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.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Oh, the Joy of Washing.
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
trainees to VOLUNTEERS!
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.
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.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Destruction of Tidal Wave #1
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!!!!
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!
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....
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.
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.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Laundry awaits....
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!
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