Wednesday, December 27, 2006

J'Ouvert 2006


Yesterday’s early morning tranquillity was interrupted with the strains of steel pan music, hi-fis and the percussive din live bands, signalling the opening of Carnival and its associated revelry

In the pre-dawn hours, the streets of Basseterre were transformed into a kaleidoscope of
colours as the J’Ouvert procession, including nine J’Ouvert troupes, began winding its way throughout the city

As humour is normally symbolic of J’Ouvert many people donned satirical outfits, painted their faces and bodies, a group of men masqueraded as women wearing brightly-coloured wigs and dresses and numerous individuals played mud mas’

One man was leading a donkey, while carrying a sign of humorous political commentary, referring to the $41 million disparity in figures of the country’s recurrent deficit which recently sparked a heated argument at the budget session on 12 Dec.

Revellers jammed for eight straight hours behind the five main bands – the Grand Masters Band, the Small Axe Band, D’Vybes Band, the Nu Vybes Band and the Collision Band.

Some enjoyed Ronnie Rascal’s hi-fi and others gravitated towards the steel pan music.

Carnival Chairman, Gus Williams, is pleased that revellers and mas’ makers pulled off a peaceful J’Ouvert. (online article from St Kitts Sun)


LOOK AT THOSE PICS, AND JUST REALIZE I WAS IN ALL THAT... SOMEWHERE!!! I AM VERY TIRED TODAY!!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

The Masquerades



My site might be getting a lot more stuff on it in the next week or so. Carnival has started and the big events are next week, plus I have a christmas play that I am in and a wedding where I will be in charge of the programs and guest book! If that is not fully integrated into your community, then I don't know what is!

Everything has kind of shut down for the Christmas and Carnival season, so most pictures and videos I put up will be of all the local festivities. Hope you all enjoy!





Posted By:
Amber

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These are the Masqueraders entertaining us while we worked our HIV/AIDS booth at the health fair today. We gave a 10 minute educational talk and then had people get tested. Oh, and I made the local news! They interviewed me at our booth :)

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

World AIDS Day

Posted By:Amber

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The end of our AIDS Day march on December 1st. The kids had a drum off out at Port Zante
Posted By:Amber

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Traditional Caribbean dance
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This is Becky and her fire spinning at the culture exchange in St. Lucia... Becky is here on St. Kitts with me and I hope she teaches me how to do this!!
Posted By:Amber

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Finally figured out how to get my videos from my myspace onto my blosite. Here is Dan and Marty at our cultural exchange in St. Lucia. This is Dan's version of the local Isasha song.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Some Island Views


Yesterday, several volunteers and I decided to do a cross country hike from Old Road on the Caribbean side over into Phillips on the Atlantic. It took us about 4 hours, and we managed to get rained on about 5 times. This is what my legs looked like after about half way through (they were much more brown at the end, but I was too tired to take another picture). Kelvin was our guide and I snapped a shot of him when we stopped to take a break in the land of the tree ferns.

























Today I joined Robin and Shelagh for a rally around the island voicing the issue of violence against women here on St. Kitts. It was a tiring day, but very motivating too, especially knowing that it is not just an issue here, but a global one. We put wreaths and flowers on graves of women who were victims of domestic abuse. These are a few pictures.






Thursday, December 07, 2006

It only took 3 weeks and lots of videos and programs lost, but my computer is up and running. We had to replace Windows XP and I was only able to save pictures… I actually forgot to save my videos, but I am done mourning now. My pictures were the main thing I wanted to save. So now that I have had my computer back I am addicted to downloading music. I lost all my music (nearly 4 years worth!), but I decided instead of redownloading what I had, I am downloading new music; my theme music for this chapter of my life. Of course I had to get my Amos Lee back though! Now that buddy is up and running I advise all who are interested to download skype so we can chat. You just have to be sure you have a microphone if one is not built in to your computer. It’s completely free and I even use it to chat with other volunteers here on the island. It is such a better way to communicate than texting each other all the time. Just go to www.skype.com and follow instructions.

Got new pics up… take a look. They are from thanksgiving, World AIDS Day, and Nevis.