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.
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.)
I've been here for a couple days now and things are going great. My first night here my host family walked me through the village and introduced me to some of her friends. We sat on the porch of the house and ate fruit (star apple and sugar apple) while watching kids play football (soccer, right?) in the street. Their "accents" here are quite strong, and I often have trouble understanding them. They call the way they talk "dialect" which is a type of broken English. Sometimes someone will ask me if I knew what they just said, after I pretended to understand, so I tell them I have no clue. Thankfully they are kind enough to repeat it for me much slower, and not be offended that I didn't understand.
Behind the village of Saddlers is the beautiful Mt. Liamuiga, which is usually covered by clouds toward the top, and in front of the village is the Atlantic ocean. It's a small village in a beautiful location.
Today I shadowed a community member in Saddlers. I normally would have shadowed someone in the school where I'll be working, but the schools aren't open yet, so I went to the local health center down the street. They didn't know I was coming so it was slightly awkward. They gave me a tour of the center then invited me to watch them for a bit. It was uncomfortable watching them because in the U.S. we like our privacy- especially about health- very much. After the first patents left (today was the montly childrens clinic) I asked if I could help them out in any way. There was nothing I could do, but I was told I could socialize with the people in the waiting room. They learned of my work in a behavior disorders school, so they introduced me to a boy with behavior issues. I stayed around for about an hour more, then headed back home.
Tomorrow we have another day of training. I'm beginning to feel comfortable with the busses here and feel that I could get around on my own quite easily. All of the busses are privately owned, and are more like 15 passenger vans than the busses we know. Each bus also has a name like "Mr. X" or "Traitors", and goes to a specific community. Because the main road around the island is just one big circle, it's easy to find out which busses go where. On Tuesday when I got on the bus, I was wearing business casual clothing and had a backpack on. When I got on the bus a man in front of me told me that I should have a briefcase instead of a backpack. I tried to talk to him about it, but my host mom told me that I shouldn't. We'll see if it happens again later on.
Tropical storm Erika passed over us last night. We had been kept updated by the PC offices, and my host family told me to shut all the windows last night. Surprisingly, it was cooler in the room with the windows closed than open. The storm didn't come until after 5 or 6am. It wasn't a big storm, but it did rain hard and the wind blew a lot. My first "hurricane" experience wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be.
And now for some pictures:
our plane to St. kitts Waiting to board the plane.
The ocean near our training center in Basseterre The new secondary school in Saddlers. It's in a beautiful location by the mountain:
I finally made it to St. Kitts, and am currently living with my host family. The family consists of a mother, father and 12 year old daughter. Tarren (my host sister) is currently letting me steal her internet cable so I can use the internet. The family has been fantastic so far and are taking great care of me.
I've had the chance to ride on the bus (almost on my own) already. It's been quite an experience. We are going to town tomorrow to open bank accounts and get cell phones.
I took some pictures of my village and Basterre earlier today and will try to post them in the future.
It's not actually celery juice at all, but "Golden Apple" juice. I actually enjoy it a lot now and drink several glasses a day.
The training has been going well, if not a little tiring at times (I haven't sat through 8 hours of classes a day since High School). But it's tolerable and I'm actually learning some interesting stuff about cultures, safety and security, and many other things. Today we got a break from the regular sitting in hard wood chairs all day, and got to leave the compound. We got on a bus around 8:30 and were taken to Castries, which is St. Lucia's capital city, and where Peace Corps has their regional offices. After a few hours of more training sessions, we were given a lunch that was basically a tortilla with curry and chicken inside of it. I forget what it was called, but it was delicious (except for the chicken bones). We received some shots and vaccines, then were sent out on our own for a scavenger hunt throughout Castries. We divided into teams of about four people. My team was Saira, Maggie, Julie Ann, and myself. It seemed that a lot of the exercise was not just to get to know Castries, but to figure stuff out on our own. Earlier in the day we were given two weeks of "walk around money" (which really doesn't amount to much, maybe $2.50 a day), but it also included transportation money, along with many other expenses. We were told we had to use some of our money to get a bus, go to downtown Castries, and find things on our list. Such things included the library, an ice cream shop, a Cathedral, and the market etc..
It was kind of intimidating getting on the busses at first. They're not really busses as much as they are vans. Very crowded vans. We managed to find a stop, and get on a bus when it came. We weren't too sure where the bus was going, but when we asked someone, they kindly informed us it was going to the correct destination. Eventually we made it down town, gave our money ($1.50 EC) to the bus driver, and got off. We had basic tourist maps of Castries and were able to navigate our way around town fairly well. We found everything on the list so we wandered the streets for a while afterwards. Around 6:30pm we met up with the rest of EC80 and got back on the bus (which is another story in its self, which I should be reminded to tell some time) and headed back to the retreat for dinner. Everyone was pretty exhausted, but it was a good exhausted. It was nice being out for the day.
Right now I am in St. Lucia. It's been an exciting journey getting this far. On Sunday night my parents drove me to Chicago O'hare. It was sad saying goodbye, but it was still exciting to leave. I arrived shortly after in Miami, where I met Kelly, another future volunteer (I say future volunteer because we are still trainees). Interestingly, Kelly not only was on the same flight to Miami as I was, but we even arrived at the airport, and checked in at the same time I did.
Once we were in Miami we found our way to the shuttles to take us to the Hotel. The shuttle missed us the first time, so we had to wait another twenty minutes for the next shuttle to arrive. Eventually we made it to the hotel, where we met other future volunteers. We couldn't check into our rooms yet, so we were just hanging around the lobby and chatting. After a good seafood lunch at a nearby restaurant, we got our rooms and then checked in to registration. It was fun meeting some of the people I've been communicating with on facebook finally.
After registration we began our staging event, which is pretty much an orientation covering our aspirations for Peace Corps, risk management, and how we were going to get to St. Lucia. It went well and we got to know the other people. After staging we found dinner at a Latin restaurant across the street, then hit the sack. The next morning was going to be early and the start of a long day.
August 25th I woke up at 4:30am because checkout was at 5:15. I woke up without much struggle and made checkout early. We all headed back to the airport to catch our flight to St. Lucia. It was an easy an uneventful flight. Once we arrived in St. Lucia we were met by the Peace Corps staff for the Eastern Caribbean, and brought to a retreat center that is somewhere very far away (up and down very twisty and scary roads.) The retreat center is a beautiful place with a great view of a nearby bay. We got our rooms (I got a single. nice!) did some basic orientation and then ate dinner. Dinner was a delicious vegetable soup and barbecue chicken. The dinner was served by nuns since the retreat center is in some sort of catholic mission center. I don't know much about that. For drinks we had this interesting (and eventually enjoyable) juice that we were sure came from something like celery. It took some getting used to, but I started to like it. I have a feeling we'll get a lot of it this week, so I'll love it eventually, i'm sure.
After dinner we were done for the night, and able to relax after several long days with little sleep. Because were much closer to the equator, the days here are much shorter. I believe sunrise is at 6 or 6:30am, and sunset is about 6:15-6:30. I'm not sure if my tiredness comes from the change in daylight, or nonstop excitement I've had for the past few days. Either way, I'll sleep well tonight.
Typically I am a last minute packer, where I don't really take care of things until right before I leave. And even then I'm running around the house throwing things that I might need into my bag. However, right now I am actually ready to go with everything packed. And my plane doesn't even leave for another 11 hours (6am).
I started packing this past week, which seems to have helped me be more prepared. Packing wasn't all I've had to do though. Taking care of a bunch of paperwork for my staging and saying goodbye to everyone was also a priority.
People are always asking me if I'm nervous or excited. For some reason I'm really not very nervous and I don't really know why. I usually try to take things in stride, doing the best that I can, but realizing that when the unexpected happens, you just have to work with what you have. I feel as if that attitude has helped me make the transition smoothly so far. I may not be nervous, but I am very excited. It's something I've been prepping for the past two years (when I first opened up my Peace Corps application) in some way or another and it is all finally coming into place.
The reality of the trip is really hitting me now, and I can see things progressing minute by minute. The reality that I am so far prepared for this journey has also hit me, and I am ready for all the change that is going to come.
Here is how things are going to go down: Tomorrow morning my parents are driving to Chicago O'Hare, leaving home at 2am (real early). My flight leaves for Miami at 6:00am and arrives in Miami at 9:50. From there I will find my way to the Crown Plaza at Miami airport. I should have a little time to kill then. At 2:00, registration for my staging will begin and I don't know exactly what will happen with that. At 3:00 I can check into my room if it isn't ready yet (I'm supposed to check into my room before I register for staging, but check in doesn't start until after registration. Figure that one out). From 3:00-7:00 we will have training on the Peace Corps background, anxiety and aspirations for service, risk management (woohoo!), and more departure stuff.
On Tuesday morning we have check out at 5:15am, leave the hotel at 5:45am, then our flight leaves for St. Lucia at 10:35am.
My name is Will Murray, and I am currently serving in the Peace Corps on the beautiful island of St. Kitts and Nevis, in the Eastern Caribbean. I am happy to share my experiences with anyone who is interested. Feel free to email me at wlmurray@gmail.com
My Host Mother
