PCV/JOCV Conference and Barbeque

Today was awesome. Yesterday was awesome too. Maybe tomorrow will be awesome, we'll have to wait and find out.

Yesterday I went up to Babonneau to spend the night with Ashley so I wouldn't have to get up super-early to get to the conference on time today. I met up with her and Scott, Lois, Elaine, and Karen, all PCVs, at a faux-Starbucks cafe by the cinema. We chatted, ate, and had gelato (!!), then Ash & I went back to her place. We stayed up talking girl-talk (not Girl Talk) and exercising. It was nice to chill with someone one-on-one, since I haven't done that in a long time and that's the kind of interaction I've been craving lately.

Today we went to Rodney Bay to a hotel where volunteers from both US Peace Corps and the Japanese Oversea Cooperation met up, met each other, and shared presentations to stimulate discussion about the issues we're facing as volunteers in St. Lucia. JOCVs do very similar work, and have a similar mission to the PC. I really enjoyed both presentations I sat in on, one about the Maths Achievement Program two JOCVs have been working on, and one about Libary and Reading Programs that two PCVs have been working on. They gave me a lot of insights and ideas for what I should be doing in order to get some of my project ideas accomplished.

Afterwards, we were supposed to go to Gros Islet for a beach BBQ, but it started raining so the JOC Country Director very generously volunteered his house, which was only a ten minute walk from the hotel. Altogether there was a lot of food, from what the hosts provided and what we bought for the cookout. The best pictures I got were of food (you should expect this by now of me), so here they are:

Veggies, dips, delicious cookie and brownie by Sam (the PCV who organized the event), green tea cake made by one of the JOCVs, and THE BEST SUSHI I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE I am not kidding I don't usually like sushi that much but dang this was amazing. It was homemade, btw.

American contributions to snacks!

And the main course. I had a cheese veggie burger with pickles, ketchup, lettuce and hot pepper mustard. Justin and Ashley were concerned about the amount of the pepper mustard on my burger bun, but it left my mouth only mildly warm. It was delicious.

I ate about 27 cookies and brownies, as did everyone else along with all the other food. We went home stuffed and very happy.

The best part, though, was when a bunch of the JOCVs practiced one of their traditional dances for us. They'll perform it next Saturday when they host Japan Day at Town Hall in Castries, to share their culture with the people of St. Lucia. This is called the Fishermen's Dance, and it's sure to bring in lots of fish!

Tomorrow I might go over to Albert's house. He's a bus driver (the first one I met, he taxis for Manman) who lives down the road, and he invited me to come over to chat with him and his girlfriend. I also need to start practicing my tortillas for Thanksgiving, so I'll walk down to Super J and back for flour and shortening (which will be my exercise for the day--it's about 35 minutes each way at a brisk pace).