Here's a map of the Caribbean, I stole it from a fellow volunteer's site, actually, I like to think that we share. Anyways, a little idea of where I am compared to the other islands. Peace Corps is located in not only St. Kitts and Nevis, but in St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and in Grenada. That's the Eastern Caribbean, but we are also in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.

This is the road that I walk up from the bus terminal to get to my bus stop in Bassaterre. It becomes a temporary river during hard rain. check out my other pics

First off: GO CARDINALS!!!! You better believe I will be watching every game of the World Series with my boys playing! I think I will get my host dad into it as well. He had me watching cricket while I lived there, so now I will return the favor with the American version. Ok, now on to what I wrote today while I was stuck at home....

Ahhh… another rainy day. So here I sit, forced to be creative to pass the time. Actually it’s not too bad; there is still the tv, though some of the channels go out when there is rain. Plus I have buddy, my computer, to keep me occupied.

I’m pretty lucky though that all the heavy rain days seem to fall when I don’t have obligations that require me to leave the house. Getting around in the rain is quite a chore. The main road that takes me into town from here in St. Peters is called College Street, or The Gut. It is the runoff gut for all the rain that falls up in the mountains above Bassaterre. I happened to be in town when we had a good rain a couple of days ago, and getting back to St. Peters was exciting. I couldn’t cross over the gut to get to the bus so it came over to get me. Once I was on, it had to power back over the flooded street to get up the road. Water was coming in through the door and I was the only one that thought that was great! I think next time I will try to have my camera ready, but I think I will get made fun of if I act like a tourist on the bus.

As far as work, I have been kept occupied, not really busy, but occupied. I am still teaching that English class to the French-speaking exchange students. I will be finished with that after next week, and we will have a certification ceremony for them on the 31st. Another volunteer and I thought it would be great if they could do a performance and they all decided to sing, not surprisingly. Everyone in the Caribbean loves to sing, even if it is not well, so I am definitely in my element here. My class chose to sing Killing Me Softly by the Fugees, but only after we had a vote between that and James Blunt’s Goodbye My Lover! I was impressed they knew all those, and they looked at me like I was an idiot when I asked if they listened to American music back on Guadalupe. Of course they did! Seems like the whole world does, except N. Korea. Anyways, I am now working with them on the song.

Oooh… there goes the power! Hmm, no more tv now. Geez, is this really what I signed up for?!

Anyways, the after school reading program that I will be helping with got postponed for the week since the PTA meeting was postponed as well. We ended up having the PTA meeting this last Monday and we (myself and some members of the Kiwanis) presented the program to the parents. By the way, PTA meetings out here are so fun! Not only filled with arguing parents, but icing on the cake was when a bat flew into the room and couldn’t make it back out. It just kept circling and swooping overhead while parents ducked and squealed. Next time I will take popcorn! Anyways, the program will be after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but before that we will have training this next Monday on dyslexic readers and how to spot them.

The reading program is basically the only permanent thing I have planned for now. I am still trying to figure out what will take up the bulk of my time and effort here on the island. I still want to do more for my primary school here, and am going to see if I might be able to help with funding for some of their projects they want to start. That requires me to be able to write grant proposals, so I guess that will be something new to learn!

Another volunteer and I are very interested in doing Behavior Change Communication with HIV and AIDS. Our director said it would be a full time effort, so I am trying to figure out if I want to devote a lot of my time to that or continue with researching and getting ideas to implement an environmental program across the island. I think it would be better if I did the HIV/AIDS work since I believe there is a greater need for that. Not that the environment out here is not in need, but with some free time I will still work on researching what I can do to create a more environmentally friendly and environmentally aware island, especially since they are really working on more development for tourism.

That’s it in a nutshell. As far as recreation and free time I just try and pass time by traveling around the island and hanging out with some of the other volunteers and seeing what they are up to. Last week I hung around Old Road with Becky and went to the Caribelle Batik. I think next time I go I will buy some things there. I also went to a 1st birthday party. That’s when I had the goat water. It was delicious! It’s just basically soup made with goat meat.

I think I’ll take some time out to explain a little bit of the Caribbean, in particular, the food. My friend Pete asked very good questions and I realized that so far I’ve been explaining what is going on with me rather than what this island is really like. So for my first account I will tell you about the local food, even though I do have the choice of available American brands.

Local foods are a cheaper, and mostly a much healthier, alternative to the over processed American brands. Every Saturday there is a market where you can go and buy local produce, or buy produce usually grown over on Dominica. The common things you’ll see are plantains, bananas, star fruit, mangos, papaya, all types of citrus, dasheen, tanya, breadfruit, christophene, squash, and pumpkin. All are very good and plantain and breadfruit are my favorite. Plantains are like bananas, but a little bigger, and breadfruit is what I would call an alternative to potatoes. Everything can be served up steamed, but some are also good when fried. Meats will include chicken, pork, and salt fish. Beef is available, but in my experience these 3 meats are the most common dishes around here. Also, there are a lot of conch dishes too, but I have yet to try conch. Here is a short list of some interesting dishes I have tried: turkey neck soup, blood pudding, pig snout and rice, liver and lung (for breakfast, yum!), and goat water, a local favorite. Let’s just say nothing goes to waste out here!

The most common local drinks are basically any kind of fruit juices, coconut water, and mauby. Mauby is a fermented drink made from boiling the twigs or bark of a tree, I think? Anyhow, it is really good and I like to drink it at night to help me sleep. I’d have to say that my host mom probably makes the best mauby on the island! And yes of course there is the local rum that is sold at the stores, but then there are the little rum shops that brew their own concoctions as well. Since I am a Peace Corps volunteer 24/7, we are strictly forbidden to go to those. They are also usually the liming spots for guys to play dominoes and smoke weed.

Now as for desserts, they are not as big into that as we are in the states, but local treats can include sugar cakes (made from coconut), guava jelly, and bread pudding. I plan on making some chocolate chip cookies for my host family so they can see why Americans have such a sweet tooth. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone make any out here. You can of course just buy the prepackaged kind at the store, but they don’t add up to the homemade kind.

So this would be my top pick for a meal: Salt fish, coconut dumplings, rice and lentils, steamed or boiled pumpkin and breadfruit, with mauby to wash it all down. Then for a sweet treat, just a sugar cake will do for me!!

The view from my balcony. I live in an apartment built above my landlord’s house.



I’ve nearly spent a week now in my new home and I love it! It was built just for me. It’s a one bedroom apartment and very tiny. My living room/dining area are smaller than my bedroom, which is pretty big. My kitchen consists of one counter, a little gas stove and a dorm fridge. The other volunteers thought that was too bad about the fridge but then I reminded them that I eat very little so in reality it is ideal, and helps save on the electricity. I have a little “utility” room with a wash basin and a washing machine. My bedroom, like I said, is bigger than my living room with the bathroom being attached. I just got my cable and internet connected yesterday. So now I am all set!! I figured I will indulge myself this month and allow myself to be as comfortable as I want taking long showers and staying up late watching tv, pretty much being my American self again. Once I get my bills and see how outrageous they are then I will have to cut back. I really want to try and save some money and travel around the islands.

Living all by my lonesome isn’t too bad. I do get bored but I am being creative. I have gotten back into my sketching after a very long break. I found a sketchpad and drawing pencils (cheaper alternative to charcoal) and am working on drawing some local scenes and hope to decorate my walls with them. I’ll create my own little exhibit! I am also doing a lot of reading. It’s now my night time ritual in order to help me sleep. I am finishing my 5th book.

Now, as far as when I am not at home, I am busy running errands in Bassaterre and getting set up with some projects here in St. Peters. I observed the diabetic clinic at the health centre on Monday and then went next door to the school. I found that the primary school here was lacking a reading teacher. The literacy rate among most adolescents here on the island is very low, and when children who are in 4th, 5th, and even 6th grade can barely read at a second grade level then it is just a snowball effect with the rest of their academics. I told the head mistress that I would be interested in helping with any type of reading program. Well, the ball got rolling then and seems that there is a Kiwanis club (are they everywhere?) here on island, and a woman in our community is starting an after school program on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So now I will be creating invitations for the program to hand out at the next PTA meeting this week. I’ve also agreed to help teach English to a group of French-speaking Guadalupe exchange students visiting for this month.

I also am taking Spanish classes once a week. They are free and I thought that will come in handy when I go back to the States, and here as well actually. There is a cluster of Spanish speakers here on island; mainly people from the Dominican Republic and others from South America or Cuba. So I guess I am keeping pretty busy, but the days sure go by slowly!!