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’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.
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