In the Lee of the Stone

Despite the otherworldly silence that I had managed to keep for the greater part of January, things continue to happen here on my little island.  Incidentally, I've got some good news, some bad news, and some as-of-yet neutral updates to share with the reader.  (And pictures!)

Let's start with the bad news this time.  There was a burglary at another Peace Corps Volunteer's home last weekend, the second at that particular location.  It's clear from the M.O. that not only was the criminal most likely an acquaintance of the victim, but also that surveillance was being kept on the volunteer's home immediately prior to the incident, as the victim was away from the premises for no more than a few hours, by her reckoning.  In this case, they broke into a hard-to-reach second story window that was not barricaded, and proceeded to work their way through the cordoned-off second floor to the victim's apartment downstairs.  Furthermore, without actually making a big mess of things, they carried out several high-value items that had been placed in hidden-away locations around the apartment.  When I received word of all this, I was taken back to the feeling I had when someone attempted to break into my apartment, and I tried to amplify the unsettled feelings of insecurity and betrayal with feelings of remorse and helplessness.  That meager attempt at empathy was enough to alert me to two truths: first, that I would be unable to grasp the full extent of my colleague's turmoil, and second, that I had been very blessed to make it this far without any equally fearful invasions of my own safety.  Especially with the documented rise in violent crime in the Federation in the time I've been serving here, I feel more than ever like I've been kept in the lee of the stone, a place where I am in the middle of all of the turbulence of life, yet return unscathed from the plow's blade.

There are more employees at the NSTP than ever before.  I was surprised to come in to work today and find the premises practically inundated with people.  Besides the trainees, who are here for the last weeks of their Basic Electricity and Hospitality Industry courses, there are 40% more employees in attendance since before the Christmas holidays.  I'm unclear, as monetary concerns are paramount and all new operations by the NSTP are on hold until monies are sent over by the Ministry of Finance, whether or not the addition of full-time employees to the payroll is a wise step.  For that matter, I'm as of yet unclear exactly what purpose more than one of the individuals in questions serve in the organization.  And as if the premises were not constricted enough, the addition of 10 "new" computer monitors, of the 20-inch CRT variety (i.e. MASSIVE), were just donated from TDC, Inc. to the NSTP's computer lab.  The downside?  We already had more flatscreen monitors than operable computers, so they're definitely not needed in the computer lab.  They can still find use as objects in a computer repairs class, though the issue of Where to keep them in the meantime? goes unresolved.  They are currently eating up whole cubic yards of space in the already-cramped computer lab, my bastion of air conditioning, electrical current, and productivity. 

To the best of my knowledge, we volunteers here in St. Kitts still have not received our living allowances for the month of February.  This means that rent, bills, and any other living expenses that come up at the beginning of the month are either covered by the leftover funds from the previous month, or else ignored until the funds do arrive.  Fortunately, for my part, I was careful to cultivate a EC$1000 cushion with which to weather just such a situation.  Most of my colleagues, on the other hand, were not so fastidious, and are now running into the same end-of-the-month issues that so many people living on tight budgets face, here and everywhere.  I do have one particular complication, though: my rent is automatically deducted from my savings account here, in a standing order for the end of every month.  But my monthly rent is greater than the monetary cushion I regularly keep (in what seems like an untimely oversight now), meaning that as of yesterday, my account is either in overdraft (in hardly any fault of my own) or else my landlord, who resides in New Jersey, has not yet received payment for this month's rent.  Either way, when I head into town today, I will have to go by the bank and take stock of the situation before spending any more of my standing cash.

I'm helping out at Beach Allen Primary School on Tuesdays now, tutoring a small group of students that have been selected by their teachers as requiring special assistance in mathematics.  We've had four sessions already, the last four Tuesdays in the month of January, and I'm starting to get to know the students a little better now.  One grade at a time, I pull out a single student from his/her classroom and gather the three to five children in a separate room, with stools, a chalkboard, and air conditioning.  Curiously, the last is such a disparate change from the usual for the students, that it oftentimes proves to be more of a distraction than a boon to the students' concentration.  But assisted by my bag of math implements and cadre of classroom activities, we put in a half-hour session where I give special time to each student that displays a need in a particular area that the teacher has identified in previous classroom time.  Already, in our short time together, I have seen dramatic improvement in the form of positive affect in one student, who, when she isn't acting depressed and moody, participates at a level that should categorize her as solidly mainstream, leaving her special-needs peers in the dust.  I intend on recommending to her teacher that she soon be replaced with another student whose needs in mathematics are more pressing.  So that might prove to be my success story for this trimester's Volunteer Report Form!

And work with the Serious Ting is gearing up at the same time.  It's now February (the reader may have noticed) and so my deadline looms now in the radar of my mind.  I plan to spend nearly all of my free time for this month on design editing the next issue, scheduled to be printed and distributed by April.  If I can maintain a pace of about 1 article per day, that should be sufficient to achieve my goal of submitting the completed first copy to St. Lucia for approval by Sunday the 26th, giving that week for final changes.  If everything happens in the planned timetable, then the issue will be all ready and in Volunteers' hands before the class of EC81 departs for their close of service.

Oh, and I got to go camping, too!  A few weekends ago, half a dozen of us went over to Banana Bay adjacent Cockleshell Beach on the Southern Peninsula to test our abilities to wield fire at will and engineer a makeshift shelter before sunset.  The experiment was a success, and I had a blast camping beside the omnipresent waves.  I even awoke before sunrise to see the Southern Cross just above the southern horizon!

The three-sided tarp shelter design was my idea.  It kept the wind out of our hair for the night.

A bright Sunday sunrise between St. Kitts and Nevis at 6:00 AM.

Breakfast is the camper's special: bacon and cheese omelet hamburgers.  <-- Not a typo

By all appearances, no worse for the wear.  (This may or may not in fact be the case.)

Shaking Things Up

St. Kitts enjoyed an earthquake of 4.7 on the Richter scale at 1:45 this morning.  It was just enough to wake me from the sound of the upstairs creaking, and from the shaking of my bed springs.  But it only lasted a second or two, and I was back to sleep.  To my knowledge, it's the first one that I've experienced since beginning here in August 2010.  I'm still very proud of my quake senses, the ability to wake up to an earthquake and immediately recognize it for what it is – Not mulling around in bed thinking, "Did I leave the dryer running again?" or "Why is the neighbor's donkey rubbing up against my house?"

I'm going to spend today working on two items: a fun and educational activity using Microsoft Word for the students in my Intro to Computer Applications class, and laying out a 2012 calendar in Adobe InDesign for the AIDS alliance, to be used as a fundraiser.  The former is proving difficult to conjure from the internets – I haven't found any activities yet that are suitable for students ages 15+ that have below average literacy rates.  I'm considering reaching back into my own experience and having one student, a different one every 20 minutes, pulled out from the regular instruction and placed in front of a word processor and continue a narrative that his/her peers have also been working on.  That could prove to be a nice deviation from the norm.  Now if only I could come up with another idea for a collective activity...  As for the calendar, I've been given the pictures already, so the rest should be easy; I'll post the cover art as soon as it is finished.

And as promised, here are pictures from Thursday's official opening of the books sent by Hands Across the Sea.  Enjoy!

Funnyquote Friday

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funnyquote Friday

Every Tuesday night is an excuse to go down to Frigate Bay for Team Trivia, an event patronized by British expatriates, Ross students and PCVs alike.  Since it is too far down on the Southern Peninsula for public buses to travel down there, "grounded" folk like myself have to hitch lifts from other gracious residents of the neighborhood – in my case, my neighbors and their friends.  Practically, this means that I am regaled weekly with amusing stories from Nottinghamshire and The Old Country, and often partake in discussions about the quirky differences in our allegedly common language.  One such discussion led to naming car parts.  In the information age, of course, everybody calls parts of the computer (the CPU, RAM, monitor, mouse, keyboard) the same thing, since they were developed in the time of near-instant overseas communication.  But autos?  At the turn of the (previous) century, everyone presumably had to come up with their own names for things.  And as it were, popular acceptance of car part names varied greatly across the pond.  For example, when our friends' jeep is crowded, and I have to sit behind the back seat, in the trunk, it is not to be called the trunk.  It's "the boot."  As in, "into the boot wit' ya."  Alternatively, if you needed to check under the hood, Brits would give you a double take, since it is not called a hood.  It's called "the bonnet."  So from boot to bonnet, our names for things are very different.  More often than not, the British name is accepted as the end-all-be-all, but occasionally the American English word is considered more practical.  For as my British neighbor so adroitly observed, to all of our great amusement,

"You'd never see a movie called
Boyz In the Bonnet."

So... good news!  A great vote of thanks to the Jabez Sunday School Class of McConnell Baptist in Hiawassee, who have collectively covered the $300 to fund a donation of books to the library at the Dr. William Connor Primary School.  This means that my first fundraising undertaking in the Caribbean was a success, and the results should be seen very soon – as per my understanding, the books should have already been purchased, and will be shipped within days.  I now have to prepare the library for the incoming book barrage!

Cover design by Yours Truly

Additionally, I just finished putting together the event program for the Remarkable Teen project, a youth empowerment project as envisioned by my colleague here on St. Kitts.  The same creative mind that put together the Healthy Breakfast project has, for this latest idea, collected the names and inspirational stories of 25 teenagers as nominated by the community.  The honorees will then be presented their awards at a specially called session of parliament.  Unfortunately, I will be in the States come November 10th, but I'm sure the event will go as smoothly as envisioned.  At the least, I know the students are thrilled about their selection, and excited to be noticed for something positive, instead of negative.  The event program itself is a behemoth: 25 pages of profiles, each between 1/2 and 1 full page of 12pt, single-spaced text in length.  I had the pleasure of reading each person's story (ranging from the familiar, to the unfamiliar, and all the way to the horrific) and their strong, self-propelled climb to the place they find themselves today.  It's a terrific project, and I was happy to be able to contribute to it in a creative, productive fashion.

Mid-Service Training has been scheduled for the week of November 14th, so I anticipate being busy for those five days, with the possibility of being on a different island!  From my sources right now, the odds are 50/50 that we on St. Kitts could be shipping to a different island for training.  Travel costs and available facilities are, naturally, the biggest determining factors of that decision.  So I'm eager to find out soon, and especially to see some familiar faces after a full year of service!

Something Old, Something New

As my term of service stands roughly at one full year, and I recently submitted my third trimesterly progress report to the Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C., I felt like this would be a good time to take a small glimpse into that report.  Of the many angles we are asked to look at our service over the previous four months, the most difficult for me to answer is the section labelled "Success Story."  You may come to your own conclusions why that it, but I fear it has mostly to do with my tendency towards apprehensive pessimism.  I do not remember perceived successes as sharply as failures, and this bias often clouds my objective assessment of the effectiveness of my work here.  With that said, here is the story I chose to be this semester's "success story:"

With the school year winding down, I knew I had a little more free time to devote to new secondary projects during the summer.  So I scheduled a couple of meetings in the interest of kicking off a pair of new projects: one with Fr. Christopher Archibald, Associate Rector at the St. George's Anglican Church, in the interest of starting up a youth group to combat AIDS spread and school drop-out rates, and a second with the Ministry of Education's Curriculum Development Unit in the interest of promoting the Math Activities pamphlet and distributing it to the schools on the islands.
Five minutes early to the meeting with Fr. Archibald, I considered the directions he gave me to the church office, and yet I was unable to pinpoint which building was the office.  I spent the next half hour trodding up and down the residential street, stopping occasionally to inquire at houses and ask if they knew the whereabouts of the office.  Finally, as I came upon it, Fr. Archibald met me outside as he was leaving to go on an emergency call he had just received.  We quickly scheduled for next week, pushing my two meetings to the same week.
Attending the CDU meeting which a contact had set up for me, it became clear as time neared that the contact was going to be unable to make the meeting.  Furthermore, the CDU representatives were under the impression that I was prepared to make a multimedia presentation; I had simply brought a single hard-copy of the Math Activities booklet.  Thinking fast, however, I obtained a virtual copy of the document from a previous e-mail I had sent, and borrowed one of the CDU's student-use laptops to make an off-the-cuff hour-long presentation of the material.  The CDU director was pleased, and I will shortly get back in touch with him to finalize the project.
Later that week, I trudged through the beginnings of Tropical Storm Irene to meet with Fr. Archibald, and this time I was forced to wait at his office, as he forgot our agreed time and drove from home to meet me.  In time, however, it became clear that my suggestion for a youth boy's program was something of interest to him and the church, and indeed until just a few years back, the church had been sponsoring a program very similar in nature.  So with many of the foundational aspects already in place, I offered the willingness to pick up a share of the legwork it would take to bring the program back, and this was met with enthusiasm.  I was very grateful, therefore, after much time and anxiety borne of ambiguity, that my ideas for new projects were met with such positive results.

I may not have mentioned yet that I was asked by the new principal of Dr. William Connor Primary to collect some new books in the interest of expanding and revitalizing the defunct school library.  I was referred to a charity organization called Hands Across The Sea, a book purchasing and donating organization whose goal is to promote child literacy in the Eastern Caribbean.  They've already helped several of my compatriots on other islands around the EC, donating upwards of US$25,000 worth of books annually.  Upon contacting them and learning that their book drive delivery is usually mid-October, and that they are in full swing to begin delivering shipments to the 80 schools and libraries they serve, they were still graciously willing to accommodate DWC Primary's request.  This is my first procurement/fundraising project, and it's starting on a strong foot!  Please check out their website, which shares some of their success stories, both in letter and video forms, as well as my own request for aid on their wishlist page.  I am asking for $300 to help HATS purchase new books from Scholastic®, a total which will then be matched by HATS and the sum quantity sent to DWC Primary.  In order to be in compliance, however, we need to have raised the money by November.  So I appreciate any speedy help in achieving this goal.

And I'm pleased to introduce a new blog header for the occasion.  Those are Ting brand bottle caps in the middle.  Enjoy!

Funnyquote Friday

Seen on a grocery bag:

Ram's: Where shopping is a pleasure.

Now where have I heard that before?

Well, it's the Friday before school starts here, and so there is a dull, sickly feeling in the back of every 12-year-old mind, each one trying to squeeze out the last joys of sleeping in.  In my mind, the subtle pressure of submitting and printing the Math Activities booklet before school started is nearly dissipated.  But I'm still putting in the hours on it, in the hopes of seeing it used in schools this year.  I was able to cajole a fellow volunteer into helping grammar-check the document, so it is nearing completion slowly but surely.

Today marks the 1-year anniversary for my being on-island.  So discounting the 5 days I was in the States for my friend's wedding, I have been serving and training in St. Kitts and Nevis for an entire year now, with about 14 months remaining in my term of service.  I'll be writing up my 3rd Trimester service reports to PC St. Lucia very soon, so when I do, I'll do some reflection and cover some of the details here.  Next week: Review time again! Oh boy!

Ah So Dey Be

Have you ever tasted a ripe mango so soft and sweet, that it made your gums tingle? 
Have you ever heard the screech of a baby monkey calling for its mother?
Have you ever seen the lights of a cruise liner go trundling off at dusk toward its next port-of-call?
Have you ever smelled the mildewy aroma of a stagnant pond in the crater of a volcano?
Have you ever felt the velvety inside of a passion fruit husk?

I have.  But on the other hand...

Have you ever smelled the scent of rotting meat permeating the entire grocery store?
Have you ever seen a 10-year-old boy fail to hold back tears after receiving six lashes on the hand?
Have you ever tasted the acrid sweetness of undiscovered mold on bread purchased the day before?
Have you ever felt the dead corpse of a lizard under your bare feet?
Have you ever heard a tropical rainstorm pound the roof so hard, it sounded like a train?

I have.

I'll keep this entry brief, to maintain some of its intrigue.  I'm a mere one activity away from having an even 20 in the collection, and then I'm going to have it proofread before submitting the final edition to the Curriculum Development Unit to have it printed and distributed.  Wish me the best!

My Hair Is Getting Pretty Long Now

I'm going to take this opportunity to catch up on a few items left over from this weekend.

My girlfriend finally had her floor repaired.  As it turns out, it was merely tiles cracking above a solid concrete floor, with an inch of grout in-between; not really a threat to fall through to the floor below.  But this hardly explains the violent cracking and sharp angles of the sinking tiles – were they really just breaking and shifting the dried grout underneath?  This would have been hard to imagine for anybody that had been there when the damage was taking place.  But, after all that, a tiler came in on the weekend and replaced the cracked floor tiles, and my girlfriend and I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the dust and rearranging the furniture in her room.  So everything is back to some semblance of normalcy now, though she is still dealing with not being able go home for her two-week summer break.

I mentioned on Friday I delivered a presentation on MS Excel; this morning I finished the two-part Office Applications lecture with a demonstration of MS PowerPoint.  The class is very small: just two of my coworkers, and occasionally my boss drops in if she is free.  We spent two hours on each of Friday and Monday morning going over the bare basics of what Excel and PPoint can do; I was pleased with the broad base of topics we were able to cover in such a short period:
E1 > Cells, Rows, Columns, and Sheets
E2 > Basic Functions and Formulas
E3 > Charts & Graphs
P1 > Adding Text, Pictures, and Sound
P2 > Tools for Creating a Memorable Presentation
P3 > Examples
The participants were grateful for the free training, though one expressed a request for an even lower-level introduction to computer basics, seeming to have some difficulty grasping many of the concepts I covered in the overview.  So I may find myself doing some very directed, remedial tutoring in Windows and computer usage.

In addition, this weekend I continued to add to my Math Activities booklet with three new classroom games.  I have to thank my girlfriend here for her brilliant contributions to the creative process, the gem of our musings being one activity based on the traditional Towers of Hanoi puzzle, but reworked so that the shape of the constituent parts is reminiscent of Mt. Liamuiga.  I think students could really get excited about this one, not least of all since the problem is rather compelling in itself.  (Ooh!  I just came up with another game for dice and a number line – better write it down before I forget.)  I'm hoping to get to work with the Department of Curriculum Development this school year to distribute my booklet of ideas to schools that are interested in incorporating the activities into their math departments.  I'll include more details as things continue to unfold.

Funnyquote Friday

Your first funnyquote of the second half of the year comes from one of our lecturers during IST.  She is referring to individuals, any individual, that is overtly self-absorbed:

"We have a special term for them in St. Kitts: 

We call them 'I' specialists."

Well, the D. Connor Iron Band saga took a bizarre run down the homestretch yesterday.  What with a mere two weeks of school remaining, and less than 50% of members regularly showing up for biweekly practices, it was becoming clear that the air was beginning to run out of the program, at least for this school year.  But (in sticking with the balloon allegory) I was hoping that the trip to Challengers, and playing for the Girls' Brigade there, would see the school year's activities end in a *BANG* rather than a Fizzle.  Instead, upon arriving at school 2 hours in advance of our departure time on Thursday, I was informed by no less than six of my band members that they would, for various reasons, be unable to join on the trip.  Furthermore, of the remaining four, only two expressed concern over my decision to cancel the excursion.  Not interest in going, mind you – just concern over it being canceled.  And so they ought; the proposed benefactors of our performance had planned to put up EC$100 towards taxi fare for the students' trip, and provide everyone with snacks for the evening.  Suffice to say, they were anticipating an enjoyable experience to close out their own year, and we were unable to fulfill our seemingly simple end of it.  And while my anxieties of a disastrous showing are summarily relieved, my spirits are subsequently dampened by falling so very short of many people's expectations of us.  Though I do intend on using these experiences to guide my preparations towards further bolstering community involvement and, in due course, buy-in, in order to try and avoid this outcome in the future.

And what a surprise! The June highlight video is complete on time! As so many of you requested seeing the Iron Band's actual performance with no accompanying music, here is the June 3rd performance in all its raw glory.  Enjoy.

Funnyquote Friday

Seen on a sign at the Rasta health foods vendor, Kalabash, adjacent the image of a trained gun:

"I don't phone 911."

The tables have turned on me – now I'm facing all new stressors with my Iron Band project, while my work at the NSTP is looking up with conclusions to old projects and the addition of new ones.  My fears for the Iron Band center primarily around actually having requests for bookings, and at the same time having students that do not have, in my eyes at least, a legitimate show to perform.  This leaves me in a confusing place: do I allow them to continue to perform shows, which they are keen to do, but which means transportation costs for shows in other villages, and which means they play for 45-second intervals for 5 minutes before I and everyone else is fed up with trying to make something go that won't; or else do I squelch the traveling until I invest some more time in trying to nail down a helper, someone from the Ministry of Culture who would be better suited to training the kids in musical instruction?  I do not know the answer to that yet, and in the meantime, I'm beating myself up in the knowledge that I am failing to prepare students for these high-anxiety performances, putting both them and myself in positions of uncertainty.

But the weekend is coming up, so I'm looking forward to relaxing at a friend's house and cooking Coconut-Fried Shrimp on Saturday.  I'm using a tested recipe, so I have high hopes for it.  And as promised, pictures today are from the Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary celebration, held on June the 3rd.

Seventeen volunteers from all over the U.S. are serving in St. Kitts right now.

A rather unflattering photo of me getting the Iron Band pumped up for their first public performance.

A quilt, composed of pieces of cloth contributed by students and guests in attendance, was auctioned off that afternoon.

Over 500 students, guests, and tourists visited our info and activity booths, including students from Maurice Hillier Primary.

The Peace Corps motto.

Can't See The Plank In His Own Eye

Why don't I take a minute (or ten) to introduce you to the D. Connor Band?  It's the DWC School's own premiere student-led Iron Band, which I help "manage" twice a week.  It is composed of ten students, from grades 3 through 6, split between 5 boys and 5 girls.  In the interest of security, I will give them all coded names for this post.

The oldest boy is in 6th grade; Mido we'll call him.  Mido enjoys being in the Iron Band perhaps more than any other student.  He has great natural talent, preferring to drum in his spare time as well.  He has a light, jovial sense of humor, and a big friendly smile.  He tends to be very loyal to those who are kind to him, notably his teachers.  Mido is not in the lowest stream of 6th graders because he is slow – unfortunately he is there primarily for behavioral issues and their tendency to get in the way of his ability to concentrate and learn.  Taking correction rather poorly, he tends to slip into pouting when identified out of a group for either reprehensible behavior or even for positive reinforcement.  Showing a few classic Emotional-Behavioral Disorder tendencies, they are still far less pronounced than those of certain other students I've had occasion to work with at the school.

The oldest girl is also in 6th grade, and we'll title her Chica.  Chica is of Guyanese ethnicity, and thus has been raised in a home where it is more accepted to be positive, blunt, and forward in her speech.  Chica is, incidentally, all of these things.  Most of her peers would describe her as bossy, since she hardly ever considers the thoughts and needs of others in her decisions, being comfortably self-assured in her ability to read every situation honestly and thoroughly.  This can sometimes get her in trouble, of course, when she turns out to be wrong.  Nonetheless, her frankness garners a certain charisma which attracts other girls with a more easy-going disposition.  As for Iron Band members, the number of other girls with a more "easy-going disposition"? One.

That girl is Euro.  Euro is in 5th grade, and (gratefully) is far and away the most laid-back member of the band.  She is extroverted: comfortable with both being the only one speaking in a group, and the only one speaking truth to power, activities she regularly engages in.  Although she's more in tune with taking Iron Band practice seriously, she more naturally takes social leads from the other girls around her, which can sometimes lead to distraction.  She is quick-witted, inquisitive, and sharp, though prefers to maintain a façade of sheer normalcy with her peers.  Even so, not a day has gone by when she hasn't taken advantage of a lull in practice to ask me a question about the States, the Peace Corps, my family, my school, etc.

The other 5th grade boy is Ebb.  Ebb is growing up in an all-too-common Kittitian home: a younger, single, doting mother responsible for him and his little sister.  He generally has a pleasant, eager-to-please attitude, albeit high energy with little regard for short-term hearing loss.  With no father-figure in his immediate family, however, his natural bent when confronted with even the most basic of perceived slights is violence, striking other boys and girls alike, occasionally in disproportionate scale or unprovoked.  In a flash he can be seething with rage, and audibly complains to me, teachers, or anyone who will give him ear about the unfairness of the cosmos.  He has, no doubt, learned from his mother that this kind of behavior is rewarded with special treatment.  Sadly this, and his tendency to speak up at the damnation of others' behaviors (quite often overlooking his own complicity), have become widely accepted anti-social behaviors in Kittitian culture.

Moving on to 4th grade, the only boy is code-named Jester.  Jester always has a sunny outlook; you can't bring him down for more than a few minutes at a time.  He absolutely adores running in the schoolyard, spinning tops on the pavement, and throwing balls up against the wall.  His penchant for pastimes, however, could be a compensation for his hampered ability to easily chat with his peers – he has several mild speech flaws, making communication with someone like me, hard-of-hearing and new to the accent, difficult.  In fact, the only time I have witnessed visible frustration on his persistently-grinning face is when he has to repeat what he is saying to me more than twice.  He enjoys playing the instruments and marching, though practice time often comes at the expense of playing in the yard with his friends.

His counterpart is Twain, a 4th grade girl.  One of the few participants with actual percussive skill and experience prior to joining, Twain has many natural talents and splits her time between IB, dance, and tennis.  The off-shoot of being told how talented she is for so long, I'm afraid, is that she feels quite comfortable pointing this out to her peers as well, who naturally resent her elitism.  And in a natural and expected twist, she in turn does not seem to notice their resentment at all, but keeps on reminding them all the while.  During practice, this habit manifests itself in her unfortunate tendency to drop the instrument she's playing, step over to a peer, and steal their instrument in an effort to "show them the right way to play it."  This is not good behavior for making friends.  Incidentally, she doesn't have many, and as pointed out, she compensates by playing a game that doesn't require many friends.

The Gem of the group, the diamond in the rough so to speak, is another 4th grade girl.  Gem is an oddball, and has an oddball's sense of humor.  On more than one occasion, she has confessed to me that her roiling tears were borne of the fact that her mother "had passed on to be with the Lord, she had."  And when it was clear I wasn't buying it, she switched wholesale into an innocent expression of "well, not yet, anyway."  Short and stout for a girl her age, she is far less girly than her other gendermates in the band, and sometimes this plays into an unfortunate dynamic.  Of the five girls, three like to sing rather than just play percussive instruments.  Of those three, Euro and Chica are natural friends, making a "two's company, three's a crowd" scenario for Gem, who often resents the others for not including her in their singing camaraderie.  She will gleefully resort to borderline-negative behavior for the sake of attention, though she is an enjoyable addition when she does not have to.

The Enigma of the group, contrarily, doesn't go out of her way to draw attention at all.  Only in third grade, Enigma doesn't share the sense of gravity around the Iron Band the way her peers do, and often will come by to say 'hi' to me when class lets out before skipping practice to go home.  Cutesy and shy around others, she never lets on what she is thinking, or even that she comprehends the nature of what is going on around her.  However, she is a rapid learner, and is one of the few participants that I have discovered has the ability to mimic drumming skills merely by observing once or twice.  This has come in handy, and as a result is my preference for playing bass, since she can do a loud, steady beat with minimal guidance.  All of the other boys want to add something to it, or play a complicated beat that is more advanced and difficult to follow.  But she is content to play loud and fast, which is more in the style of what we are looking for in the low registers.

The youngest member of the group, Beta, is less a certainty.  Being in third grade himself, Beta is still picking up on some standard social cues from his peers, but does so from the back, careful not to draw attention to himself, trying to remain anonymous and unremarkable – to the point that a few weeks in, some of the older participants did not know who I was talking about when I inquired into his whereabouts.  He tends to be more anxious than the others, with a seemingly perpetual expression of shock on his face.  If I or one of the older students have the indecency to suddenly change the activity, venue, or situation in any way, he is the last to know and the first to come running with a look of fear in his eyes, breathlessly asking me what is happening.  I've learned to avoid this momentary distraction by trying to maintain his attention whenever giving out new instructions, but this is often difficult, especially when he has taken off without my notice to spin tops with his buddies.

And finally, DJ rounds the list.  A sixth grade boy in Chica's class, DJ has the unique distinction of being the only participant in the Iron Band who was not originally invited to join.  Instead, he (like so many others have tried to do) wiggled his way in by the interesting coincidence of having a similar name to Beta, and by telling me on our first day that I had, in fact, asked him to join the Iron Band the day before.  This was a bald-faced lie, but after participating for the first practice, and what with the withdrawal of one of our other participants, it didn't seem to be too much of an imposition to allow him to stay.  He has some basic self-esteem issues, and has the most trouble getting home regularly from school (both implying his home situation may be at worst weak, and gratefully not destructive), but his performance IQ is among the highest among band members, as he is able to play, sing, and dance on demand.  His natural bent is to follow the lead of others, however, and often these gifts are masked in the interest of fitting in.

And that's about it.  They had their first public showing for the Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary celebration last Friday, and have been begging to play at the beach, at Port Zante, and at our Challengers engagement ever since.  Thanks for reading, and wish us luck!

D. Connor Band Bangs On The Door

The Iron Band had their first "gig" on Thursday, playing for their fellow students during morning assembly.  Since it was the last assembly of the second trimester, the principal was willing to fit in a timeslot for us and observe our progress over the last three weeks.  The students, to no ones' surprise, were very nervous at the prospect of playing for their peers, and some of the younger students even tried to get out of playing on stage, citing fears of being laughed at.  I explained that they would not be the only ones up on stage, and that when all was done, their fellow students would be cheering and dancing, not laughing at them.

This ultimately proved to be true. However, it wasn't clear from the beginning that this would be the case: the musicians' collective stage fright manifested by freezing each one when they got on stage.  So rather than starting out with a bang, they kind of started out with more of a whimper, hardly even playing until after (what seemed to me like) a few minutes.  Finally, they got moving around, and the audience, far from being inclined to dance, still was transfixed on the beat and the motion on stage.  So in the end they earned their applause, and I can only hope that this experience will translate easily into increased confidence for each of the students on future performances.

The students are now enjoying two weeks off for Easter vacation.  Since I knew the Band would most likely lose those four days of practice, due to the difficulty of scheduling meetings, I was amenable to trading that time for a little performance experience before May, when we'll be looking into scheduling our first real gig in Challengers, the next village up the Caribbean side.  Then, in June, all of the PCVs on island will head to Independence Square to host an all-day public meet-and-greet celebrating the Peace Corps' 50th anniversary this year, and I'll bring the Band by to play a set or two.  So the great news is that we're making noise, both figuratively and literally, and hoping that the possibilities don't end with just some out-of-town performances – eventually, a little radio or television exposure would serve to propel their fame much more rapidly, and a highlight video can't be far behind!

Mmm... new header.

Sounds Like Rain On A Metal Roof

Well, the Iron Band's first practice with instruments happened Tuesday.  It went, all things considered, as well as could reasonably be hoped.  All the students showed up, including half-a-dozen unwelcome guests who, on several occasions, tried to muscle their way into playing an instrument.  It was harder than I expected maintaining control of 10+ students without the aid of audible speech.  So for a good 30 minutes or more, all of our respective abilities to hear deteriorated somewhat.  As an aside, I have looked around in town for earplugs, but as of yet have not found them.

What I did find, however, were a couple different items useful for striking the various pots, pans, and objects that form the instrumentation of a traditional iron band.  For a mere EC$25, I was able to purchase 10 drumsticks, which should be enough for everyone to strike their respective instruments with.  In addition, my neighbor, who cuts the metal for burglar bars as a side business, had some scrap pieces of rebar that we ground the sharp edges off to be used on the pans.  With everyone getting a chance to "knock" on something, a good time was had by all, and the kids really look forward to future meetings.

The only exception to all this is one student by the name of Shakimba, who you will no doubt be hearing plenty about for the coming months.  For all of those readers faithful in their resolution to pray for me and my mission here, I ask you to remember one more item: Shakimba is an 10 year old boy who, in addition to being placed in the lowest stream of 3rd graders, displays classic EBD tendencies.  He has difficulty participating in group activities, and deeply resents both disciplinary action and being singled out for any reason.  While it is widely understood that he shows a strong competency for drumming already, making him the prime recommendation of (not one, not two, but) three different staff members, of their own accord, the clear reason they suggested him was due in large part to his need for a positive group activity.  And now that the responsibility of engaging him in those activities lies with me, and I don't have any material training in dealing with EBD students, I request your prayers for him and me in the days ahead.

Well, that's about it for now.  So, right on schedule, here's the highlight reel for March.

Funnyquote Friday

Asked (in jest, of course) of my fellow volunteer just before hiking up Mt. Liamuiga:

"Would you like to be the [Peace Corps]

Country Director's water carrier?"

I have some pretty entertaining 10-minute conversations with my coworker every day on the commute home after work.  The topic for Wednesday was "stress," no doubt brought on by her unfortunate scramble at the end of that day to finish something last-minute, in the Kittitian way, all with the constant supervision of our boss.  She said she remembered a time not so long ago when she didn't have a care in the world, and where the constant stresses of today didn't find her.  I told her that was just being silly, that I was willing to bet she had many serious stresses even then, e.g. school, looking for a job, parental expectations, living at home, etc.  And while they may not be the same stressors that we both face today, their respective magnitudes and effect on our day-to-day happiness is difficult for anyone to gauge.  She then interpreted my cogitations as experiential, and asked if I was somehow immune to stress, citing my general nonchalance in the office.  I argued that I did indeed have stresses, not unlike hers, but my ability to compartmentalize in combination with the relaxed nature of my NSTP projects against, say, my school projects, inclines me to appear relaxed when I am at work.  In truth, I didn't believe the words as they were leaving my mouth.

Because when I got home, and I stopped to really think about it, I realized that this wasn't the reason that I was able to go into work seemingly stress-free three days a week.  I'm instead beginning to believe that it is actually because, for the first time, I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing right now.  Maybe telling all those people that the reason I joined the Peace Corps was because "the timing was right" has got me believing it now, too.  In truth, I'd not rather be in the States, concerned with keeping peace and control in a family, maintaining a high level of performance output at work, and exploring new levels of sedentary livelihood; I'd rather be here, astride the ocean, contributing to society, and enjoying my youth as I do.  Even now, as I write this, I am in shorts and drinking a Skol, watching the cruise ships head south to whatever-destination awaits.

In retrospect, I bet this whole bit is just an outcropping of the sense of relief I feel after successfully identifying the 10 new members of the DWC Iron Band, which I did Tuesday, and in turn holding our first meeting on Thursday.  The meeting went well, as 8 of the 10 I invited to be part of the Iron Band were able to attend, discuss our respective ideas for the programme, and get in a little face time.  It's pretty clear to me already who the highly-motivated students will be, who the clowns will be, and who the late bloomers will prove to be.  The bottom line, however: this is a good group of kids that are eager to get to "knocking on stuff," as one of them put it, and use some of that after-school energy on a positive pursuit.  In fact, despite not having touched an instrument yet, they are already begging for permission to perform at the next morning assembly.  An excellent dry run once we establish an act, I thought, before going across town to perform for the first time.  So I might have some progress to report on our first performance sooner than I expected; but before I give the green light for that, I would like to actually hear them first!

Funnyquote Friday

Overheard at last week's Sports Day:

"You so slow, I gonna lap you in the 100 meters."

Thursday was a change in pace for me: I got to sleep in and at noon headed out to Sandy Point, on the northwest part of the island, to co-teach a couple of Junior High classes using my Math Games.  The 13-15 year-olds received the material very well, and the only difficulty my PCV partner and I had was keeping the sound and energy level at reasonable levels with the larger of the two classes.  All in all, I've gotten great feedback from these trial runs; in addition to improving the material in the process, I'm also gathering requests for access to the ideas.  So hopefully all the work I've put in to this so far will have future pay offs.

After school was out, we trucked over to Old Road, where we met a couple more friends and we all celebrated St. Patrick's Day together.  At a little roadside shack, we engaged in the very Irish Caribbean tradition of lounging at the rumshop and playing dominoes, vigorously throwing down our bones with a loud *CRACK!* on the Formica tabletop.  It was my first opportunity to share in such a uniquely local activity with locals and amongst locals, with local friends and even local strangers who nonetheless recognized me from various local places.  It was not only a great time, but contributed to further my sense of integration in my very small island community.  In fact, funny as it may sound now, a year from now I'll probably be wishing that I had a little more anonymity in my daily activities!

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.

Bugs of Lore and Tugs-of-War

Alright! I finally got around to testing out my miniature charcoal grill at the house last night on a no-expense-barred dry run with Caribbean Jerk Chicken.  It turned out way better than I expected – it was bold-flavored and spicy, just like jerk chicken is supposed to taste.  The texture was a little grainier than I was hoping for, so maybe I go a little bit easier on the flour next time.  But other than that, it was a grand experiment in lighting charcoal with naught but newspaper, lighter fluid, a dozen matches and faith.  (Only three of which are actually flammable.)

More updates from the CreepyCrawly files: I've been getting much better at killing mosquitoes, sometimes tallying upwards of 5 a day.  And of course I wash my hands afterward.  But the vermin that stole the show this week was the Mother Of All Cockroaches – this sucker was two inches long, and was hella fast.  Its end was the flat end of a flyswatter when it dared to venture from beneath the couch for too long.  And the fun doesn't end there; I was greeted with surprise guests in my garbage bin yesterday, cleaning the house in preparation for a guest.  What were the ants lining up outside to find at the bottom of my garbage?  A litter of grubs! Yes, this certainly made my day.  It all came to a crushing end, however, when I Raided their lair and swept the confines clean of any infestation.  (I hope.)

The initial stages of the Iron Band programme were pushed back to next week, as this week at school is almost exclusively devoted to Inter-House Sports Day, held on Friday.  I'll be there all day helping out with the races and other events.  I'll make sure and grab some photos and video for the highlight reel this month, so each of you can experience your own Sports Day.  It's a major to-do here on island: every school plans their own full day of events, featuring the best athletes the school can boast in a variety of competitive heats, everything from the very legit track races to the less-so tug-of-war.  All of the community attends, many in the interest of getting an early peek at this nation's future track and field stars.

Funnyquote Friday

A fellow volunteer at this week's training spouted this quip regarding the average PCV's perspective:

"The pessimist says, 'The glass is half empty.'

The optimist says, 'The glass is half full.'

The Peace Corps Volunteer says, 

'Who poured the bath for me?' "

Thankfully not the case here, though no doubt a reality in other far-flung reaches of the world.

Thursday was another day of playing Roving College Professor with the elementary students, as I visited three different classrooms with three different Math Games to try out.  This time my classes were the highest stream of sixth graders (the de facto cream of the crop at DWC Primary), a mixed class of second and third graders, and a class of kindergartners, the last of which were so adorable and enjoyed the activity so much I wish it had not ended in just 15 minutes.  In between my visits, I took an hour break in the library to get off my feet, prepare for the next session, and catch up on Grisham's The Firm, all to the most accentuated sounds of remedial reading tutoring going on around the bookshelves.  I can't express how delightful are the sounds of young children's voices when they are saying in a voice far too loud, belying their enthusiasm, "SELL... S... E... L... ... L... SELL!"  And in light of the inter-house Spelling Bee scheduled for that night, a timely exercise as well.  Didn't distract me a bit.

I felt too fatigued to go to soccer this week.  What with getting up a little bit earlier than usual all five days, but not having the force of will to go to bed earlier, I'm feeling the exhaustion set in the latter half of this week.  Fortunately, I have but one major activity to complete this weekend: write out a comprehensive plan proposal for the Iron Band project, complete with calendar and application questionnaire for prospective student members.  I have a very strong framework to work from, thanks to training sessions earlier this week, and so I am motivated to get all of my ideas out on paper.  Then it is just a matter of identifying the willing souls to carry out the various parts of the plan for the good of the 10-or-so students.  Who will they be?  How fast will this thing get off the ground?  When will our first gig be?  Will the students sound good?  Will there be community approval/support?  So many questions I expect to get answers to this month.

"March"-ing Forward

And just like *snap*, IST is over...

The last day was, for my part, far and away the most productive, what with scheduling an elective seminar with a local guidance counselor (i.e., a very cerebral, analytical person, complete with training in emotional intelligence; so just my type of expert!) on the topic of how to make projects more sustainable.  My Iron Band idea was a natural choice for the example du jour, and so I got to further discuss my vision for what that project is capable of, as well as set in writing some calendar dates for moving ahead in that project even without having the instruments in-hand, or what I might rightly call "Plan C." (for inCredible!)

Normal life begins again with tomorrow's plans to take my Math Games into the school another time in order to pilot the curriculum.  I'm looking forward to another day on my feet, but I expect some mild tangible rewards in the end akin to last week's experiment: perhaps one teacher will comment that she didn't know that a deck of cards could be used to teach algebra so effectively; perhaps one teacher will have some constructive advice for the next time I lead these activities; perhaps one student will comment on how fun he thought the activity was, and that he was looking forward to me visiting his class again sometime.

Whatever the outcome, I have increased faith that we are headed towards good things in so many of my projects, and this month especially holds great potential for early spring budding in each and every one of them.

Funnyquote Friday

Your quote for the week comes from a revelation of my mother after I mentioned my increased workload for this and next month:

"Well, your six months of vacation are over."

Right.  Vacation.  Thank you.

A visit to school yesterday, in which I piloted three of the Math Activities I had prepared back in October, went just about as well as could be expected.  That is to say, the morning 1-hour session went like a breeze, and the kids were focused, motivated, and capable.  It was a pleasure to see the group dynamics in action, and to see the students challenged appropriately and more often than not rise to beat that challenge.  Then, the noontime 45-minute session with another class went okay, with the kids losing interest right in time for lunch.  And finally, the 30-minute session with yet another class in the afternoon went by far too quickly: I had scheduled an hour in the event it went longer than I planned, but the activity was mostly beneath the abilities of the kids and they breezed through it with little or no difficulty.  And when I managed to raise the difficulty to attempt to challenge the class further, with no tangible goal in sight, they quickly lost interest.  Suffice to say, some clear lessons were learned for the sake of running three more sessions next Thursday, as well as for improving the activities in general.  So good news there!

Not much else to write about today – I have a meeting at NEDD to hand over my first revision of the Small Business Financial Management presentation I have prepared to supplement the Introduction to Entrepreneurship curriculum that they are compiling.  And at noon I have a charity luncheon to attend – not even sure what it was I signed up for yet, so I'll let you know next week who the beneficiaries of the fundraiser are.  All of this before I spend the weekend creating a digital promo poster for a cultural gala fundraiser on Nevis, compile and edit the February highlight video for publishing before the end of the month, and finish some homework in preparation for InterService Training beginning Monday.  Oh, and I get to celebrate a housewarming on Nevis Saturday night.  So lots of fun projects to keep me busy, and hopefully I won't get overwhelmed!

Also, D-D-D-DOES WANT!!