I'm getting tantalizingly close to the start of the afterschool program. Tomorrow I'm meeting with parents of children nominated to be the first to participate. Wednesday I'll be training volunteers for the program. Next week Monday (the 16th) will be the first day! I'm super excited about it.

Other than working on that, I haven't been doing too much the past couple of weeks.

Sunday, Feb 22nd was Independence Day, so we had Monday off from work. I went to hang with some PCVs in Piaye on the beach, then we went to Jess's house for delicious meatball subs and FUNFETTI cupcakes! It was a great time.

The next day some of us went over to the airport here in Vieux Fort to welcome the new Peace Corps Trainees. They look like a wholesome bunch. I'll be excited to meet them more in-depth in the next months.

Last week on Friday I had a great time subbing for a Grade 2 class at Belle Vue Combined. Somehow it seemed like I barely needed to be in the classroom. Even the children who were struggling with the assignment were doing the work. It was a different experience from what I'm used to, subbing at VF Infant and VF Primary, and even working in a 3rd grade class in Chicago when a substitute was there. I'm trying to figure out what the causes of these differences are, so that I might be able to give the teachers and principals in VF town insight to promote calmer classrooms.

Later in the day I went to see the end of the Interhouse Meet for VF Primary. It was a track meet for the four different sports houses at the school: Sunflower, Hibiscus, Evergreen, and Bluebell. Though I was only there for the last two races--the girls' and the boys' relays--the competition was very impressive. It was also a fun atmosphere. The Infant School children were there supporting their older siblings (there was a school-wide workshop for the teachers that day, so no classes were held), as well as many people from the community and some secondary school students who were helping out.

Yesterday Fae came over in the late afternoon, just planning to hang out, and I was going to cook dinner, but then she mentioned that if she had more money she would "sponsor" (treat) me and we could go up to Castries or Rodney Bay and do something. Well I've been pretty spendthrift lately, and I've barely gotten out of Vieux Fort, so I decided we should just go do it. We went up to Castries and met her friend Tricia, who took us up to Rodney Bay. Tricia is in a band, so we went to watch them (after splurging and getting a medium BBQ chicken and pineapple pizza at Domino's). It was a great time (even though I kept yawning; I didn't get enough sleep the night before!).

It may seem sometimes like I do exciting things all the time, because those are the things I find interesting enough to write about, but these things come in little clusters somehow. Most of my excitement comes from cooking. I'll do a post about those things soon :)