I decided to use my moms' valuable offer to buy me a ticket back to Seattle for a visit. It was a completely spontaneous decision to go when I did, but it worked out perfectly. Despite the last minute timing and arrangements of where I was going to stay and who was going to pick me up everything turned out exactly how I would have planned it were I given two years notice.

First, I was picked up by my best friend and favorite person, Brian. Though he has been to St. Lucia for a visit since I left, I still felt as if I hadn't seen him in years! I guess that is how it feels when you don't have the people you really care about in your everyday life. After my flight was delayed an hour and a half from waiting for the caterers to bring the right trays on the plane (while we were sitting in our seats), I was still in a good mood regardless.

If the Peace Corps has given me any gift, it would be the gift of patience and more flexibility.

I had originally thought that I was both patient and flexible when I lived in the states, but oh, how much more I am now. Thank you, PC.

Anyhow, while on the plane I was listening to others around me moaning and groaning about the delay and I could not help but laugh. What good is it going to make by complaining about something that you cannot control??? I ask myself this every single day of my PC service. There are so many things in life that I cannot control, and my perspective on the situation can make or break me. I choose to stay at ease.

So, to continue on, I was finally off the plane and collecting my bags. I was immediately overwhelmed with all of the people around me. You get so used to a certain way of life that somtimes you forget what it was like before you were in that life! Needless to say, I was wide-eyed and constantly looking around me to take it all in again. After leaving the airport, Brian and I went to one of our favorite bars, The Beveridge Place Pub. I was starving from not eating for the last 24 hours, so we ordered a vegetarian pizza (YUMMMMMY) and ate it while talking with four other friends who met us at the bar. Oh, it was so welcoming to have a GOOD beer in my hand and a slice of good pizza in the other!

After a good night of catching up and laughs, we went home to cool out. I had a great first night back, and little did I know that the rest of the trip would be just as great. The next day, me and Brian packed up the car, loaded the canoe on top, and stopped to grab a few cases of brew at the supermarket. Then we headed on our way to Lake Crescent, on the Peninsula about three hours east of Seattle.

Lake Crescent in the morning.

Lake Crescent is magnificent! The water is so blue and reflective that I was simply mesmorized. We set up the tent at about 11 pm. Seth had been waiting for us to arrive for about five hours. The bridge was closed, so we had to take 3 ferries to get to our destination. I was overjoyed! I love ferry rides and getting to play multiple games of cribbage on the way up.

Playing cribbage at the local ferry bar.

While the boys were scuba diving, I took a nice little hike through the woods. I came across an abandoned cabin with- get this- an old style can crusher from the 60s. Oh man, was I excited!!! my parents sported one of these at the house I was born in. Sentimental connections to a can crusher...oh, the simplicity of life.

60's can crusher at the cabin....

I was a little hesitant to walk in the cabin for fear that around the corner was a man hiding with a chainsaw who would start walking after me when I sprint out the door and still manage to catch up to me. Yes, I probably have watched one too many horror movies in my life! Regardless, I decided to wait for the boys to come back to the cabin with me to really explore around. :D

Brian and I "odeing" to the cup of rum.....

It was the nearly perfect camping trip to come back to Seattle for. I had a good time sitting around the fire talking with the boys drinking a few beers and having good conversation. On the way back to Seattle from the Lake, we were stuck in a three hour wait due to a fatal car accident. Brian and I met some great, new people in the meantime and gorged on the remaining chips and dip in the car. It was a good time. I love the little moments!

How Inspiring

2009-06-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

I found this very simple but incredible journal at the thrift store when I was back in the states...it says on the outside:

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

By who else, but ghandi!

Loved it so much I splurged on the 99 cents US. :D

Pumpkin Pie Bread Recipe

2009-06-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

First, I baked a wedge of fresh pumpkin in the oven frosted with butter, cloves, and cinnamon for about an hour until soft.

Then, I took off the cloves and the pumpkin peel and hand blended the pumpkin into puree.

Preheat the oven (I do not have a thermometer on my oven - so I am estimating- med-high heat). Butter the trays that you are going to use.

Mix the flour, soda, powder, spice mix, and salt in one bowl. Then combine the sugars, vanilla, oil eggs and pumpkin puree into another bowl. Add the wet mixture into the dry mixture alternately with the water until thoroughly mixed.

Bake until fork comes out clean...I think about 45 min???

I added chocolate on the last batch and it was delicious! You can add walnuts, almonds, bananas, coconut or whatever else your creative mind can think up! It makes a good batch size, so cut the recipe in half if you are only making it for yourself!

3 1/2 cups flour

2 cups white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs (3 if you want it less cake-like)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 teaspoons spice mix (I used fresh grated cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves)

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup vegetable oil (or 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup applesauce)

2 cups fresh pumpkin puree

1/2 cup water

Destiny

2009-06-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

St. Lucia has brought me closer to music; in action, thought, and soul. I have been attempting to learn the steel pan every week, learn the acoustic guitar and hear music with my ears and soul rather than my mind. I have found some attachment to Buju Banton while I have been here, and feel the connection when I listen to his music. It is not only Buju, but music as such has really helped me to step outside and really LISTEN to the music. I am still quite new to music and I am fully aware that I have much more to learn. This particular song is one of my favorites. It has taken words from the rastafarian beliefs in combination with Proverbs 18:11.

My favorite statement: Destruction of your soul is vanity. Oh, how true.

Verse 1:
The rich man's wealth is in the city
Destruction of the poor is his poverty
Destruction of your soul is vanity
Do you hear
I and I, I wanna rule my destiny
I and I, I wanna rule my destiny

Chorus:
Destiny, mama look from when you call me
Destiny, mama look from when you calling
I wanna rule my destiny
yeah, yeah oh help I please Jah Jah mek mi rule

Verse 2:
I've been blessed I've been touch
I love Jah so much
They keep fighting me I'm not giving up
May the realms of Zion fill my spiritual cup
Wisdom overstanding can never be too much
Give I protection Day and night

Chorus

Cast away their cords from us
you have them in the region in the valley of decision
Restraining the heathen with a rod of iron
you know not the destiny of a next man
Why hold him set him free too long

Verse 3:
My destination is homeward bound
Though force try to hold I down
Breaking chains has become the norm
I know I must get through no matter what a gwaan

And here is the Proverbs Verse:

He who separates himself seeks his own desire,
He quarrels against all sound wisdom.
2 A fool does not delight in understanding,
But only in revealing his own mind.
3 When a wicked man comes, contempt also comes,
And with dishonor comes scorn.
4 The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters;
The fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.
5 To show partiality to the wicked is not good,
Nor to thrust aside the righteous in judgment.
6 A fool’s lips bring strife,
And his mouth calls for blows.
7 A fool’s mouth is his ruin,
And his lips are the snare of his soul.
8 The words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels,
And they go down into the innermost parts of the body.
9 He also who is slack in his work
Is brother to him who destroys.
10 The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
The righteous runs into it and is safe.
11 A rich man’s wealth is his strong city,
And like a high wall in his own imagination.
12 Before destruction the heart of man is haughty,
But humility goes before honor.
13 He who gives an answer before he hears,
It is folly and shame to him.
14 The spirit of a man can endure his sickness,
But as for a broken spirit who can bear it?
15 The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge,
And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
16 A man’s gift makes room for him
And brings him before great men.
17 The first to plead his case seems right,
Until another comes and examines him.
18 The cast lot puts an end to strife
And decides between the mighty ones.
19 A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city,
And contentions are like the bars of a citadel.
20 With the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach will be satisfied;
He will be satisfied with the product of his lips.
21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
And those who love it will eat its fruit.
22 He who finds a wife finds a good thing
And obtains favor from the LORD.
23 The poor man utters supplications,
But the rich man answers roughly.
24 A man of too many friends comes to ruin,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

I am not going to go into detail about my own beliefs in faith and religion, but I will say that these words give me something to think about. St. Lucia has brought me closer to thinking with my heart. Island lifestyle may be attaching itself to me! :) Slow down a little and you start to take new ideas into consideration. Part of the culture here is this idea of a God (regardless of denomination) and living for others; with others and not for yourself. Living off of sustainability and listening to his surroundings and environment rather than speaking first. Vanity can kill the soul too quickly. Sometimes the simplest of a life can be the answer. Depends on who you are, I suppose.

Little things should freeze the moment

2009-06-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

After leaving work one day, I found myself walking into an argument that two women were having near a car. At first, I was immediately wanting to walk briskly past them but I noticed something that made me stop in my tracks.

In the midst of this heated argument, a child was standing right next to his arguing mother, lost in his own world. Rather than listening to this argument, the little boy was busy looking at his reflection in the car door.

Not only was he looking at his reflection, but he was dancing his little heart out! I literally stopped walking and stared. I could not help it! It was the funniest thing I have seen since "Pineapple Express" came out.

This little boy was my refreshment for a week of insanity. The moment I stopped and started laughing; regardless of the arugment that was happening, other people noticed as well. This boy had no idea anything else was going on around him. He did not hear the curse words that came out of his mother's mouth, he did not see me fixated and laughing with my whole heart, and he certainly did not see what happened when the two women realized what was going on.

Yes, in the midst of this argument, the boy had managed to change the entire situation by having fun. The women saw me and the others around looking and laughing, and they could not do anything else but stop fighting and laugh too. I'm not going to say that these women most likely did not continue fighting after I started walking again, but for one moment in time, they stopped on account of one person's actions. An argument was frozen by a 4 year old boy that just wanted to dance with his own reflection. Priceless.

Everyday brings a new blessing

2009-06-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Since the last blog was over a month ago, and was a little intense in emotion and perspective, I am going to stray a little back to the ease.

Yesterday, I was sitting in Grow Well, the NGO that I work with in Gros Islet with a few of the youngsters from around the community. Prior to cooling out with the youngsters, I had my second site visit of my Peace Corps service and as a snack I had made pumpkin pie bread the night before for my colleagues. The recipe that I used was, by far, more than I had needed for the four of us. I had some extra so I decided to share with the boys. After giving them a few slices, they were smiles from ear to ear. Now, I am still uncertain if it was the amount of the sugar that was in the recipe or the fact that they were enjoying our conversation, either way it was a good day.

Now, one minute I was talking about art and the next one of the boys said, "Miss, ______ just said that if you were his age, he would kiss you!!!!" My immediate reaction was to burst into laughs of hysteria, but I really, really, really tried to hold it back from embarassing this kid. Though, it didn't last long when all of a sudden we were all cracking up at the statement. Shortly after that, I said, well if you were 20 years older...we might talk. Then, I hear, "oh my gosh- you're that old?!?!" Now, I have heard this before from kids that are almost still in diapers so I was not surprised to hear it. It was what followed that I could not help but be eternally devoted to working with children...

"Miss, you should have been married a LONG time ago!!!"

Ha ha. Okay, okay, thank you...I'm 25, single, nowhere near marriage, and facebook tells me that I am not going to get married until I am 37 anyway. Facebook is ALWAYS right (ha ha), so now this kid is just rubbing it in.

Maybe other people would have felt bad after this statement, as if someone was telling you that you look "rounder" aka fatter...(Yes, that did happen the day before despite the fact that I have been running every day in the last month). I, however, found this so incredibly refreshing and it really made my day. This 5 year old thinks that I am past my prime of marriage years, whereas, I see myself in the right spot at the right time. I am going to make a valiant effort to call this kid when he is 25 and see if he has been married yet. We'll see then, kid. We'll see then.

A cultural look at death: Parts 1 and 2

2009-04-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

A Cultural Look at Death: Part 2

I want to clarify my last blog a little further due to a comment that was left on my blog.

I chose to highlight ONE aspect of how death is viewed in St. Lucia because it was so greatly contrasting the difference to the perspective in my hometown and state. While I am very aware that things like this happen in the "grand ole" USA, it was not until I reached St. Lucia that I came to experience death in this way, personally. It was such a shocking experience for me when it happened to someone that I cared about so suddenly, and many parts of me disagreed with it. I did not, however, disagree with it because it was the "St. Lucian way" of dealing with death. No, I know this happens all around the world, but it is not prominent in the culture that I come from; thus, it makes it that much more astounding of an experience for me.

I also wanted to acknowledge the fact that I am very aware that St. Lucia has multiple ways of dealing with death. I know that not ALL people contribute to the mass-spread of these pictures, nor do they believe that seeing such things will help them to move on. In many ways, as I stated in my past blog, death is a very personal experience. It is dealt with uniquely by each individual, and St. Lucians are not excluded in this. Many of Kerry's friends and family members were dealing with this in the way that I am generally used to- with much love, compassion, heartbreak, and devotion... It is the other people that have a detachment to that kind of love that I wanted to discuss because it is so different to what I am used to seeing. Mourning happens in a multitude of ways, and St. Lucia is no different than that.

I had hoped not to offend anyone with my writings here- but it seems that it is often unavoidable when contrasting culture and lifestyle. I apologize in advance for anything that may sound offensive. I did not miss any part of the mourning process in Kerry's death; I simply chose to highlight the most hard to deal with part, for myself, besides the loss itself. I am still in awe of how strong and courageous my host family (especially my sister) and Kerry's family has been during this all. They are amazing people, and they have shown me more strength than I have ever known in my own life.

I would like to broadcast to everyone that in light of a loss, there has been a very wonderful addition to the world at just the right time!!!! My host brother and his girlfriend, Kesha, have just given birth three days ago!!! They are going to make outstanding parents. I cannot wait to meet the new baby!!!

A Cultural Look at Death: Part 1

To be completely honest, being a Peace Corps volunteer has been a roller coaster of emotion. I have gone from one extreme to the other and back again in a short eight months. Last month I told my family members that I was most likely not going to come back to Seattle for a visit during my service. Last week, I decided spontaneously that it was time for me to go home just for a short, short visit. I just felt it. If anything St. Lucia has given me, it's the power to just feel when things are right and ready.

Two weeks ago, on Easter Sunday, a friend of mine was killed in a car accident not too far away from my home. It was a sudden shock and an unforgettable day. He was the boyfriend of my host sister here for the last five years. They spent everyday together, and loved each other very much. I will always remember him for his sense of humor and unbelievable smile. Plus, he loved Friends, the tv show, just as much as I do- which most of you know is very rare!!! It was a rough two weeks, but now that he has been laid to rest in Gros Islet it feels as if there can be good coming out of the bad. He was, afterall, taken by God on Easter Sunday out of all days. In hindsight, resurrection day was his calling.

Death in St. Lucia is viewed much differently than death in the states. I am still trying to get a grasp on what death really means to a Lucian. I know that, for some, death is more of an entertainment. When it is not your loved one that passes, than you have free rights to look at all the pictures you want of the accident, talk about it as freely as you desire to, and ridicule the people involved for things that did not even happen. I know that sounds bitter to an extent, and it just may be, but it is the truth of what happened here when it was my friend who passed. I got to see how everyone reacted and how people dealt with this tragedy.

One issue that was brought up directly following the accident was the rapid spread of photos over the internet that were taken at the scene of the accident right after it happened. Someone chose to take these pictures at the scene rather than to help out one of the victims who was struggling in agony up a ditch trying to hang on for dear life. This was a very much debated topic on the radio and in communities for the last two weeks. Who would have the heart to do something like that? Someone who views death as emotionless and feels nothing for the victim? That would take a lot of numbness, though, to stand there to shoot pictures of a horrific scene but not lift a finger to help a victim out. Within hours of the accident, the pictures were sent from email to email with no regards for the persons involved; and especially not for the families who were suffering. Shortly after the pictures were taken, the man who was struggling up the ditch also passed. I'm not sure of whether or not he would have survived would the person who took the pictures have helped him, but that is not what is important here. Even if he would not have survived, the person could have offered him hope and love in the last few moments of his life rather than humiliation and disrespect. The person could have embraced him and told him that, "everything is going to end up alright". But no, that did not happen, it was quite possibly the worst a person can do: not feel anything for someone who is struggling in his last breath. Perhaps there was more to it than meets the eye.

If I sound angry, that is not the case. Merely disappointed. At times believing in humanity drains me. How is it that I can have faith that people are going to turn out alright when I see things like this happen? I'm not the only one who thinks like this, I know that.

Death already is quite a confusing part of life. I have come to accept it as inevitable. But why do we have to make it even more confusing by adding this all into it? This isn't the first time that pictures like these have been spread on the internet in St. Lucia. That is why I had to take a HUGE step back and not look at this one person as at fault. It absolutely does disgust me to think of a person as able to take these pictures, but I still had to step back. It is part of the culture. It is part of what happens when a death occurs. At the funeral I noticed that a photographer was taking pictures of us all in mourning. He also took pictures of Kerry in the casket and being put into the grave. These are all things that happen culturally.

Even the entire burial process is much different. People stay to watch the entire process until the cement has been put on. I think for the people who do this, and look at the pictures, death is made more real. It is a process of dealing with things that happened and, what seems, a very obscure way of moving on. In actuality, it is just a different way of handling death. In the states, we mourn differently. We cry, and we cry, and we cry until we can no longer cry anymore. Then we are expected to be as quiet and respectful as possible about the death until the time passes. We are expected to say all of the right things to the people mourning for their loved ones, and be as sad about death as possible. I know I am saying this with a little extremity, but for the most part, this is how I learned death in the states. In St. Lucia, I am re-learning what death can be and what it cannot be.

Talk about cultural exchange. One of the biggest experiences here, thus far, has been dealing with Kerry's death. It challenged me in ways that I have never been challenged in life, and much of this has to do with cultural differences in the perception of his death. Death does not have to be sad and full of distraught days- though often it is for at least a little while- but it can be made realistic, factual, and, at times, much too honest. I can't say that either perspective is the one that I prefer. It all has to do with creating your own perception and then living with it. Though, for others' sake a little sensitivity needs to be practiced in every death regardless of your own perspective.

In any way, Kerry was a great individual and he left his mark on a lot of people. The entire church was full and people stayed until the sun went down. I hope and pray for his family and my host family that they can all get through this with strong faith. Kerry created enough memories at such a young age that they will live on forever. I'll miss you, Jeremy Kerry Jeffrey.

After the accident, I decided that it was time to go home for a visit! So, that's how I got to make the spontaneous decision that I made. I'll be home for a week and a half in May...and I will be spending every second with my loved ones!

"Do you see anything to smile about?"

2009-04-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard the song "Do you see anything to smile about" by Morgan Heritage? As people back in the states continue to ask me why there are Peace Corps volunteers in a Caribbean "Paradise" Island my response has been to them, "listen to the song".

Here's the song- Most of you aren't used to the Caribbean slang dialect but here it is:

(Intro)
nuff people come to jamaica and nuh know how we live
think Seh EVERYTHING nice through we full of vibes and think
dem say want feelin to dem heart when dem get fi overstand di real thing yeaah

(verse 1)
Mi deh ya a town one day
A par with a white man weh come all the way from norway
And him turn to mi and say
How comes Jamaica full of so much screwface
Same time mi lift mi head to the sky
And a tear drop fall from mi eye
Mi Say my youth come we go out for a drive
Mek mi show you why mi cry

(chorus)
Look pon di gully side
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Look at that hungry child
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Look at the school weh deh youth dem go fi get dem education
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Look at the conditions of our police stations
Do you see anything fi smile bout

(verse 2)
Same time the bredda say
How can a nation believe in this way
And the next thing him say
How can the government play so many games
Same time mi heart fall to the ground
Cause dis much war where that comes from
Certain place they are worse dan slum
Youth man come

(chorus)
And take a look pon Riverton
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Look pon Payneland
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Flankers, Mobay and Saffras Heights in Nos Spain
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Hope Flats, Kentiyah, Mottom Bay are all the same
Do you see anything fi smile bout

(Intro)
nuff people come to jamaica and nuh know how we live
think Say EVERYTHING nice through we full of vibes and think
dem say want feelin to dem heart when dem get fi overstand di real thing yeaah

chorus

(verse 1)
Mi deh ya a town one day
A par with a white man weh come all the way from norway
And him turn to mi and say
How comes Jamaica full of so much screwface
Same time mi lift mi head to the sky
And a tear drop fall from mi eye
Mi Say my youth come we go out for a drive
Mek mi show you why mi cry

(chorus)
take a look pon Riverton
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Look pon Payneland
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Canterbury Mobay, March Pen Road ova Spain
Do you see anything fi smile bout
Nuff likkle place deh ya inna jamdown today
Weh nuttin nuh did deh fi smile bout

As much as I love my new home land, there is still plenty to cry about. When is everyone going to get real and take the time to realize that there is much more going on here than overly expensive hotels and plenty of rum? Every time that someone asks me, "How is paradise?" I cringe at how they say it. Granted, parts of this island truly are paradise...no doubt. But anywhere you go- you, yourself- can make it paradise. It's not about the "picture perfect" views or the clear, blue waters. It's about your mentality and what your vibes of life are.

I can sit outside on a clear, beautiful day and think nothing of the sights I am seeing. Or I can sit outside on an unsightful, rainy day and think that this place is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Truth is, that regardless of the physical beauty in life, if your mentality is not in the same spot- it's not going to be any type of paradise.

I'm not trying to show off the negatives of St. Lucia, by any means. But take into context that my work is specifically developmental work in a third world country. I see things that no one else gets to see sometimes. I know things that I might have been better off not knowing. I love things that are impossible for anyone else to love. I fight for things that I know is never going to happen. I struggle to make a difference in a nation that may not think that they need to change for their own good. I give parts of myself to people here that I have never been able to give anyone before in my life. I experience things that hurt me almost everyday, but I keep on pushing because I vibe with faith.

St. Lucia has plenty to smile about, yes, unlike the song. But there are so many things that are overlooked here. For all of you wondering, yes, I will eventually share with you some of the hardships that I am referring to. But for now, we will leave it at this. Listen to the song.

The After School Club

2009-03-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

Nakine holding up his composition after the writing session.

As one of the Grow Well initiatives, Grow Well wanted to provide more activities geared towards youth in the community of Gros Islet. Extra curricular activities help to give these youth something to do other than just to roam the streets. The less time that the kids hand out on the streets, the more time they can possibly spend developing into their full potential.

Game day at ASC....

My work here includes, but is not limited to, helping my community counterparts in Gros Islet to fulfill the initiatives brought forth. Because of this initiative, I started organizing what is now known as the Grow Well After School Club, or the ASC for GI. This program is at the base level currently, of course, but I see it taking form as the weeks go on.

When I would hang out a little bit longer after co-teaching at the CARE school during the day, I noticed that there were kids that would gravitate towards the centre. This was a great thing. However, they needed a little bit of focus and discipline in order to make it a positive thing. Thus, the ASC!!

Some of the girls during Game Day Session.

The first two Wednesdays was merely getting the kids to come in, take a consent and information form, and learn how to sign in. The kids were a little resistant to signing in and out at first, but now most of them ask for the sign in book. Progress is slow, but certain. After the first two sessions, we moved into working on creative art projects. Luckily, I was given some very quality stencils from Judy Joyce, a volunteer in Dominica. We used the stencils to draw and color. The youth seemed very keen on being into the arts. The only thing with the arts sessions is that they can be a little messy!

After spending a few weeks completing the arts sessions, we moved on to creating "makeshift" drums. During my months here, I have been collecting various materials that can be used in arts and crafts. We took plastic and metal jars, bottles, and cylinders to create drums. First, they were assigned the task of decorating the drum bases. This took the entirety of one session. The second session was devoted to designing the top of their drums, and the third to playing their creations.

Though not all of them were able to make it to the session in which we played the drums, the kids that were able to make it learned a little bit about sound and design. They got to not only test out the drums that we all made, but they also got to hear the difference in sound. They realized that the size and material of the drum does make a difference in the pitch and tone of the sound that is produced. This is very basic knowledge for music, but it can make all the difference in exposure. Sometimes, the exposure of just getting the opportunity to have fun with music can encourage a youth to get involved in the music world. Hopefully, these kids will have the curiousity to get involved in music later on in their lives.

The session after the drums was a "game day". We spent most of the time playing board games in small groups to emphasize teamwork and patience. My mother always played board games with me when I was a child, and for this I am grateful. It really taught me how to work together with other people and be patient for my turn. Though it does not seem like much to teach kids how to play board games, it really can instill good virtues in them sometimes.

Composition Day 2 at the ASC.

The past two sessions have been writing a composition. I am corresponding with an after school centre now in California, Irvine. I thought that it would be good for the kids to write a letter to the centre telling them a little bit about themselves and describing St. Lucia. In order to encourage them to do a little more work after spending the whole day at school, I baked some "snacky cakes". Whoever worked hard and really put some effort into their composition earned a snacky cake.

The second session was devoted to finishing the compositions and taking individual pictures to send with the letters. I am going to put the pictures together in a collage of sorts before I send them with the letters.

So far, I have really only planned two weeks ahead of the actual sessions. Right now we are testing out what works and what doesn't with the kids so that when we put together a comprehensive program for the ministry to look at we will have a basis of interest for the community. I have been lucky in trying to find volunteers for the club as well. Though, I am still working hard on finding local parents, teachers and community members to take the place of the "6 monthers". It is incredibly difficult to get parents to help out in their spare time here. Finding local community members to be the ones running the club is going to be very difficult, but I am going to work on finding these people throughout the two years! It is a good resource for the kids, and it really gets them to spend some quality time being creative and to start thinking outside of the box.

A visit is like a "now and later"

2009-03-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

If I had unlimited funding, I just may import you all.....

The longer that I stay here, the harder I find it to blog about my experiences. Things are becoming less new to me, so I do not feel the need to write about them. Also, I am getting settled into the life here. I am becoming busy, busy, busy! When I am not busy, the last thing that I really want to do is to sit down at a computer for a couple of hours to find something to write about.

Recently, I was lucky enough to have a visitor from the States. Brian was the last person that I thought would visit me first. That sentence sounds a little confusing, eh? However, although I had imagined that he would come to visit me, I never believed that he would be the first person to come. I am so lucky!

We had a good time when he was here. I don't feel like I got to show him all that I wanted to show to him though! I was tired a lot of the time. Luckily I didn't have to work as much as I thought I was going to have to, but I was exhausted from the week prior.

I got to pick him up from the airport in Vieux Fort. I have never been on a shorter bus ride my entire time in St. Lucia!!!! It felt like a matter of minutes coming back from the airport because we had so much to talk about.

The first full day that Brian was here, I took him to Gros Islet. I had to work for part of the day, so I had him help me out with the After School Club. The After School Club is offered to 27 registered kids ranging from 5-18 years of age. I will discuss more about it in the next couple of posts. Anyhow, I had Brian help out with "drum day". We made drums from makeshift materials. Unfortunately, there was a funeral outside the day that we were supposed to play them, so we had to wait until the following week to play them.

Brian playing the drums during the ASC with Tariq.

So instead, we played games and the girls all braided Brian's hair! It was quite the riot. The kids LOVED him...they were jumping on him nonstop and would not let him go!

This is a pic of Brian with some of the kids from

the "ASC" After School Club in Gros Islet.

This is me and Brian on the third attempt up

to Pigeon Point. Yes, it was successful, but

very windy!

We got to go to Pigeon Point three times. No, it was not because he liked it so much the first time! It was because it had rained the first two times that we got up there. Literally, it had been sunny and clear and the minute we stepped inside of the park, it started pouring down rain! We waited for it to clear up those two times, but alas, it did not. So what did we do but shelter in the local pub! It is quickly becoming one of my favorite places in St. Lucia. This bar is so quaint and perfect. The walls are stone and it feels like you are in a little cave. They allow cats to roam around freely and even to sit atop the bar. That's my kind of place!

This picture Brian took without me knowing there

was a "toilets" sign above my head outside of the

Pub. He is funny, isn't he???

Perhaps one of my favorite parts of his visit was the Peace Corps Work Day in Laborie. We worked with some of the other Peace Corps Volunteers to help turn soil, build a dam, and a few other things. It was a great experience for myself and Brian. That was certainly the first time that I have ever built a dam, let alone turned soil! When I imagined myself coming to the Peace Corps, I definitely had more of this type of work in mind. I love to keep myself busy doing laborous outdoor work like this. It can be much more satisfying than the "desk work" that I sometimes have to do.

Me and Jeff beginning the dam. There was nothing

there but water and rocks!

Turning the soil and weeding during the PC

work day. Hot sun and hard work.

Building the dam. It took form after a little

hard work!

Anyhow, I helped to build a dam; Brian helped to weed and turn soil. Luckily, his hair helped to shade his head from the sun. He would have been burnt to a toast! We had a great lunch of coconut "secret ingredient" rice after the work. The ingredient turned out to be basil. YUMMMY. That was some of the best coconut water I have had since being in St. Lucia as well.

After the work day, we went to Klu's to get chicken and bakes. My, oh, my, was that satisfying as well. A few beers and a few good chicken n' bakes....well worth the work!

I asked Jeff to invite us all again for another work day like that. I would get "down and dirty" anytime!

Did I mention I had to wash my tennis shoes three times to get the smell from the creek water out of my shoes???? Again, well worth it. We also tried to make our way up Gros Piton. However, we did not make it there until about 2:30 (to the trail head), so we only got to hike half way up due to potential darkness.

Brian and I half way up Gros Islet. His hair is

covering up the gorgeous view of Petit Piton.

Aside from the work day and Gros Piton, I spent a little bit of time introducing Brian to Gros Islet, my work community. On Friday night we got the chance to go to the "Jump Up". The jump up is a street party out in the middle of the road that goes from about 7 to 3 am. It is always a ton of fun! It is even better when you know more people from the community. For me, the longer I am here, the better it gets because I get to know a few new people every Friday. This is a great way for me to meet people in my own community. People tend to be a little more relaxed on Fridays, and then when I see them during the week in the community they are thrilled!

We also went to the Castries market to do a little shopping for Brian's friends and family. That was the first time that I spent a little bit of time in the market. It is interesting to see how people react to two white people walking about in the market.

During the week, if I am in Castries, most people will recognize me and at least not ask me if I want a tour of the island anymore. However, when you are with a new white friend, well, that's all fair game to ask. Sometimes I find myself playing along with them...."Oh, yes, I do need a tour....How much? Oh, I got a better price from that guy.....oh, you are going to lower it?.....Hmmm....well, I want to go, but I don't have any money right now......oh, you'll accompany me to the bank while I get money?......Okay, well I have some other errands to do....wait here and I will come back and get you....." Ha. Well, sometimes it is more exhausting to say, "I'm not a tourist, I live here" and to explain what I am doing here and for how long I have lived here.

Overall, it was really nice to have a best friend in town for a little while. It was a different feeling; combining my old life with my new life. Sometimes I would get a little confused...but generally, I loved it. It felt good at times to remember things from Seattle, but at the same time, it also made me miss Seattle a little bit. However, by having him in town, I automatically realized it was not Seattle that I was missing so much as the few people in my life that I just don't want to live without. As nice as Seattle is, I can live in another place and be completely happy. In fact, I just might do that after I get done here.

The Purpose Prize

2009-02-24T13:18:00.000-08:00

I often look through the newspaper or online for inspiration in service work. Though I am not burnt out quite yet doing volunteer work sometimes I just need a little extra spark of motivation to get the feet going. Recently, I looked on the internet to find what's called "The Purpose Prize". I was pleasantly surprised to see my next source of inspiration staring at me directly in the face. The men and women highlighted are individuals who are avid humanitarians, just like me. They aim to help in small ways, but end up affecting the world in much larger ways than they anticipated. I can only hope that each of us PCV's can step into the same light. Here is the link of Mr. Lardner, from Seattle, WA, my birth town. Please check out some of the work that the people listed have done for us.

http://www.purposeprize.org/finalists/candidatepage.cfm?candidateid=3408

Empowerment through Arts and Sports

2009-02-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

My work, thus far, in St. Lucia has focused around 3 things.

1) I have been working with a girl's empowerment group called "Girl's Circle" that has been beneficial not only to the girls, but to myself as well.

2) Strengthening and supporting the CARE school programs at Grow Well in the area of IT/Literacy, Arts and Crafts, "maths", and sports.

3) Developing a plan and materializing it to create after school opportunities for the youth of Gros Islet in the area of arts, sports, and life skills.

The volunteering work that I have done with CARE has been the most interesting, of yet. The trainees there (that is what we call the students because it is more of a training program than a school), are bright and unique individuals. Last Friday we had a sports meet for Track and Field. We only had enough time to train for a couple of weeks prior to the event due to other constraints, but we managed to still take part in the event. Unfortunately, only three of the trainees could participate that day. I have a feeling that a few of the others were nervous or whatnot. Anyhow, the three that did participate did well, and I am proud of them.

Ed running in the 200 m.
Dwayne making good headway in front of the Odsan athlete on the 200m.
Cheerleaders excited for the races!
The whole group of athletes at the parade before.

My favorite little cheerleader! She was rooting for us all!

A few weeks prior to the sports meet, we also took part in an annual spelling bee. We took fourth place, but the trainees that participated did very well. There were multiple rounds and most of the words were spelled accurately.

Stephanie thinking about a word really hard.

The annual spelling bee contestants.

Girl's Circle has been a good time as well. The girls are working on becoming more responsible, more well-rounded, and more self-confident. In the last session, we focused on creativity in life to express yourself. We used play-dough that I made from scratch, painted and created collages from brought materials. The girls all had a great time, and they really made things that were nice to look at.

Pictures that were painted by the girls.

Romana painting a pretty little picture.

Katie and Enah working with play dough to create a butterfly through team work skills.

Empowering youth through the avenue of sports and arts may not be as straight forward as say a self-confidence seminar, however, arts and sports can help the individual express themselves in ways that words sometimes cannot. Youth can learn that they are unique, that they have talent and skills, that they too can create something that is all their own. Involvement in arts and sports can lead to improvement in education and self-esteem levels. Youth can find themselves proud of what they create or how they perform, and this can also improve their overall vision of themselves.

Small sustainability

2009-02-12T05:20:00.000-08:00

Why do you put up with that?

I recently had a conversation with another PCV that asked, "why do you put up with that?" in reference to an individual that has not exactly been treating me with a ton of respect. My answer, "Because I believe in people". There was no hesitation in my voice, no second thought, no awkward pause of unknowing; just an immediate answer that I believe sums up my faith in humanity.

A fair number of people in my own life have given me the same respect when I did not deserve it. There have been times where I was the one giving less than appropriate respect to another person and for some strange reason this person continued to give me their love and respect in return. Recently, a student and I were discussing respect. He was mentioning that there was another boy his age that continued to disrespect him. He said with certainty, "If he does not respect me, then why should I respect him, Miss?" At first, I was surprised at how repulsed I was at this question. However, after thinking about it for a couple of minutes I realized how important this is to understanding other cultures in terms of understanding respect between persons. Maybe not only in understanding cultures but also in understanding individuals.

I used myself as an example to answer this student's question. I responded to him, "Well, take this class for instance. The students come into this class, you along with the rest of them, to learn. At times, a few of you will be disruptive in class and not complete their work. This is being disrespectful to both myself and the rest of the students who are working. Does that mean that because you were being disrespectful to us, that we should not respect you in return?" What do you think his answer was? "Hmmm...no, I suppose not. I want you to respect me. And I do respect you, sometimes, I just have trouble concentrating." I smiled when he said this because he understood what I was trying to get at. Two things struck me out of this conversation:

1. Just because it appears someone does not respect you, does not mean that it is actually true. Sometimes the individuals have their own personal issues that are causing them to be selfish in their own actions and thus, they are "blindfolded" from others at times.

2. Just because someone else does not immediately give you their respect does not mean that they do not deserve it in return. Depending on your level of faith, God's will is for us to love unconditionally. I do not usually write in terms of what religion implies on us, but for this sake, I am a strong believer. If you give another person love and respect, in spite of them deserving it, they may just turn around and give another person that same love and respect that you gave to them. It's extremely hard sometimes, don't get me wrong, but there is nothing more essential to human development work than to having faith in other people unconditionally.

I have been pleasantly surprised to see the attitude of this particular student change overtime. Despite his spontaneous and short spurts of ADD, generally, he is a great kid and an intelligent student when he puts his mind to it. Not to mention a worthy athlete and artist. Now, all that is needed is his own recognition of his abilities and then I have managed to affect one person in my work; as small as it is. Small sustainability is perhaps the most important.

"Cook-up" Night with Girl's Circle

2009-01-25T15:20:00.000-08:00

Chicken Curry and the Circle!

On Friday night we held the first ever "Cook-up" night for Girl's Circle. Girl's Circle is a group that works on empowering young females to be responsible, make good decisions, and respect others. Growing up as a young woman in a community that emphasizes males as the power holders is not an easy experience. Girl's Circle offers girls ranging from 8 years to 18 years old a place to go to discuss issues that arise from being a young female. This particular project packet we talk about different things every week that address what it is like to be a girl. It is intended to be an eight-week "course", but it ends up being more around 16 because of the St. Lucian style of life. The girls are all unique and energetic, but still are in need of some direction in life. They are young and just need a few more female role models to guide them in the right direction. There are around 11 girls in the group so far, but only 8 of them made it to the cook-up night.

A "cook-up" is a time when people get together and cook things up. Hmmmm, go figure! Rosemary, one of the Girl's Circle facilitators in addition to myself, makes amazing

Chicken Curry. I had expressed desire to learn how to cook a delicious chicken curry a couple of weeks beforehand, and thus, a cook-up resulted. We cooked chicken curry, plantains, and chocolate cake. We also made golden apple juice. The golden apples came

straight from my backyard, and the juice was absolutely delicious!!! Every girl was given a task to complete in the cooking process. Many of the girls were in charge of peeling and cutting the golden apples for preparation stages of making the juice. Other girls were in charge of cutting onions, blending the juice, helping Rosemary with the chicken, and washing the dishes.

While the food was busy cooking, a few of the girls went to play monopoly and dance around. The others stayed up stairs and learned how to cook plantains, watched Camp Rock, and talked with the "adults". Not much chaos ensued until after dinner and before desert. It does, however, take a little while to cook food with 8 teen girls at your house! It took us a total of 4 and a half hours to cook and eat!

The girls are all amazing girls that I know have so much potential to turn into fine women. I very much enjoy being around the girls and I am glad that I got to be a part of the group! I look forward to having them over the next two years. It is extremely important to empower girls in this age range. It can make all of the difference in their lives. If a girl can mold herself into a motivated and strong individual, the world can certainly be changed. A powerful woman, especially in a community like this one, can do a lot for the community. She has the potential to have a good job and support her family, be inspiration for

other young women, and help to mold other girls' lives along the way.

Christmas in the Caribbean Part 3/3

2009-01-19T05:42:00.000-08:00

CLIMBING ST. LUCIA'S TALLEST MOUNTAIN

Over the Christmas "break" a group of us went up to climb Mt. Gimie. Mt. Gimie is the tallest mountain on St. Lucia at 3,117 ft from the base to the top. We hiked from the beginning of the trailhead in Soufriere. It took us two hours to get from the trailhead to the base near the river and another two hours to get from the base to the top. This is no walk in the park type of trail once you reach the base, however. Mt. Gimie is steep. You are climbing up the mountain for the entirety of the last two hours. So when someone asked me what I did for the weekend, I said with pride, "I climbed another mountain!". Figuratively and physically!

The hike to the base was fairly easy and had nice scenery. A few of us got lost along the way for about 15 minutes. The three guys in front of me decided to sprint up the mountain trail so we accidently missed the subtle pathway and headed towards another direction. Oops. We eventually found our way back to the trail and moved along the way. On the way up, after we passed the base at the river, we saw numerous openings of an amazing view. It is much darker in the rainforest trails, so when you reach an opening it feels like you are looking out at heaven. I could hear "ahhhhhhhhhh" everytime we reached one! Though, I think one of the times was one of my hiking pals singing it outloud.

Along the way a couple of us saw a few local birds and a tarantula. I still think that the tarantula was trying to climb the mountain because the poor little bugger was almost to the top! Benton, a hiking buddy who lives in Trinidad right now, almost stepped on it! Once we reached the top, most of us had barely missed the view. It was cloudy that day so we did not get to see much; but it was still worth it. Just as the third group of us were getting to the top of the mountain, we were all starting to head down again. It gets dark in the rainforest early in the day, so we had to make good timing!

The way down felt like it took forever. It had started raining the minute that we had started down the mountain, so we were in for a challenge. We ended up splitting up into three groups as we were going down. The first two groups made it back down to the base and back to the trail head by around 8 pm. It took us about 4 and a half hours to climb down. The third group, however, took 8 and a half hours to get down!!!!! We were waiting for them to come back for 4 hours in the van!!! We actually debated sending in a search party for them.

During the course of "the wait" we had people talking in their sleep, shared stories of past Mt. Gimie "hikers", learned a few things about each other, and listened to Wayne's collection of 80's music. We reached back home around 3:00 am in the morning after what had almost been a 24 hour day!

A Quarter of a Century is worth a million words

2009-01-09T13:32:00.001-08:00

I've just spent my 25th birthday in "paradise".

When I was a young girl I had my life all laid out for me. I planned on finishing college when I was 21, finding the man of my dreams and a perfect career, marrying by the time I was 24, having children at the ago of 26 or 28, and spending the rest of my life being settled. Note that I said "When I was a young girl, I had my life all laid out for me". Ever since I "grew up", I became increasingly aware of the fact that I was nowhere near "settling". In fact, there were a few things that I needed to accomplish before I could even begin to think about "the rest of my life". The Peace Corps has always been one of these accomplishments.

Turning 25 has always been my "fear year". For some strange reason 25, to me, sounds older than 30 or even 35; even though I know full well I won't think this way when I am 30 I have always thought of 25 as the "defining year". Perhaps it is the defining year. I know that in the last 6 months of being 24, I found myself becoming satisfied with who I am and where I am in life. I am perfectly alright, in fact quite content, that I have not gotten married or "settled" in life. While I know that the time may be soon on the rising, I am happy where I am at. 25 isn't so scary anymore! Maybe I am having my quarter-life crisis and this is my poor attempt to justify the human being's certainty of death. Or perhaps I am just dealing with being another year older; still somewhat caught between being a young adult and an old adult. 25 is the middle age of adulthood.

Elaine and Ashley walking down the Vigie Beach on Old Year's night day.

Turning 25 on an island, however, was quite possibly one of the best ways to celebrate it. I was distracted just enough to forget it was my birthday until about an hour before everyone came over to my apartment. For anyone that knew me previously before I joined the Peace Corps, they would also know that I am not a big fan of my birthday. For some reason there is something that always goes wrong. What I found out recently was that the reason why they were often so bad was because I would put too much emphasis on having it go "perfectly". When they didn't, of course I was let down. However, this year I went with the flow. I didn't want to celebrate in any big way. All I wanted and ever want again for my birthday is to celebrate it with a few of my closest friends or family doing whatever we feel like doing that day.

Yoko giving her "tough" St. Lucian look that the guys give to her.

That is exactly how I celebrated my New Years in the Caribbean with the Peace Corps.

Old Year's Night (Aka New Year's Eve) day I spent with two other PCV's at Vigie beach. We took a walk through the cemetary and just limed. It was a restful day. 9 other Peace Corps volunteers, Yoko (a Japanese volunteer), and my landlord and I had a spaghetti feed at my apartment and then went down to "the ramp" (the local beach by my place) to watch fireworks. Of course, almost half of the island had the same idea! After the ramp, we went to celebrate in the streets of Rodney Bay. Along with 1,000s of other Lucians (guestimation by Ashley), we roamed the streets and had our fair share of drinks for the new year. It was a memorable evening. Nothing too special and nothing too bad. It was the New Years I was hoping for; just another night out! Sorry I only have pictures from the Spaghetti feed thanks to suggestions that we leave anything valuable at home due to increased rates of thievery during Old Year's Night celebration.

Some of the volunteers and my landlord at my apartment during Old Year's Night.

On New Years Day, or my official birthday, a few of us volunteers went over to the Country Director's home for a brunch. It was a very nice brunch! I waited for a little while for Justin, another Peace Corps volunteer, to get ready to head up on our way to Margo's. We were a couple hours late, but Margo warmly invited us in despite. There were some other volunteers there when we arrived. After greeting everyone and grabbing some nice OJ, we also were invited to eat in the brunch buffet. Oh it was so nice to have hot food and delicious, hot food at that. A variety of egg casseroles were made, in addition to a fresh fruit salad. Yummy! After getting in a bite to eat, we all played a game of Scrabble. Oh how I love Scrabble! Me and Hallie were on a team. We did not win, but we came in a close third. (Yes, it was out of 3). Margo, as I discovered, is quite the Scrabble player. She knows all of the words that you would never know in your lifetime unless you memorized the dictionary. She is my Scrabble idol. Sorry, Jay, you have been replaced.

After Margo's house I got to spend a quiet night at my apartment with the company of Hallie. It was a nice and relaxing birthday night. All in all, being 25 may sound monumental to some but to others it's just another birthday of getting older. To me, 25 isn't so bad. In fact, I kinda like being 25. How many other people can say that they spent their 25th birthday in the Caribbean while they were in the Peace Corps? Well one, actually, that I know of....it was Ashley's birthday a short 4 days later!

Me and Ashley outside my apartment on her 25th birthday.

Christmas Time in St. Lucia 2/3

2009-01-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

When work is going slow, live with passion.

During the holiday season in St. Lucia the workplace slows down and the nightlife speeds up. More time is spent on "fets" (holidays parties) and more time is spent in the streets catching up. I was amazed to find out that despite the amount of work to be done, life in the workplace is put on hold. As we are now continuing on with the new term, I am thankful for the holiday "hold". I was worried that with so much time just to spend liming with the community I would fall into an anti-work mode. However, after about three weeks of small events and parties of every kind I am more than ready to get back to working.

Christmas in St. Lucia was quite different. Normally I would be working up until Christmas eve, if not Christmas day. Here, however, schools and NGOs get out around the 12th of December. We have a few events in honor of Christmas tradition such as parties and gift baskets to make but most of the holiday is devoted to spending quality time with friends and family. I love St. Lucian holidays!

Working with members of Club 60, I helped put together hampers for Christmas. In these hampers, we placed household goods including but not limited to: detergent, soap, rice, baking powder, sugar, flour, candies, juices, and etc.. In order to get 60 baskets to use and have enough supplies for all 60 baskets we had to go from store to store looking for the items. Fortunately, I did not have to go around shopping for the items because being a PCV, I am carless and would be absolutely no help in the shopping department. So instead, I helped with organizing the baskets and getting them filled, wrapped, and prepared for the following Monday. We had a formal give-away day, in which the representative from The Landings was there to help give the hampers out. Frank Weeks is the representative from The Landings. They fund a lot of the activities and projects for Grow Well. Club 60 is one of these funded projects. Club 60, as I have briefly talked about before on my blogs, is a program for helping to keep the retired active within the community. The hampers will be an annual event from now on! The Landings will also be helping to fund the after-school programs that I am working on as we speak. Thank you Landings!

It was a pleasure to have been able to finally meet and greet with most of the Club 60 members. Each of them have a very sweet and compassionate character. I love each and every one of their smiles! Not to mention their fascinating personalities...with loads of humor. I am hoping to work more and more with Club 60 in the future.

I took part in a few other events such as a Youth Expo in Soufriere working with kids in arts and crafts with a PCV from Soufriere. We taught the kids how to make bracelets from thread...most of them enjoyed it thoroughly. It was nice to see even the boys walk out of the classroom wearing what they made from that day and being so darn proud of the final result!

I am so thankful Hallie offered me a place to help out that day!

Over the holiday, I did start to miss the kids that I work with at the primary and CARE. Something about getting to see them on a daily basis makes my work feel meaningful. Their hugs and excitement everytime they see me lets me know that I am here for a good purpose; for these kids. I know that I am just one little granule in the overall scheme of their lives but I am faithful that one little granule can make even the slightest difference in the color or texture of the whole pot. I am ecstatic that school is started up again!

During my time "off", I took part in a few hikes as well. Mt. Gimie and the across the island rainforest trail were the prominent ones. Look for part 3/3, I will be talking about these hikes.

Christmas in the Caribbean Part 1/3: Family Life and Christmas Ties

2008-12-30T09:36:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my life, I have experienced a Christmas away from my family. Hell, for the first time in my life, I experienced Christmas in another country.

I can picture it now, exactly how Christmas would have been back in Seattle. On Christmas Eve I would make my way down to my madre's house in Yelm, WA and on Christmas Day I would spend it with my dad's side of the family most likely in exactly the opposite direction; Snohomish, WA. Both destinations are about an hour and a half in distance from wherever my home is for that year in Seattle, WA. Usually my two days of Christmas are filled with A LOT of driving and A LOT of people. I could definitely do without the driving, but the people are what I could not do without.

This particular year, Seattle was dumping with snow. As majestical and beautiful as this seems to me, many Seattle-ites have commented to me that it quickly becomes a nuisance. So much so that only an eighth of my family on my mom's side could show up at Christmas Eve dinner held at my mom's house. While I was dreaming of being with my family on Christmas eve, I quickly came to the realization that my Christmas was actually going to be quite nice. First, let me give you a run-down of my family and what it is that might have made this Christmas a little different.

My mom is from a large Catholic family, and she currently is one of ten children; originally 13. Very recently, just before I left for the Peace Corps, two of my uncles passed away within a month's time. This was an extremely difficult time for my mom and her brothers and sisters. For my grandma, it has been a very trying experience for her as I can feel in my heart. I cannot imagine what it is like to lose one child you love so much, but to lose two so close together would be...I don't even have the words for it. Before coming to the Peace Corps, my family was struggling to hold on to positives. I hated to leave my family at this particular time, a large part of me wanted to stay in WA to be there for them. My family, despite their losses were still very supportive of my leave for the Peace Corps, and for that I will never forget what they gave to me. I saw how much pain they were all in, and still they managed to love me and fill me with more hope than I ever could wish for. My grandma has remained extremely strong throughout and I continue to look at her as a role model for my perserverance in life. I am beginning to understand how it is my mother became such a strong and able individual.

I have always held my mom in my highest regards, whether she knows it or not. Sometimes I may not show it very much, and sometimes it may feel as if I am taking advantage of her strength in ways; however, to me, she is my best friend, my strength, and a reliable source of reminding me what is most important in life. The life that my mother has lived, filled with numerous successes, joys and also a few failures and mistakes along the way, has shown me how to get around any obstacle that stands in the way of my own dreams. My mother is a large reason why I am in the Peace Corps right at this moment; her support and unconditional love has showed me that anything is possible if you just keep going for it.

My dad's side of the family also experienced the loss of my grandma shortly before I left for the Peace Corps as well. It was a little different as we were expecting my grandma to pass, however, it was hard for all of us regardless. My grandma was suffering from dementia for quite awhile before she passed. Her life had a few bumps along the end of the road, as she suffered from beatings from her ex-husband (after my grandpa) and severe memory loss. She lost the ability to remember who her family members were at most times, and lost her mental capacities and independence.

Dementia is a very serious condition to be suffering with. Here is a little information on Dementia taken from an online source that sums it up well: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dementias/dementia.htm

Dementia is not a specific disease. It is a descriptive term for a collection of symptoms that can be caused by a number of disorders that affect the brain. People with dementia have significantly impaired intellectual functioning that interferes with normal activities and relationships. They also lose their ability to solve problems and maintain emotional control, and they may experience personality changes and behavioral problems, such as agitation, delusions, and hallucinations. While memory loss is a common symptom of dementia, memory loss by itself does not mean that a person has dementia. Doctors diagnose dementia only if two or more brain functions - such as memory and language skills -- are significantly impaired without loss of consciousness. Some of the diseases that can cause symptoms of dementia are Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, Huntington’s disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Doctors have identified other conditions that can cause dementia or dementia-like symptoms including reactions to medications, metabolic problems and endocrine abnormalities, nutritional deficiencies, infections, poisoning, brain tumors, anoxia or hypoxia (conditions in which the brain’s oxygen supply is either reduced or cut off entirely), and heart and lung problems. Although it is common in very elderly individuals, dementia is not a normal part of the aging process.

My grandma was loved very much by the family; especially by my grandpa. He is the most romantic and loving individual I know to this day. I have seen him love my grandma unconditionally throughout the years with no hesitation. Despite their divorce, he still loved her every minute of every day. He does not regret loving her so much, and I only hope that whoever I marry has the same love for me; as I do for him. My grandpa will always be the strongest individual I know.

My pops has been the quiet inspiration in my life. His sense of humor and generally stubborn character is another reason I have followed through with my dreams. I am constantly thankful that I have the sense of humor that I do; even though some people do not understand it sometimes. Yes, it is dry and sarcastic, but it is me and it is my dad. Without it I may not have progressed in the way that I have. Because of my humor and my stubbornness, I can make mistakes and "fail" at times, but I have learned to laugh it off and move forward. I can find joy in bad situations and I am very flexible when it comes to changing plans last minute (or in my case, not making plans at all). My Dad has the ability to make you laugh at the littlest things and for some reason manages to be himself 24 hours a day. Though my dad is sometimes a little secretive about his life, I would not change anything about him. His light-hearted character is something that I can only hope to acquire one day. And yes, he works very hard even if my brother would disagree with that one :P!

My "bro" also has a unique sense of humor. He inherited that from my dad, of course. His, however, is much more random and persistent. If he thinks something is funny, oh boy, does he think something is funny! I love this quality about him and I would never change it. He also has the most imaginative and creative mind that I have ever seen! I am not sure how but he comes up with ideas at all times of the day and thinks of even more creative ways to make them into reality. He insists that one day he is going to be a millionaire, and you know what? I actually believe him. I only hope that he does not forget his poor little, humanitarian "sissy" when he is! :D Tyson is the motivation for my creativity in life and he has so much love in his heart. He is a little stubborn as well, but it keeps it interesting. He will always be a best friend of mine; regardless of puny sibling rashes.

My family has a few new very much welcomed additions! Both my dad and my mom got remarried a few years ago to wonderful and loving people. My dad married a Vietnamese woman named Mai, who brings with her a very warm family. I have NEVER seen my dad so happy and I am thanking the lord that he found her when he did. I know she is going to be in our family for the rest of time, and I already consider her another mom! My mom, on the other hand, is also the happiest I have ever seen her as well. She married, Nola, a motivated and hard-working woman. I am proud of my mom for being who she is each and every day, and am thankful that she is happy. In life, you can make the decision to be unhappy and live by some ridiculous traditions or risk it and live more happily than you can ever imagine. Just one more reason why my family's strength does not go unnoticed.

In addition to my mom and dad's recent marriages, my uncle, Kurt, also fell in love and married a Vietnamese woman. She is gorgeous, and I am still trying to figure out how my uncle managed to snag this one! With her, she brought, two new additions to the cousin's circle. Linh is now one of my favorite cousins! She is incredible! My cousin Katie also had a son, Landon, not too long ago. He is stealing all of the attention from the grandparents, but it's well-deserved. He is going to break some girl's heart when he grows up! There are so many more news stories that I can put in here, but this is getting quite long....I'll add them in one of the next posts.

The reason for why I wanted to write about all of this is to give you all a little background into how I have become the person that I am today. Without my family, I would not be the person I am, and I most likely would not be sitting here, in the Eastern Caribbean working for the Peace Corps. Because Christmas reminds me of family, I thought it was only fitting to explain my family and what we would be facing this Christmas. The challenges that we faced, as a family, most recently (on both sides) most likely helped us bond even more at Christmas. I'm sorry that I had to miss it, but I am thankful that I am where I am now. After all, it's how close your heart is and not how far away you are. I love you Bostwicks and Shellhorns!!!!!

Jumping Towards Healthy Living

2008-12-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

As we piled into the bus that would bring us to the Jump

Rope Festival location, I could hear voices talk in anticipation of getting to skip. Before we had left, I helped to warm up the girls with short little competitions of

who could jump the longest, a showcase of their skills, and double-

dutch dynamics. Despite my attempts to use some of their energy before the bus ride, they all managed to maintain an energetic personality on the ride over. Singing songs by Serani, Beyonce, and other popular St. Lucian artists, I was amazed that these girls have such a broad spectrum of talent. To hear their voices was a blessing to me, but for the bus driver who has learned to tune them out; unfortunately, he just kept driving.

As we walked into the Vigie multi-purpose courts, I looked around at all 24 of the girls with excitement. Every single one of them had a gleeful, bright smile on their face and I could tell that they couldn't wait to get started. I could hear the light brush of the ropes hitting the pavement all around me. In the background, there were voices singing different tunes and girls laughing simultaneously. As we waited for the balance of four other girls from the Primary School and Mr. Long, the Primary School P.E. teacher, to show up we searched the stands for a good place to sit. In addition to Gros Islet Primary, around 25 other schools were in attendance.

Seeing an array of colors jumping up and down was quite the site! Each school was sporting their own uniform, owning anywhere from one to four colors. The Gros Islet Primary School girls were wearing bright green jerseys; red, blue, or white skirts or a pair of jeans. The girls were anxious to put on their jerseys in the morning; anxious to look like a professional skipping team. To me, they were that day.

Mr. Long warmed up the girls with stretching and light aerobics, while I helped to prepare them for the skipping activities. The staff in charge of the event, which included Kelly, another Peace Corps volunteer, promoted healthy living and proper nutrition through out the course of the day. We were given plenty of water and fresh bananas, oranges, and grapefruit. In the middle of the day, the girls were given fruit plates full of watermelon and grapes. It was a nice change to see the students filling up with fresh fruits rather than candy and sodas. Mr. Long and I encouraged the

girls to focus on eating healthy for the day.

The events began with single skipping skills. Including basic skipping, cross-overs, double-skipping, skiiers, and diagonals. I stood in front of the girls in our section to give them an example of the skill at hand, just in case they got lost in the excitement. All of the girls showed exceptional skills. Grades 3 and 4 went first, and then we followed up with grades 5 and 6.

In between events, many of the girls hung near me or on me, making sure I was involved in the social scene included at the event. All of the girls are curious about the differences between us, as humans, but their

curiousity is a good one. Despite the obvious differences of skin color, eye color and hair color, they focus more on why I have freckles and why I am short. Just as I enjoy finding out about their lives, they are just as interested in mine. They ask about my family and whether or not I have a boyfriend; they ask about my brother and the sports I love; they ask about my interests and what type of shoes I like best.

These girls are part of the reason why I am recently so

interested in going back to school to get my teaching certificate and the reason why I am in love with eventually becoming a wife and a mother. The girls are always fascinated with either being photographed or using the camera to photograph others, so we had a little photo shoot in our spare time. I am hoping a photography club will be of interest in the next two years!

The skipping competition continued on with a skills set of partner skipping; including double-dutch and two persons-two ropes. All of the participants were rather impressive at these skills. I don't remember ever being able to do the two persons-two ropes skill when I was in elementary school! At times through out the festival, I joined them in skipping. It brought back many memories of care-free days and recess agendas. I still am able to do a cross-over and a double-skip

jump along with jumping in reverse, but I am a little rusty on all of the rest.

It was a long day of skipping but it was a good day in St. Lucia. I had a lot of fun helping these girls show off their talents while at the same time building self-esteem and active lifestyles. The girls had a ton of fun, and they want to participate in the Trinidad competition next

summer. I am hoping that I will be able to go with them...it all depends on fundraising and whatnot. At the end of the day I got a little sun, I had eaten three

bananas and two grapefruits, and I got a little exercise. The best part of the day, however, was seeing the joy on the girls' faces every time the skipping ropes hit the pavement underneath them. They were somewhere else for the day,

and that is what empowered them to live actively.

Youth Development through Empowerment

2008-12-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

Youth empowerment is quite possibly the best method of achieving youth development. Self-esteem, confidence and self-awareness of youth are all issues that need highlighting in development within the community. Youth become unattached, insecure, and have a sense of personal failure when they lack direction in their lives. Too often, individuals are lost in the grander scheme of things and they feel as if they have no guidance. By spending the time and effort to empower youth, we can begin to facilitate the ability to achieve great action within themselves and, shortly there after, the community.

I have been spending a lot of my time building relationships with the youth in my community for the purpose of building self-esteem, self-

confidence and self-awareness within these youth. Despite the presence of teachers, many of the students feel, often times, alone in their daily routines. By establishing a connection with the students, I can build relationships with them that are supportive and create positive reinforcement.

Many of these youth have disciplinary issues or perform poorly in school because they are without proper guidance. The limitations of a teacher are obvious in the St. Lucian classroom. Not only do a great portion of St. Lucian teachers lack on positive disciplinary methods, but they have classes that are larger

than typical classrooms in other areas of the world. Many of the classrooms have 25+ students and, therefore, the teacher to student ratio is out of control. In order for education to be more effective, the student needs a good amount of one-to-one academic time. Of which, the particular students that I am working with receive slim to none. I am attempting to spread the idea of working with individuals more often outside of the schools when possible. In order for this to happen, parents need to be more involved in their childrens' educational lives, tutoring and community workshops need to be instilled and maintained, and after

school programs should be offered for homework help and positive role modeling.

With Gros Islet Primary School, I have been spending my time on literacy, numeracy, arts and crafts and sporting. Working in small groups with the children that need more individual attention has been my primary goal. Taking these students outside of the classroom is sometimes difficult, as the teachers have a certain agenda. Often times, I end up substituting or watching over the classroom while teachers get other agenda items completed. For my own personal growth, this is perhaps one of the greatest gifts I have been given. This is because the longer I work in St. Lucia with the Primary School, the more I think about getting my teaching certificate after Peace Corps service. However, I make it clear to the school that I am not a certified teacher and, therefore, should be the last resort if needed.

In addition, I also have been doing arts and crafts with the students in spare time as a reward for working hard. I find that most of the students have some sort of artistic talent, and when they sit down to draw or color they are generally much more well-behaved. Art allows the students to express the creativity that they often times do not get to expend during normal classtime.

With Grow Well, I recently began teaching an IT/English class with a program called "Thinking Reader". This program allows the student to interactively hear and read a book through the computer. The program is great because the levels of learning are much different with the second-chance program students. Each student can move at their own pace, while being tested at each interval and learning how to read successfully in six different strategies. I am allowed to access the progress made by the students over time and at each interval. At the same time, they are learning how to type and use the computer software available, which proves to be extremely valuable in the lives of St. Lucian students after their education. IT is important to teach in developing countries because IT changes so frequently, and being ahead of the game rapidly increases job opportunities in the technological field.

The after school club is my primary concern (along with creating a sports program) at Grow Well. Because of the need for an after school program, the sports program may take a little longer to get going. However, in hopes of coordinating with the secondary school, I will be introducing volleyball and either tennis or track and field shortly after the new term begins. In order to do this, work with the ministry of social transformation; youth and sports needs to take part and coordinating a schedule with the secondary also needs to happen. The after school program is one of the new initiaves for Gros Islet as I am finding out. Grow Well has been wanting to implement an after school program for quite awhile and, thus, I am their catalyst for now. Beginning after the new term, as well, we will be combining library and the club to focus on

homework help, games and recreation, healthy guidance, and arts and crafts. Along down the road, we will hopefully introduce club-building activities including but not limited to: Evironmental Club, Community Activities Club, Photography and Arts Club, Volunteerism Club, and others as options. Grow Well is hoping to put in a joint bid with the community to secure a larger plot of land which can be beneficial in creating a more sustainable community centre offering an after school program. For now, we are trying to get the ball rolling so that the students have a place to come.

If you have any ideas or questions, feel free to let me know!!! I have been nervous a good portion of the time, because I really want to be successful in these areas but I can never tell for sure if they are going to happen. First thing is first, though, and that is getting these students to start believing in themselves as individuals and that often takes a good amount of time! Spending time with these youth, in a variety of ways, is the best way to help this process and it may take the entire two years to help them along their way! I have the time

and energy to commit to them, however... whether it be through sports, arts and crafts, Girl's Circle, or whatnot, I am trying to reach them anyway I can. What I have learned over the last four months, is that love and compassion can guide anyone to success. And these children, and every child additionally, deserves individual attention and guidance to help them along their way. It makes all of the difference.

Thanksgiving in Another Country

2008-12-12T16:34:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving Away from Seattle

When I commited to my service in the Peace Corps, one of the things that I had to contemplate was whether or not I was prepared to survive the holidays away from Seattle. Never having lived outside of Washington, I have never had the challenge of spending a thanksgiving away from home. Knowing that this was one requirement when moving to St. Lucia, I tried to prepare myself fully beforehand. Of course, there is no way to fully prepare oneself when it comes to holidays in a new country. There is only experiencing it firsthand, and adapting to the environment as it happens.

I thought about the turkey and the stuffing, I thought about the football game, I thought about family, and of course I thought about the stuffing. Yes, I said stuffing twice in that

sentence. Cranberry sauce and stuffing are my favorites by far. Certainly I was afraid that I would have to live through a thanksgiving or two without cranberry sauce and

stuffing...but I was not prepared for what Thanksgiving actually was like! You would never guess that, in actuality, Thanksgiving in St. Lucia was very much like Thanksgiving in Washington.

There were about 30-35 of us PCVs and PC Staff that attended the Thanksgiving dinner in

Dennery this year. Mary Ellen was nice enough to host us all that day. We began with a traditional "PCV turkey bowl", which my team dominated. It was a lot of fun, and for a minute, I forgot that I was in a different country for the holidays.

After the "turkey bowl" we showered up and prepared the dishes in preparation for eating around 1 o'clock. We had soooooo much food!!! And yet, we managed to eat every single bite of it! Hallie cooked amazing pilgrim hat cupcakes, Ashley cooked Key Lime pie and every one each brought a fantastic dish that included turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn, tortillas and spicy salsa, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and much more. The desserts were plentiful, and almost all of us needed a sky helicopter to lift us out of there.

The company was nice to have, and the conversations were great. It was hard not to miss family, however. I tried to keep my mind off of family by watching the football games on tv...but with the Seahawks playing the Cowboys it made me think of family even more! I don't think that I will ever take advantage of having family around on the holidays ever again after spending one away from them.

After most of the PCVs and the staff took off, a few of us stayed around Mary Ellen's to play card games and lime a little bit. It was a lot of fun to just relax with friends for a night! I was taught a new game, which I still can't remember the name of for the life of me! Andy and I taught Hallie and Greg to play cribbage, and they actually enjoyed it after a little while. Perhaps I will have more cribbage buddies from now on! Overall, it was a good Thanksgiving and quite a learning experience in my heart.

We Survived the Sorceress.

2008-12-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

Surviving the Sorceress Mountain....

There is an old myth that whoever attempts to climb the "Sorceress mountain" aka La Sorciere, in Patois, would never come back. Their spirits would be taken by the sorceress, who lives at the top of the mountain, and their bodies would never been seen again. Apparently, there are men who have climbed the mountain and were never heard from again. We were told this only while hiking the fourth tallest peak on St. Lucia and never once before the hike. Luckily, I am not superstitious when it comes to myths like this one. Hiking in broad daylight up a mountain that is smaller than most trails we have in Washington is not exactly the most mortifying experience. However, I did see flashes of Blair Witch repeating in my mind at times during the hike.

We began hiking through the rainforest on the backside of Babonneau. We were dropped off by the van near a water container with a set of steep stairs. As we climbed the stairs, we were second guessing our decision, as many of us were tired from the longevity of the week. Regardless, we knew we were going to have a great day ahead of us and pushed on strongly. The rainforest trail was plush and green, nowhere near bare or unsightful. I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh smell of the forestry that we passed through and embraced every moment of the scenery. Though there were only few openings to a view, the scenery was refreshingly beautiful. Green, green, everywhere and not a spot of city life.

As the trail we went on disapated into greenery, we slowly began to make our own pathway. We continued through the rainforest until we reached the path to Louvert beach. We decided a little late to hike the La Sorciere, as we had passed it more than a mile back. However, we decided to reverse our steps and hike up the mountain before heading to Louvert. As we climbed up the steep mountain, we were in charge of creating our own way. There was no trail and we found ourselves bushwhacking most of the way upwards. We relied on marking the trees for rememberance of our path back and, fortunately, we actually used them upon the return. We bushwhacked through vines and razor grass as we climbed up boulders and slippery slopes.

Razor grass was all through out the hike; however, when you are climbing upward it tends to get you more most often. This is one thing I will never understand. Razor grass, for those unaware of what it is exactly, is a type of grass that grabs you and slices you just like a bad paper cut. At first there is slim to no pain. The next moment that you know it, you are in irritating, stinging pain with a slight, long red mark in evidence that you are freshly a victim.

As we reached the top of the mountain a few hours later, we became aware that we will not surrender to the sorceress. In fact, not only would we not surrender, but we were going to make it back down; indefinitely. Perhaps the sorceress sleeps during the day and we were lucky. I guess we will never know where she was that day that she let us slip through her fingers. The way down proved to be harder than the way up due to the enormous boulders that stood in our way. I was fortunate enough to be carrying a walking stick with me that allowed me to move from boulder to boulder faster than usual. Though, I wouldn't say this was an easy task for a short person like me. The more challenging the better when it comes to hikes though!

After returning to the base of La Sorciere, we moved on to Louvert beach. Louvert is on the backside of Babboneau. The Atlantic ocean is in control of the water at this point. It was a rather clear day when we reached Louvert, yet the waves were rough and out of control. I can understand why it is that no one swims in this water, as the current is much too fierce. The sight of the waves crashing down on each other was an amazing sight!

Along the way, we stopped in at a little abandoned park office nearby. There were pictures and objects that made it appear that someone was living there but we saw no one. Perhaps this is where the sorceress remains when we do not see her. Lenin tried to bobby pin his way into every room, and he actually succeeded. I was waiting for someone to pop out every time the door swung open but, alas, it did not happen.

After spending a few hours at Louvert, sightseeing, meditating and drinking and eating fresh coconuts, we moved on our way.

After about 2 hours of hiking back we still had another 2+ hours to go and it was getting dark. We continued hurriedly along our way back to Babbonneau centre and we eventually made it after dark nearing 830 pm! We were all dirty and tired, but we were feeling good. There is nothing quite like spending the day tiring ourselves out from a long hike in the rainforest!

We found a beautiful crab along the way that had colors that enveloped us for at least 10 minutes. The crab was shy for the first five, but finally allowed me to take the portrait.

On the way back home, I managed to snap a few of my favorite photos. One of two butterflies mating for a long time. I expected them to move away from each other when I came closer and closer to them to take a picture. However, they were so involved that they did not move away from each other at all. Rather, they continued to mate and I continued to stare in awe. There is something so beautiful about the process of butterflies mating that I just cannot describe in words. They are distinct and focused. They have one partner for their lives and live to mate with that partner. I can only admire this mating ritual and hope that humanity can one day mirror this lifestyle. Apparently, St. Lucians have a long way to go in the faithfulness department.

2008-11-13T17:07:00.000-08:00

HIKING IN A PIGs HEAVEN

My favorite venture so far, however, was the one that I just went on a last weekend from Laborie to Frances Jacques. It was a beautiful hike through the rainforest that took us from trail to river and back. We lost ourselves, mainly on purpose but partly by accident, a few times and found it quite enjoyable to be following the river to reach our destination. A hiker is always told that if s/he is to get lost near a river in the woods, to follow the river downward because the river always has an outlet. Because I was with 7 guys and 2 other girls, you can imagine the amount of effort it took to convince these guys to follow the river. As we hiked through muddy hills covered in unknown, potentially harmful greenery (things like the razor grass and some itchy plant) , we stopped quite a few times to cut fresh fruit from the trees around us. Starfruit, guava, sour oranges, grapefruit and golden apples were on the plate for the day. You have never tasted a fruit until you have tasted one ripened and freshly picked in the rainforest! With the help of a few machetes, we supplied the entire group with lunch for the day. My favorite part of the hike was the waterfall that we came to about an hour and a half into the hike. Secluded from the rest of the world, not too large and not too small, we swam and sat lost in thought about how great St. Lucia really can be. In fact, how great life can be. The water was slightly chilly to a Seattle-ite, but to a St. Lucian it was almost intolerably freezing. I wonder how they would deal with jumping into the Puget Sound during the winter months for the annual Polar Bear Swim. Something tells me the St. Lucians I have met so far might not do it.

The group that we went with was great. It is a group that gets together almost every weekend to go on outings in St. Lucia. I am hoping to be able to join up with this group for awhile...they really are a great bunch. When it comes to hiking, I enjoy two things. 1) I love the sound of silence in nature. Silence really may not be silence at all when it comes down to it, but it is the nicest sound to my ears. Being outside of the hustle and bustle of the city life allows me to settle down the mind a little bit and surround myself in thinking nothing; in a good way. 2) I love the simplicity of happiness that it brings me. Just walking and observing the environment around me is one of the biggest satisfactions that I get out of life. Paying attention to the littlest of things such as a branch that looks like an apple, two trees intertwined, or the mud that squishes below my feet is satisfying in the purest of ways. Hiking can clear even the busiest of minds to return it back to the reality at hand.

The reason for the title of this blog: Hiking in a Pig's Heaven is because it had started raining and got incredibly muddy as we went along, but well worth the dirty shoes!

What did you do during election night 2008? I was lucky enough to be invited to a party hosted by the US Embassy at the cultural centre here in town. The centre was fully stocked with a full bar, food, and many important people here in St. Lucia. There were two tvs to watch the election results, which proved to not be quite enough. It was difficult to hear what was going on, so I ended up having to leave with a few other volunteers in order to hear the speeches. But I will never forget where I was when I saw Obama get elected for presidency… “yes, grandchildren, I was with the US Embassy in St. Lucia while serving for the Peace Corps when I saw the first black president get elected; which ended up changing the world.” You don’t get the chance to say something like that too often! Now is a good time to be involved with the Peace Corps, being overseas serving as a government volunteer at the time that the US government needs us the most is quite exciting. However, I can’t hesitate to think how it was to watch the election back in the states. I am sure you all were focused on the tv screen that night and have quite the story. I hope that when I return home you will all share it with me.

Working in St. Lucia is different than working in the states. Things happen at a slower pace, but when you least expect them to. While you think that something is not going to happen because you have been waiting a couple weeks to even get a meeting in, the next day you find yourself hectic as hell trying to fit in every possible task you can accomplish. Being a Peace Corps volunteer means to be flexible, and in scheduling for work you truly do have to be the utmost flexible and spontaneous individual. With this, I have no problem. It is difficult at times to accept the down time as quality time for myself though. With too much downtime I will find myself sleeping a little too much, reading a little too much (already have read 12 books and counting so far), eating a little too much or just being on the internet when I can. Embracing the down time and using it for the benefit of reflection and growth is what the Peace Corps demands of us. Already, I do feel like a different person; an improved individual. I can only imagine what will become of me in the next two years.

I am currently working with a Non-profit organization called Grow Well Inc. Grow Well focuses on providing outlets for at-risk youth and families to, well, “grow well”. I am currently putting together two programmes with them: one working in the area of sporting and the other in after-school activities related to but not limited to arts and crafts, tutoring, and team-work skills through gaming. I am also in the process of helping them to develop their current programmes for the CARE school. This school is a one-year programme giving students who did not pass the standardized test at the end of grade 6, dropped out before hand, or students that just found themselves in need of more help, a second chance. After one year of studying with the CARE programme, the students are asked to pick a skill in which they will then move on to the skills training centre to learn for two years. The CARE school offers classes that focus in human development more so than academic development; but also involve subjects such as English, writing, and mathematics just as a primary or secondary school would. The youth here are in need of guidance before it is too late. My work with the CARE school will be mostly in the areas of arts and crafts, sporting and also mathematics and IT.

In addition to Grow Well, I am also working with the Gros-Islet primary school. Here I have been working hard with the Grade 6s to prepare for the standardized tests, and with the Grade 4s for what is called the SBAs. The SBAs allow the teachers to see how the students have progressed thus far and in what group they will be placed in for grades 5 and 6. I have also been working as a small-group/individual tutor and working on arts and crafts during lunch time with the students to help build self-esteem and positive relationships between teacher and students and also peer to peer. I have worked with grades 3-6 on literacy, numeracy, and arts and crafts; along with becoming a teacher when other teachers are out for the day. Who knows, I might be a teacher after all...I'll tell you, it's difficult but it is an amazing "ting" when you hear a child understand something for the first time.

Discipline at the schools is something most of the Peace Corps volunteers have an issue with, including myself. In St. Lucia, students have undergone many years of “alternative” discipline. While it is going to take time for the students to understand that I will never hit them, I believe strongly that my actions will eventually wear off onto other teachers. These are high hopes and small steps, but I am not trying to change the entire world. Helping one person to improve their life can be substantial. Small steps can eventually lead to giant leaps further on down the road. So if we, as Peace Corps volunteers, help to be role models for positive reinforcement in the classrooms, at one point we may find better disciplinary methods used in classrooms around the world. So while this may be a small step for me, it can be a giant leap in the bigger picture…who knows…it may happen.

A WHOLE LOTTA PLAID

2008-10-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

A WHOLE LOTTA PLAID

What do I love about St. Lucia? Well, one of the main things that I enjoy in St. Lucia is that they do not hesitate to celebrate-a lot. There are many holidays here in the Caribbean, especially in the second half of the year. Not to say that St. Lucia does not also work hard, but they do not forget what it means to spend time with their families and their communities in celebration for a good life.

Jounen Kweyol: Creole Day in Patois. Celebrated by St. Lucia every year in three distinct areas of the island. In order to become one of the three celebration locations, each area interested must apply. Judging depends on amount of accessibility, resources provided, and etc. This year, Jounen Kweyol was held at Grande Riviere, Canaries, and one other location I can’t think of right now.

Jounen Kweyol was everything that I expected and nothing that I expected. As Ash and I walked from the Marisoul Gap to the open area that Jounen Kweyol was being held this year in Grande Riviere (a couple of miles from the gap), we were instantly overwhelmed. Not only had we both been sun burnt before even arriving, but the minute we arrived, we were instantly lost in a crowd of St. Lucian style plaid! It was lovely. After spending the first hour walking around to all of the different booths, we finally decided upon one particular booth to provide us with our traditional kweyol meal. I found a great saltfish and breadfruit meal for $6 EC (about 2.5 US), which was absolutely delicious! Ashley, on the other hand, managed to find herself eating chicken feet! The sauce was good, apparently.

After jotting around for a couple of hours, we ran into three of the Japanese Volunteers that are here in St. Lucia. The JOCVs, as they are called, have a similar setup to the Peace Corps. They, however, come here with slim to no English, so they have a language barrier that we as Peace Corps Volunteers do not have. I have often contemplated what it would be like having my service be in places where English is not the primary language. Despite the fact that English is the main language spoken in St. Lucia, there still remains a heavy accent that I still have trouble working around, and the kweyol that is spoken in the villages. I can understand how PCVs in areas where English is not the primary language, have issues with isolation and often times, depression during the first year of their service.

Speaking on the idea of isolation; I can already understand why it is PCVs must be able to handle isolation well. I have always been, at times, a solitaire individual. As much as I like being around people, I also enjoy being around just myself. It is in this quality that I come to really like about myself so far during my PC experience. However, living in the area that I am living, I am finding that I am going to have to work five times as hard as many of the other volunteers to integrate due to my location. I am, unfortunately, not in the village in which I am going to be working. I love my apartment; and find joy in living below my landlady who is gracious and an amazing woman. I do, however, constantly find myself wishing that I was closer to my community that I will be working and recognize that my neighbors are hardly ever around. Because this area is the “nicer” area to live, I am behind a gate for security and the houses are more spread out and protected. I am thankful for the security of where I live, but have a difficulty in meeting people in the area. While I hear stories of my PCV friends having children on their porch daily and their neighbors coming to bear fruit, I find myself desiring to be more in the community. I am caught between being lucky enough to get a nice apartment on the chance that my landlady’s family members have benefited by PCVs in the past and feeling a little isolated from not living in a more integrated manner. I desire community belonging so much.

I am going to warn you readers that this next passage might be a little heavy…stop reading now if you cannot stand heavy reading…but it is the truth about my perception of how I came to be where I am now.

As I am experiencing my time here in St. Lucia, I find myself wanting to spend more time with people so that I can genuinely connect. Back in Seattle there is a desperate need for a reconnection. So often people forget about their communities and their families in efforts to afford a “better lifestyle” that they get lost in work to such a point that a connection to their surroundings is extremely sparse. I, among other Seattle-ites, have been one of these people. I admit fully that I became so intoxicated with luxuries and working toward these luxuries that I was infatuated with an entirely meaningless lifestyle. Because I always wish to remain honest with you readers, I will admit my fallacies in attempt to remind myself and you all that life can really hold meaning when you wish it to. To further state, shortly before I joined the Peace Corps, I, myself, went through a period of living a selfish and rather numb life. I took for granted my close friends and family much of the time and forgot to cherish every moment that I spent with them. To be honest, I felt as if I was surrounding myself in a bubble and I just could not break free from it. It was as if this bubble was strong plastic that began to suffocate me slowly. It’s not that I did not possess the desire to break free from this suffocation, rather that I did not have the capability. Looking back on this period in my life, it often haunts me that I did not appreciate all that I had in my life. I was too preoccupied with where I was going and the things that I wanted, that I was not “sober” enough to realize that all I had wanted was right there in front of me. My desire to become who I was supposed to become, in actuality, distracted me from being that person. I had the right intentions, but my actions did not follow. To look back on this period took some needed courage and observation, but alas my preparation and my journey into Peace Corps service led me back on the right track. Every person must go through a similar journey, one that leads you off-track onto the road that leads you nowhere. I am lucky enough that I found that road early on in life and realized after following it for a time that I was on the wrong path. My desire to fully exert myself and my abilities into the humanitarian lifestyle by giving what I can to the people who need it most continues to be the motivation behind my service as a Peace Corps volunteer. I may lose confidence from time to time, and become nervous or shy that I may not have full ownerships of all of the skills that I need to, but my heart knows where I should be at this moment and where I wish to employ my work and personal ethic in the future. I love volunteering; every aspect of it. I enjoy sharing my skills and abilities with others who lack these skills, but I cannot resist the smiles that I see just from building a connection from heart to heart. I will have to work hard to “reconnect” myself with my environment here in St. Lucia during my service, and when I return to Seattle. It may take my entire life to do this and it may be difficult for me, but I am declaring right now that I am committing my life to making these connections. I urge you to do the same.

Oh, the Joy of Washing.

2008-10-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

I am constantly amazed at the fact that even the littlest of tasks to get done on your day off back at home take ten times the time and effort, here in St. Lucia. For instance, getting your mail. It seems to me that the post office has no desire to be open when I need it to be. They must know that I am coming and say, "quick, close the doors"! While I know that they don't actually fear me, I am very aware that I am forced to make multiple trips to the post office just to buy a couple stamps. Why not buy a book, you ask? Well, we live minimally and I really don't feel like spending the money on all those stamps. That and they don't sell books of stamps in St. Lucia anyways.

Going to the post office is just one of them, though. To move in to my apartment, it took multiple trips to the "super j" (the local supermarket) and to smaller stores around Castries. I think I just may be all moved in now, except I am not quite settled. The littlest tasks here sometimes fill up your day, and it really is quite the accomplishment to get it done. It makes me live for the moment, that is for sure. Laundry, for instance, takes me all day because I do not have a washing machine. You know, it's funny, because when I thought of the Peace Corps, I thought of hand washing clothes and now look at me. I am in, ironically and VERY luckily, the nicest place that I have ever lived on my own, yet, I don't have a washing machine! There really are pluses and minuses to it. I get to enjoy music and sing to myself while tediously scrubbing, and I get in a lot of quality bonding time with myself. The miraculous part is that it actually made me start to enjoy doing the dishes. Ha, Brian would laugh at that one... YES, I like doing the dishes...even if I get nothing more out of the PC (which I already have) I will have at least increased my fondness for scrubbing dirty dishes. How lovely.

trainees to VOLUNTEERS!

2008-10-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we are all going to be sworn in officially as Peace Corps Volunteers. It is unusual that all of us trainees made it through the training process. Usually at least 10% go home before being sworn-in. However, with our entire EC78 group that came, no one has left and it seems as if no one will be leaving anytime soon! Yay for such a good group! We all managed to pass our language assessments (ha...that was silly) and our final interviews. I felt good with the progress we all have made and commend every one of the other volunteers for being the people that they are. I wouldn't have asked for a different group. Okay, okay, I should stop before I tear up.

On Sunday I moved into my new, very own place! I was EXTREMELY fortunate and lucky, as the housing I recieved is very rare for any Peace Corps Volunteer. I could not be more thankful and am grateful every minute that I am in my apartment. Veronica, my landlady, supplied the apartment, which is the bottom of a big house, with nearly everything I ever need. She is quite the nice lady too, which is great! She spent many years in England but decided that she should come back to St. Lucia, where home is. I am so lucky to have been supplied such a secure place in which I feel safe and at home from the Peace Corps! I know for a fact that most, if not all, volunteers are in much less...I just got lucky because Veronica's niece learned to read from a PCV and she has done a little bit of work with Grow Well, with whom I will be affiliated.

Today I taught another class for the grade 6'ers at the primary. Today was good! For some reason they only gave me a little trouble and they were happy to see me. After giving them hours of math last time because they had been misbehaving, I would have thought that they would have been rebellious. Perhaps the reason is that I worked some art into the curriculuum today! It was very heartwarming that many of the students took the time to draw me pictures with "I love you, Miss Haley" and little poems on them. My heart was seriously melting. So today was a great day!!!! :) I will be adorning my new apartment with the drawings they did for me, by the way. These little buggers are really starting to grow on me. Fortunately for me, the futbol game was rescheduled until next tuesday (it was supposed to be yesterday and I had my interviews all day), so I still get to see them play! Other than art, we worked on opposites and similars of definitions and the main idea of stories. Then, I worked with the other Grade 6 class on grammar and compostion. I'm not sure what the other teacher feeds her students, but they all have discipline already in their blood. Now, I just have to find the potion she gives them and give it to my grade 6.... :) They are really actually pretty good, so the light mixture will do.

After swearing-in, we are given a "3 month integration period". Of which I will discuss in the next blog or two. However, I believe that my first move will be to work with the primary two days a week on individual and group tutoring. One of my first tasks will be to establish a daily activities schedule for each of the classes and then decipher when I will come to the school to work with the students. The second task will be to meet with the teachers to decide which students will meet with me and when is the best time and methods; along with what subjects they will be helped with. The third task will be to find other community members or secondary students that will be training to be a tutor and get the ball rolling that way... Then I have to

This coming up week I am going to take off to get settled and find my way around Gros Islet and Rodney Bay. Getting home tasks completed in St. Lucia is much harder than in the states! I realized that in order to find what you need, you usually have to go to three or four stores first and then you can only take so much on the bus back home with you! Finding tape and paper....impossible! On thursday I have to find a place that sells radios, buckets, tape, paper, thread, and many other little things...oh yes, and I am still looking for good running shoes to replace the ones I ridiculously left on the bus.

Destruction of Tidal Wave #1

2008-10-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

A picture of the fence that went down completely due to land slidage from the flooding and rains of the tidal wave that came over us in the northend of St. Lucia this last weekend.... the fence was completely down, but through the efforts of various teachers from the school nearby and community members it is being put back up. This is just one of the many small things that had to be fixed at cost of the wave. The field behind the fence is used for agricultural purposes...most of which had to be attended to immediately. St. Lucia puts a lot of money into reconstruction after the tropical season. Another wave soon to come! Apparently, they are the after effects of Hurricane Owen that passed onto Peurto Rico.

P.S. The dogs in the picture are my best buddies that walk me to work every morning!!!!

2008-10-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

Teaching a Class Spur of the Moment

During the course of the week I have been tested a few times to see what I can do. The first of which was Tuesday. Being focused on preparing for my activity for Thursday that determines our next move as Peace Corps volunteers before swearing in, I was hoping Tuesday would just be another day of observation with the Grade 6. However, moments before class begun I noticed that the teacher was not to be found. A few minutes past, the principal came into the class and explained that Miss Eugene would not be coming today due to a CPR seminar she was attending. Okay. Okay. Breathe. Considering I have only co-taught and worked with students in small groups or one on one, this was new to me. Not only was it my first day as a teacher, but I had no prepared lesson plan. Due to training schedules, I hadn’t been at the school for two weeks and I had a vague idea of what the material was supposed to be.

Luckily, I had some ideas in mind for my activity that I had written down the night before. I used a few of these ideas to teach the class that day. Mathematics or “maths” as they call it in St. Lucia, was my starting point. I figure, they are really behind on maths and I need to work with them in this area. Giving them story problems to solve, I managed to have them remain quiet and doing their work. After the story problems, I worked with them on multiplication, but shortly figured out that this was past the point in which most of them were at anyway. So I had to make the choice to move back and work on addition and subtraction of big numbers. Many of the students found it difficult to grasp the concept of borrowing and carrying over numbers, so we spent much of the day working on that.

After lunch, the anxiety had worn away quite and bit and I finally calmed down. We worked on homophones, words that sound the same but have different spellings and different meanings. For instance, the words “there, their, and they’re” are homophones. Using the traditional game of “heads up, seven up” I created a base for the game “heads up, four to speak up”. We began playing the game only as a game, having four children pushing down the thumbs of four other children while their heads are on the desks and their eyes closed. After doing a couple rounds of playing the game, we moved into the more academic version. The students whose thumbs had been pushed down now had to listen to me say a sentence with a homophone word in it, and then follow up with the correct spelling. The game really helped the kids to work together, while still having fun. After playing the game about ten times, the students started to cheat by looking at who was pushing their thumbs down. At this point, when the kids began to get a little rowdy, I had to change the subject. Because the kids were talking too much, I made them return to math. The next time I played an educational game with them they paid more attention!

Today I completed the activity that we are supposed to complete pre-being sworn-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Yes, that’s right, I am technically still a Trainee until Wednesday, October 22nd. I was really stressing out over the activity, as the first attempt posed external problems outside my realm of control (i.e. weather, type of activity in relation to type of assessment, etc). So, you can understand my nervousness in attempting to complete the activity for a second time with success. Being observed and evaluated (unless it is in volleyball) is not my specialty. I get insanely nervous when people evaluate me for my work; especially when I am working in somewhat of a new area. I prepared myself as much as I could ahead of time, and did my best for the given day. After all, that’s really all I can do. Despite my nervousness, I did well but know I could have done a little better were I more comfortable with being observed. Just another hurdle to jump while I am here with the Peace Corps! We are constantly being observed, critiqued, evaluated, and advised on how to be a better volunteer. This is a very good thing, as I, personally, would like to improve as much as possible in the areas that I will be working in. Not only am I training people in St. Lucia and working with them to train others, but in turn, they are really helping me to improve as well!

The activity that I used focused on improvement in numeracy through multiplication. We used beans and playing cards as materials. The playing cards were used to be the numbers that we multiply. To start out with, I flipped over two cards and worked with the four students as a group to show how we can add groups together to get the sum of multiplying two numbers. For instance, I flipped over a 5 and a 4. I explained to the students that we have four groups of five, or five groups of four. Then I counted out the beans into groups to show them what I was looking for. I challenged each of the students to try one of the multiplication of their own, with the help of their peers. Then, after we worked on that for a little while, we moved into playing “head-2-head”, which is a revised version of “war”. I had the four students divided into two teams. First, we all played against each other "head-2-head" and then I took myself out of the game to watch them play on their own. I observed them along the way and asisted them when they needed guidance. It was nice to see that many of the times, they would help each other out in the problems even though both teams were playing against each other.

I'm glad that the activity went well overall. It's just one thing that gets me to be where I want to be. Tuesday of next week and the following I will be teaching the class again at the Primary...let's all say a little prayer for me, eh, eh? I must say, working with the primary has reminded me of what it is like to be a youth again...I am constantly being reminded that there always enough time in your life to play a game, to ask questions to even the most basic ideas, to jump and skip and run for no reason, and to use all the energy you have by 3 o'clock!

The country and not so western....

2008-10-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

On one of the Sunday nights in the past eight weeks, I decided to join Ashley in Babboneau for what is called a “country and western dance”. Seeing as how where I had been staying with my host family is very close to the location of the dance, I gave in when Ashley asked if I wanted to go. Her host mom and three of her host mom’s friends came to pick me up on the corner by my house. We fit four people in the back seat with no hesitation, except for a little giggling. At one time I am quite sure that my elbow was in someone’s chest and her thigh had been digging into my rear. It was like the volkswagon commercials, where you see twenty people piling up out of this tiny little car.

Actually this reminded me of when cousin Megan was in town to visit and we had all gone to the Mariners game. We had a ride there with no problem. However, me and Megs wanted to go out on the town and thus, needed a ride to the bar. However, there were already six of the family members going home in this car and so, it was pretty packed. Talk about family bonding time. I think after this experience, we were all changed. Not only did we manage to fit 7 or 8 people in the tiny little car that my uncle was driving but we rolled down the windows to roll in style. One of the cousins decided to start singing “apple bottom jeans”, and next thing we know all of us are singing along to it. Including my uncle! So imagine a mixed car of old and young, of all different backgrounds singing as loudly as possible to this rap song. And on top of this, my uncle had admitted he had gas at the beginning of the car ride. You can imagine how that went. This is perhaps one of my favorite moments in Haley history, perhaps.
So not to get off topic, but I thought you should all know that story because it describes my family perfectly. I’ll risk the legality of the situation for the humor that life presents. Anyhow, that Sunday night Ashley and I made our way to the “country and western dance”. Immediately, I wanted to leave. I felt so awkward and uncomfortable! I didn’t know how to dance this way and I looked very much out of place. The one thing keeping me there, well, besides Ashley saying we can’t go yet, was the music. Yes, yes, I will admit, I love country music. There is no denying this. People thought because I could sing the song in full I was going to be a pro dancer. Nope, sorry old buddies, not the case.

Then, I thought to myself: When have I felt completely comfortable and not awkward this entire experience thus far? The answer: not once. So I made the most of it and grabbed a dance partner. It took many different partners and watching others for hours to actually learn this “two-step” (really a three-step). Between dancing with all guys above 60 years old and feeling incredibly awkward, Ashley and I stepped out to grab a Piton at one of the great “bars” in Babboneau. This one is actually a bar! Funny enough, however, is that the name of the bar is “Gordon’s”. Of course it is! (For those not sure why this name is significant it was the name of the place I bartended at for four years before committing myself to the greater good of the Peace Corps). Along the way to the bar, we met a man from England (originally from St. Lucia) and it turned out his family owned the bar. Life is so small in St. Lucia! Another one of the guys that I met that night was so anxious to keep in contact with me because he said he would probably never see me again and guess what? I have seen him four times since then…in the most random places too. This island is VERY small.

So the morale of the story is: despite feeling extremely awkward and uncomfortable for the first half of the night, the rest of the night proved to be very worthwhile! I had a ton of fun, sweated out the one beer I drank, and “just let go”. By the end of the night, I once again felt as if this was the right place for me to be, at the right time. I should be in St. Lucia!

I wish I could record what happens at one of these events just so all of you readers can experience the same thing I experienced. Words can sum it up, but words cannot fully immerse you in the experience. Imagine the scenery… The lights are off but there is a DJ on the stage in the front of the room with a few lights on him. About twenty people are on the dance floor pulling out their best “two-steps”, the men wearing jeans and a t-shirt with gold chains and the women wearing skirts or jeans; the kind of dress that you would find at a downtown late night club. It’s great stuff. There are people all around the outsides watching and talking. Yes, for a minute you feel as if you are warped back into an eighth grade dance; you are a wallflower and waiting for a dance partner. After turning down the first five because 1) he wasn’t attractive enough or 2) you don’t want to embarrass yourself with your horrible western dancing skills, you finally accept to the sixth, somewhat decent guy that is also bad at dancing. Soon after, you realize that picking a bad dancer as a partner was not the best way to go, as now everyone is staring at both of you and smirking. The next time around you dance with a better dancer, but of course the attraction is compromised. The more and more you dance the better the dancers get, and the less you care about who you are dancing with. Now, it’s just all about having fun and not caring one bit. This was the progression of my night; and it was a great experience for me. Wish you could have been there? Come to St. Lucia and I’ll take you to one or I’ll make Ashley take you to one instead.

Laundry awaits....

2008-10-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

The rains have been continual for the last week, and I have yet to get my laundry finished... I finally understand how much of a gift having a dryer back in the states is! I have taken for granted the appliances that I had back in Seattle to such a large degree... but now I know. At one point, I had complained because I had to walk outside, down two sets of stairs around the house and down another set of stairs to get to the washing room. To think!

Volleyball in St. Lucia

2008-10-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

So, considering that I have gotten a few St. Lucians to read over my blog, I thought it would be a good idea to get the word out that I am looking for a team/place to play volleyball in St. Lucia. Preferrably indoor volleyball. I would eventually like to work with youth in the area of volleyball as well, so if there is anyone out there that is in need of a co-planner or co-trainer for volleyball camps/teams in addition to healthy lifestyles and leadership training for players, please contact me!!! Currently I am in youth development through sporting and healthy lifestyles, so if there is a way I can incorporate volleyball into the mix that would be my dream!

Headline: Tropical Wave to Come.

2008-10-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

What's a tropical wave anyhow? Apparently there is one coming in St. Lucia. This might entail power outages and some bad weather. Though, the last week has been so rainy and ehhh that I have tried to do my laundry (the same set) three times to no avail. Everytime I hang it out to dry, ooops there it is again, that stubborn rain! So in the ways of Jason, another EC78, "Wikipedia says" that a tropical wave is:

Tropical waves (see first picture below), or easterly waves, also known as African easterly waves in the Atlantic region, are a type of atmospheric trough, an elongated area of relatively low air pressure, oriented north to south, which move from east to west across the tropics causing areas of cloudiness and thunderstorms...

and

Tropical waves are generally carried westward by the prevailing easterly winds along the tropics and subtropics near the equator. They can lead to the formation of tropical cyclones (picture #2) in the north Atlantic and northeast Pacific basins.

So despite the fact that this is not a hurricane, it is still my very first tropical wave!!! For some reason, I am a little more excited to be in this wave then I should be! Don't worry mom, i'll be safe and sound.

Everyone do the Muscle Dance...

2008-10-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Did the muscle dance today for my presentation on the main muscles of the human body... it was great. Everyone was shaking their gluteus maximuses to the sound of the hokey pokey... you wish you could have been there to see it, don't you?!!!! I know, I know, you are jealous. I put my bicep in and put my bicep out and I shook it all about, that's what I did... for sure.

I loved the other groups' presentations as well. Some great ideas came out of these short presentations. I cannot wait to see what else all of the PCVs come up with in the future. Now I just have to come up with an activity in the schools for next Thursday, yay!

2008-10-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

Oktoberfest was a blast! I met Ashley there at about 5 pm, after getting home from the airport in Vieux Fort to drop off my Fwe, se se and cousin... (brother, sister and cousin) That was a whole 'nother story in itself.

I am not sure whether it is typical for St. Lucian families to do this, but practically the entire family went to the airport to drop them off for what is going to be a month trek in Canada. I was surprised for a few reasons:

1) People in Seattle go to the airport so often that when it comes to family there really is no reason to go to the airport with them (that and the security is so tedious that you cannot get past the front doors)

2) We stayed through the entire process from beginning to ending. We were there two hours before their flight to check them in and then half an hour after their plane took off just to make sure that their plane had no reason to return.

3) Almost everyone in the family cried at one point. It was adorable! It almost made me cry because everyone else was crying. I could not believe it though, it seemed as if they were leaving for years instead of months.

I loved the whole experience at the airport because it really struck me how valuable family life is in St. Lucia. I am so envious of this! I have always wanted to have that type of family connection in my life. I have a great relationship with my immediate family members, sure, but how we express it is much different in Seattle. I was extremely moved by the thought and emotion that was put into their trip. Here's a picture of Nasha, me and Shernan at the airport.

So after the airport came the Oktoberfest. I know, I know, can you believe it?!? They have Oktoberfest in St. Lucia?!?! When I saw the sign promoting it a couple of weeks ago I was in heaven. I automatically felt like I was back in Seattle. Octoberfest is a great time of the year in Fremont, Seattle and so I just knew I had to make an appearance at this one. I came to find out that it was the first one ever in St. Lucia. They were promoting "beers from around the world", which I came to find out was four beers from the Caribbean. I still had a great time despite :).

On my way to grab a bus to go down to Gros Islet, I ran into Angus who caught me a taxi (which I insisted I couldn't afford) and it ended up being on the house so that was a nice surprise! Then after getting off of the taxi, Cory (a friend I met within the first weeks of getting here) saw me walking towards the event and picked me up to give me a ride closer! Then, within being inside of the event for five min. I ran into Jamal, another teacher from the primary I am working at. Then came the Peace Corps mail dude, another teacher from the secondary and then Trevor (another friend I met early on). It was absolutely crazy that I ran into pretty much the only people I know here in St. Lucia! The event was pretty large-scale and there were tons of people there. After testing a few Red Stripe Lights, me and Ash went out and "wined". Much to our surprise, we got to see Herb Black perform!!! It was awesome! here is a video link I got off of Melaney's website of him doing "suzette" at the Anse La Raye primary..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCXISzDp4OA

Perhaps the best part of the night was running into a girl from the UK that is here doing forestry in Dennery who happened to be carrying around a blow up version of Spongebob Square Pants. This was hilarious simply for the fact that Scotty, another PCV on St. Vincent, takes pictures with a doll of SBSP around the world to send to his friend back home. What are the chances!?!?! So random!

Overall, it was a great night. Unfortunately I woke up too late the next morning to go on the tour with my manman (mother) and her friends!!! I hope there is another one to go on sometime though.

The current run down now is that I have a tummy ache and some bathroom problems, not like any of you want to know... just thought I would let you realize all of the accommodations moving to a new country brings! Ha. Definitely the result of change in diet, drinking the water, and/or being dehydrated from the amount of heat. Just another part of life we ignore in our own hometown until we get sick, but when you are not at home it's definitely much harder to deal with. Fluids are my best friend.

Other than that, tomorrow I am giving a presentation with some of the other PCTs on the muscular system. Oh boy. It's been years since I studied up on that, other than going to the gym to lift weights! It will be fun though, I hope, because I am going to make all of the other PCTs dance the hokey pokey to muscles. Ok, I am officially a weirdo. Today I did a presentation on Water Safety and recreation wearing a snorkel mask... that was exciting...sure. That's all I got for now. It's been a roller coaster in the last week for reasons that I will disclose later, but training will be over on the 22nd!!!! wooohooo.

In regards to other blogs!

2008-09-27T12:46:00.001-07:00

Ps. The other blogs that I am following (on my site it says that I am following them) are good sources of information about what life is like in St. Lucia, in addition to my own. Many times people write about an experience or a way of life in a way that is better described than my own blgos will do, or I just forget to write about it all together, so people PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read the other's blogs as well! Time to finish laundry and pray it doesn't rain when they are outside on the line!