Work

The first full week of work since the holidays, and I couldn't be happier! I love to stay busy and this week kept me going for sure.

I now help out at the St. Christopher Heritage Society, a local NGO, and am working on updating/redoing their herbarium. A herbarium is a collection of dried, pressed plants. I will be collecting and archiving species from here on the island, which in turn can be used for future reference and study. I'm pretty excited about doing it because that gives me a real good excuse to go out hiking, and all the other volunteers are more than eager to help me with that! Right now I am working on writing a proposal for funding so I can order materials.

Working with the Heritage Society will also afford me some great opportunities to get involved with other local environmental projects. On Thursday I was kind of thrown into the mix when the director for SCHS couldn't make a meeting and sent me instead to take notes. It ended up being a meeting with representatives from the various ministries, and they were discussing and assessing the effects of essentially planning an ecotourism scheme up in our Central Forest Reserve. I am very interested in the proposal of this project and am hoping to tag along to some of the other meetings. The area of environmental policy and management is something I am very interested in, and I would love to see the planning and politics that go into undertaking huge tasks like these. Especially since here in St. Kitts, ecotourism is essentially non-existent. This is another reason why I believe this herbarium will be useful. I plan on collecting plants in the areas of existing trails, which are also the ones they want to build from, so it will be interesting to see how the flora and fauna of the area will change.

I have also been volunteering with the St. Kitts Sea Turtle monitoring Network. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to go out with the group to White House Beach and help with in-water tagging. A Kittitian named Darren Browne, came in from Barbados where he is doing genetic research on Hawksbill turtles in the Eastern Caribbean. What we did was just snorkel in the bay and alert Darren when we saw a turtle. He would come over and catch it then take it back on shore to get tissue samples and tag it. On Tuesday we caught 2 Hawksbills and 1 Green turtle. The Greens are really pretty and that is what is pictured. I also got to see a few sting rays buried in the sand, an eagle ray swim past me, and a giant puffer fish. It was an amazing day and can't wait untill they do it again!!! The nesting season starts in March and will more than likely get to see some huge Leatherbacks then.


All these things are keeping me busy, but am hoping that will ultimately help me in creating some sort of environmental program for the youth. I really want to get them involved with projects like the sea turtle program and into the environmental issues here on the island, but I am not quite sure where to start. For now I am thinking of just creating activities with the youth members of the Heritage Society. Then maybe I can branch off from there. The main problem will be trying to make it sustainable for after I leave...

Holidays 2006

It’s been quite a busy time out here on St. Kitts! Things are just starting to settle down and get back to normal out here, or some form of normalcy I guess. For the last 3 weeks or so the island has been stirring with activities from Christmas programs and dinners, to carnival shows and parades, to weddings, and also New Year’s celebrations. Needless to say, it has been quite chaotic but fun nonetheless, and I thought I’d catch you all up on how I spent the holidays.

First, I had the opportunity to take part in a Christmas program at my local church. They had nominated me to play the mother in the children’s play, and I couldn’t refuse! It reminded me a lot of the plays we did at New Hope, my church when I was growing up. I was just glad to know that they wanted me to be a part of it. It went well and I think an acting career might be in my future!

Then on Christmas day I received a phone call at 5:30 am. It was my host father Charles. He just wanted to be sure I was still going to the 6 am church service. I was so tired that morning. I thought I was going to die before the service ended. You really can die from exhaustion you know! But I didn’t, and I got to go home and sleep afterwards. I must tell you though… while napping in my room my neighbor was blasting some music, like always. This time, instead of dancehall reggae, it was some Celine Dion, a little Shania, and I distinctly remember hearing “Hungry Eyes” playing. I figured they must have slowed it down for Christmas!

For the rest of Christmas day I enjoyed a family dinner at my host-aunt Paula’s house, complete with saltfish cakes, macaroni pie, and mauby! The men sat around and watched football, just like back in the states. Except, it was “soccer” not American football! Then the meal ended with some intense dominoes playing. Dominoes is the past time out here in the Caribbean.

The next day I rode into town with my friend Eddie around 5 am and got to watch some of the first J’ourvet troupes start jamming outside of town. We then headed to the circus (picture with the clock tower) and met with other volunteers. Once the troupes started jamming through the circus they started having little mini jams on the side roads, and we all found our way to the wet-down. It was great!! I ended up not going home till about 8:30 pm… only after heading to the beach to relax after all the jamming (“jamming” is basically a mixture of dancing, moshing, and plain old jumping… it was like being at a rock concert).

The following weekend I had a wedding to go to. It was my host-sister’s wedding. I along with my friend Rushi, manned the guestbook and programs. It was a hard job, but they knew I could handle it. I really enjoyed getting all dressed up and wearing make up and feeling like a girl again. I realized though, Kittitian weddings are not that different from American weddings. I still got pestered about getting married myself, and they were actually scoping out guys for me there. The locals in my community are quite convinced that I will marry a Kittitian and never leave!

Well, that then leads me up to the New Year. I spent New Year’s Eve at home relaxing. I thought my only options were church or an expensive party out at the hotels. Most the other volunteers went to church, but I was all churched out that point, and I just wanted to be home. I quite enjoyed it until I saw fireworks over on Nevis and then told myself I would be over there next year. I then went the next day to take part in the grand parade in town. I was part of the Small Island Voice clean up troupe at the end of the parade.

So, that’s basically the last 2 weeks in a nutshell. I’ve put up pictures of it all. Please take a chance to look at them because they illustrate a lot more than what I can write. Happy New Year to everybody, and I’ll inform you soon on projects I am working on.