A picture is worth a thousand words...

On Friday I had the pleasure of hanging out at Estridge Primary school for the morning. They had a workshop going on with Anthony and Stephanie from the nonprofit Art In All of Us. Stephanie had emailed me a month or so ago via the couchsurfing network. She informed me of her plans to visit my little island this month and was wanting to know if I knew of a primary school that would want to participate in her project. I told the volunteers about the oppportunity and Marty was the first, and most enthusiastic to respond. So I gave Stephanie all the info and set her up to work with the Estridge Primary fourth and fifth graders.

Stephanie and Anthony came in from Antigua on Thursday and had previously been to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. They reside in Belgium (Stephanie is originally from Madagascar) and have been "visiting primary schools worldwide to promote creativity and artistic activities, as well as cultural exchanges between schools". The aim of their project can best be put in a summary Stephanie sent me through an email:


- to promote creativity
- to create an awareness of other countries and cultures
- to prepare a book presenting all the countries of the world through the eyes and rhymes of the children (every country will be presented through one photograph, as well as one drawing and poetry prepared by the kids). We will select the best poetry and the best drawing collected in every country
- to create an ART Pen Pal network of schools, encouraging schools throughout the world to communicate using ART (drawings, paintings ...) on specific themes. The themes are chosen to increase the knowledge of other cultures and tolerance (friendship, my dreams, my daily life, the United Nations' Millenium development goals...)

The kids spent the morning taking pictures of their friends and learning to capture images using different spontaneous poses and actions. They also drew pictures depicting their island and culture which in theory will then be used to initiate the pen pal process. I had so much fun watching them try different poses for the camera and observing their drawing skills that the whole morning seemed to speed by so fast. It was a great ending to my week and just what I needed to get grounded again after being in vacation mode for so long.


If you're interested about this project and want more info, check out their website, www.artinallofus.org, though I think they are currently having some technical difficulties with the site. I put all the pictures, or most of the pictures I took on Friday , in a new album in My Photos. I also finally have up my Dominica pictures. So be sure to check them all out.

"All I need is a dollar coin and a band-aid"

Things are starting to slowly return to normal, whatever normal is anyway. I guess the better way to put it, is that I am nearly out of vacation mode. I’ve been back for almost a week now from my MST (mid service training), and an extended vacay in Dominica. To sum it up, I did a lot of river bathing/splashing/wading, playing in waterfalls, jumping off rocks into freshwater pools, hiking, twisting ankle while walking, scuba diving, tourist shopping, and one long trip to KFC that ended with us sipping white wine in a hot tub… It was definitely hard to leave beautiful Dominica!!

Along the way I met a couchsurfer who was staying with some volunteers in Dominica, he had told me he was coming to my tiny island and within 3 days of my return here I had found myself with a visitor. So I decided to keep in vacay mode for a little longer, but he has left now and I guess it’s finally time to get that trimester report done… oops, sorry Mavis!

Anyhow, I am still trying to make some headway in this flora and fauna project I am doing with Brimstone Hill. We have at least 70 plant species I need to make profile pages for. These pages include info on scientific names and origins, and local uses and desricptions. It’s become more tedious than I thought. The pages will be put into a folder that documents the flora and fauna of Brimstone Hill and will go along with our display of specimens and pictures in one of the rooms at the fortress. We’re hoping to be done at the end of this month, but I’m thinking it won’t happen.

Now that it is October I also find myself helping out again with the exchange students that are visiting from Guadeloupe (French-speaking students in for a month of training). It’s been a little more difficult this time because these students know very basic English, and I wish I could speak or understand French so it wasn’t so frustrating for all of us, but we are getting there. I’ve already missed a week because I was gone, and now it seems like I only have next week with them, so who knows how far we’ll make it, but hopefully I can make the whole process just fun for them. Along with their English classes I am resuming teaching Kayako, my Japanese friend, English. We were doing well in the classes before we all had vacation and got real busy over the summer, so now we’ll squeeze in some more lessons before her and her husband have to move back to Japan.

As for the rest of this week, I have my first Science Club session on Thursday at Maurice-Hillier Primary School in Basseterre. It’s for 4th graders and lasts an hour. I need to try and think of something fun we can do for our first day, anything that can include a big mess with glue, crayons, paper, and a mix of learning should be just right!