Rounding Off the List

The Peace Corps purchased my ticket for the 18th of next month, and so I have precisely 27 days remaining in my term of service.  I accepted this reality long ago – at around six months out, I first started dealing with the realization that I had not long to go, and that I should temper my expectations accordingly.  On the other hand, as a rule, West Indians are reluctant to deal with rapid changes.  As I wrote in my sixth and final Volunteer Report Form:

Even positive changes are met with mild degrees of consternation, usually manifesting in the form of public grumblings.  The irony of it all is that, while my initial arrivals into work and social scenarios was met with some standoffish-ness and questions of "Why are you volunteering here?" those same people are now looking at me with deep regard and asking me to reconsider leaving.  As the stereotype holds, the nature of Kittitians is to focus almost exclusively on the present, largely at the expense of the past and future.  The curious practical offshoot of this is that a full two years after my arrival on island, people are surprised to hear that it is now my time to go.  And while I have since made peace with this, my last month or so on island, it is challenging for me to have to tell the long story every time about why I can't stay any longer.  I even include the reasons why I would want to stay, like what I would do if I stayed with the Peace Corps.  It all serves to simply make me consider every time just how much longer I have before I won't be required to answer those questions any longer.

I hiked Nevis Peak this past weekend.  It was really, really hard, and largely treacherous.  A two hour climb that involved over thirty muddy ropes, at least two flat rock faces that we had to cross laterally, and one great view that made it all worthwhile in the end.  As the reader may recall, Nevis Peak is visible from my home every day, and about 364 days out of the year it is ringed at the top by some puffy white clouds.  Hence the name: as legend has it, when Columbus (re-)discovered the smaller of the two islands, called Oualie by the Caribs there, he rechristened it Nevis (Nee`-vis), a derivative of the Spanish word for "snowy."  It stands exactly 3232 feet above sea level, the second-tallest peak in the federation.

The first "window" on the way up the slope. 
You can see we are still well below cloud level, but this would change very shortly.

 I can't emphasize how treacherous the hike up the slope was.  The exhausting hike climb was replete with ropes to aid the roughly 70° angle that was our ascent for a solid two hours.  It is always damp in the rainforest, and so the ropes were waterlogged and muddy.  This made for largely easy gripping on the way up, to our benefit, but once the mud and grime on our hands dried, and with no more water to wash them off, the ropes became much more slippery on the way down. 

Our guide, Evanston, made sure we didn't veer off course. 
There wasn't a lot he could do to prevent us from falling on our face, however.

 I did come close to falling to my doom at one point, where I was anchored by only a rope above me and my foot lodged in a crack on a flat rock face with about a ten-foot drop to the next flat area below me.  As I shifted my weight to step across to the continuation of the trail to my right, my anchor foot slipped, but thankfully did not dislodge.  If it had, our guide might have witnessed his first unconscious guest on the hike in the hundreds of trips he has taken up and down the mountain.

After two muddy and sweat-drenched hours, we finally reached the cloudy peak.

Yes, the view from the top was worth the climb; it always is, it seems.  While I was exhilarated that I had made it, the part of me that was sympathetic with my browbeaten body was disappointed that I couldn't be mad at the mountain for failing to deliver.  (Does that even make sense?)

It was Independence Week in the Federation this past week.  National Heroes Day, celebrated on the 16th of September and largely equivalent to Presidents' Day in the US, gave us Monday the 17th off from work, and Independence day is celebrated on the 19th.  This is the Federation's 29th year of independence from Great Britain.  I celebrated my doing something I had not done before: I attended the Governor-General's Ball at the Governor's Mansion on Wednesday night.  A formal event, I wore my suit and crashed the event with some of my PCV colleagues.  (This is, apparently, common practice: while no PCV has officially received an invitation in the three independence seasons I've been here, a handful of volunteers have, in fact, attended each year.)  Everybody was there; I saw people that I hadn't run into in nearly a year's time (small island, don't forget!).  In fact, so many people attended that they managed to run out of catered food a good hour before it was time to leave.  And they even ran out of drinks before the night was over, to the disappointment of many.

I'm hosting a "Goodbye" party at my home in a week's time: on Friday the 28th, I'll be cooking local dishes for upwards of 60 persons for a handful of hours at my apartment.  As you know, my space isn't nearly large enough to house that many people, so I'm setting up a shade tent on the lawn and some Tiki torches and having the party mostly outside.  And I'm not equipped to provide people with snacks and drinks for the entire night, so I'm having the party go from 4:30 (early, to accommodate those Atlantic-side denizens that require two bus rides to get home) to 8:30; essentially 2 hours before sunset to 2 hours after sunset.  Hopefully I will put the EC$100-worth of Tiki torches to good use in that time.

It's Over 9000!!!

I really did enjoy the Chess camp so much that I have come to realize that it is something I would like to do again – not necessarily in a camp setting, but certainly with children of roughly that same age group as a sort of extracurricular activity at a school.  I keep falling back on the Saddleback Knights  youth chess organization that visited my elementary school once a week and taught me the baseline strategy wherein my life's pursuit of stronger Chess has been grounded.  It was my great pleasure to be able to transfer all the things I learned from those before-school sessions in 4th and 5th grade unto this group of youngsters.  Their willingness to learn was, of course, all the difference, and I hope that kind of buy-in could be expected in other settings as well.  But until the time I find out, I have these pictures to remind me of a successful first attempt:

My cubbyhole of a classroom.  Thankfully I was away from the hubbub of the other students.

Day 1 practice.  The students had just learned how pieces move for the first time.

Day 2 instruction: Check, Checkmate, Stalemate, and Castling.

One of my most promising students.  I hope she has the opportunity to continue practicing after this summer.

Some haggling over end-of-session rewards may have taken place.

Day 5 final group – we were all a little reluctant to leave that day.

The glazed expression on everyone's countenance bespeaks of an exhausting week, but also rewarding!

Today is a work holiday in St. Kitts, probably honoring Nevis's Culturama weekend, which is its mid-summer Carnival.  It has its own jump up (read: J'ouvert) and everything, but it tends to be significantly smaller celebration than St. Kitts' own winter bacchanalia.  I haven't had the pleasure of experiencing Culturama myself, but two SK Carnivals is probably enough for me anyway – I'm not concerned that I'm missing out on anything.

And lastly, a big "Thank You!" for everyone that has followed along with my blog for the last two years; yes, here on the two-year anniversary of Chris in the Eastern Caribbean, I'm thrilled to say that we finally reached my goal of over 9000 pageviews!  So, as per my promise, here is a special surprise to commemorate the achievement:

COS Pon Us

It's funny how PC training is one of those things that one finds repellent at the beginning, when it is forced upon us for weeks at a time, but then looks forward to by the end of service.  Now, instead of being a month-long ordeal of flipcharts, security briefings, cultural awareness sessions, and more flipcharts, it's all about reconnecting with our fellow volunteers who have been serving on Antigua and St. Vincent for the last two years, and a dose of inspiration and retraining at the same time.  (Nothing like a little sugar to help the medicine go down.)  So it is in Antigua for Close Of Service Training where I will find myself from Wednesday to Sunday this week.  I will, as always, attempt to keep readers abreast of goings on at training with a brief post of the day's events each evening.  But until then, the news from the week past:

Imagine if the Dream Team came to town one day to play an Olympic qualifying match against, say, Spain, in a best-of-three format set to last all day.  Everybody who could would, most likely, get off work in the interest of seeing this nationally heralded confluence of talent.  In fact, if the town is small enough, businesses and government offices that were savvy to this might not even bother to try and operate on that day, conceding priority to this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.  That scenario is a little like what we saw happen in St. Kitts on Wednesday: earlier in the week, in anticipation of the West Indies Test Cricket team hosting New Zealand to a 50 Overs one-day match at Warner Park, the government called for a work holiday that day in support of the Cricket match.  And rather than stroupes, shake my head, and wonder aloud what could be so important about a Cricket match as to shut down businesses that day, I chose instead to embrace the deviation from regular life and go attend the match.  I certainly learned a lot, most notably all about limited-overs Cricket, and enjoyed having an excuse to sit out in the sun for six hours (10AM to 4PM).  Unfortunately, the Windies underperformed that day, and dropped a match 249-168.  In fact, the pummeling was so harsh and our home team's showing so dismal, that one PCV friend of mine tried to cast it in a positive light by saying, "Well, at least we came within a hundred!"

I had a very heartening meeting on Thursday regarding the board games summer camp, now entitled Smart Moves Summer Board Games Camp.  I will be primarily responsible for two things: first, beginning next week, a day-long training session for the volunteers, and secondly of course the actual Chess instruction during the camp.  I have overarching outline already prepared –

• MONDAY • 60 min. • Individual Piece Movements, Rules of Chess
• TUESDAY • 30 min. • Starting and Ending a Match, Check & Checkmate • 30 min. • Freeplay
• WEDNESDAY • 30 min. • Openings, Piece Development • 30 min. • Freeplay
• THURSDAY • 30 min. • Common Mates, Endgame • 30 min. • Freeplay
• FRIDAY • 60 min. • Freeplay

Possibly, if I think the students are mentally ready for this step, I may institute a short 1-hour tournament, maybe 4 15-minute matches, for Friday's session.  I have lots of prizes left over from working at the school, so I'll happily use those then.  I'm already getting excited about this endeavor, and about the prospect of sharing my knowledge of something very important to me with the young people of St. Kitts.

I hope you enjoyed the last couple of videos added; if you didn't get to see them yet, check the Videos page.  Otherwise, if you're like me and anxiously anticipating the following months' contributions (February through June), know that they are on their way and should offer further glimpses into my work here in SKN as well as the beauty in nature that can be found here.  Additionally, (and I keep forgetting to mention this) please pray for assistance in my finding a job, specifically that I might hear back quickly from the two organizations I currently have outstanding applications with.  Finding the motivation and the focus to continue to job search is getting increasingly difficult, and I'm rapidly wearying from the process.  Thanks, and don't forget to give me a shout on Skype if you're not busy.

Health and Happiness

I was down with strep throat last weekend – it was so bad earlier in the week that I had to go to the doctor's office.  To the relief of my swollen tonsils, I was given a prescription for amoxicillin and sent on my way.  My condition, while not so painful as to be debilitating during the day, was disastrous on my energy level and appetite: I found I could only eat about 2 small meals a day and had to separate those with 2-3 hour naps in the middle of the day.  And all this without a fever!  At the time, I couldn't make any sense of it, except to wait out the July 4th holiday (Peace Corps Staff must take this day off, which means I couldn't see the doctor that day) and hope it was only a case of strep throat.  The doctor, short of giving me a throat swab, opined that it was indeed strep, and not a worse infection.  Still on the antibiotics now, I'm back at work, though I still have mild symptoms in the evenings for now.

My landlord, longtime resident of New England, landed in St. Kitts yesterday, quite literally "out of the blue."  I had never met the man face to face before then, but he wasn't interested in getting to know me so much as apologizing for the state of the yard which, to his excited confusion, was "bad like he'd never seen it before."  He cited his ignorance of the degree to which the yard had been neglected, but given the constant reminders that I sent his way, this doesn't seem plausible.  Simply because he was incapable of imagining grass that had grown knee-high and thick as brush does not excuse him from being loathe to arrange to cut it for six months' time.  He will undoubtedly be staying in the unfinished two bedroom apartment adjacent mine, which means I will now have to manage my sound level a little bit more carefully.  No blasting dubstep electronica through my 6-inch speakers anymore!

Busy, busy at work today – the A Ganar Datacard is up for submission once again, so my job just became more hectic overnight.  A very basic Excel worksheet, the Datacard is just A Ganar's streamlined method for collecting and rapidly organizing the pertinent data that marks the overall success of a given program implementation.  However, for the likes of the NSTP, this sort of data entry demands are not the usual fare, and since the necessary data that goes on this Datacard has not been regularly maintained during the collection phases, a mad scramble to conjure the correct input mere days before it is due is the m.o.  Further, it is my boss who tries to do the rounding up, but she is so busy with answering phone calls, attending offsite meetings and handling special requests, that she hardly has the time or presence of mind to do these menial bits.  I am required for nothing more than simply interpreting and inputting the data once it becomes available, a job that really any office lackey could handle, if there were any other person trained (and willing to learn!) on handling MS Excel.  The reader will recall that I did lead a couple of trainings in basic MS Office applications just last summer here at the NSTP for my coworkers.  However, since none have had occasion to use it since, I am still the only one who works with it regularly and can boast any sort of comfort level with it.

No word as yet on my prospective employer's hiring decision.  I am becoming increasingly disconcerted by their extended silence, it being now a week since I sent a contact e-mail their way.  All in all, the process involved in getting hired by this little non-profit, and the valuable time they have hijacked from my last half-year on island has been thus:

03 April
Application submitted
05 April -  28 April
Completed assignment deliverables
May
Wait for interview selections
May 29
First-round interview
June 05
Second-round interview
June 12
Reschedule third-round interview
June 19
Third-round interview
July 02
Send last contact letter

It's a harrowing ordeal, going through the hiring process.  I shudder when I think that my latest contact e-mail is sitting in an employee's inbox, and all the while he's thinking, Oh how laughable - he still thinks he has a chance at a job here!  I'm not even going to bother responding, I'll just let him sweat it out.  For a company that was careful to alert its applicants when they were taking an especially long time in May to make a decision, it seems inhumane to have waited to respond to my personal e-mails now that I've gone through the interview process.

Oh, and I almost forgot.  Here's the January highlight video, only 21 weeks late.

Under Pressure

Ughh... I woke up this morning with sinus pressure strong enough to knock me out.  Unfortunately for me, I didn't recognize it for what it was until after I left home, or else a quick dose of sinus medication would have most likely restored me to my normal self.  But, instead, it's off to work feeling like my head is about to implode and my body drained of energy.  But I think I can still be productive, somehow.  Lately I've been spending the days at the NSTP office entering A Ganar trainees' attendance into the corresponding spreadsheet and calculating their training hours.  Not very engaging or inspiring work, but it takes a little bit of pressure off of a few others around here, freeing them up to deal with the countless other demands of maintaining a government agency while also implementing an island-wide youth program in the high schools.  So I'm happy to help out.

I was the recipient of a grand surprise this weekend: it seems that for the last x months the water bill for my building has not been paid. 

I was caught unawares,
They approached my home in pairs;
My bill was in arrears,
Confirming all my fears.

It took no less than three representatives from the Water Department (and a fourth to drive the get-away car, apparently) to inform me of the outstanding balance in excess of XCD 2,000.  Since I've never had the pleasure of meeting my landlord, he's certainly never personally signed a contract/lease agreement with me, and so in the... (calculating)... ninteteen months I've lived here, there has always been the possibility of this happening.  My neighbors, my APCD and I have always operated under the assumption that electricity and water were included in the rent.  Thankfully, this was confirmed when we finally managed to get hold of my landlord, who lives Stateside and tragically does not ascribe to the standard practice of employing an agent to manage his property down here on the island while he is away.  Instead, my lawn is turning into the untamed bushlands, and my water pressure is at risk of being cut off.  While no definitive resolution has yet been reached, we were successful in contacting the landlord and informing of the urgent nature of the situation.  Incidentally, my future rent payments remain canceled until such a time as the matter is concluded.  I'm not at all keen on the idea of picking up and moving to a new location all of a sudden, but I'm prepared for the possibility of such a necessity.

I enjoyed a long weekend this time last week, in honor of Whit Monday, taking advantage of the chance to release some of the pressure of all the projects I have going on right now.  Since a former PCV's parents were on-island, we took a big group down to the Southern Peninsula for an early summer Sunday at the beach.  It was a delightful romp for all of us, and pleasantly reminiscent of Memorial Day weekend Stateside.  (It always helps to have a bit of a reminder of home from time to time.)  Then a few of us capped it off by enjoying hot dogs and watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  It almost made me a little homesick! (almost)

My fifth trimesterly report is off, leaving just one more come September.  I was on the beach at Nevis on Saturday to finish it.  Those of us PCVs still here on St. Kitts are looking ahead to July, when our Close of Service week-long conference will be held.  This we know – what remains to be seen is whether our wishes for it to be held at any island not St. Kitts will come true.  If historical precedent is any indication, the St. Lucia staff will attempt to make arrangements with a hotel in St. Vincent, far far to the south of here, before pulling out and booking last-minute reservations at the Ocean Terrace Inn in Basseterre.  For my part, at least 79% of the appeal of COS is the chance to see all of our PCV friends from the other islands one last time.  But I'd sure like to augment that with the 21% appeal of getting to see a third Caribbean country during my term of service here.

The reader may recall that I was scheduled for two interviews the last couple of weeks.  The interviews went well, and indeed I am preparing for a second-round interview tomorrow.  I am highly reluctant to say more about it at this time, for fear of overexciting myself and adding more pressure to my performance.  God has already protected me thus far; I can't say enough how much it has eased my mind during interviews knowing that each one is not the end all be all of interviews, even for just that month or week.  Going through the process with two organizations simultaneously has allowed me to remain comfortable and just be myself during the interviews, and the effects are much more positive results, I hope.

Well, that's all the updates I have for now.  It's back to entering endless arrays of students' Present or Absent marks and adding up their training hours.  Then I need to make time for more work on this Ripple Institute website – it's shaping up nicely enough, but I still haven't made contact with the ICT Department yet.  All this to say nothing of organizing a training day for teachers volunteering at a possible Chess Camp this summer, and... oh! I need to contact the people in St. Lucia associated with the Chess Club there, and request info that can be used to persuade government officials here in St. Kitts.  And I need to do all of this soon, or else I fear that the trust these people have put in me and my ability to efficiently and effectively do this work will slip.

...No pressure.

Kittitian Tradition (or Shades of Awesome)

Another long Easter weekend come and gone – another chance to experience St. Kitts' more easygoing, more mellow holiday season of the year.  In stark contrast to the frenetic Carnival season at yuletide, the island's springtime-welcoming Eastertide traditions are all decidedly less demanding: flying kites and hiking to unique locations in the interior is the Kittitian pastime on Good Friday, set to the aroma of saltfish, dumplings, and mashed figs (green bananas).  Saturday and Sunday are spent in largely the same way, with hikes going up every morning and church services lasting about a half-hour longer than usual.  Then Monday sees the competitions in town, starting with the swim meets at the wharf, and followed in turn by the Greased Pole and Ham, the Pole Climb, as well as boxing matches that occur in a makeshift ring right there at the bus terminal, where beer and conkee is the fare of the day.

I got to make good on some of my own Easter traditions as well.  That is, I took part in the hike up to Dos D'Ane Pond (pronounced dieu dawn) on Friday, where due to my and a fellow volunteer's shared impatience with the tractor chartered to give our group of 50 a lift up to the trail head, we ended up hiking a good half-hour longer than everyone else.  This made for a total of 2.5 hours in to the rain-fed, natural pond at the peak of the ridge forming the spine of the island, and about 1.5 hours out.  Needless to say, I was completely spent after an elevation change of roughly 3000 feet in the space of 2.5 miles.  With Saturday to recuperate, and Sunday morning for church, I enjoyed my semi-annual visit to the Marriott on Sunday afternoon, where I took in all the sun, surf, and air-conditioning I could stand for an overnight stay.  Indeed, in the time when I'm so focused on identifying and developing skills that I can refer to in a job interview, I took a brief respite and worked on an altogether different skillset, like finding the ringing phone in a dark hotel room at 6:00 AM.

Getting back into the swing of things come Wednesday shouldn't be too trying, and I've really appreciated the time off from the usual routine.  I have a special coconut shrimp fry scheduled for this evening, where my cooking talents will be on full display for a gaggle of PCVs.  Wish me luck!

Funnyquote Friday

As I mentioned, I started a job search late last month.  Since part of the payback for volunteering for the government of the United States for two years was that I would receive certain non-competitive statuses in my applications, I have been applying to public service jobs as well as private sector positions.  As such, I am using USAJobs.gov to guide my search for analyst openings, and in the process of filling out an application for one such opening, I stumbled across this little gem:

I learned something about myself yesterday: I could run a 10K in the shape that I'm in right now.  Even in high school, being a cross country runner, my training rarely ever exceeded running 5 kilometers, or 3.1 miles, and as such I've never really pushed myself to try for greater distances.  But, bitten by the fitness bug recently, I took to running as far as I could yesterday morning, but slowing my usual breakneck pace down to a casual 10 min/mile.  You know what happened?  I ran as far as I could one way (which amounted to about 1.5 miles along a trail into the next village), turned around and ran back, then kept going for another 1/2 mile, and looped around and came back again – all while maintaining my starting jogging pace!  I wasn't even spent by the time I was finished!  Tired, a little, yes – but I believe capable of lasting another 20 minutes at that pace.  In fact, I'm going to test my theory one day next week, when I have an hour to spare in the morning.  I've never run 6.2 miles in one go before in my life, so if when it happens, I'll report back accordingly.

It's Easter break here already, which means I have today (Good Friday) off from work, as well as Easter Monday starting next week.  I learned this well from last year, as the reader might recall I did not know this going into the long weekend, and I ended up being the only one showing up for work on this day a year ago.  This year, however, I have my act together: as you read this, I'll be hiking in the interior rainforest, effectively combining some good sightseeing with getting in shape and spending time with some great people.  I might even take some good pictures, too.

Oh, and if you did not get a chance yet to check out the newest edition of the Serious Ting, please click the cover art to the left to be magically transported to an external website that allows for online viewing of periodicals and downloading in PDF.

Sugar Mas Is In The Air

The cats are earning their keep.  As you may recall, I'm watching my girlfriend's cats while she's on winter vacation in the States.  In under one week that I've been watching them, they've already managed to trap and kill four cockroaches and a centipede!  Nebula is the more personable of the two; she finds plenty of opportunities to find me and rub up against my arm when I am at the computer table (like right now).  Pigeon stays mostly to herself, but they both make their presence felt when it's feeding time.  The effort on my part is miniscule, as it would turn out: cleaning two small litter boxes and feeding the cats twice daily is hardly a chore, and more like fair wages paid in the name of free cleaning service.  (No cobwebs when you have two diminutive, omnipresent wanderers!)  Mostly they're a pleasure to have around, whenever Nubs isn't trying to pull my septum out of my head.

The Christmas concert was Monday the 19th; it didn't offer quite as many "edgy" pieces as last year, and eliminated all of the performances differing from singing a traditional Christmas carol.  Fortunately, my friends and I were in attendance foremost for the music, but I was disappointed to see that, perhaps, the planning committee felt that the free thinking, alternative works of poetry and dance (a few of a more political persuasion, in fact) were not in the spirit of the event.  Whatever the reason, we still enjoyed reaffirming our now veritable Christmas tradition of singing Handel's Hallelujah Chorus as loudly and as functionally correct as possible at the end of the service.  That's one thing that, come this time next year, I expect I will miss about not being here!

J'ouvert was a fun ride again this year.  What with it being my second go-around, I had a jump on most of the other Caucasoids that partook in this year's reveling.  Oh, and before you ask, I'm sad to report I have no picture and video this time, due to my one planning oversight: double-checking to see that the camera I brought along had an actual battery cartridge loaded in it.  Apart from this, the measures I took were largely responsible for the whole day going off without a hitch, so to speak.  I caught a lift to the meeting place no earlier than midnight, which means I had at least 3 hours of sleep before joining the others this time (plenty if you're not planning on staying up any later than noon).  I brought along both food and water this time, as much to sate my inevitable morning hunger as to avoid a regrettable migraine should the threat arise.  Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I remembered to bring ear plugs along!  I cannot overstate how critical these little devices are at a j'ouvert jump-up.  Lastly, I did virtually all of my alcohol imbibing at the meeting place before going on the march, where the drinks were mostly harder stuff like mixed rum punch and the like.  By writing in big Sharpie® letters on my hand "BEER," I didn't even have to shout my order to the bar-trailer attendants over the cacophony of the soca blaring from over a dozen amps 100 feet away.  In the end, I had the equivalent of 2 beers during the march, which settled in nicely with the principle of always following hard drinks with beer chasers, and not the other way around.  All of this planning went a great way towards making sure I actually enjoyed myself during this year's revelries.  Now if I could just find a girl to wuk up with...

I think Peace Corps are the street performers of the world.  I say this for a couple reasons: first, because the similarities are too clear to me to be denied.  We move from a place far away to a new home, often with little or no experiential concept of the place we're going, and always end up trying to make a living doing some good works under impoverished means.  Even the people we're trying to help ultimately are presented with the choice to pay attention, or else to simply ignore us completely.  And, depending on who you ask, we probably have a comparable success rate.  Furthermore, we choose to live our lives under the wary eyes of the entire community we serve, winning some hearts and minds and confounding others.  Perhaps the last one is not unlike life everywhere for most, but when the only real currency one traffics in is personal contacts, and when one has as pessimistic an outlook as myself, a single bad connection is a tougher drain on morale than half a dozen good ones can make up for.

The second reason I've been cogitating on this is because I find myself at a vulnerable point in my term of service.  With a whole three weeks to devote in part to secondary projects, namely the ones I have let languish as the 2011 work year wound down, I nonetheless prove to have difficulty summoning the emotional energy to tackle them, fearing that my best efforts will somehow prove fruitless.  So instead of being able to address these concerns by actually trying to do the work on a given day, I am hamstrung into lounging around, choosing instead to read Fahrenheit 451, or catch up on my virtual baseball team, or write this blogpost.  Can anyone offer me any clarity on where the fault in my emotional expectations lie: in the inflexible goals that I set for myself before the holiday began, or in the fear that I've doomed my own productivity by not following through on them?  As someone who derives so much of his self-esteem from his own sense of productivity, this question is deeply concerning to me; yet even as I write it, I realize that the true answer is probably a third option that I have not considered at all.

Funnyquote Friday

When Ms. Cuffy started her computer on Monday morning, there was nothing functionally wrong with it.  Yet upon opening her internet browser, she was greeted with a pop-up that informed her that her system had been infected by malignant viruses, hard drive and memory errors, registry errors, trojans, network problems, and all kinds of mean, nasty things.  Not wanting her system to be at risk, she dutifully clicked on the "Fix Errors" button for the SystemFix alert. (Link is to an info page about the virus.)  She was not prepared, then, for her system to reboot, and systematically rewrite her Windows system files such that her Start Menu and desktop was now empty save for a single shortcut to SystemFix.  Even booting up the system in Safe Mode did nothing to alleviate the situation.  When I saw the effects the malware had wrought on her system, I recognized the severity of the situation and immediately phoned IT support staff for the Ministry of Education.  The worker at the other end began with the most basic litany of questions, like inquiring if the system was running slow or not booting at all.  I explained the situation in full orchestration and four-part harmony, and inquired if the MoE had a corporate license of Windows that he could bring with him in case we needed to reformat the drive and reinstall Windows on it.  He didn't say that he did, but in his voice he seemed concerned about the nature of the damage, so I suggested that he should come by the office and inspect the machine for himself as soon as possible.  At this point, he asked me,

"So it not turning on, or it just running slow?"

Incidentally, he didn't make it out to the office that day.  In fact, here it is Friday, and he still hasn't come by to check it out.

And a late happy T-giving to everyone.  Readers may remember that I missed the island goings-on last year due to sickness, but thanks to one of my colleagues rushing a carb-laden plate over to me, I was able to enjoy the delicious food even so.  This year, the get-together was held at the same place, but hosted by a wholly different volunteer.  We had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and I reveled in the polite company of all the volunteers, friends, neighbors, and new acquaintances that were there.  There was pigskin tossing, card playing, music listening, fat chewing, merry making, and all kinds of groovy things going on there.

Well, I got the 27 8x10 color glossy pictures (really, just 2 or 3) that Hands Across the Sea requests for their records and to be used on special thank-you notes to the contributors that helped front the money for the new library books at the school.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my USB-to-miniUSB cable with me to work, so I will not be able to retrieve those photos from my camera in time for this post.  So despite my intentions, readers will be forced to wait one more weekend for some neat update photography.  The real work with the school library, however, begins after Carnival, when the entirety of the library is being moved from upstairs, in the climate-controlled, well-lit, tiled, public space that I spent hours and days reorganizing, to its new home downstairs in an open-air, dim, humid, concrete-floored, former classroom.  The new school administrators' decision to move the library appears to have been motivated by reasons wholly removed from anything relating to me or the library itself, yet I feel my frustration over this myopic, unilateral change is not unjustified.

Oh, and it seems there's a football game this weekend.  Wouldn't want to jinx anybody like some claim I did last year, but I feel compelled to offer my cheers for the brave and bold in this battle for the hearts and minds of the state.  So here's to my Alma Mater, where the best and brightest get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected, and selected.

Funnyquote Friday

My girlfriend recently started her fourth semester at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, and with the transition to new subjects and professors came students moving into the newly-vacant apartments around her.  One in particular, her new neighbor living immediately downstairs, owns a couple of dogs and a cockatoo.  Lolly has an abundance of experience with birds, as she owns a few herself and also worked in a pet shop while at university in New York.  So she loves playing with this new addition to the apartment, making him coo and whistle, bounce on his legs and flap his wings.  When we were getting ready to leave, and her neighbor stepped out to take the dogs on a brief walk, the cockatoo from inside the apartment said:

"*Whistle* I'm coming back! Coming back!"

It's that time of year again: the long holiday weekend celebrating both National Heroes' Day and the Federation's 28th year of independence.  National Heroes' Day is similar to our President's Day in February, except in this case, they honor the men and women on whom have been bestowed the honorary of Official National Hero.  The big difference, however, is that there has only been one person declared an official national hero: Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw, the first premiere of the colony of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla, who was instrumental in bringing about independence from the Crown in the '50s and '60s.  He did not live to see independence in 1973, but is memorialized as one of the greatest Kittitians in history.  There have been recent pushes to add other names to that list (notably voiced by People's Action Movement, the political party in opposition to the sitting government, the Labour Party, of whom Bradshaw was an adherent).  Upon declaring ruling independence from the U.K. in '73, but retaining their place in the Commonwealth of Former British Nations, (there are 53 countries in all, including India and Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand, Guinea, the Seychelles, Belize, most of the OECS, and Canada to name a few) and keeping the Queen as their Head of State, a few years' passing saw the secession of the Federation's smallest and most distant member, Anguilla, when it restored its official U.K. territory status.  Since then it has been the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, and now it's Nevis's prerogative to speak of disenfranchisement and favoritism.  But, all that will probably be overlooked for the of the coming long weekend, anyway.

Funnyquote Friday

Catching up with a good buddy of mine Wednesday night on Skype, and mentioning that the Peace Corps is phasing out the program on St. Kitts following my term of service, led to this gem:

"So they figured, [after you,] how could they do better?"

Something like that.  Whatever the reason, though, it's true that my class of EC82 will be the last bunch sent by the U.S. Peace Corps to St. Kitts and Nevis for the foreseeable future.  The disappointment that each one of us volunteers feels is, as you might expect, a fraction of what the host-country national stakeholders feel: projects, burgeoning NGOs, government institutions that have all recently been approved for a new PCV have since been told that their request, while always subject to last minute change, will not be honored.  This change is most likely due to the combined effects of the manifest limitations on the government agency's budget, and the continued rise of living expenses for volunteers (and indeed, everyone) living in this corner of the world.  Speaking just from personal experience, the purchasing power of the average individual here is very small, despite the image that everyone and their kid walks around with a Blackberry®.  Curiously, this seems more often true than not; as first-world amenities come to this developing nation, so does the vanity of having, and more importantly being seen having them.

As for updates, where to start?  The island did experience the threat of Tropical Storm Emily late Monday night and Tuesday morning, but was thoroughly underwhelmed when it only skirted our island to the south, headed for Hispaniola.  I had taken special precautions, "battening down the hatches at the fort" as it were, and was prepared to be awakened at 3AM by what could sound like a train passing just outside my window.  Instead, the electricity came back on at precisely 10PM, never going out again, and it only rained off and on over the course of the night.  We volunteers were on Standfast mode, prepared in the event of a sudden call to consolidate at one of the hotels in town.  This did not happen either, (wisely it seems now,) and the rest of the week has been a calm week like any other in the Caribbean.  Why, Emily didn't even throw off our work schedules: Monday and Tuesday of this week was a national work holiday for SKN in honor of Emancipation Day.  And the long weekend is perfect for revelers to partake in Carnival-styled festivities on Nevis, known as Culturama.  I was not able to see the events this year, but will keep my schedule open for next year.

In other news, the long weekend guaranteed that I finish up my work on the newest issue of the Serious Ting, expected for publication at the end of this month or the start of next.  I'm simultaneously very proud and very tired of the work that went into this issue.  It was my first experience laying out an entire magazine, composed of 40 pages of content, and the outside and inside covers, making 44 individual 8 1/2" x 11" layouts in the span of around 3 weeks.  And while each on is, barring instruction otherwise, set up to be in full color, the big question mark now is whether or not we have the budget to accommodate that luxury.  Time will tell, I guess.  At least there is some talk about hosting a virtual copy on the internet, free to readers.  Should that pan out, I will certainly post the link here for all of you – I recommend it heartily.  I'm also thrilled to say that I finally found a forum for my crosswords, in only my fourth attempt to get one published.  They are high quality, matching all the rules of the best newspaper crosswords (i.e. no less-than-three letter words, every letter goes to two words, radial symmetry) and is to the New York Times puzzle what Junior Varsity football is to Varsity.  So I'm surprised it has taken this long.

That's it on my end for now.  Did I forget anything?  Post a comment!

Funnyquote Friday

Seen at a bus stop in Sandy Point:

"Simma Dung."

It's been an unusual week for me.  What with Labour Day on Monday and the Ministry of Education's Awareness Week since then, this is actually the first day I've been back in to work since last Friday.  I was still able to go in to school and coach the Iron Band on Tuesday and Thursday, with the intention of preparing the students for a potential upcoming performance in Challengers– one that is now looking less and less likely.  (More on that next week.)

In the meantime, I've broken through another barrier by making friends and getting some facetime with some third- and fourth-semester Ross students, this particular bunch being as nerdy as me!  So it's nice to have a second circle of acquaintances who are easy to relate to, and who can help me use up some of my free time here.  But that might not become actually useful until this summer: my May is starting to crowd up, especially with 50th Anniversary planning logistics.  I just hope I can fit it all in before leaving for Hiawassee on the 25th.

Of Grease and Caprice

Well, as mentioned on Friday, the long Easter weekend made for ample opportunity for some rather unique experiences, recounted here.

There is a Kittitian tradition of spending Good Friday cooking a lunch of Salt Fish and Fritters while the kids go outside and fly kites in the mild early summer weather.  I took part in the festivities by visiting a friend in Trinity, the next village over from my home, sharing an afternoon meal and enjoying local company over board games and dominoes.  (In fact, don't spread this around too much, but I actually beat a couple local friends in a dominoes best-of-three contest, and they take their dominoes very seriously! /needless whispering)  A good time was had by all, and I was able to get my mind off of being the only guy in the office that day who didn't know that Good Friday was a day off.

Saturday I got to try out a new technique for keeping in touch with family.  In the way that only he could come up with, Dad set up the Scrabble board in such a way that the webcam on their end was looking down onto the reflective letters on the board and on my stand, and the four of us together played a couple rounds of Skype rock-'em sock-'em with letters.  A truly novel experience, it made for a pleasant evening that followed a day otherwise dominated by ennui.  But now that Easter weekend is over, I do anticipate more of my friends from home being available for Skype-ing.

I did attend church on Easter Sunday, naturally.  And apart from the overtly ornamental garb worn by the clergy and the use of the Easter-only passages in the BCP, there wasn't too drastic a change in the Eucharistic service.  Which was fine by me; on a hot summer morning in a stone building filled with warm bodies and no A/C, I didn't particularly care for the service to go over the requisite 2 hours.

Monday, on the other hand, was a day like no other before.  It started with the trappings of a beautiful early summer day, inviting those of us that had been cooped up in our 328 sq. ft. apartments all weekend out into town, into the sun, onto the ferry dock, where the community was holding its annual Greased Pole Walk for Easter Monday.  The rules are simple: walk out onto an anchored telephone pole that has been slathered with pink engine grease, keep your footing long enough to reach the suspended ham at the end, and untie the ham whilst still clinging to the pole.  I took good video capture of all of the goings-on, and compiled it in the highlight reel for this month.  Spoiler alert: the whole event only took 8 1/2 minutes before the eventual victor nabbed the prize.  So our 2 hour wait in the sun was nearly for naught.

But we had that in hand, too: afterwards, to cool down, we trucked over to the Bird Rock Hotel beach, and soaked up some Easter Monday sun and shade.  I was lucky enough, while there, to make friends with a Ross student interested in a lot of the same things that I am.  She is on her two week break before summer semester begins, so she has lots of time to pal around with my PCV friends and I during that time – just long enough to share in our planned Cinco de Mayo celebration!  (Don't be the guy that asks when that is...)

Oh, and despite all the busyness, it seems I have the highlights video ready a little earlier this month:

Funnyquote Friday

Thanks for the short hiatus; I'm ready to get back to business.  And starting us off is your quote for this Old Year's Friday:

"I think it's just despicable that you're in 

a short-sleeve shirt and shorts..."

Give my grandmother some credit: she has been stuck in North Georgia in seven inches of snow and sub-freezing weather for a week.  And the cabin fever and uncomfortable chills can make for some serious envy for those of us struggling with 75° weather, 12-hour sunshine and ocean breezes. 

And now for the news from Peace Corps Land.  The country directorship of the Eastern Caribbean region changed hands, on schedule, as we were told it would.  Remarkable, however, was that the new director visited us here at St. Kitts and brought with him some disruptive news: the new batch of EC83 PC volunteers scheduled to start in February of 2011 have been reassigned to different posts, leaving the Federation with no incoming PCVs for at least one year.  This means that upwards of 10 NGOs on island, including the Ministry of International Trade which I have started teaming up with on an island-wide entrepreneurship program, will not be receiving their promised 2-year volunteers.  (Which means, in their case, that I'll probably be picking up a lot of the duties that were intended for the newbie.)  Presumably, requests for 6-month response volunteers can still be made, though nothing is certain.  Since a dearth of funding is the primary culprit for choosing to send the volunteers to other EC islands, we volunteers remaining on St. Kitts have a few concerns yet.

Christmas Eve dinner at a fellow PCV's house in Middle Island was a great holiday joy.  Never have I ever spent Christmas away from home before, but I cannot imagine an easier first step.  Everybody was pleasant and cheerful, the food was unparalleled, and Santa didn't do too badly either!  With a gift exchange at the end of the evening, I walked home with a sheet of rum cake – a very merry carb-filled Christmas indeed.  Also, a note to self: Christmas enchiladas a must in future years.  Who knew that not only were the colors naturally festive, but also that they paired well with everything?

I did have a traditional Christmas meal with my host family, but it was on the afternoon of the 26th, which worked out fine for me.  I was pleased to see them, bake a homemade, homegrown pumpkin pie for them, and fill up on a solid holiday meal before staying up all night in preparation for J'ouvert.  For which, after some deliberation, I decided to join the Digicel-sponsored J'ouvert troupe, which many of my friends, and about 500 people in all, also marched.  We started from Bird Rock at about 2 A.M. and marched the Bay Road over several hours, joining up with 4-5 other large troupes and all congregating at the Circus by dawn of the 27th.  Paint, noisemakers, and cups littered the streets where thousands of people had spent the daybreak (J'ouvert means daybreak in French) dancing and marching to really, really, REALLY loud soca music.  By the time I got home that morning, I had to decide if whether my refrigerator was running double time, or if my ears had not stopped ringing yet.

Well, I guess that's about it.  I'm staying busy with projects that I lined up for myself before the winter holidays, and the weather is still so perfectly acceptable that I can conceivably go to the beach or hiking in the interior any day I want, and don't have to wait for a warm weather day.  And now, for those of you that were good this year and read all the way to the end, here is the December highlights video.

Yes, It Is The Same St. Lucia

Thanks to everyone that sent me birthday greetings on Monday.  In addition to your felicitations, I received a birthday card from my Sunday School class (very special; much thanks, everyone!) and a package from home, which included my much-anticipated birthday present, a replacement camera!  So I can for-sure regale readers with pictures and video of the holiday goings-on here in the Federation.

I had an enjoyable weekend, planning for the festivities at the beginning of the week.  Monday was Santa Lucia day, the Swedish Christmas holiday and the first day of winter before the Gregorian calendar moved it to the 21st.  I celebrated by attending my church's annual Christmas concert, a rather big to-do on the island; the Governor General and the Prime Minister were in attendance, among hundreds of others.  My host father sang in the choir representing our parish, and some other friends sang in the St. Christopher Memorial Choir.  The combined ensembles finished the performance with a rousing rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus, which effectively lodged itself in my cerebrum for the rest of the night (not a bad thing, incidentally).  Some other favorites included Schubert's Ave Maria on trumpet and a male solo of O Holy Night.

And though it was technically my 25th birthday on Monday evening, I chose to celebrate it with friends on Tuesday evening instead.  As mentioned before, about ten of us went to dinner at Domino's, which is conveniently located next door to the movie theater, before catching a discounted viewing of Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Without going into the details here, suffice to say the movie was mostly worth the wait.  I was thrilled to have everyone that could make it over to the apartment afterward, where I was delighted to entertain for an hour-and-a-half before we all got rained on waiting for the bus.  But that's okay; it was a warm rain.

All the while at work I have been helping clean up around the office.  In the islands, what we think of as "spring cleaning" is generally observed in the weeks anticipating Carnival.  It's still quite warm here, of course, with seasonal lows of 75 degrees, and so there's no need to find a small hole to hibernate in for four months like those in the Midwest are already having to do.  No cabin fever, no spring cleaning, no snow.  In fact, I might just find myself at the beach on Christmas! (Now it sounds a little like bragging.)

I think I'm coming down with a mild sinus infection; I've had mucus issues for a few days now, and now the fever and lack of energy is kicking in.  But it's not enough to knock me off my feet, so I'll just wait for it to pass in time.  And with Carnival and J'ouvert looming on the horizon, I've still got a few things to take care of before everything on the island shuts down until the new year.  In the meantime, find some time one evening to Skype me!

Funnyquote Friday

Here's your quote for this week, fresh from my latest Skype conference with my good friend Michael:

"You know, algebra is just so useful, 

all of the time... I'm just sayin'."

Thank you, Michael, for that nugget of wisdom.  I can't help but concur, and point out that I have been conveying this sentiment for many, many years now.  But, hey, small steps, right?

Well, yesterday was indeed Turkey day, but fighting off a 72-hour bug kept me home from the celebrations at a fellow PCVs house.  I was able to contribute my green bean casserole in exchange for a plate of some very delicious and unapologetically carbohydrate-laden T-giving comfort foods, but I was heartbroken to miss out on the chance to share a special American tradition with my comrades.  Especially when I received a text asking if I had a football to bring to the get-together.  Imagine!  I haven't got to throw a football around since, oh, November of 2008, when Georgia Tech was gearing up to thwomp Miami.  Good times.

As an update, I felt well enough this morning to go into work for the first time since Monday.  I worked a little from home this week, and was able to complete the latest revision of the NSTP's Career Guidance Handbook, leaving only a handful of content decisions that need to be made by my counterparts before it is dubbed fully finished.  In addition, I am going to seek confirmation on my intention to begin working on curriculum for an Entrepreneurship class, an initiative that has been sought not only by my office but by the government as well.  I anticipate getting a basic skeleton of the program prepared before January, when I will work closely with my office associates to flesh it out with some practicality.  With no cash flow to fund common resources needed to run a class, we will be relying on what resources we have available, e.g. human expertise, the internet, in-office printers, etc.

Go Jackets!  Beat U (sic) GAg!

P.S. The November highlight video should be ready, on schedule, at the end of the month.

Some Tricks, but More Treats

I'm officially submitting my application for honorary membership in the Olympia Academy, posthaste.  I require nary a response to be assured of my immediate acceptance.  The inspiration comes from my recent acquisition of a copy of Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein, wherein the author recounts Einstein's core group of fellow physicist philosophers that would stay up nights and talk and charlar about... well, physics, philosophy, and no doubt some other topics as well.  Unfortunately, such a congregation I have not yet found on island, though I am continuing to search away.  I still require the services of Skype to take advantage of the willingness of friends both in the States and on other islands that share my penchant for deep discussions, but LIME assures me that they will be able to install a cable modem at my apartment by Tuesday.

As many a reader may have noticed, this past weekend was Halloween.  The common traditions associated with the predominantly U.S. holiday are not observed here in the islands – instead, a slightly similar glorification of pranks and trickery loosely associated with Guy Fawkes (mostly in the form of lighting firecrackers in the street, day or night) takes place the last week of October through to the first week of November.  But the dearth of familiarity did not stop a half-dozen of us PCVs from getting together, baking sweets like fudge muffins and rice krispie treats, and watching Halloween movies like Casper and Shaun of the Dead.  Nobody dressed up this time; it's underrated hard to pull off, since there are no costume shops (at least not geared towards Halloween costumes) and we couldn't be expected to pack anything so frivolous.  All in all, it made for a delightful evening, and I didn't face a bit of homesickness until I went into the office this morning and explained all of the familiar details of the U.S. tradition to coworkers...

I was true to myself and did my running this morning before work.  Furthermore, I was pleased with my performance: I ran for a full 20 minutes, going in my estimation around 2.5 miles in that time, and walked the last mile.  I ran from my apartment at Mattingly along the bypass freeway all the way to the Monkey Hill roundabout, which is about halfway down the SKB airport's landing strip, and back.  I plan to continue this habit 5 days a week, maybe meet my friend at Sandy Point to run Brimstone Hill on Saturdays, and rest on Sundays.  I'm staying realistic, which is to say I'm not going to get overly upset if I'm not able to maintain that regimen for long; alternatively, if it works out and I get bored, I want to eventually add push-ups and sit-ups to it as well.

It was brought to my attention the other day that I have not shared with my readers the nature of public transportation on island.  Since I myself am prohibited by the Peace Corps from either operating a motor vehicle or even riding a motorcycle while on island, I am quite subject to relying on public transportation every day I need to go anywhere except grocery shopping.  So here's how it works: there are two forms of for-hire transportation available to the public, taxis and buses.  However, one is not immediately differentiable from the other – both taxis and "buses" are actually full-size 16 passenger vans of every color under the sun and with large, garish script on all sides declaring the handle of that bus. (For example, some buses on that frequent my route are "Mr. War," "Sacrifice," "Big Blue," "Hulk," "Up 2 De Time," "Passion," "Jehovah Jireh," "Crunch Time," et al.)  The only real way to discriminate between Taxis and Buses-For-Hire are their license tags: Taxis read TA #### and are yellow, while buses read HA #### ("H" for "hire") and are green.  And it's vitally important that one discriminate between the two: a bus will take you three towns over for EC$2.50 or to the other side of the island for EC$3.75, but a Taxi will take you anywhere on the island for a mere... EC$45.00.   So no taxi riding while I'm here!

The bus names are a kind of cultural touchstone here; not only does it serve to differentiate bus drivers and their services (it works, too: some buses won't fill up at the terminal because people recall which ones don't have air conditioning, have bad tires, etc.), but it also is a form of expression and abject pride for the bus owners, many of whom willingly go by their handles in public and around town when not driving their buses.  In fact, it's given me time to think about what I would want my bus to be named, were I to have my own.  And I think that, short of settling on only one thing, I would want it to read, "All Dem Tings" in the drippy goo font that is so popular in that circle.  Have a different idea?  Post the name to your own virtual bus here.

MIG's created a blog.  So read it if you want.  I mean, I don't know what he thinks he has to say, and it's not as interesting as mine, certainly, but... whatever.

Also, 0 Comments on the video? Really?  I put a lot of effort into that, people!

Lots of Things Going Down

In a good way.

Brimstone Hill Fort

The Northern Range and cannonade from Brimstone Hill

For those that were concerned about my appearance changing while down here, I am finally starting to see a little color on my face and forearms.  Here's the rub, though: unless I'm at the beach, I'm generally in business attire.  So if I come home with a tan at all, it will be the most awesome farmer's tan you have ever laid eyes on.  And on a related if unconnected note, the more I look in the mirror, the more I see a small, tasteful ring in my left ear.  Is the heat getting to me, or am I on to something?  Let me down gently with your thoughts and comments here.




 Went up to Brimstone Hill on Saturday.  A beautifully preserved and renovated fort from the English colonial period, built in the 1600s.  It offered some Pirates Of The Caribbean-esque thrills on the inside and some one-of-a-kind views of the western quadrant of the island on the outside.  My class of EC82 went there for a cultural history training class, where we enjoyed singing some local folk songs and learning about colonial life on the island.  You could even see St. Eustatius and Saba from there, our neighboring islands to the Northwest.  They are part of the same island chain as St. Christopher and Nevis, but are Dutch territories.  They hold a population of 4000+ combined.

Sandy Point Town and St. Eustatius in the distance

The Federation is excited about 27 years of independence!  Activities have been held nearly every day this weekend.  On Sunday, my fellow Peace Corps and I were invited to the St. Kitts National Youth Parliament Association's monthly meeting, where we were graced with beautiful artistic expressions of music, dance and poetry, each laced with a grain of social commentary.  At the end, the Peace Corps as a whole was thanked for its contributions to the state in recent years.  Moreover, the SKNYPArians volunteered their 40 hours of expected community service to each of the state services represented there, and I know a few Peace Corps ears perked up at that point.

Afterward I attended the Federation's State Service for Independence, a sort of special mass at the Roman Catholic church in town.  All of the state dignitaries are there, the Prime Minister and his cabinet, many legislators and judiciary, the military, diplomats, the consular corps, and other public servants.   In addition, my host father sings in the National Massed Choir, which performed three beautiful arrangements of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, the Lord's Prayer, and a spiritual.  They were a hit; the congregation in its entirety was very pleased and impressed.  About halfway through the mass, my Anglican church's assistant rector was asked to deliver the message, and he spoke for a full hour on this year's theme, "Strengthening Families for Positive Nation Building."  Never have I ever sat on a wooden pew and listened to as moving or challenging a message for a full hour before.  But the audience was captivated and, some I believe convicted, by the call to stronger family life in the islands.

Got stuck with a whole load of homework this weekend.  I don't think it was meant to offset the fun we are having during the long weekend, but it effectively tempers our attitudes to some degree (probably for the better).  Training has been somewhat repetitive this past week, but the promise of only three more weeks is keeping most of us afloat.  I face the spectrum of challenges from day to day, but maintain a positive attitude and confidence and optimism for the near future.  Thanks for each of your continued prayers.

Funnyquote Friday

Seen on the bottles of a local water distributing label:

"The Best Water People"

Hyphens, it turns out, are very important.  And language, unlike addition, does not have associative identities.

Happy Federation independence, everybody!  National Heroes Day was celebrated on Thursday, and Sunday the 19th is official Independence Day, making for a long, long weekend for us.  My island is even a little bigger now: I enjoyed circumnavigating the island yesterday, taking the bus with a friend to Trinity, where we met up with some other PCVs for a late breakfast and a walk down to the volcanic rock beach.  Then a bus to the northwest corner of the island and Dieppe Bay, home of a beautiful black sand beach.  Unfortunately, what with Igor stirring up some stellar waves, today was not a day for beach relaxing on the Atlantic side.  But we toured the fishing cove anyway, and caught a bus to Saddlers.  After walking around the village for a little while, we caught a bus all the way back to Basseterre, completing our clockwise tour of the island.

I don't yet know what plans are in store for the long weekend, but I'm increasingly excited, the trip around the island going a long way towards keeping me upbeat.

Thanks for the comments, everybody, and if I forgot anything feel free to ask away.