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.

Lessons Remembered

I came down with a very mild dengue fever a week ago Monday, so I took that day off from work.  Now, one week later, I'm feeling better and more rested.  But I'm concerned that my effort to save money by further limiting my groceries to only inexpensive, easily-stored foodstuffs like spaghetti, tuna, or macaroni and cheese, is taking its toll on my body.  In Pre-Service Training, we were taught to eat leafy greens and plenty of veggies and proteins to try and stave off common illnesses.  Instead, it's just bread and sugar, bread and sugar, for every meal (and sometimes salt).  Oatmeal, cheese bread, or pop tarts for breakfast; spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, or sandwiches for dinner; leftovers for lunch.  With little to no variation for weeks at a time, my enjoyment and interest in eating is waning fast.

Well, I think I've finally reached it: the second of two anticipated dips in morale during a typical PCV's term of service.  Back during Pre-Service Training, we were taught that the average volunteer goes through two valleys in the span of a two year term of service: the first after six months, the second after one year.  My thought at the time was that I would have an irregular graph, something with dips and peaks at different times from everybody else.  As it turns out, I was wrong – my chart would look the same as the average volunteer's, and I'm currently riding through the deepest period of frustration and disenchantment.

In addition, I'm having some trouble finding things to write about these days.  Contrarily, I don't seem to have any difficulty being inspired to extrapolate some trends from the NSTP's new secondary-school trainees database, or the average points scored from all 462 different dice-roll combinations in Zilch.  It seems that my head is so full of numbers, I have no space left for emotions and words to express them.  That was one of the discoveries of my anxiety therapy some years ago, and at the time I made strides towards improving my ability to be more self-aware of my own emotions.  Short of any dramatic backsliding in this area, I believe the cause is more related to a dearth of variation of experience lately.  It was some time ago that I crossed from daily seeing or participating in some new and positive experience – now I find myself going weeks through the same routine, only to be surprised when I realize it's Friday afternoon and I've created nothing new for the week.  And I know myself well enough to know that is what I derive the most job satisfaction from: producing new and useful creations to the people and companies I serve.  But I can't seem to refocus on creating new ideas for projects at work when I have these unfinished, unmoving new ideas from months ago crowding the tunnel of my mind.

On Thursday, I drove with my host family to the grocery/hardware store across town, in order to pick up some lightbulbs that work on a 220V circuit.  I can now see in my apartment after 6:30 PM!  There was a bit of a scare at the checkout line, however: while I was carefully monitoring the total price of my groceries, knowing that I had exactly EC$185 on me, I forewent purchasing the potato chips when the total exceeded $165.  Then as I pulled the cash from my wallet, I noticed there was only $165 there – $20 had gone to purchasing the lightbulbs at the hardware!  Oh wait, I also had the change left over from that transaction.  In the end, there was just enough to cover the groceries.

Oh, and before I forget, here's to 6000 pageviews.  I think reaching 10,000 in my term of service could be a real possibility – and remember, I have a surprise for everyone at 9000!

TS Irene Does Her Thing

Let's start with the good news: My girlfriend, a second-year student at the Ross University Vet School, did well enough on her final exams to pass each of her classes, and indeed raise her overall GPA.  She will thus be allowed to continue her schooling here in the Caribbean.

...That might be about it.  In what proved to be a very difficult weekend for both of us, there were not a lot of upsides to lean on, apparently.  What followed this happy news was Tropical Storm Irene, which effectively knocked out all on- and off-island travel for all of Saturday and Sunday.  The flight that my girlfriend had been scheduled to leave on was booked Sunday, and summarily canceled.  However, apparently contrary to standard airlines procedure, she was not contacted regarding the cancellation, and did not find out about it until she checked online at the recommendation of her school friends, most of whom were also vying for available flights to the States.  By the time she checked, the earliest flight available was Thursday, four days later than originally scheduled.  In lieu of using her local phone and rapidly running down the minutes, she needed to get to a landline at the school, something that under the conditions of the storm proved to be difficult: we hitched a lift with a friend, whose car ran headlong into the first 18-inch deep puddle it saw, and flooded.  In a drive that takes less than 5 minutes, we were stalled outside the gate to the Ross University parking lot for about 15 minutes.

When we finally got to the student center, the facility was happily open to students, but naturally most of the services, including the coffee shop and telephones, were unavailable.  With no phone, breakfast or dry feet to comfort us, we walked about a quarter of a mile in the storm to the on-campus dorms, where we were able to use a friend's phone to call American Airlines.  By this point, nearly an hour after checking online, the first available flight out of St. Kitts left Saturday.  Over the course of a long and fretful conversation with the sales representative, even that changed to the following Sunday, meaning that all American Airlines flights were booked solid for a week.  What with students all leaving at the same time, in addition to the usual travelers, plus the two daily flights that had been canceled, my girlfriend could not book a flight in the time that she had to leave.  Unwilling to pay full fare for a trip that would now last, at best, 5 days, she refunded her ticket and is now looking for ways to occupy herself in the two weeks she has free now.

All this might have been enough to deal with, had it not been for an incident, somewhat existentially comical in nature, that happened Saturday night: while laying in bed, she heard creaking and cracking under her, and presumed the cats were being particularly vigorous and unrestrained in their faux boxing.  But instead, when she looked, she observed a perceptible incline in certain tiles on the floor of her bedroom, both directly under the bed and around the large vanity dresser.  She quickly jumped out of bed to safer, not-sinking ground, and alerted her landlady to the increasing displacement in the slope of her room, and the subsequent cracking of tiles at the joints.  Naturally, her landlady dismissed it, citing a similar incident in an adjacent apartment the previous summer.  This scenario would cause any reasonable person discomfort, but doubly so to one who was dealing with the realities that she will not get to see her family as planned, in conjunction with all of the stresses and concerns over the most difficult semester of graduate school she had faced yet.  The poor girl felt like the ground really was sinking right underneath her at this point.

So what all this means for me is that I was stuck away from my apartment for the duration of the storm, and even stuck in it for some.  Fortunately, though the rainfall was torrential, the winds and flooding were not destructive, and the island and my apartment look not too worse for the wear.  I had never planned on leaving my apartment through a storm without my being there, however, and a few oversights may yet come back to haunt me: I left my grill out on the porch after preparing Grilled Jerk Chicken on Friday night, and the exterior window in my kitchen was left open all weekend, ensuring that my previously-clean dishes got an extra washing, and the floor accumulated just a smattering of moisture as well.  By all appearances, everything else remained dry and intact.  Though I was caught off-guard this time, I'll be extra cautious and prepared to get even a last-minute lift back home in time for the next big storm, whenever that may be.

Funnyquote Friday

Last Sunday at church, during the notices:

"...And a very happy birthday to Ms. Janet Caines.

She was born on the same day as Fidel Castro."

I've avoided the issue long enough: it is getting increasingly difficult for me to post on a regular thrice-weekly schedule.  The combination of getting caught up in other projects, sporadic Internet connectivity, and a full-on collision with the summer doldrums has left me both incapable and moderately unmotivated.  So apologies if you've pulled up the page in recent weeks and didn't experience something dramatic and new.  I guess the same goes for new video blog entries as well.

On to the news for the week.  I was successful in putting in motion two new projects for the upcoming school year, namely a youth group associated with the St. George's Anglican Church, as well as a distribution outlet for my Math Games curriculum.  I'll put a little time into a couple different entries next week elaborating on the direction of both projects, but for now, the good news is that both meetings went better than expected, and I've got some new developments that will, hopefully, ultimately supplant the school's projects that I finished up at the end of last school year.  Also, the word back from St. Lucia on the Serious Ting is that we are very close to going to print with it, and we may be able to cajole full-color output for it!  So that's very exciting.

My girlfriend has finished her final exams for this trimester, and will be heading home to the States for an overdue two-week vacation.  In that time, I'll be responsible for watching her two cats, Nebula and Pigeon.  I'm happy to do it; the way I see it, at worst I'll have some additional company while she's away, and at best, I'll have a better understanding of whether or not I would enjoy keeping a pet in the 14 months I have remaining here.  I'm also taking advantage of the excuse to give my apartment a good scrub-down, mostly of the wash dirty dishes + clear cobwebs variety.

In other news, apparently, I am a cruciverbalist.  I never knew there was such a thing, until now.  So watch out for any future updates involving crisscrossing words.

Funnyquote Friday

As I've mentioned, I'm the new layout editor for the Serious Ting, the Eastern Caribbean's Peace Corps Volunteer-prepared publication.  One of the common departments in every issue of the Ting is a welcome to all incoming PCVs, as per their starting class, (i.e. EC83 in this issue) as well as a farewell to all outgoing PCVs.  This time, our wise chief editor from Grenada decided to add a token bit to each outgoing PCV's profile, including a short message of advice from that PCV to the new class of incoming PCVs.  One EC80 from St. Vincent wrote, as his advice to other PCVs,

"Don't take too much advice from other PCVs."

Nice; I can't wait to see the smirks on people's faces when they read that.

Unilaterally preparing the layout for each article continues to go well enough.  All in all, I'll have laid out a dozen-and-a-half 1 to 2 page articles, two profile conglomerations of 50+ total profiles, the covers, and some special announcements and fillers.  I'm still on pace to be done by my deadline, the end of this month.  Even so, I'm starting to feel the fatigue of going through the same steps over and over again.  And even with 90% of the articles completed, the incoming and outgoing profiles represent an intimidating juggernaut of tedium that I do not relish toiling through.  The cover, on the other hand, is completed as well, but I can't in good conscience release the artwork to you, my readers, yet.  I'll wait until it has been definitively approved and printing has begun on the magazines, expected about a month from now.

In some unfortunate news, I went through a scary ordeal this week: my apartment was the site of an attempted burglary, shortly before dawn Tuesday morning.  Some person, whose gender, race, and identity I will likely never know, was attempting to take advantage of my (as since remedied) habits of leaving the porch light off during the night, leaving just one of the front windows open for a breeze, leaving my laptop out on the table in view of exterior windows, and declining to lock the deadbolt while inside, given it is a keyed entry from both sides.  I was not completely vulnerable - I had strong, unyielding burglar bars over the windows, a locked doorknob and hand bolt in the door frame.  However, the burglar's plan was apparently to bypass as many of these precautions as possible.  He (I'll refer to the burglar as a he, despite not being certain) got much of the way into his plan: (1) he first managed to remove the screen outside my center window, which was cracked open, and slide the window all the way open, (2) then he removed the screen on the window closest to my front door and reached inside through the open window, unlatching the lock on the closed window, and slid that window open, (3) and finally he proceeded to reach his arm into the living room, between the burglar bars, towards the front doorknob, in a clear attempt to unlock the door from the inside.  I was awakened by the sounds of muffled squeaks and creaks, what I initially mistook to be the sounds of yet another neighborhood cat being brutalized by some unseen, outdoor midnight assailant.  When the sound persisted, I sat up in bed and immediately noticed the shape of a man's head and torso cast in shadow onto an interior wall.  In one swift motion, my heart stopped and fell into by stomach, and I leaped out of bed, shouting loudly and as intimidatingly as I could muster, in an attempt to make my presence known.  For one long, daunting, hairy moment, the burglar, who was crouching and whose arm was the only thing I could make out in the dim light, hesitated; I'm still not certain why.  The most likely explanations are that either in that instant I managed to startle him almost as much as he startled me, or that, very simply, in his attempt to escape, he released the window he was holding up (which is unable to stay up on its own) and trapped his arm for a split second.  But in the heat of the moment, all I could think was, Oh dear, he's not running away.  This is bad.  But even as I took the time to formulate these thoughts, he was already out of the window, and taking off into the night.

For the next several minutes, I surveyed the scene, and took stock of my security firewalls, threats, blessings, and curses.  I wondered in passing why Bouncer, the neighbor's dog who lives upstairs, had not awakened to the sounds.  I noted that my landlord had recently been trying to replace the damaged security lamp on the front of my building, but hasn't been able to muster the Kittitian labor from his vantage point of Trenton, New Jersey.  I supposed that, had the burglar actually managed to reach far enough into the house, there was a small chance that he could have undone the locks and bolts and successfully entered.  I considered what kind of person, who was careful enough to try to not be noticed, would take all of these things in mind, but not that there was a person in the house at the time; did the burglar also carry with him something to defend himself with?  Would I have been in danger had he managed to actually break in?  These thoughts, coupled with the eminently pervasive feeling of being unsettled and anxious, caused me to lie sleeplessly in bed for the next couple hours, right up until dawn.  When I finally woke from some fitful R.E.M. sleep around 10:30, I called in the necessary reports to various Peace Corps officers, and they helped me through that tough first day.  My office's administrative assistant, a good friend to me, was even kind enough to visit me that morning; I can't express how relieving it was on my sense of safety to have another person in the apartment at that time.  After spending much of the night being terrified by every new shadow, or curtain movement, or dog bark, my nerves were frayed and my mind was highly, again, unsettled.  I would remain that way for the rest of the day, even through the evening when I went with my girlfriend to see Harry Potter at the theater.  The more I told myself that things were going to be okay, that I shouldn't worry, that I had taken the necessary precautions to ensure the strict unliklihood of this happening again, the more it became clear that I was far from being over the anxiety of it all.

Now, three days later, I am feeling much better.  I'm sleeping normally again, and I feel firmly ensconced in my little fortress of an apartment.  I have taken to leaving the porch light on all day and all night now (only useful at night, obviously, but hey, I'm not paying for the electricity), and sealing up all three façade windows whenever I'm not awake and in the apartment.  Additionally, I'm locking the doorknob, the hand bolt, and the deadbolt every night, and I found some plastic stubs that insert into the window screen frames that lock them in. 

Generally I would give you all of these updates at different points during the week, but given my busy schedule and my state of mind, this is the first opportunity I have had that I have been able and willing to post a log entry.  So, soldiering on...

I presented my six months' worth of work on the Client Profile Database to the National Skills on Thursday.  The meeting was hardly brief – when we started around 10:00, I was through with all of the points of interest by about 10:45.  But the meeting carried on until 11:45, with the gaping hour devoted to questions, clarifications, details, and other minutiae.  I'm well enough used to fielding questions like this for upwards of an hour; I guess I'm just out of practice.  I was pretty spent by the end of it.  And the unveiling of this massive ≈2MB database spreadsheet was not met with the enthusiasm that I expected; but everyone seemed comfortable enough in the idea of using it, anyway, which is the good news.  Just a few cosmetic changes remain, and in the meantime I busy myself with finding new ideas for projects.  I already have a few good ones – maybe I save them for another post.

Thanks for reading this drawn-out post, and wishes for a good weekend from the Caribbean!

Two Empty Ends of Coconuts...

In a display of superior turnaround time, the pictures in this entry were taken (drum roll please...) last night!  In a widely publicized and highly anticipated experiment in the kitchen involving sharp knives, fish flanks and coconuts, I spent the better part of yesterday evening preparing a rather large helping of Coconut Fried Fish.  I took the liberty of putting together a picture compilation of the procedure as well, starting with the extraction of the coconut juice and meat:

After draining the coconut water into the container on the left,
I broke the shell into two halves by dropping it on the floor (no kidding!)

Using a rather simpleminded technique of scraping out the meat with a knife,
I managed to produce enough coconut shavings for my recipe.

Before and After of the knifing-the-meat-out method before resorting to
prying the meat off of the shell with a spoon.

The final collection of coconut meat; all of those good
coconut shavings!  I'm going to have to find another one.

The process took a little longer than I expected; getting all of the meat out of the coconut took about an hour.  And during it all I felt like quite the historian, finding myself in a situation where countless other humans thousands of years ago found themselves: upon being presented with a fruit not before experienced, having to decide how on earth to extract the delicious contents locked within.  I was pleased, therefore, to succeed in my attempts, though not without the help of a simple tool and a tile floor.  Progressing at last to the cooking portion, I populated the line in preparation of frying the fish fillets:

Dousing the fish fillets in coconut milk and egg whites before coating with
flour and a breadcrumb-coconut blend ensured superior coconut frying goodness.

The final product, after adding the flash-fried fish to a pan of fresh
vegetables simmering in coconut milk and citrus juices.

And look - a novelty cup to boot!  A souvenir from my uniquely island experience.

It was a fun experiment, though much more demanding than any of my previous cooking ventures.  Perhaps, in the future, purchasing pre-shredded sweetened coconut is the way to go?  On the other hand, I wouldn't get to add to my collection of awesome island drinkware.  I'm shooting for a set before the end!

P.S. Don't be the guy that asks, "What about the other half?  Don't you already have a set?"  It has a hole in it, silly!

Icarus Would Be A Bad Name For A Plane

Yet more from the Mostly Annoying But Also Slightly Gross files: I discovered not one, but two nests of the local breed of sugar ant in my house last weekend.  One was hidden (are you ready for this?...) in the spine of a book on my bookshelf.  The little maniacs had gotten in Friedman's The World Is Flat sometime in the last two months and started nesting in there!  I wouldn't have noticed it, either, if I had not seen more than a few ants surreptitiously winding their ways to the book on the end and away from it.  So I Raided both nests and continued about my way.  Not to be outdone, after lounging and reading (something else) in my hammock for a while, I got up only to find a very young specimen of the same orange spider that has been haunting my steps lately lounging along with me in the hammock.  It met an abrupt and unceremonious demise.  Then, as if things could not get any more ghastly, I was enjoying the last runs of Stargate: SG-1 while they were still available on Hulu, only to feel something gently tickling my leg. (!!) A millipede had somehow found its way nearly up to my knee before being detected.  A poor choice, perhaps – its remains are currently being harvested by ants in the garden.  Okay, that's enough of that; I'm holding my breath for more soon! (or just because the pesticide smells like poison)

Thanks for your patience; here's the January highlight video.

Funnyquote Friday

Your quote this week comes from one Dominican student who, starting last week at the Dr. William Connor Primary School despite speaking nearly zero English, explained to me her difficulties in understanding those around her:

"No podría comprender al profesor, 

porque pronuncía mal."

I couldn't help but chuckle at this – the Caribbean accent was even getting in the way of a Spanish speaker understanding.  Hilarity!

I gave my apartment a good cleaning yesterday, which in light of the recent exhibition put on by insectoid residents of the premises was a good idea.  Between Tuesday and Thursday of this week I found another spider of the same species as the New Year's culprit, though this one was much earlier in its life cycle, being only about 2.5 inches and much more manageable.  I removed it from my ceiling with a fly-swatter.  Not moments after laying its deceased remains in the garbage can, I retired to my bedroom to find a large black cockroach about 1.5 inches long climbing on the curtains.  What was it doing there?  There were no survivors left to inform the council.  Finally, yesterday in my kitchen, I was approached by an inexperienced but highly persistent centipede, measuring only about 3 inches.  I was not as impressed with its number of thoracic segments so much as its unwillingness to die for its cause.  Squishing its multifaceted exterior between the rubber sole of my shoe and the tile floor dealt it no apparent bodily damage, and only served to pin it in place.  After half-a-dozen similar attempts, I even tried to sever its southeasterly half from its northwesterly half with a steak knife, but to no avail.  This guy... is a survivor!  Anyway, a solid pounding and Kleenex removal later, my apartment is presumably carnivorous critter free – if you don't count the dozen-or-so daddy long legs camped out in my bathroom, presumably getting an early start on the next Harry Potter release.

I don't think there's any other big news here.  I've never seen a post on this blog earn so many hits so fast before the last one, which is either a testament to its interestingatude, or just a natural offshoot of having an increased readership from previous months.  And yet no comments?  What up with that?

Funnyquote Friday

Your quote for the week is a sign on Church Street just outside my parish of St. George's Anglican:

In truth, this wasn't that funny to me, but a friend pointed it out as being deceptively ironic, so hopefully it is sufficiently funny to readers.

Big news!  I'm scheduled to be on Nevis all day today, filming a gender awareness march directed by a fellow PCV there.  So I get to take the ferry across and see the other 1/4 of the Federation.  I am very much looking forward to it; I've met so many fantastic Nevisians already in my time here on St. Kitts, that I want to find out what all of the hype is about.

In other news, cooking has been going well; I made delicious tacos complete with homemade salsa last night.  Fun!  Come to find out, however, that a little onion goes a long way, so I definitely need to go easier on the onion next time.  Additionally, I'm giving the passion fruit juice experiment a second go-around, since the last try was kind of disastrous.  So I'll get back to readers on that in due time.

I finally finished hanging all the new/clean curtains in my apartment.  The improvements in the arrangement of light are immense: my bathroom is far more lit up now with a set of half-length sheer curtains for half-length windows that match the kitchen's curtains, and my bedroom is finally dark in the morning thanks to a new set of sufficiently-masculine semi-opaque beaded curtains.  So apart from drilling into the concrete wall, which my neighbor said he has the hardware to do, I am quite nearly done with internal improvements.  Now to just decide what to do with the 36" CRT sitting on my floor.  Anybody with suggestions for pumping a digital signal through to A/V cables?  It'd be great if I could watch DVDs on the monitor without having to finance a DVD player...

Measuring Immeasurable Quantities

I gave my 328 sq. ft. corner of this world a good scrubbing down yesterday, including washing the curtains in the living room.  Even just sweeping the sand, dust, and spiders from the floor is enough to make the place feel 200% less grody.  The decorations are going to be more difficult to hang than I expected: in order to hang a curtain of 50 CDs, I'm going to need something more substantial than the plastic hooks that stick to the wall.  But I don't have a drill to put a screw into a concrete wall, so that's kind of at a standstill for now.  Also, the curtains in the bedroom still need to be replaced with something of the plain and opaque variety.  But those are not readily available at most department stores here on island (who knew?).

I saw my first mongoose on Saturday!  It was looking for food next to Shipwreck, a beachside bar at South Friars Bay, and was later joined by a full-size adult monkey, who, like some bears in Hiawassee, are apparently willing to risk the proximity to large groups of humans when they are confident that food is forthcoming.  Which poses an interesting paradox: apparently the best way to see the natural part of the island, the beautiful animals in their natural habitat, is to go to the least natural part of the island, the tourist corners where food is readily available and locals do not shoo them off.

I'm continuing my efforts to get more in shape, and I'm taking it to the bubble chart!  I promise to glitz up the page very soon.

Funnyquote Friday

Your quote for today comes from my fellow PCV and friend from Halfway Tree, referring to her internet connection:

"If the wire reaches everywhere in your house, 

it counts as wireless."

Well said by someone who carries a generous portion of the requisite Peace Corps optimism.

I am enjoying full-fledged DSL internet at my apartment, finally.  And the plumber came by one morning this week and fixed my hot water knob in the shower.  And I cooked for myself again!  So I am riding high on the shower tower of Skype hype and flour power.

I cooked on Tuesday, this time I fried some eggplant I purchased at the Basseterre market, which opens about three mornings a week and one afternoon when the produce boat from Grenada comes in.  The inspiration came from another time gone by when friends Patrick, P.J. and I found ourselves on campus for summer semester and the need to cook.  Patrick's favorite dish is none other than Eggplant Parmesan, and we teamed up to produce a satisfactory portion for dinner and, in the process, set the smoke alarms off in a deserted Freshman dormitory.  So the Atlanta Fire and Rescue got to appreciate our cooking as well!  I still remember the cooking instructions, and so I used that experience to guide an attempt at fried eggplant with sauteed vegetables on white rice with lentils.  Success?  Let's just say it was infinitesimally better than... edible.

I picked up some passion fruit at the market as well, and am waiting on a friend to show me the right way to juice them.  In case the reader does not know or forgets, this is what the inside of a passion fruit looks like:

So part of the fun of juicing passion fruit is holding back one's gag reflex in the process.  But the end result is so worth it, it comes at an easy cost.

The commercial was a success.  And more importantly, the ensuing Healthy Breakfast Cereal sale was demonstrably successful, to the point that the students ran out of cereal to sell within the first hour of opening.

Progress at my primary attachment, the National Skills Training Programme, is progressing, if slowly.  I am loosely scheduled to submit the fully revised copy of our new career development material by the middle of November, so more updates are sure to follow this month with regard to the reception of my suggested changes and added clip art.  Following that, I'll put together some interview materials to be used to gather post-service information from previous clients of the NSTP, eventually culminating in statistics and success stories to be used towards acquiring funding.  Also on the docket: setting up data collection systems to accommodate these new data, as well as transferring a large portion of the NSTP's stock of manuals and textbooks to electronic form for accessibility and preservation purposes.

I ran again this morning, making it the third time this week and in three different directions.  This time, I took the dirt road that parallels the main road going west from Mattingly, and ran all the way until I was North-South even with a visible cell tower on a mountain, a displacement of about 1.75 miles by my estimation, whereupon I came across a donkey that was hogging the whole passable portion of the trail.  So I turned around and ran back.

Funnyquote Friday

Here's your quote, the salutation to a note left by the PCVs who left to me their wonderful apartment:

"Enjoy the ride!  

P.S. The weird looking thing in the freezer is Conch."

*horrified sharp intake of breath*

But in all sincerity, thanks again to you guys for all of your thoughtfulness and generosity in making my transition into the apartment smooth and (mostly) painless.  I've done some rearranging of furniture, added some decorations including a new Federation flag, and enjoyed the hammock on the porch enough for two years already.  I cooked stir-fry for myself last weekend too, which was an important step for me: it meant I'd finally got back to living on my own and being more independent.  I'm still working on some additional decorations, and I think the curtains in the bedroom need to go.  But other than that, some rudimentary repairs that may or may not happen soon, and getting cable internet installed, things are starting to come together acceptably.

After the movie on Monday went so well, I have not one... not two... three requests already for help with specific other slideshow presentations.  I guess that's what I get; maybe I should add "movie making" to my list of interests on my profile?  It's a good thing I enjoy it so much... More work and school updates next week.

A Week in Sugar City

I apologize for my truancy; between moving into my apartment on Friday and Saturday, preparing an 8 minute movie for the Swearing-In Ceremony on Monday, and not having internet at home just yet, this is the first time I have been able to get online since Friday.  I have some good stories, though, and pictures! So you are obliged to forgive me.

Tropical Storm Otto on the Bay Road

Let's begin on Friday.  I moved into my "new" apartment that morning, took inventory stock of everything inside, literally and metaphorically, and rued the advent of a home-cooked meal that would not be mine to enjoy until Sunday night.  I took some pictures and video of the apartment as it was that first day, so that will go up with some other highlights at the end of this month.  Later, I spent the evening working on the movie, and at one point tried to plug an APC surge-protector strip into a 220-Volt adapter plugged into the wall.  The result was a loud BANG and all of the wall lights went out simultaneously.  *shock and dismay* It was clear that I had tripped the breaker on that circuit, but I hadn't even plugged anything into the APC strip yet!  Anybody have any idea why that would happen?  Nobody here had a similar experience, to my knowledge.  Ultimately it was fine, as Mavis helped me find the breaker box in my apartment, and we flipped the circuit back on with no problems.

The Bay Road following Otto

The next morning, Saturday, I was up early and bussed into town to purchase a house fan and EC$140 worth of cleaning supplies.  I gave my place a good scouring, including spending 3 hours on the bathroom alone, but not before getting home and realizing that despite having keys that turn the knob to my bedroom door lock, none of my keys actually unlock my bedroom door.  *extreme dismay* After about two hours of phoning friends and considering options I was eventually able to re-enter my bedroom, and I learned my lesson at that point.  Ultimately, I was able to get my laundry done on schedule as well, with time left in the afternoon for two walks down to the grocery store. 

Front of my apartment at Mattingley Heights

Now with a minimally stocked fridge and pantry, a clean apartment and some clean dishes, I was ready for anything.  Except, apparently, waking up the next morning to find I had accidentally left out my dish of food from the night before instead of putting it away and cleaning out the dish which I had intended to do.  What greeted me was a dish full of ants and a steady oncoming stream to and from the wall.  *mild dismay* It was nothing that a little Windex and Raid wouldn't fix.  (The Windex is perfect for stopping the ants in place immediately and sweeping them up with a paper towel, rather than spraying your dishes and counter with Raid.)

A view of the front step

My host father is gracious enough to give me a lift to church on Sunday mornings, despite my living on my own now, so I attended with him again that Sunday at St. George's Anglican.  I really enjoy it there, I'm getting around to recognizing people and they are getting around to recognizing me, though slower than I would have expected.  With a service identical to an Episcopal service in the States (except being twice as long), it is exactly what I grew accustomed to the last two or three years before moving back to Hiawassee.  The two hour service took only two visits before I didn't even notice anymore, and I'm quickly becoming accustomed to the parish-specific customs and songs.  For example, instead of reciting the Lord's Prayer after taking the offering, the congregation holds hands and sings the Lord's Prayer.  But of course, the music is not written down anywhere, so one must learn by ear the tunes intended to be chanted in both the bulletin and the Book of Common Prayer.  Just a few more visits, and I'll have it, no doubt.

A common Friday night sight from my veranda

Monday was the Swearing-In Ceremony.  As anticipated, it was akin to a college commencement, with formal protocol and remarks from a variety of VIPs, American, Kittitian, Peace Corps, and otherwise.  The Deputy Prime Minister was in attendance, and spoke on behalf of the Prime Minister and the sitting government.  The Deputy Governor-General was also there as Acting Governor-General, presumably because the appointed Governor-General is currently off-island.  Peace Corps's own Eastern Caribbean Country Director was there and made her encouraging comments.

At the Swearing-In Ceremony

I had not had the opportunity to hear the Deputy Prime Minister speak before, even though he is the government's appointed representative from my district, but it turns out he has a bent for the deadpan.  At one point, he apologized that his schedule did not permit him to stay longer, as his assistant scheduled for him a cabinet session that afternoon, but forgot to ask "whether or not he wanted to go to cabinet."  He cited his preference for the present company, and, in apologizing for the absence of the Prime Minister, pointed out that, curiously, he "would rather be in cabinet," to much laughter.

Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Sam Condor

The movie I compiled was a hit, I think.  I got lots of positive feedback from PCVs and host country nationals alike.  Yay, iMovie.  I can say with confidence that the audience laughed in all the right places, and I think the music selection went down well.  Especially popular was the wipe-to-profiles segment at 2:25.  Some people asked how I did that, but a true magician never reveals his secret.  For my part, I thought the music was a perfect fit for each segment, and catchy, too: I had "Don't Stop the Tempo" stuck in my head for days after.  I would have liked to add some footage from some other activities EC82 participated in, but a lack of either material, time left in the movie, or time left to make the movie constricted me to the four segments that ultimately passed muster.  And despite all of the planning and time and thought and attention that had been poured into making the movie happen, I was still so nervous on Monday morning, that I had to stand up in the back of the room whilst it was playing.

Newly dubbed PC Volunteers with PC Staff

But it all went well.  My class of EC82 stood and took our oath of service, not unlike the president's oath of office in structure and content, and signed official forms to the same end.  My fellow PCV from Nevis was asked to deliver the remarks from our training class, and performed with gusto.  He hit all of the good points and kept it brief and entertaining.  I will have his speech, as well as more photo and video footage from the ceremony, included in the highlight video for October.  But if you're dying for more video now, my friend from Antigua posted a video of some of her clips from St. Lucia and the first month at her site.


With that over and done with, most volunteers took the rest of the day off (it was 2 o'clock by the time we were back home, anyway) and we celebrated the end of training and the official beginning of a 730-day commitment to improving community-building capacity and bidirectional cultural discourse in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.  For my part, I am still engaged in my projects at the school and at the NSTP, so more specific updates for those in the future. And that brings everyone up to date.

P.S.  1500 all-time page views today.