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.

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.

Clear Enough to See the Bottom

I kayaked across the channel on Sunday for the second straight year.  My fellow PCV from Boyd's Village and I teamed up to usher across the 130 swimmers participating in the StarMile 2.5 Mile Swim Across the Channel.  We took off from Cockleshell Beach, St. Kitts this time, and swam southeasterly towards Oualie Beach, Nevis, which is the reverse direction from the previous 9 years this competition has been running.  The result was a slightly more difficult trip across, since we had to face a strong current that was about 30° against us, as opposed to in our favor.  Still, the winning time was no worse than previous years, with the fastest swimmer coming in at ≈68 minutes, an astounding pace.  Even kayaking for 2 hours is wearisome (mostly on the wrists and glutes, I've found), and with the majority of the swimmers in at that point, we decided to float ashore as well.  As for Peace Corps representation, this year we fielded just one swimmer and three kayakers, but we encouraged the participation of three friends-of-volunteers and one former PCV.  It is a little disquieting to think that this time next year, there will be no official Peace Corps representation at this fun and challenging local annual event.

I'm going to say that my job search is in full swing, despite not having any replies from the dozen-or-so applications that went out last week.  I am finding ways to keep myself productive, both when I have leads and when I do not.  For example, the latter half of this past week I spent designing my first Graphics Arts and Design résumé, which incorporates a number of alternative elements, like very casual language, humor, logo graphics, and color!  As it is merely an attempt to get me noticed and, hopefully, stand out a little bit from the crowd, I took a lot of liberties in achieving that end.  Of course such action risks being ignored by employers who are interested in someone with more coursework, job experience, or professionalism in his/her CV, but I opted to have a little more in the way of fun and self-expression in this particular work.  And now that is finished, and I can apply to the more artsy positions I have been examining, I find myself with several more leads to once again begin this week with.  So God has been good in keeping me positive, and in seeing fit to use circumstances and my fellow Christians to guide my search thus far.

Not a whole lot going on at work lately – the A Ganar program is off the ground, and appears to be running smoothly so far.  I was informed by my contact at the Beach Allen Primary School that I wouldn't be needed for the next several weeks, as the students begin their first wave of testing on Tuesday, and then Easter break takes them through to the 23rd of April.  So I have a little extra time to get caught up on secondary projects that have been on the back burner so far this year, like finalizing and publishing the Math Games booklet for distribution on-island.  Also, job searching.

Also, a happy birthday shout-out to Jonathan.  As it turns out, 23 is quite a versatile prime number.

The Late Great Update

I'm going to spare my sense of guilt and not bother to look up the exact date of my last post – I know it was some time earlier this month, and that's enough for me.  Better to be proactive in turning this around than to spend time worrying about not.

I say this entirely because this is something I've been spending a whole lot of emotional energy on already this year.  As someone who struggles to find a balance between objective, rational thinking and a healthy expression of sincere emotions, I know that I have a tendency to lose a lot of positivity and productivity when I am confronted with the fear of not living up to my own expectations or, worse, someone's expectations for me.  That fear that has the potential to haunt so much of the work I do here, I find it to be paralyzing – it freezes my desire to move ahead, until the shadow of a fear of anything going wrong has been dealt with.  And, as it would turn out, this is not a realistic way to approach community development.  As I learned firsthand from my Iron Band project, sometimes just moving ahead without all of the pieces clearly in place is, despite all of my expectations, the best course of action.  In that case, I had 10 students to make a band, but no instruments to give them for the first week we met.  I was afraid this would doom the project to oblivion, but instead, we spent the first session just getting to know everyone, inadvertently creating some firm band traditions at the same time, and was equipped with a basic collection of instruments by the next meeting.  Now, however, if this Youth Group idea is to take off, I would need to coordinate the schedules of 5-10 working and busy adults, finding a regular meeting period that doesn't burn out individuals before the project has had a chance to take off.  But, even as I write this, I see the seeds of needless worries, things I cannot control at this stage that probably take care of themselves by the time the problem rolls around.  Or am I right to consider the ultimate outcome of my planning actions?  I just don't know.

There have been some unpleasant developments this month (though none of which are directly related to me, fortunately) that I feel obligated to share: a couple of violent altercations that involved either current or former students of the NSTP, leaving one incapacitated and in the hospital, and the other fatherless.  The most troubling aspect of this is not the coincident timing, but that both victims share the rare quality of being known homosexual males in a society that is decidedly closed-minded on the subject.  The paradigm is so far anti-homosexual, in fact, that even as the one openly gay young man of 16 lay in the ICU bed, thick gauze over one eye and deep gashes on limbs he is unable to move under his own power, I would overhear associates of mine discussing the ordeal.  They would lament his situation and, in the very same thought, conclude something to the effect of, "Well, if he didn't go around parading it so much, he wouldn't be in this situation."  As though his form of self expression was an invite for violent reactions from his peers.  DISCLAIMER: Now, just to be clear, there have been no objective determinations that these events are related in any way, nor am I insinuating that they are.  Only that the proximity in timing was unfortunate and coincidental, and that the mere fact that either happened at all is appalling and saddening.

And now for some good news: I was on Nevis all Sunday morning for the first annual Nevis Half Marathon fundraising event that was put on by my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer's organization, the SKN Diabetes Foundation.  With a big time corporate sponsor in DHL and 100+ participants in only its first year, the event was a near perfect success.  Lots of locals, hashers, students, and internationals came to Nevis bright and early Sunday morning for the 5K, 10K, and half marathon runs, and the winners even went home with a sizable check from DHL.  I did not get to run myself, but instead helped out with logistics, preparation, and just general footwork/manpower.  And while I was a little disappointed that I didn't come prepared to run, I still had a good time speedboating over to Nevis at 5:30 AM, and casually boating back at noon, skirting the length of St. Kitts' Caribbean Seaside beaches.  I had not got to experience that kind of boat tour before, and probably won't get to again; needless to say, it sure beat paying for an hour-long ferry ride!

My parents purchased tickets for their week-and-a-half-long vacation here on St. Kitts, so I'm really excited to finally get to share the island in a tangible way with family.  I trust that, come April, my reports home will come in a very different light to those that experience the island first hand.  I'll check back then to see for sure, but for now, I'm enjoying telling friends that "I'll have trans" for a period in March (that means that I'll have someone who can drive a car) to all the places we usually go, like Tuesday Trivia and a Saturday Hash, as well as to the places I don't usually get to go, like the beach and to nice local restaurants.  Woo vacation time!  It's always nice to have something to look forward to – it's a great external motivator to help me get through each day. 

As a completely unrelated aside, I was working on this the last time I updated, and so I haven't posted it before now.  But it is another attempt at mine at observational humor in the form of a colorful graph.  However, this one isn't really that funny; it's just a look at all of the rock songs I own by year and decade, from 1961-2010.

For someone who says he loves the '90s so much, I'm sure not representing it very well.

And while on the subject of creative output, I am working on the movie for December highlights, and I should also have material for a January movie as well – just as soon as I have the time and gumption to go ahead with them, I will.  So sorry for the delay, and have faith (as I do) that it'll be worth the wait!

P.S.  For the new year, here is a new header.  You're welcome.

Funnyquote Friday

When I go in to work at the NSTP, I have a few places in the office I feel comfortable working at.  The highlight video from January shows my work station in the central breezeway, where most of my coworkers can be found.  I like working there, but sacrifice strong wireless internet connectivity, desk space, access to a 110V power outlet, and air conditioning when I do.  All four of these things can be found instead in the computer lounge adjacent the breezeway.  Indeed, that is where I find myself as I compose today's post.  Well, one day my frequent Kittitian companion in the computer room, Maurice, commented on the state of the air conditioning.  As it had been blowing nonstop at full power for the whole workday, it was rather chilly in the room.  I observed that the air conditioning could stand to be turned down a little – his response:

"That's not air conditioning, that's cold storage!"

It's certainly been an eventful week.  I enjoyed spending the weekend on Nevis, where I said goodbye to my fellow volunteer whose term of service just finished.  Then we had her over to St. Kitts on Monday night for a goodbye dinner, before she caught her flight out Tuesday morning.  All of us here really enjoyed getting to know her, and we're sorry to see her go, but we're also happy that she was able to fulfill her two years here and spend that whole time helping the youth on Nevis become more mature, responsible adults, as well as better swimmers and Mandarin speakers!

Also on Monday I submitted the final changes to the Remarkable Teen pamphlet to the printer, and discovered that I found a caffeinated beverage at Rituals, the local coffee shop in town, that I like: a spiced chai latte.  Which, fortunately for me, is basic enough that I expect I can find it just about anywhere.  This makes the third beverage I have grown to like in just the year that I have lived on island.  The others, namely beer (in which drinking from a glass bottle does change the taste a little, but mostly just getting past the initial "I want to try it" to the "I want to like it" stage was what proved to be most crucial) and rum (in which it turns out that so-called "Caribbean Rum" marketed in the US is way WAY stronger and more pungent than the cheaper rums sold in the Caribbean) have also helped ease some of my limitations around social drinking.   Now whether its a bartender or barrista asking me what I want, I'm set!

Then on Tuesday, I visited my new acquaintance, Ms. Learnice Mitchell, down at the National Museum.  Her idea of using the auspices of the St. Christopher National Trust to publish a special pamphlet/magazine celebrating the renovation of the St. Thomas Anglican Church is taking off, and I'm happy to be participating.  It's the first time ever, I believe, that I've been brought on to a project in a sort of consultant role, where my expertise and opinions are valued and followed!  The resulting confidence boost and ego trip is rather exciting, too.  It really serves to confirm my belief that I would, in fact, be well suited for a career in consulting, whatever the consultancy firms and their hiring reps say.  I must confess, though – I may have made a bit of a power play to get the SCNT to take me seriously.  I did bring by a copy of my recently published issue of Serious Ting, in it 40-page full color glory, knowing that this was something above and beyond what Learnice envisioned for her project.  The result was as I had hoped: she nearly fell out of her chair when she saw what was possible if given the time, skill and resources.  Naturally, she now wants to bring the project as close to this benchmark as possible, but we're already running into the issue of financing – the moneys for printing would almost exclusively have to come from in-print advertisements, which means marketing a not-as-yet-seen product to the businesses around the island, specifically the ones that target tourist business.  Which, in turn, means that the content of the magazine should be appealing to tourists, and made readily available to them (perhaps to be sold?).  There are still lots of questions to be answered, so more on that later.

Then again, on Wednesday, I taught my first Intro to Computers Applications course:  from 1:00 to 3:00, I spent the afternoon in an airy classroom with 5 teenagers enrolled in the Certified Electrician course offered at the NSTP.  As part of the curriculum, two hours a week are given to supplementary material on working with computers, and I was asked to pick up that class.  It went almost exactly as expected: the kids were bright, felt engaged when we talked about something of interest to them (which wasn't the same for everybody, but everybody found something at some point in that span), and did whatever they felt they could get away with to disengage when they got bored (i.e. listen to an iPod, fiddle with a laptop, leave to use the restroom).  Still, we somehow managed to get through all of the material I had planned for that day, using up the full two hours – wouldn't want to set a bad precedent!  And even though the material is supplementary in nature, and the kids probably won't even be tested on it, I hope that they still learned something in the process.  Call me cynical, but even though the kids were grateful and clearly eager to take home the notes we copied for them, a finer investigation might just reveal the blank side of the paper being used at home as free copier paper, something that remains rare and expensive on island.

Furthermore, on Thursday, I continued working on a new project for my PC administrative assistant here in St. Kitts.  Her church is celebrating an anniversary (so sorry, I don't remember which!) this November, and she wants a highlight video to be compiled and prepared especially for this occasion.  A simple enough task, you say?  Excepting, of course, that the source material that she acquired for the video is actually film on VHS tapes – requiring a conversion that is certainly possible but for which I do not have the necessary tools.  So I left it to her: get me digitized copies of the source material, and I'll do whatever I can do.  She got back to me last weekend with the DVDs, which I inserted into my MacBook on Thursday to find, to my dismay, that the video had been converted as video viewable by a DVD player.  This meant that I had to spend about 4 hours ripping three 2-hour videos from the DVDs to my hard drive, into a .m4v format.  When I tried importing these into iMovie, I discovered, to my even greater dismay, that the encoding was slightly off, and I first needed to convert these DVD rips to MPEG-4, which would be readable by iMovie.  This conversion, frame by frame, took my computer over 7 hours straight, finishing off my day.  The good news in the end was that I was able to import the final converted ripped videos into iMovie (which took another 30 minutes) and managed to get some housework done, too!

Whew; told you it was a busy week.  So, what do you think of my new favicon?  (That little square to the left of the URL in your browser.)  Cool, eh?  At least until Ting soda bottlers find it and tell me to take it down...

IST 2

Finished Inter-Service Training on Friday, so I'm officially all trained up for another six months.  Due up: Mid-Service Training, come November of this year.  Which reminds me– I need to ask off for the first couple of weeks of November for my brother's wedding.  I hope the two don't overlap...

If there is one thing that IST is actually good for, it's the (albeit mild) external motivation to take a second look at stalled projects, consider some alternative routes for success in those projects, and the very welcome inspiration to create some new projects at the same time.  I jotted down notes on a few new ideas, as follows in order of closeness to actualization: (a) scheduling a Teacher training in Math Activities before the start of the school term in September, (b) start up an IT training course at the NSTP, possibly in combination with another PCV who has experience in PC hardware repair, and (c) a boy's abstinence club under the auspices of St. George's Anglican, in conjunction with the junior priest there, Fr. Christopher Archibald.  I don't have any personal experience in Youth ministry, but I think this kind of thing would be pretty simple, as long as community buy-in was high and activities were kept diverse and entertaining.  I'll keep everyone updated, of course, but in the meantime, pray for motivation and fortitude to finish my current projects before fully diving into these others.

VOW honours 100 women of Nevis

I did get to go to Nevis on Tuesday, as expected.  On the left is the promotional poster my fellow PCV and I developed over one 6-hour session.  The first 2 hours were spent just trying out different ideas and creating corresponding blank templates for the art.  Since the project will eventually be printed onto 2' x 3' posters, signed (by yours truly) and sold, the blank image was set up to be 24" x 36" at 300 ppi – a mistake, since the resulting filesize would be 1.85 GB.  A simple "save" command in the GIMP of a file that size took longer than 5 minutes.  We eventually settled on a more feasible 100 ppi, to be expanded upon completion if necessary.  The final product, about 6-7 times larger than the image to the left, is still 7.5 MB, one of the largest PNGs I've ever made.  The revealing of the artwork came on Thursday, and was well-received, according to my sources.  Certainly the Institutional Partner on Nevis, who led the event, was pleased with the result.  The design for the woman came from previous artwork that Voices of Women had used in previous promos, but the trace of Nevis and the collage of photos is all original work for the poster.  Here's hoping that my fellow PCV and VOW, her women's empowerment NGO can utilize the project as an effective fundraiser.


I just went through my backlog of photos, so I'll post a small collection from a different event for the next several posts.  (Yay pictures!)  Today's batch is from all the way back in March: St. Patrick's Day, to be precise.  I visited a fellow PCV's class at Sandy Point Secondary for the afternoon and tried out a couple of my Math Games, to much appreciation, participation, and excitement.

Playing "Honey Comb Home" with about 20 second-formers from SPS.

The tactile experience of rolling the dice was a positive causal-relation activity, easy for the students to grasp.

The teacher, after watching one class, got excited enough to get involved in the second round.

Afterwards, we all went down to Old Road to celebrate St. Patty's Day and engage in some local dominoes action.

A Kayak Counts, Too

Picture © Star Production International

This weekend saw the 9th annual StarMile Nevis to St. Kitts Cross Channel Swim.  Three PCVs took part in and completed the 2.5 mile race across the Narrows, including one of our number who finished 35th out of 100 with a time of 91 minutes.  Another PCV friend and myself did not take part in the race, but instead served as lifeguard assistants, manning a 2-seat kayak and traveling along with the field of swimmers.  Our mandate was to help any and all swimmers that required assistance, a water break, or help with their bearing.  And despite our willingness and occasional offers of service, nobody took us up on a water break.

Photo © Star Production International

As one might expect, the race is a grueling test of endurance, as the average swimmer is out in open water for around 2 hours, all the while fighting currents, swells, and the urge to stop.  Many swimmers even experience panic when they find themselves halfway across the Narrows after an hour of swimming, with only the boats around as a safeguard.  (An understandable sentiment, to be sure)  And on top of all that, imagine paying a fee of US$50 to enter?!  For my money, a free kayak trip between two of the nicest beaches in the Federation is good enough.

Photo © Star Production International

The water proved to be choppier than I expected, with swells between 2 and 4 feet in the middle of the channel.  It didn't cause any particular problems for us in the kayak, aside from merely drenching our legs and rears after drying comfortably in the warm morning sun.  But it did make following the swimmers more difficult, since the only marker of their presence was their yellow swim caps, and we occasionally had trouble seeing over the swells to locate swimmers that had strayed from the course.  And after an hour, the swimmers had sufficiently spread out to the point that this was trickier than it sounds.

Photo © Star Production International

But the bottom line is that everybody made it safely, particularly all of our volunteers, some of whom had never done open-water swimming before.  And my kayaking partner, who had never kayaked before, managed not to tip the boat over while we were out over deep water (or at all, thankfully).  The swimmers were able to partake in a special breakfast prepared for them as part of their entrance fee, and we were able to cheer them on and celebrate their arrival on Cockleshell Beach.

Nevis Nice

Should I feel guilty after all the fun I had this weekend?  I'm pretty sure there's a stipulation in one of the bylaws stating the limits of just how much fun a PCV is allowed to have while on official business, and I probably broke that rule between Sports Day at my school and this weekend's "Imagine" Fundraiser on Nevis.

The entirety of the second trimester at Kittitian schools is devoted to celebrating inter-school competition through the use of the traditional British "house" system.  (Many readers will be familiar with this system already thanks in large part to the works of one J.K. Rowling.)  The houses represented at Dr. William Connor School are the Red Panthers, the Orange Jaguars, the Yellow Tigers, (some prefer to say Gold) and the Green Pumas.  Each house has spent the last 3 months obtaining points for his/her house through academic trials, competitions, and good behavior.  But come March, the house points are all relatively equal, and so the trimester culminates in a grand Sports Day, not unlike a Field Day at a typical elementary school in the US.

A sixth grade boy helps the Red Panthers take this year's house cup.

The day encompasses a mix of track and field events for students of every age, but is very heavy on footraces, including 60m and 100m sprints and 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1200m runs.  For the shorter races, the teams select their four fastest sprinters, two boys and two girls, for each of four different age brackets: 7 years and younger, 8-9 years, 10-11 years, and 12-13 years.  Then houses earn points based on the finishes of their two entrants.  At most 8 compete in each trial, and the top 5 finishers earn points, making some races for second or third place as exciting as for the top spot!


The community comes out in full force to observe and cheer on their children, friends, favorite houses, etc.  As the races begin with the noontime heat in full force, spectators don't begin arriving until around 2:00.  But then it's an all day event of barbecuing, cheering on tight races, liming with buddies, and just supporting our outstanding students.  And as with so many things here involving official social recognition, the Kittitians take their Sports Day competitions very seriously.  Fortunately there were no altercations this year, as the top spot was awarded to the Red Panthers, who had a stranglehold on the house points lead from even before Sports Day began.  And so the day ended shortly after dusk, around 6:30, with a couple of exhibition 4x100m relays, attracting the fastest students and former students alike with no consideration for house affiliation.  It ultimately garnered the most delight from the fans, who were enthralled with two close finishes from the boys' race and the girls' race.

With that ended, and lots of good pictures and video captured, I turned my attentions to the Pink Lilies/Voices of Women Imagine Fundraiser gala event on Nevis Saturday night, which I had agreed to participate in as drum accompaniment to a fellow volunteer as she read the poem she had prepared in honor of the event.  I was able to get plenty of sleep, then, on Friday night in preparation for traveling to Nevis the next day; and it's a good thing, too, because organizing free transportation over to Nevis for the performers was a logistical nightmare.  We ended up waiting 45 minutes for a free taxi trip (20 minutes) to the Southern Peninsula where we waited another 15 minutes for a short ferry trip across the Narrows (10 minutes) to Oualie Beach on Nevis, where we waited 10 minutes for a bus to pick us up to run us to the Old Manor Hotel in Gingerland (20 minutes).  And we still managed to arrive in-time and intact.

My fellow PCV and I at the gala event
that she helped organize.

The event was in part a fundraiser for Pink Lilies and Voices of Women, both NGOs concerned with gender equality and other social issues, and in part an awareness effort inspired by International Women's Day, celebrated on the 8th of March.  As such, the evening's programme centered on women's empowerment, individualization, and independence.  There was a fine turnout, (at one point fitting 75+ people onto a somewhat confined patio) which included most notably the premiere of Nevis himself, giving the event some much-desired visibility.  The programme of performances were highly-touted, and they killed all evening: a handful of Island Xpressions poets, an a capella trio, a Calypsonian, a jazz instrumentalist, and finally the headlining Kasanova Band.  All in all, the awareness goal of the event was met with vigor, with women's empowerment issues getting a sincere and often powerful look, and we men took some good-humored "mashing up" in the process.  And as for the fund raising goal, at EC$75 a head, I sincerely hope all the paid performers and the institutions themselves garnered a return on the order of what they had envisioned.  There was some talk about turning it into an annual event, so who knows?  Maybe I'll be returning for the encore event next March.

Sunday came quickly the next morning, and my Nevisian volunteer friend and I found time to go beach hopping and see part of the small island that I had not visited before.  I even got to play some pickup soccer in the sand – not only did my team win, but I scored the winning goal!  It was a real workout, but quite a satisfactory high point, especially since it was the first time I had got to play beach soccer since seeing some guys playing all the way back at PST in St. Lucia.  So between that, a round of pool at one of the beach bars, and a quiet nap waiting for the sun to set, we had a very relaxing island kind of day that was enjoyed by all.

P.S. It seems I forgot Pi Day yet again.

A Welcome Change

Well, not bad for a first day of IST, all things considered.  Institutional Point Persons, our NGO or school counterparts were encouraged to attend today's session, and both my IPPs made showings, however at staggered intervals during the day.  So in all, I really only ended up with one 20 minute segment out of a whole day to participate in the proceedings with just one of my two counterparts.  And while this made it a bit awkward at times, the benefits of getting to meet everyone else's counterparts once again was helpful and somewhat refreshing.  Also, spending time in the glorious Kittitian tradition of singing each others' praises was somewhat rewarding as well.

One IPP in particular stole the show.  She is a social worker specializing in AIDS awareness and prevention – nothing unusual about this, as I have met several since being on island.  However, she actually lives the shamelessness one has to adopt to overcome the taboos and social proclivities of discussing sexual health.  And she even goes beyond that, to the point of simply overcompensating.  Going even beyond the realm of practicality or expediency, every single thought she broached or contributed was a metaphor pregnant with innuendo. (Emphasis added to reinforce that this is in no way an exaggeration.)   To the sophomoric mind like the one I bear, this was met with astounding amusement, however I can confidently say that the sentiment was not universal.  It goes a long way, in my mind, towards reopening the questions of gender equality in our respective societies, since I fear the reactions to her interjections would not have been the same had she been male.  But that is just my opinion.  Ask me about it sometime if you care to know more.

Amongst the hubbub of volunteers telling other poignant anecdotes, I discovered I am unique in possessing one talent in particular: I actively involve myself willingly into lots of diverse things – at work and otherwise.  Not to compare myself with my colleagues; I merely observed that a goodly portion of the positive things my coworkers, counterparts, and cohorts (PCVs) thought of to say about me were things that didn't directly coincide with my projects, but rather (1) helping clean up the NSTP building and site, (2) visiting and documenting an NSTP class graduation on a Sunday evening, (3) helping out at the Queen pageant (that is, a fund raising beauty pageant at my primary school), and of course (4) joining a troupe for J'ouvert, which has been mentioned before by other parties though was not mentioned today.

I spent Saturday over on Nevis, and had a great time helping break-in the new home of a fellow volunteer at her housewarming party.  I met some old friends (can they be old friends, if I met them under six months ago?) and made some new friends there.  An even do' dey be on Nevis, me be tinkin' dat me be seein' dem again soon.

Spread the word! Tell your friends!

Later post today, I know: I'm not feeling very well this afternoon.  My joints are achy and hypersensitive to the point that it's laborious to type.  But it was an even busier weekend than usual, so I'll try to crank something out all the same.

I was on Nevis all day Saturday for the follow-up to the march the previous week.  It came in the form of a video that will be aired on Nevis TV between the dates of Nov. 25 and Dec. 10.  Here is the link; please check it out. My fellow PCV on Nevis and I are very proud of the result, and hope that it will serve to enlighten and encourage the people of Nevis in this time of increased incidents of domestic, and organized, violence.  In fact, things are getting increasingly desperate here by the week: just last week a taxi carrying 17 tourists was held at gunpoint outside the gate to Brimstone Hill and robbed by a couple of criminals.  The resulting swift action by the cruise lines culminated in about half the tourism activity during peak season, and a call for higher security measures to be taken on island.  The reaction from the government was an eloquent reproach by the deputy prime minister and minister of national security (which you can see here) tying the incident to the repercussions for all of the tourism industries on island.  Still, what with Carnival and Jouvert approaching, the environment is a unique and mildly unsettling mix of "Good Will Toward Men" and "Watch Your Back."

But it wasn't all work over the weekend: I got to see each of the PCVs on Nevis at one point or another: one when we took to the beach for a few hours, and the other on Saturday night at this very chic yet amiable club that was celebrating its 1st year anniversary.  Here's hoping both it and I are around this time next year to celebrate lucky number 2!

The March Against All Forms of Violence

The rally and march from Pond Hill to Charlestown was a rousing success: it boasted a substantial turnout, a clear message, media attention, and a stirring conclusion.  It began at the bus stop outside the neighborhood of a young lady that was tragically killed in a domestic violence altercation just a number of weeks ago.  A wreath was placed there, in her memory, and a speech was given, stating the purpose of our march and our resolve to see this trend of violence and abuse in homes discontinued.

Then about 30 strong began the walk down towards the square in Charlestown, with signs decrying the anti-violence message in countless different ways, and with heartening songs and chants to walk to.  Various groups joined in for stretches of the path, at times bringing our count to near 60, including a primary school class, a group of secondary school students, some other Peace Corps volunteers, and women and men from the communities we passed along the way.





Around 3:30 we reached the square in Charlestown, making the march portion of the event a full hour.  We were so many by this point that we had to spread out around the park as best we could; the park was already starting to crowd up with people from the island, since it was a Friday evening.  With heavy-duty amps blaring, we christened the march with stirring speeches from representatives of the Ministry of Social Development and VOW: Voices of Women, together with music and song suitable for the occasion.


The speeches culminated in a prayer and another moment of silence for the remembrance of the young lady, which segued into the final exhibit at sundown: a candlelight vigil.  A stirring ceremony, it began with the laying of a wreath at the base of the monument in the square, a wreath with a candle at the center, and every man and woman in attendance was given a candle to light from the flame of the wreathed candle, and pass that light on to a nearby participant.   


 

Similar to a Christmas Eve ceremony in the States, but instead of singing a song with candles lit, participants added their candles to the steps surrounding the monument, a symbol of solidarity with the deceased.Pretty soon, the base of the monument was brightly lit by a candle for each person who was made more aware of the evils of domestic abuse right in their own country.  I was honored to be a part of such an inspired project, not to mention motivated to see some degree of similar success with my own projects.

I attended this month's Hash on Saturday, a run around the grasses and up the cliffs at Banana Bay, one of the southernmost points on the island, directly facing Nevis.  It wasn't a tough run this time; however, much to my dismay, an ill-fated contingent of four of us hashers took a wrong turn up the side of one cliff, and only discovered our mistake once we reached an overlook that was in view of the line of hashers going a different direction.  So I guess I ended up doing a hash-and-a-half this time – suffice to say I was mortally exhausted when finished.  The moral of the story?  No good comes from being in the front of the pack at these things.  You just gotta be average and you'll do better than most!

My fellow PCVs, EC80s all, and I mark a successful day concluded