Good afternoon. It's the morning.

Greetings are important in St. Kitts. Whenever you are walking somewhere and you pass by someone, you should say "Good morning", "good afternoon", "good evening", or "Good night". Whichever is appropriate. The only time this doesn't happen is when you are in town, where you are not expected to greet people, but you can still do it. People like these greetings, and it is considered rude if someone says it to you, and you don't respond. There have been times when I have been walking with my school kids back home and a woman in the village will tell me good afternoon. I will respond with a "good afternoon", and so will the kids. Occasionally the kids will say it softly, and the person they said it to will get upset with the kids for being rude. "Don't you have any manners? Who taught you to be so rude?" they will say back to the kids. The children then respectfully say "GOOD AFTERNOON" back to the person, while muttering under their breath that they never hear them.

Before you go out and start saying hi to people, you will want to make sure you know what time it is. Of course you should say "Good morning" when it is the morning, but what if you get it wrong? People will correct you, and make sure you know whether or not it is morning or afternoon. The other day I was on the bus, and a woman climbs on. "Good morning" she declares to everyone. A couple other people mindlessly say good morning back (On a bus you are not expected to return the greeting). A second later another woman in the front looks at her watch. "It's 12:04. It's the afternoon." Admitting she was wrong, the woman who got on the bus apologizes in good faith, and tells us all good afternoon.

Some of the difficulty in this lies in the question of what is considered afternoon, evening, and night? Morning and afternoon are the easiest. Of course morning is any time before noon, and afternoon is well, after noon. I really am not sure when afternoon becomes evening. People have never corrected me when I say afternoon instead of evening, but maybe they don't know either. Even evening to night is difficult to determine. The general consensus amongst volunteers is that you say good night when it gets dark out. Since the sun sets between six and 6:30, it feels strange admitting that it's night time already.

Being a white American I stand out pretty easily an I am usually mistaken for either a Ross student, or a tourist. When I first arrived the only way that locals would know that I lived here is if I just told them I live here. Now I like to think that people know i'm different from tourists because of my greeting. Kind of like the "secret" St. Kitts men's handshake.

Lately I have been wanting to get out and do some hiking. I do a lot of walking, as it's one mile from my house to my school, and I also participate in the hash house harriers, but I wanted something a little different. I've heard of people talking about trails in the mountains, but no one has shown them to me before. This afternoon I decided to go out and look for the trails. I started out on this road that is right behind my house and wanted to see where it led to. About an hour later I found myself in the rainforest on the mountains on a not often used trail. I decided that it was the trail that lead to the peak of Mt. Liamuiga. I wasn't able to make it the entire way to the top, I'd say I got maybe 1/3rd up. But I am going to try it again in the future. Here are a couple of pictures of my trip.