Long time

So I've been really busy the past few months.

VFASP is going pretty well. New kids that came consistently, and new rules and structure. It has helped. Last week I finally completed one of the seven goals I set for myself at Mid-Service Training: I compiled two binders for VFASP, one of daily maintenance things like attendance and one of resources and such.

I'm working more now with the Special Needs teachers at VF Infant and Primary, figuring out how to help them do their jobs as efficiently as possible. Sometimes it's a challenge, especially working with people that have extremely different expectations of a Special Needs teacher's role.

Catherding is going pretty well. The kindergarten students started typing their names. I really need to type up all the lessons for that computer skills for non-readers. That will be one more thing to cross of my list of MST goals.

On top of regular work, I have started getting my act together to look for jobs. Writing resumes, completing applications online, contacting references, etc. One week I did that almost non-stop at home. It was exhausting.

In addition to work and future work, I've been planning for Berney's parents to visit. They will be staying with me, so I've been cleaning plenty, and both Bern and I have been making and remaking plans to ensure they get a good taste of St. Lucia.

I have a lot of pictures, but Berney has stolen all of them. So I'll post them when I get a chance.

Wow I suck at updating

So I'm nearly at the end of my Christmas break, and I'll return to school next week. During the break I've gotten a lot of things done, especially in the kitchen.

Berney and I put presents under my tree, although we haven't received any of the other packages sent from family and such.

I've been staying in my apartment most of the break, goofing around but also getting some things done that advance some of the goals I listed in the last post. Unfortunately my mom won't be able to visit, so I need to come up with something else for that bit.

Though it's been nice to have lots of free time and have friends over and visit friends during the week, I'm (as usual) looking forward to getting back into a work schedule.

Work and play

So many things, so busy since the beginning of this month! I'm home sick right now, but feeling a little better, I'll probably be able to attend the literacy workshop tomorrow. Hello vinegar and LLB, goodbye stomach pains (hopefully)!

The Vieux-Fort After School Programme is running! We have two dedicated regular volunteers, and Sister Mary Lee will be able to help out more regularly, as well as having generously donated some great maths flash cards and books. The participants have regularized, and the attendance has dropped a little and leveled off, so now when more children want to be in the programme, I can finally tell them yes! We have activities everyday after homework or academic work, including music, theatre, arts & craft, chess, and athletics. Speaking of theatre, the girls I worked with on Monday was the first group of kids here that really understood Charades and played it well once I explained it. We're also participating in an International Art Exchange, so over the next few weeks we'll create full color drawings of holidays celebrated in St. Lucia, then send them off and receive art from other students all around the world!

While things have been going pretty well recently in VFASP, for a few days a couple weeks ago things were kind of unstable. Ms. Casilda James, a teacher who had worked at the school 29 years, passed away. It was a very difficult time for everyone at the school and the family, so last week Vieux-Fort Primary put on an amazing Memorial Service. It was so touching, and I got to see sides of Ms. Cas and the impact she had that I hadn't yet learned in the year I'd known her. Rest in peace, Ms. Cas.

When not at work, Berney and I have been expanding our horizons. We have some new friends a couple towns away, where we've visited for dinner a couple times. The woman is French and a translator, so she and Bern have plenty to talk about with language experiences. The children are lively and instant friends.

Last weekend Bern and I climbed Gros Piton, the second tallest mountain on the island at a height of 2,619 feet. The cost was quite off-putting, though, and even though it was a good workout with better views, I'd rather not spend $70 EC for two of us to walk and have sore legs and feet. I can do that for free most places.

Last Sunday was Jounen Kweyol, so we dressed in our madwas and went into VF Town for some food and music. All the locals loved that we were wearing their national dress, and while it seemed like pestering at first, we realized soon that they were flattered at the compliment we were paying them.

Soon I'll have Mid-Service Training, where all of us on St. Lucia will get to see everyone in our group who flew off to other islands after staging. I'm looking forward to the reconnect, though I'll definitely be sad when I don't see some familiar faces. You know who you are.

Busy busy busy

I've been having trouble sleeping, I've been so busy! Before last week a lot of effort went into preparing for the Vieux Fort After School Programme (VFASP), and this past week a lot of effort went into making sure it got off the ground.

Well, it did! We had about 30 students each of the three days it runs, which is of course more manageable when there are more teachers and volunteers present. I'm especially excited that it started last week, because I could include it in my trimesterly report for PC. We still need to get some things in place, like more volunteers, regular club activities for half an hour after homework, etc., but it's great that the basic purpose is being fulfilled. Children are getting help with homework. When there are enough volunteers they get help from adults who already know the stuff, and when there aren't they get help from one another with key guidance from the adults that are around.

But even though this awesome thing is going on, it's been hard. Last weekend was so full of activity, from a fundraising concert in Laborie for St. Jude's to dinner in Balembouche (not the estate!) with a French family to another fundraising concert on Piaye beach--and all the house work and prep work that had to get done anyways! I haven't been getting much sleep for various reasons, and even twice last week I woke up from dreaming about writing lists and sorting out names and words, with children all around trying to help but being a distraction instead. Each day I come home (late, as you'll see in a bit) exhausted, but if I nap during the day I have an even harder time falling asleep at night.

So this three-day weekend was exactly what I needed. Berney and I went to Castries yesterday for a chess-training session, got a little shopping done in the market (mint! vanilla bean! miwi! roti!), and came back home for a quiet night. Today I made some vegan sloppy joes to take for our own cheap Oktoberfest at Sandy Beach, where we limed with Fae for a few hours. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to not leaving the house all day, and catching up on Heroes (since I didn't see the first three episodes of the season--I didn't have a working TV). Then it's back to some long days, but I'll be much more refreshed.

VFASP runs Mondays through Wednesdays until 4:30, so I get home around 5 or 5:30pm. Thursdays and Fridays, though, I still have to stay in Vieux Fort Town until about 4:30 because they're tearing down the remains of the hospital, and it's dangerous to be around the neighborhood with the asbestos in the air. They're working during the day, and then wetting everything down before people come home. So I need to find good reasons to stay around VF Town now. Or at least good places.

Finally, Berney and I recently celebrated two years of annoying each other constantly, regardless of proximity. :) I made a dinner that was special but not nearly as good as the lamb a month ago, along with a chocolate chip cookie cake with mint icing. Today we wrapped up the celebration with the rest of the lobster someone gave us as a consolation prize for getting ice thrown at us at the beach.

Oh. And both pairs of my work shoes broke. :(

Chocolate Dipped Banana Fritters

Berney sent me a food challenge in his Valentine's Day/Birthday package to me. There was a bag of sausage-flavoured croutons and some nice air-filled milk chocolate. I was instructed to make something with both of them, so here are the results.

Adapted from the PC EC Cookbook--I reduced the portions, and sort of didn't know what I was doing when it came to frying. Next time I make them, I won't have the oil so hot because many of them blackened but were still gooey on the inside. It was even more of an adventure, since I had never deep fried before.

Ingredients (scaled down for just me)
1 small ripe banana
3/4 tsp sugar
dash cinnamon
about 1/3 of 1 beaten egg
dash vanilla essence
1/8 cup milk
1/4 cup flour
oil for deep frying
2 Tbsp milk chocolate, chopped
1 Tbsp crouton crumbs

Directions


If you really want to know the specifics of directions, let me know and I'll post them. I think this should be enough for now, though.

The results were that the sausage flavoured crouton crumbs were a little overwhelming, so I'm glad I only made 3 or 4 of the fritters with them. I was inspired by a pancake breakfast the day before. I remembered how I like to sop up some of the syrup from pancakes with my sausage when I have them together (oh dining hall how I miss you), and so combining breakfasty flavours was my goal. It sort of worked, though the chocolate-only fritters were better tasting.

I think next time I make them, I might omit the sugar altogether, since bananas are pretty dang sweet by themselves. Then it'll be a breakfast-worthy concoction :)

A fun Valentine's Day

On Friday I was able to leave work early (sort of unfortunately--the Ministry of Education hasn't been able to go in and make Belle Vue Combined's computers compatible, install software, or set up a network, so I wasn't teaching IT classes as planned), so I went and bought some headbands, including a nice sparkly red one. I needed it for Valentine's Day.

Here for V Day people wear red and white. I tried asking Fae why, what it stood for, but there didn't seem to be any particular meaning to it. I actually have (had) no red articles of clothing whatsoever, so I bought the headband, and also wore pink and white. Good enough.

In the morning yesterday Berney and I got on Skype and chatted and watched Shawshank Redemption together. It was fun. I also gave him an awesome "card" that I had been working on for the past week:

Later Fae and I met up at the grocery store, and we came back here to make pizza and white chocolate coffee brownies. The pizza had fried eggplant on one side and tuna on the other, in addition to bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, and spinach underneath the cheese. Everything tasted really good. We watched Mamma Mia, which was kind of awful but definitely fun.

I missed out on meeting up with some other volunteers to hang out in Soufriere, but I had fun anyways. :)

Today I cleaned my house more thoroughly than I had been in the past month and a half, and then I built a spaceship!

Good Food, Good Friends...

That's what life is all about, right? Well, almost. :)

As most of you know, this past Wednesday was my birthday. I'm now 23, a rather unexciting number, other than being a prime. Many thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. Diana sent me this pic, I think it sums things up pretty well:

That morning was off to a sour start...I was volunteered to sub for a teacher who was absent. I actually took that same class on Monday, and that went over pretty well, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard. Unfortunately, the children's notebooks were unavailable because the keys to the cabinet were also absent. So though I tried just going over the homework, it was extremely difficult to get the attention of the class, and before lunch my voice was already sore from trying to be heard over the talking. However, even before lunch the principal came up and had the class distributed throughout the other first grade classes (which is what's usually done when a teacher is absent). After lunch (which the principal bought for me, some tasty soup) I and Sister Mary subbed a different class who had maths assignments, and that was rather pleasant.

I came home and talked with Berney on Skype while making cookie dough--see above for the recipe! Fae came over around 5, and we hung out and watched TV and baked cookies until Randy, Nethelia, and Ellery also joined us. It was very nice to have just a few close friends over for my birthday--it wasn't stressful trying to host many people, and it wasn't depressing having no one over. Everyone loved the cookies (the sparkling wine less so, since it was really cheap).

I also now understand the cake thing. Nethelia brought me a pretty little cake (it's delicious!) that she made. Its about 3-4 inches tall, and the circumfrence of a tea saucer. I offered some, but no one took. I had noticed at previous birthday parties that cakes were present, but the fancy cakes weren't cut and shared among the guests. Honestly I thought that it seemed greedy, but the other night it was explained to me: The birthday person is given a small cake to last them the entire month. This makes it very special, since it's just for you and you're not obligated to share it. People (other than children) don't receive gifts for birthdays, but they are given a fantastic little cake that should last 30 days if you portion it right.


This week has been very busy.

Saturday I went up to Castries to pick up a couple packages from my mom! She sent tax-related documents, candy, Asimov books, and a very special (broken, but meant to be built again) spaceship. What a great gift for my birthday! (I've already started reading the next book in the Robot series.) I also was able to get my trimesterly report and my 6-month work plan done on the computer at the PC office.

Sunday I made soup. I made A LOT of soup. I have a decently large pot, and it was almost filled to the top. I had a bowl, fixed it, had a little more, then put half of it in tupperware to freeze. That took four containers. I was able to push more of the non-frozen stuff to the guests on Wednesday, so now I only have 9 more servings :) I'm proud of this soup because it tasted so much better than my previous soup (though it looks largely the same, I guess!). It has carrots, onions, chives, parsely, cabbage, okra, christophen (chayote squash), pumpkin, green fig, rice, chicken stock, and some chicken bones and scraps. I was especially proud because, as I said, I had a bowl and then I was able to fix it, adding more salt and a couple spices that I thought would round it out. It worked! It's a very filling and decently tasty soup, without using the pre-packaged seasoning that pretty much just adds MSG (which isn't a bad thing, I'm just glad I could make it completely from scratch!).

Monday afterschool I had to run up to Castries for an errand, Tuesday I went to Piaye to check out Jess's afterschool program, Wednesday was the birthday stuff, Thursday I tried to go meet the counselor at Camus A (unsuccessfully), and today I did meet with her (very successfully!). Now I have a free weekend before in-service training up past Castries. So I'm trying to catch up on little things that I should have done earlier. Like this post! :)

Winter Break Synopsis

Wow, it's been a while. Sorry about the lack of posts lately; the holidays found me much busier than I had anticipated.

It was enjoyable, though. I hung out with PCVs and local friends pretty often. I also made lots of tasty tasty food. Recipes to come.

I hiked plenty--Morne Le Blanc in Laborie, the Saltibus waterfalls, up Moule-a-Chique in Vieux Fort to look at the light house, and even the Edmund Forest Trail across to the Des Cartiers. This last one was pretty much across almost the widest (not longest) part of the island. It was about four hours, but it was the most fantastic thing ever. I hadn't been in the middle of the rainforest before, so the plants and scenes were just amazing. We also saw lots of the St. Lucia Parrots (called Jako in Kweyol).

Christmas I spent with my host family. I went to Midnight Mass with Julius and Nethelia, then to their friend's house afterwards. The next day I joined them for Christmas lunch and got to meet their son that lives in Canada--he surprised Nethelia, she didn't know he was coming at all! (although his brother Randy knew.) After lunch some friends came over, and Nethelia and I joined them in what is called "house to house": one person in a group calls up someone at a nearby house, sees if they're home and have something to offer to eat, and then everyone goes to that house. Lather, rinse, repeat. I met some new people and got to see some friends I already knew, and got to have lots of tasty food, from ham to cakes (lots of cakes!) and plenty of drink, including a great peanut punch at Ellery's house. It was a great way to spend Christmas.

The following Sunday I finally cooked lunch for Julius and Nethelia ("long overdue," she said). I made a Tex-Mex offering, with tortillas, guacamole, chicken, refried beans, cheese, and salad--a good spread for tacos, of course. They enjoyed it, especially the guacamole. People here eat lots of avocado ("pear"), but usually don't mix it with anything except cassava flour ("farin").

New Year's Eve I spend in Rodney Bay with some other PCVs. We had a big ol' spaghetti dinner with several wines and sparkling juices to accompany, then we headed down to the beach to watch the fireworks at midnight. We hung around for a long time, and I didn't end up sleeping until about 5am!

The first week of school brought some new things, too. I have a new schedule now with the Infant School, since some students switched classes. At the Primary school I am now co-teaching with the Special Needs teacher, Miss Vigie ("veezhay"). At Belle Vue I'm still currently helping out the principal in various capacities (typing things for her, providing a sounding board for ideas, designing things), although she has me signed up to introduce computers to preschool children (this may change, we'll see).

At the Primary School, in addition to helping Miss Vigie, I responded to the principal's comment in the teacher meetings last week that students need extra work on writing with a proposal to do writing workshops. The look on his face and the excitement in his voice when he asked me "You want to do that?!" was great. I'll be working with 4th and 6th graders on this, since these are the two grades that take standardized tests at the end of the year.

This past weekend I went up to spend the night with Haley again to hang with her and Ashley, and Haley was so kind as to pick up the stuff in my mailbox at the PC office. Along with the usual Cable & Wireless bill, there was a card from Diana! and a big bag of Christmas presents from my Secret Santa in Australia! I got a bunch of candy, some spices, some drawing pencils and pens, some small sketchbooks, a calendar with pics of Australia things, some pics of Melbourne landscapes, and some skin and lip ointments. It was very exciting.

The most exciting thing of all is the prospect of Berney visiting later this year--he's working on arranging that. I'll try to see him around June maybe in Europe, but he might be able to stay for a considerable while, depending on how things work out. We'll see, but it is something awesome to look forward to.

Like I said, I'll post some recipes later. I just needed to get this down.

Adventures in Vieux Fort

On Sunday I walked with Randy (easier to say than fwe mwen) and Fay around the neighborhood some more, and up the hill. Here are a couple pics.

This is a view of Vieux Fort Proper (downtown) from the hill. The peninsula is the very southern tip of the island. On the field is the airport runway--if you ever visit me (unless you're coming from another Caribbean island) this is where you'll be coming in.

A view of my current neighborhood. As you can see, between the time I took the first pic and the second, clouds had started moving in on us. In the distance you can see Petit Piton, sticking up like a thumb from behind the hills. If you look close, to the left of that, behind the closer hill, Gros Piton is kind of visible (dang clouds!).

There's a water tank at the top of the hill. Hey there's me! Or is it my reflection? Or did the reflection take the picture??

At the very top of the hill (through the bush from where the water tank is) is a radio tower or something. There's also something that looks kinda like solar panels (not pictured) but it all seemed kind of old and defunct. Fay said that's on of the political party's flags. Must have been from quite a while ago, since it's so tattered.
On Tuesday I interned again in a Grade 4 class in VF Primary, and it went pretty well. I started working with a couple boys on basic math. After school got out, I was walking to the bus stand, and a little girl and her friend started talking and walking with me. She said she saw me at school, and both children told me about how they did in school and which class they were in and whether the teacher liked them or not. We got on different buses, but we waved at each other when their bus pulled out of the stand first. I wish I could talk to people like that.

Today is pretty much (well tonight, around midnight or later, but whatever) the one year anniversary of my relationship with Berney. We just talked for about an hour, and of course we miss one another terribly. I know it will be one of the hardest challenges I face while I'm down here. But we've both done LDRs before, and we know how to make them work if we want it to work. Of course, I spend lots of time thinking about all the cool things Bern and I can do when he comes to visit, and maybe if I'm lucky I can visit him in Russia at some point. At some point I need to toast to it, but I'm not sure when would be best. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. And I can toast to Diana's birthday tomorrow, too.

I have a shadowing assignment today at the Special Education School in VF, and after that (depending on how long I'm there) I might go to meet with some of the parents of students I'm working with in the internship. Manman is going to Castries today for a meeting, so there's a good chance I'll be on my own until the evening, so maybe I'll get to explore some of the shops in VF. There are many I've been meaning to just go in and poke around, get to know what's available (and what's not) in this place.

One week to go

I'm leaving next Monday to Miami for my staging event. I'll be there for a day and a half, and on the third day, early morning, I'll leave for St. Lucia!

This week, in the meanwhile, I'm busy writing and completing to-do lists. Setting up this blog was one item, so now I can cross that off!

Another thing I need to do is get addresses from people if they want postcards or such things. Email me if yours if you so desire. Alternately, I'm sometimes on AIM or Skype, both with the same username.

Well, I should go work on other things in my to-do list, like cleaning the bathroom or putting music on my laptop. Boring, I know.



edit: I like Berney. He's a pretty cool d00d. Sadly, those are 0's, zeros, it's just sort of hard to tell. it makes me glad there aren't any o's in his name, 'cause otherwise I'd need to write them all with zeros, but no one would notice my insistence on his being l33t. Well he is, in any case.