Peace Corps Article

http://midwestpcvs.com/2015/12/08/green-bay-ranks-no-10-on-peace-corps-top-volunteer-producing-metro-areas-per-capita-in-2015/

The link above is an online article from last week about Green Bay being one of the top “volunteer producing” areas in 2015. Lucky me was featured as a Green bay native.

Happy Birthday Ruby!

Today Ruby is one year old! Can’t believe I have had her for 10 months. She has gotten so big and is still a bush dog through and through. Also, I have been in St Lucia for 18 months and have 8 more months left. This week is also the last week of school for term 1. Today was the Christmas party which is always a blast. Lots of snacks and loud music to dance to. The students’ new favourite song is The Cha Cha slide, something I danced when I was a kid. They love that song and we must have played it 10 times today. They also love the Cheerleader song which is super popular all over the island. I am looking forward to a nice Christmas holiday and 3 weeks off of school. In attempts to get into the Christmas spirit, I decorated the house with my little Christmas tree, some lights and tinsel, stockings and paper snowflakes, since for me it is hard to feel the Christmas season without snow. My neighbour joined me and was a great sport in cutting snowflakes she has never actually seen. She proudly has her snowflakes hanging in her house.

Two weekends ago, Peace Corps had their Thanksgiving meal like last year and I decided to bring 2 pies (apple and pumpkin cheesecake) and some rolls. The night before the get-together, I had some co-workers over for a party. We had a fun time cooking and talking and at around midnight, I decided to try and get a head start with baking a pie. I got the pumpkin cheesecake in the oven and to my horror, I later found a half baked pie and no gas. My cooking gas finished. In St Lucia, cooking gas is kept in a tank next to your oven and last about 3 months. When it finishes, you get to carry the empty tank to the nearest gas shop and get it refilled. When the tank is empty, it’s not too heavy. But when full, it’s terrible to carry. So I had no choice but to wait till morning to try to refill it. That morning was Saturday and I left my home around 7am in search for some cooking gas so I could make everything by noon. Talk about mission impossible…I went to my local gas guy, turns out he is Seventh-Day Adventist. So he was closed and I got to carry my tank to the road and wait for a bus. If you don’t know St Lucia buses, they are 15-seater vans and do not have much space for a gas tank. But there I was, making it work. The next stop I tried didn’t work either so I took a bus to town. I finally found a place that could help me out and happily struggled, feeling pretty proud to be doing this all by myself, to get my full gas tank to my bus to go home. I know I earned some man points from the Vieux Fort bus drivers as they watched me carry this thing and I heard them say that I was pretty strong. Women here would never attempt to do this by the way. They either have a car or a guy to do it for them. I have neither. So there I was, standing at the place where my bus should have been only to realize that there will be no bus for a long time. No buses pass by my home from town on a Saturday morning. What could I do?? My friends don’t have cars. I had to get home and precious baking time was being lost. So I did what you should not do unless you are stranded with no other options, like I was. I fleeced a ride. I hitch hiked my way home. Luckily, my need was clear. A white girl standing with a gas tank by the bus stand. Clearly she needs a ride home.  I am sure I was quite a scene. A very kind man stopped and helped me out. While you always need to be cautious, I really love how helpful and kind people are here. People genuine help one another since you never know when you need the help in return. I love the communal vibe. I was able to bake everything in time and enjoy a Thanksgiving feast with my fellow Peace Corps volunteers. God is good.

 

 

 

 

Jounen Kweyol

Last October, I posted about Jounen Kweyol, St Lucia’s celebration of their Kweyol heritage, so I will just share some pictures I took yesterday of this year’s celebration at school.

           

  Ruby stole my watermelon rind and was ready to fight for it. Mongrels…

My new goal

I have a new goal to take more pictures. So here are a few of the past few days. Read the previous post first 🙂

       

   

Pictures of my teachers on the beach. The girl in the flowers is my friend and IT teacher, giving a perfect example of the photo shoot moments we had.

My neighbour who I cook with every week. She also watches Project Runway with me every Thursday.

I wanted to take of picture of Taj, one of the students I work with. The book he is holding is the first book we read together, which after weeks of telling me he could not read, exclaimed “Miss, I can read!” He just didn’t have the confidence to read before. He kept checking out this book since it has become his favourite so I got him his own copy to keep. Taj now checks out books every week and loves to read.

   

My friend (who I get my cocoa sticks from) and I working on shelling roasted cocoa beans.

Feeling Appreciated

Yesterday the island celebrated Teacher Appreciation day and the staff at my school took the whole day off from teaching to make sure we really felt appreciated. The morning was reserved for a special assembly where the teachers were blessed by the local pastor and the children presented poems, cards and gifts. I was bombarded with hugs and little notes and even a few chocolate bars! The kids are so sweet and I loved reading the notes they gave me. After the wave of appreciation from the students, they were sent home early and we teachers went out for lunch. We went to a nearby beach and had a great time eating and hanging out. We went for a lime on the beach and if you don’t know this, Caribbean people love getting their picture taken. So for many teachers, the walk turned into a serious photo shoot. Once they were satisfied with their pictures, we headed off for town where they had a teacher’s football game. It was the west team vs the south, which was our team to cheer for. And of course, south won! It was an exciting game but what was even more fun to watch is how passionate teachers got during the game. Many teachers would just run onto the field, upset about a call or arguing about a goal and it would take 5 minutes or so to clear the field so they could start the game again.  I think they all had a little rum in their systems, by little I mean a lot.

My neighbour and I made cocoa tea and dumplings, the go-to meal for cold, rainy days. And Thursday was a cold, rainy night. I have my own personal supplier of local cocoa and I often help her make the cocoa sticks they use for the tea. She takes cocoa beans and roasts them, then with added spices, grinds them and forms cocoa sticks. The tea is easy to make and everyone has their own version: basically they melt the cocoa stick with milk, more spices and a little flour to thicken it. It’s similar to hot chocolate. Then they boil pieces of dough in the tea to make the dumplings. It’s one of those comfort meals that really should be the national dish of St Lucia, which is saltfish and green fig salad.

  

 

School is back in session…

I have just finished my first month back at school! I am happy to report that my second year is going great, much better than the first. Since I am well adjusted to school, going back and starting a new year went way more smoothly as compared to last year. My coworkers are more open to new ideas and suggestions, we all needed some adjustment time. It has been a lot of fun planning lessons together and we are doing some really fun and differentiated activities with the kids. I am co-planning and co-teaching more often which makes my schedule very busy which is a great thing. I even have a new grade 3 teacher and she began working with me from the start, she is a great support. I am teaching art again on Fridays and the library is being used by every class and is run by the teachers, not me = sustainable! This is a relief since I actually don’t have time to any more like I used to.

I recently had some friends stay over at my place after a fun night out. Some ladies from church and I went out to eat pork wrap (delicious grilled pork, garlic and bbq sauce and slaw wrapped in a roti shell) and then karaoke, which is always fun to watch. Lucians LOVE their karaoke and just being there is entertaining enough, I didn’t have to sing (thank goodness). After that, we went to a street party in the next community over and stayed until 2am. Lots of music and food, it was really fun to just relax and hang out. Lucian dancing is all in the hips and they find it hilarious to watch people from America dance since we tend to dance everywhere else but the hips. So the whole night they would be dancing and then someone would shout to dance like me and they will would their best impression of “American dancing.” It was so funny to watch them do their own versions. The best part was the group of Americans that were at the street party too, all dancing in a circle and of course they stood out from crowd and became a new source of inspiration for my group of friends to mimic. After a long and crazy night, we all crashed at my house. I woke up early and prepared an American breakfast for them, waffles, real maple syrup, scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, fruit, and lime and passionfruit juice – not so American but much cheaper. They ate everything. They loved it and kept taking pictures of the food. They are already planning another sleepover this month.

Speaking of food, my neighbor and I recently had a grilling party of our own. We didn’t have a grill but we put some cinder blocks in a u-shape and added some local charcoal (made from mangrove trees) and placed my two oven racks on top. It worked so well, we were both a little surprised. We roasted some bakes (like rolls) and corn on the cob (sweet and fresh imported corn that was very expense – about $13 for 2 of them) and lastly some chicken! I made a local garlic sauce to go on top. I diced some garlic and green onions, put a splash of vinegar and oil and a little salt. Perfection. It goes even better with pork, which is on the menu for our next makeshift cook out.

I have recently started to give piano lessons to a guy in the branch at church. He is a recent convert and is very interested in learning. He can play the steel pan so he has some musical ability and can count rhythms and beats. So I am teaching notes and fingerings for the piano and its going well so far. He is a fast learner and I hope he continues to practice so the branch can have a piano player of their own.

  

Where did August go?

Probably the fastest of my 14 months so far on St Lucia, August began with a visit from my friends Rachel and Christine. We were able to squeeze in the best of St Lucia in 5 days (though they got an unexpected extension at a resort for two days with a cancelled flight. Heaven knows they didn’t get the resort experience staying at my house). We saw Castries, Pigeon Island, the volcano, snorkeled with baby jellyfish – unintentionally- and with our rented car, defied gravity on very steep and treacherous roads as we explored the island. They didn’t panic when I didn’t have running water and happily took bucket baths. They were great sports!

The rest of the month was full of visits to my host mom in the north who is recovering from surgery, sleep and relaxing, and helping at training sessions with the newest literacy volunteers on island. I really enjoyed getting to know the 8 new volunteers (EC87 – the 87^th group of volunteers in the Eastern Caribbean) and to see their “spirited” nature. They are very fresh and excited, I can’t help but feel old and a little tired around them. But they helped me feel more enthusiastic and energized for the new school year that is approaching fast. Just this past Tuesday, EC87 swore in as official volunteers and to celebrate, we all hit the beach after and enjoyed the “hardships” of serving in the Caribbean. There are quite a few new volunteers now in the south of the island which will be a new experience when I see them out and about more often.

Other exciting news: the Summer Library program every Wednesday that I had at my school finished yesterday. It was such a great success. I had over 50 participants over the summer come and use the library and over half of those kids were coming every week, without fail. They were very dedicated and enthusiastic. There was always a mob of kids waiting for me, all excited to check out new books. The Star Reader challenge was also successful in motivating the kids to read. Many got prizes and there were 8 students who were awarded as Star Readers (checked out books each week and completed reading response questions for 10 books or more). I took pictures of the kids with their favorite book and will have a board in the library to showcase them. Yesterday, we ended the program with a little party and had a raffle and cake. They all when home with gobs of prizes and hands covered in cake. Mission accomplished. I am so grateful for how this turned out, I can’t wait to report next week when I have to return to school for planning week. School here starts on Sept 7^th. So my days of freedom are limited.

My last tale to report on is a story of true bravery and heroism. My poor ruby, one morning as I slept safely in my bed, risked her life in defending me from a centipede (while I didn’t witness this, I could tell from the evidence of her face that that was exactly what happened!). Don’t worry, I included a picture below. Her left ear and whole right side of her face was swollen. The worst part was I remember hearing her barking in the other room but didn’t bother to get out of bed to see what was wrong. I felt pretty bad about that. But she is perfectly fine, luckily it wasn’t a very big centipede. I know this because she is still alive. Those things are very poisonous. Ruby is always watching all the windows and surveying the area around my house. The other day she found a hornet on the balcony and just like Lassie, came barking at me to follow her. With panic in her eyes, she showed me the hornet and tried to dispose of it herself. I saved her the trouble and bopped it. She has always been protective, I am told that is the mongrel blood in her. She is a great Peace Corps dog.

  

Summer Break!

Summer break has finally started and I love having some time off. To start my vacation, my friend Jaclynn came to visit. For a special treat, we stayed at a resort for 5 days on the west coast of the island called TiKaye. It wasn’t like Sandals (which I was so glad) and the rooms were amazing cottages/bungalows with great views, a hammock, AC, an outdoor shower, and a private plunge pool. It had a great tropical jungle feel and was instantly relaxing. We were very spoiled. We went to the beach every day, the water was warm, the sand burned our feet (black sand beach so it held the sun’s heat well) and the weather was so great, it only rained our last day and it was very little. They had kayaks available as well as snorkel gear so we spend lots of time exploring the reefs along the coast. The food was amazing, though dinner was pretty expensive. So we ate lots of “free” breakfast that came with the room, we loved lunch which was on the beach front and had generous and more affordable portions, and for dinner, we ate light. Our servers were not very happy with us when we didn’t order wine or 3 course meals. But we enjoyed ourselves and made some friends with the staff when the realized we were not the average tourists they were used to. I was so sad to leave, this was my first “vacation” I have had here in St Lucia. I actually had to request vacation time from service and it was so worth it!

The summer reading program that I have each Wednesday at the school is going so well! Kids are returning each week to exchange books. When students answer reading comprehension questions that I have prepared for the books they check out, they earn points that will win them prizes. They are very excited about that, I hope to not disappoint them. Even the teachers have been coming to help and support. Overall, it has been very successful and each week, the numbers are growing.

I have been to so many funerals here in St Lucia. But last Saturday, I was able to attend my first Lucian wedding!! My 2^nd Grade co-teacher at my school got married and it was so nice. It was a catholic wedding so there was a lot of singing and communion. But my favorite part was the bridal party. Marching down the aisle, there were 3 flower girls, a ring bearer, mini bridesmaids, bridesmaids and groomsmen, Maid of Honour and Best man, and then a mini bride and mini groom! They were two children dress just like the bride and groom and went down the aisle before the bride. They were so sweet. I have never seen or heard of that before. It was also fun to get dressed up, I ordered a cute polka dress so I could have something nice to wear. My clothes are getting old and I am sick of them already. 🙂

 

       

“Look One There!”

It is the second to last week of school! I am so excited for summer holidays. We are finally finished with testing this week and students get to relax and hang out while teachers correct. Next Wednesday is the big graduation ceremony for the Grade 6 students who are moving on to Secondary school. I have been asked several times what I am wearing. It must be a very formal event. Now is also the time teachers take their students on tours. I went with Grade K and Grade 1 to the police station, health centre and the fire station. While the presenters didn’t try to use child friendly vocabulary, the students were excited to see the fire trucks, sit in the ambulance, and even go to the holding cell to see people who were arrested recently. They had another tour the next week to a rainforest. I loved it! I haven’t really had a chance to do a rainforest tour and it was amazing. The trail was slippery due to the moisture and moss but we all survived, no falls or snakebites. We did get to see some parrots, the Amazona Versicolor, the national bird of St Lucia. They are difficult to see so we were very lucky. We may have seen more flying through the canopy but the students and teachers were so excited, they were screaming and shouting “Look one there!” I may have to go back for a more tranquil and quiet experience.  🙂

I also got to make another cake, this time for a preschool birthday party. They love Dora here. Also, since I have made it a full year in St Lucia now, all the fruits I remember trying when I arrived are now in season again. Since I don’t have the seasons to mark the time passing, the fruit seasons are the next best thing. Right now there are lots of wax apples, star fruit, akee, mangoes, pineapple and passion fruit. (wax apples look more like pears, very juicy and waxy…akee are strange – little green fruits with a removable shell and orange flesh that you chew off of a giant seed, very very sweet)

This summer, I am planning on having our school library open every Wednesday. The students are excited and all vow they will come every week. I do not know if they will come. They have never had any summer programmes or activities before. I do hope they come.

  

One Year on St Lucia!

This past Saturday marked my one year being here in St Lucia. It is unbelievable that a whole year has pasted already. I am just happy to say I am still here, there have been quite a few volunteers who have left early. We all felt that was something to celebrate. Our festivities started on Friday. We, me and my volunteer group who arrived with me, went to the airport to pick up the 34 new volunteers!! The 87^th group to come to the Eastern Caribbean. As veterans, we were so excited to greet them and nervous about saying something wrong or not being able to answer their questions. They looked a bit lost, tired and anxious, I am sure our group looked the same. We helped them with luggage and even got to ride on the buses with them to the abbey we stayed in for our first weekend. There were questions on weather, things to do, housing, the language, etc. There is also a bad drought right now so they are not seeing the best side of St Lucia. But I can feel the excitement and eagerness to get started for this group. I wish them luck with training! They will need it. They will see us later, we are all part of the training this summer, helping co-facilitate sessions. Most of mine are in August. I am helping teach best practices with literacy, participating in a volunteer panel about the work environment and facilitating a session a budgeting and how to best use your volunteer monthly allowance.

After picking up EC87, we stopped in Dennery and got some chicken and fries and relaxed as we talked about the past year. Our highs and lows, favorite moments, funny moments. We played our favorite game – not sure on the name but it’s like the telephone game but with pictures and sentences. Everyone has enough pieces of paper for each player and on the top paper, you start by writing a random sentence. It can be anything. Then, you pass your stack to the next person. They look at the sentence and then move what you wrote to the bottom and draw their depiction of the sentence you wrote. Then they pass the stack with their picture on top, and that person writes a sentence describing the picture you drew. You repeat the process until your original sentence gets back to you. It is hilarious seeing how your sentence evolves. After several thrilling rounds, we all packed up and made our way to Vieux Fort. There was a soca (local music – check it out if you have never heard it) concert where local singers were performing. It was free which was great. It was sponsored by Piton, the local beer, so it felt a lot like SummerFest in Wisconsin. Lots of drinking and good music. I had a fun time being the designated friend. We were out pretty late but it was nice to go out and celebrate our one year mark.

After trying to recover so much lost sleep, the next day I was given the challenge of decorating two cakes for a First Communion on Sunday. Fondant and everything. 6 hours later, I finished. I hand cut a dove on one cake and I made little fondant flowers on the other. I forgot how fun it is and decorating cakes is a big deal here. They take it very seriously. I was offered a job to be a private cake decorator, at least I have a back-up job…

  

I was looking out my front window yesterday and to my excitement, I saw that the tree in front of my house is a starfruit tree!! How awesome is that! There are so many growing, I hope people don’t pick them.  They call starfruit by another name here: five finger. It’s delicious and despite popular belief, are only dangerous to eat if you have kidney problems. Looks like I will be living on starfruit for a while. 🙂

Lastly, I wanted to include a finished picture of our school library. Over 500 books checked out since it opened 6 weeks ago. The students are showing a great improvement in their excitement to read. Students that I have never seen read before are coming to check out books. I could not be happier. Also here is a picture of me with my students, mostly first graders.