Happy Independence Day... last week.

Happy Independence Day!!! Oh, what's that you say? It was last week on the 16th? Oh well, at least I'm bringing it up at some point, right?

part 1: "The most exciting and luxurious tour in the Caribbean"
I'm actually not entirely sure how Kittitians celebrate Independence day, as I didn't participate in any public celebrations. In the morning there was a parade, but not what we think of parade, with floats and candy and killer masonic airplane-cars. It is strictly a military parade, with every uniformed person on the island. Even the British coast guard (or something like that) was there, since they were near the island. Apparently it was very hot, and several people passed out... which I guess is expected. But I didn't go, so I don't know the details.

I had the great opportunity to ride on the St. Kitts scenic railway. The scenic railway is mostly a tourist destination. Most locals I have talked to have either been on it once, or not at all. The train runs on old tracks that go all the way around the island, and were once used to transport sugar cane from the mills to town. Since the sugar cane industry shut down in 2005 due to continuing loss of profits.

The train its self I've heard is quite expensive (around $100 USD) but I was lucky enough to get on for free, since Saira's "host grandfather" is the conductor on the train. So on the train was Saira, Tiffany, and myself. The entire trip was maybe 2.5 hours. The train went (very slowly) around the Eastern side of the island, until it got up north, then we got off and took a bus the rest of the way around. Even though I go around the East side of the island every day, it was nice seeing it from a mostly different perspective of the train tracks. The entire trip was narrated, and they even gave us free water and rum strawberry daiquiris. I'm not sure if I could recommend the train to anyone visiting the island because it is normally so expensive. However if you can afford it, it's a comfortable way to experience the villages and coastline of the island.

The view from the train

Tiffany and Saira enjoying the ride.


part 2: The Governor's Ball
The train wasn't all I got to do on Independence day. I also had the great opportunity to attend the Governor's ball in Basseterre. It was a very fancy and formal event. All men were required to wear jackets and a tie, and was by invitation only. My host family gets invitations every year, and this year my host father said I should go with my host mom if they got invitations. The event didn't start until 7:00, so Sarah and I left at 6:30 and arrived right at 7:00. There was a short line going into the "governors mansion" (apparently he doesn't actually live there). We got in line, went inside, and shook hands with the Governor General, then went outside with the rest of the party. The lawn was decorated with lots of colorful "christmas lights", several plastic chairs placed in random spots, two large food tents, and two large bar tents. Rather than the typically cinderella type ball that I thought it would be like, it was more of a meet and greet. Sarah and I chose a spot in some chairs that were near the front of the lawn, got a couple drinks, and people watched for a bit. I saw Tiffany and some other volunteers from EC78 walking around. After everyone was there, the Governor General came over and sat down next to me. He looked pretty tired, and we didn't talk (he wasn't RIGHT next to me). Then the prime minister and some other important people came over and sat around the Governor General. It was neat being so close to the most important people in the country, but you have to remember that the entire nation consists of only 40,000 people, so seeing the head of government isn't a rare event. A little bit later Sarah and I decided to walk around, watch the band and the people dancing. We headed home around 10:45, and decided it was a fun night.


Sarah, enjoying the festivities.

They weren't serving us at the bar, so Sarah took the matter into her own hands and walked back there and grabbed our own drinks.

I was so excited that they filled half my cup with rum.

honoring the queen of England in the Governors home.


part 3: Back to School.
I have actually been going to the primary school I am assigned to, once a week for half a day. Most of the time I am just observing the classes, getting my face known to the staff and students in order to prepare for when I am there nearly full time. Our training before we become actual volunteers covers many aspects of Peace Corps, one of which is schools in St. Kitts (since Youth Development is a large program in the Eastern Caribbean for Peace Corps).
With this training we actually have a decent amount of homework. Last week one of our assignments was to teach a remedial reading lesson in our assigned school. To prepare for it, I asked the principal if there were any students that would benefit from a remedial reading class, and she directed me towards the fourth grade class... the entire fourth grade class. Now, the entire class does not need help with their reading... it's just the largest class in the school and the teacher needs help with the students. Instead of creating a remedial reading lesson, I created just a generalized lesson geared towards fourth grade reading (which I had no clue what to do). I have very little resources, which were basically the black board and whatever supplies I can scrounge up. In college, it was easy doing reading lessons because I had access to some great libraries and could use any children's book I wanted. Since I had none of those materials here, I decided a nice game of hangman using some big words from Roald Dahl's book "Matilda". I'll skip the details of the lesson since that's all boring (except that a major part of the lesson was Hangman, because that's important).

I go to the class in the morning, and the teacher wasn't there, which means I have to entertain the children until the teacher comes back. They were being very loud and unruly, so I did the old pull off the thumb trick again, which calmed them down (it's fun hearing all the kids in the class shout "mearm!" at the same time out of surprise). Eventually the teacher came back, so I was going to let her have control of the class... but she let me keep going (gee thanks). Now I had to entertain the kids for an even longer period of time. I sang the Moose song from camp with them, which they loved and wanted to sing multiple times. Not knowing what to do next, I started them on a game of hangman using random words. This was entertaining for them for a short amount of time, but once they started to lose interest I panicked. If they lose interest in the game before I even teach my lesson, then I know i'll have a disaster filled lesson. I decided to get their mind off of lessons and took them outside to play a game (waa master). To play this game they were supposed to form a circle. I have never ever seen a group of people have so much trouble forming a simple circle. They were perfectly capable of making a circle, but they just wouldn't. At first all the kids wanted to stand next to me, so it started being a straight line. I moved some kids to the other side and I stood in the middle. Of course some kids followed me to the middle, other kids started wandering outside the circle, and more kids were just walking around. One girl even picked up a couple rocks to throw at some boys. Mearm! This game was a mess. Eventually we got in a circle and I taught them how to play. Once we started playing nearly every single child was cheating to win, but thankfully it started raining so I didn't have to finish this hellish game with them.

I took them back inside and decided to just start my lesson. The teacher was in the room for the lesson and was being very supportive in keeping the kids quiet and respectful. I somehow survived through the lesson, and turned it back over to the teacher. The teacher let the kids go outside for a short break, when one kid prompty vomited on the sidewalk. I just can't wait until I get to teach another lesson next week.

part 4: Baptism and Brimstone
There has been very little opportunity to sleep in since I've been here. We have activities nearly every day of the week, and the days I am able to sleep in, I end up waking up early anyway because it gets hot once the sun hits the house. This past Saturday (September 27th) was one of those days I did not get to sleep in. My host sister, Tarren, was being baptised at a beach a few miles away in Diep Bay. It wasn't only Tarren being baptised, but approximately 12 others. We were at the beach by 7:15am. The only way I can describe the baptism is by relating it to the baptism scene in "Oh brother Where art thou". Everyone being baptised wore white gowns, and the congregation sang as each person walked into the ocean to be bathed. I'll let the pictures and video tell the rest.



Everyone is wearing their gowns.
The island in the background is St. Eustacius

After the baptism, I went on to Brimstone Hill, for a cultural field trip. Brimstone hill was once used as a fortress to defend the island against invaders. The invaders were either French or British. I'm not sure which. But it was a fun trip at a beautiful site. A place that every visitor to St. Kitts should see.

These pictures are kind of small, so you might want to click on them to see the large image.

The fort.

Canons and the fort
Maggie
Julie Ann and Saira pretending to be a cannon
Julie Ann is actually a British Soldier

And so is Saira

Saira is actually terrified of monkeys, and would not advance further into this room.

Hero's day and other festivities

This past Wednesday was one of St. Kitts' national holidays, Hero's Day. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what Hero's day celebrates (other than the national hero's named the Bradshaws), but it is a national holiday and everything closes down for it. Typically there are several events throughout the island, however I didn't have the chance to go to any of them. The only one I knew about was a concert downtown, and apparently that was canceled for some reason or another. For my time during the holiday, my host family took me to the beautiful island of Nevis. Nevis is the other part of St. Kitts and Nevis. It has a population of about 10,000 people. Some people claim that Nevis is better than St. Kitts (Maggie), and it is very nice. But I don't know about better. Nevis is much smaller than St. Kitts. We were able to drive around the entire island in a short amount of time. During our trip, we stopped at several fruit trees to pick fruit, and stopped by several family members houses to pick up cousins. Once we drove around the island, we stopped in Charlestown (the largest village in Nevis) to eat lunch. In town, there were a few cricket matches being played, and food was being sold at the game. We decided to watch a match of one team from Tabernacle on St. Kitts. We ate saltfish and drank local fruit juice. It was very hot, and the game wasn't too exciting (I don't know the rules to cricket). Eventually we headed back to the car to drive a little more. Earlier in the day, I knew that Saira was coming to Nevis to hang out with Julie Anne and Maggie, so my host family was kind enough to drive to the beach and see if we could find them. What do you know, it was the right beach. I chatted with them for maybe an hour and we walked up and down the beach. (You can see what Saira did on Nevis here). Saira happened to be catching the same Ferry back to St. Kitts, so she rode with us all the way back home. It ended up being a nice relaxing day.

Myself, a "host cousin", and my host sister-Tarren in Nevis.
My Host Mother

My host mom climbed two trees that day, in order to fetch sugar apples.

A cricket match in Charlestown

Maggie let me come onto her island that day.

Saira is on a boat like Leo.

Hero's day was on Wednesday, but Independence day is tomorrow. Since schools aren't in session tomorrow, children all over the island celebrated in the classrooms today. In every school, children sang songs, performed dances, and read poetry relating to St. Kitts and Nevis. I arrived at the school a little before 8:30. All of the kids remembered me from last week, which was welcoming. Needing something to do with the kids (and entertain and impress them) I showed them the 'ol "pull off my thumb" trick. So now, every kid (except a few smart ones) in Saddlers think that I can pull off my thumb. They wanted me to do it over and over, and I was worried they would catch on, so I told them my thumb hurt from doing it so much, and I would do it again for them next week. Later on today when I was walking to the beach, some kid shouted at me from her house "Cut off your thumb!". My thumb is becoming legendary in St. Kitts.

After all the kids settled in their classes, they all went to an assembley hall (the same place where the "dance competition" took place). All the kids in one way or another performed a song, dance routing (an appropriate one) or read a poem. There was then a speaker who talked to the children about the importance of the Independence day, and how they need to succeed in school to achieve their dreams.

Once all this was over, the kids went back to their classrooms. I followed the fourth graders back to their room, to find the teacher wasn't there. Since they were bound to go crazy (and they did anyway) I taught them the moose song from camp. They seemed to like it. The kids also receive a special treat, which was pizza and ice cream, but I left before the 4th graders got theirs, so I didn't get any either.


Here is the children singing the St. Kitts national Anthem


Children waiting for the festivities to begin


Children singing "This Land is Your Land"

After I got home, Tiffany and I decided to hang out at a beach in Dieppe Bay. None of the buses go from Saddlers to Diep Bay, so I walked over. It was a great walk with no hills and great views. It only took about 30 minutes. We swam in the Caribbean sea for a while (It's very neat, it's a point where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean, so you can see the waves from one crashing into the other maybe a half mile out.) We worked on our tans, and drank some ting (a carbonated grapefruit drink). It was a good day.


Tomorrow I get the opportunity to ride on the Scenic railway as well as attend the Governors ball. Hopefully I'll remember to post about that later.

Jingle Bells, Cockleshells

For starters: I apologize for not updating more frequently. I'm not always able to update because I'm too tired/busy/unable to update. Many of my past days have been very routine with training, eating, and sleeping.

Many things have happened in the past week (or more past couple days) which I'll fill you in on, and try to add pictures/video when necessary.

I went to my first school observation/participation last Tuesday. It took place at the Saddlers Primary School. It's a very small school with less than 100 students. It holds grades k-6. Most classes have around 10-15 students, but some classes has as many as 25. I met with the principal and she gave me a short tour around the school. Around 8:30 all of the students gathered to have a general morning assembly. During the assembly, the children started by singing uplifting Christian songs. It was odd hearing Christian worship songs in a public school. Here in St. Kitts, there is no such thing as separation of church and state. After the songs, the principal read a few readings from Genesis and tied it into a discussion about evils in the world. Many of the evils the kids mentioned was drugs and violence. The principal then led the students in a recital of a school motto. The motto was a declaration of the students desire to learn. The first time the principal didn't think the students recited it with enough passion and vigor, so they were made to repeat it two or three times. The principal introduced me to the school and made me feel very welcome. Afterward the kids all went to their classrooms. The principal wanted to talk to me about the projects I would be working on. The most areas they have the most need for help in the school is with the library, remedial reading programs, table tennis team, and teacher assistance. I told her I would be happy to help with any of that, but she wanted to know which areas I'm most interested in. During our training we have been instructed that we should not dive into projects. While it is true that everyone works at their own pace, and some people already have projects planned out, I don't want to get too involved yet and get weighed down by too many things. I was reluctant to choose something definite already, but she really wanted to know which ones I could work with. Because of my positive experiences at the library in college, I told her I would be happy to work with the library. A table tennis team would just be flat out cool, so I also said that one would be great. I tried to say these as non-committal as I could (Don't get me wrong, I want to work in these projects... I just want to go into it slowly).

After the project discussion I was left to explore and observe on my own. I started out in the sixth grade classroom. There were about 10 students, and Mr. Johnson was doing an excellent job leading a lesson. A while later I went to the kindergarten class and watched 22ish little kids go crazy with one teacher. Maybe crazy is an exaggeration, but they definitely had a lot of energy. I played with the kids while the teacher worked one on one with a few of them. Shortly after I went to the 4th grade class to observe. This was one of the larger classes, with about 25 kids. The principal was teaching a lesson trying her best to keep good control of the children. About fifteen minutes later, the principal leaves the classroom. I expected that she just had to take care of something outside and would be back in a few minutes. So I kind of stood in the corner observing the children and minding my own business. Twenty minutes later she still wasn't back and I didn't know what to do. The children were starting to get rowdy and had finished their lesson. In hindsight, I should have had brought something along with to interact with the children and have a makeshift lesson. Eventually it was time for me to leave, and the principal was still not back. I left the room (and the kids by themselves. yikes!) to find the principal and tell her that I was leaving. I couldn't find her anywhere, so I asked some of the other teachers standing outside where I could find her, and I was informed that she already left. Hmm. Oh well. Alot of this seems strange to me, but that's all part of understanding the culture. And the way school is run here is also part of the culture. It's easy to criticize, but I guess I should find out how things work here first.

part 2:
I have heard of the busses here in St. Kitts called "death traps" before. And I can understand where those sentiments come from. Often times riding in the busses can be scary. They are actaully 15 passenger vans that are often crammed with more than 15 people. There are on seatbelts to wear, and the bus drivers drive very fast. Add the fact that they drive on the left side of the road, and because I'm not used to that I ocassionally see a car driving up to us on the right side of the road and my stomach drops for a second until I realize that they always drive on that side... bus rides can sometimes be scary. They may be scary to me, but they are pretty safe. The drivers are experienced and know the road(s) very well. Unfortunately accidents still happen. On Wednesday I was taking the bus home and when we came up outside of saddlers, to Bel Vue (right by my new home in October) we saw there was an accident in the road. At first it looked a little worse than a fender bender, but as we got closer we noticed it was much worse. The road was completely blocked off and thankfully we were able to take a side road around. The side road goes less than 100 feet away from the main road for about a block, and we were able to see the accident very well. There were dozens of people on the side of the road observing. Involved with the accident was a public bus and a school bus. The accident had done incredible damage to the public bus. The entire front end was un recognizable (locals say the bus was "mash up"). The school bus had a lot of damage done to the front end but wasn't destroyed like the public bus was. The bus driver of the bus I was in pulled to the side of the road so we could all get out and observe the scene with everyone else. I got out too and walked up to the scene. It appeared the police had been there for a while and already set up police tape for people to stay behind. Sadly, the driver of the public bus had been killed and was covered by a blanket. A few of the children on the school bus had been injured, but nothing too bad. Thankfully, there had been no passengers in the public bus (if there had been, they surely would have all been killed). It turns out that many bus drivers like to race back to town (Basseterre) after dropping people off in the villages in the country. The driver of this bus was passing another public bus and lost control. and slammed into the school bus which was coming the other direction. I've read estimates that the public bus was going 120mph when the accident happened.

I'm not trying to make anyone afraid that I'm riding the busses here in St. Kitts, as accidents like this are extremely rare, but it was an event that really stuck with me this past week.
There is an article with pictures of the wreck here: http://www.islandmix.com/backchat/f6/massive-traffic-accident-st-kitts-yesterday-202128/

Part 3: For anyone who is really prudish, easily offended, or likes to judge people, you might want to skip this part.

Last night I got a call from Tiffany (another volunteer from my group). She told me that she was going to a dance competition in Saddlers (where I live) and was wondering if I would like to join her. Thinking this would be a fantastic cultural opportunity, I accepted. The dance competition was going to take place at Saddlers Primary School. I expected it to be a competition where people and groups have been practicing for a long time and to be all dressed up in authentic clothes. How wrong I was. I went down to the school with my 12 year old sister (with her mothers permission) and Ryan who is a family friend of the families. We got to the school and I met up with Tiffany. It costed us $20 EC for admission (which is a LOT of money to us volunteers). It was incredibly loud and crowded. Everyone was crowded into an assembly hall area and loud music was playing. We worked our way to the back of the room (where they were selling beer. I bought one and it was tasty). Looking up front at the dance stage, it was definitely not what I expected. At all. The easist way I can describe it is as a PG-13 rated strip show. No clothes were actually being removed, but it would have been more modest if there had been. The woman who was dancing was wearing a skirt, and had her back side turned to the crowd. Even though she was wearing a skirt, she was not being modest about it.

The first woman we saw dancing:

The second woman. She was pretty popular with the crowd.
People of all ages were at the event watching. Children as young as infants, to primary school aged children, to adults in their 50's. Definitely not an event I'm used to seeing at a school (or at all). The dance competition was used as a fundraiser for something, and as part of Saddlers Fest (more on that later).

Tiffany and I watched for a little bit, but decided it was too crowded and we weren't too interested in it. So we stepped outside for a while and just hung out.

Some videos of the dancing. Don't be too shocked.


Most of the dancing involved only the backside of the person. It also involved lots of shaking. LOTS of shaking. One young lady laid upside down on a chair (in her skirt of course) and stuck her leg in the air, shaking it vigerously. In some ways it was quite impressive as I couldn't do something like that.

This was just the beginning of my Saddlers fest activities.

Part 4: (this is the ok part to read for those who skipped the last section)
This morning I woke up earlier than I had expected to lots of loud noise. In fact, my entire room was shaking to this noise. I looked out the window, and didn't see anything, so I just dismissed it to neighbors playing their music way too loud. But, slowly, it got louder and louder. I could feel my entire body vibrating to the music. Since I can't sleep in these conditions (it was about 9am) I decided to get up. I walk into the living room and ask my sister Tarren what was going on, and she told me that it was "Saddlers Fest". Of course, just like the dance contest from last night. I put on some clothes and walked outside. In front of our house was hundreds of people dancing in the street. I look a little further down the street, and I see a tractor pulling about a dozen huge speakers and a live band on a trailer down the street closer towards us. Following in front and behind the trailer were many many people dancing. I stood up on our porch ledge to get a better view, and was able to take several pictures and videos.


As they rolled down the street and past us, the music faded into the village and the street in front of our house was empty again.


part 5: Jingle bells, cockleshells.
EC 78 was kind enough to put on a barbecue for all of us new volunteers in EC 80. The reason EC 79 was not involved is because there is no EC 79 in St. Kitts. EC stands for Eastern Caribbean, which includes several islands. They seem to bring new people to islands twice a year, but each island only gets new people once a year.

The barbecue was on Cockleshell beach, on the southern penninsula of the island. This part of the island is very different from the rest. Aside from the geological differences (it's a penninsula and the sand here is white, instead of black like the rest of the island). There are also socio-economic differences. The houses here are huge and obviously belong to very wealthy people. The big hotels such as the Marriott and other condos are situated here. We arrived at the beach and it was very beautiful. The water is a clear blue, rather than the dark blue we normally see on the island, and it was very sandy. Not all the beaches in St. kitts are sandy, for example the ones by me in Saddlers are very rocky from volcanic formations. Because a cruise ship was in town, there were several tourists at the beach. They were mostly at the other end of the beach so we weren't too bothered by them. I'll let the pictures say the rest.

There was a cruise ship in town, so there were a few tourists at the beach.

You're not allowed to take a picture of Julie Ann unless she is making a funny face.
A beautiful place

We gathered underneath a tree for the BBQ. There were minimal shaded spots, so we were lucky getting the tree.


Saira, Julie Ann, and myself decided to take a walk to the other end of the beach.

A rainstorm off in the distance.

The island of Nevis in the distance. It's about 2 miles away.

Julie Ann and Saira.

It was very hot, and I got a bad sunburn. I really did use lots of sunscreen too.


From left to right: Patricia, Tiffany, Myself, Saira
Can you guess who the Caucasian is?

Julie Ann
Some of the lovely ladies I get to work with while I'm here.

Saira and Julie Ann


A view of the southern Peninsula of the island.
Tiffany and Maggie are ninjas. I don't know why.

Kelsey and Alyssa. They are members of EC78

Tiffany throwing a football around.

Julie Ann, Tiffany, and Maggie after being in the sun all day.

A view of frigate bay. A very beautiful place.

Frigate Bay is where the Marriott and other resorts/condos are located.


When I got back from the beach tonight, around 6:30, I was greeted at the entrance of Saddlers with the music trailer again. Because I was on the bus and the bus couldn't pass all the people and the trailer, I decided to get off and walk with the dancers the rest of the way to my house. It was a great experience and I got some good videos which I will post in a future update (when I can get them loaded.)