Summer is finished. Time for school.

Time for SCHOOOOOL! Summer was nice here and I kept somewhat busy, but now it's time to get back to work! And I am actually excited about that. But first, a re-cap on my "vacation".

Week one: I developed and ran a summer music camp at St. John's Anglican School. I taught recorder to 13 students. The camp only ran for 5 days but man did they improve. Too bad they can't have 4 hours of recorder everyday. They would be little recorder masters in no time. But because there were 12 students and usually about 30 in the after school class, I am going to be teaching 2 classes this term. Beginning and advanced. I love music to death. I still want to get them marching though. How cool would that be!?!?!?
And I quick shout-out to Laura "Happy" McLaughlan, and everyone else who helped in donating 20 new recorders to the program. Now my students here can afford to buy their own instruments! (because they will be free)


Alright, so week 2: Summer Camp for the Father Mulligan's Boys Home. 7 other volunteers and I ran a week long summer camp for the boys at the home. It was so incredibly fun and exhausting! We did lots of typical camp things like games and team building and swimming galore. On the last 2 days we did a camp out with tents and all! In the morning of our camp out, I had told a camper that if he wakes up in time, to come wake me up and we will go crab hunting. BIG mistake. Who knew a little 10 year-old could wake up at 5:00 a.m. all on his own (no alarm). I thought I was safe in telling him I would go with. Whoops. So, at 5:00 a.m. we set out along the beach looking for crabs for like an hour and a half. We didn't catch any. Well, we caught one, but then they killed it. Hah! By the end of the week, we were ALL exhausted. But considering everything those guys have been through, they are some pretty awesome kidos! I can't wait to do it again next year.



Week 3: "The Hike". One of the volunteers from the 79 group had this totally awesome idea to do a perimiter island hike. Lets just say I'm glad it's done and I will NEVER do it again. It took us 4 days to walk/hike around the entire island. Day one we walked from St. Georges to Grenville, a 22 mile day. After day one I had the worst blisters I have ever had in my life, but we still had 3 days to go. Day 2 was Grenville to Sauteures, only an 11 mile day. Blisters started forming inside blisters at this point. (This was the most painful day by far) Day 3 was Sauteures to Gouyave, another 11 mile day. And day 4 was Gouyave back to St. Georges, a 12 mile day. I must say, day 4 was the hardest to get going on because I was home and I had to leave to go for another big walk just to get to town and take a bus home. Oh well, it's done and done! I motivated myself with a delicious smoothie the entire last day. "first walk 12 miles until feet are numb from pain, then mango passion-fruit smoothie" Day 5 was spent soaking my feet every 30 min. Day 6 was a beach party, not a good idea with open blisters. Oh well, live and learn!




Then came carnival! Who knew there was an entire country out there that likes to party as much as I do!? Carnival last for about 5 days starting off on Friday. Friday night we went to Soca Monarch, a music competition where soca artists performed their song and then were judged. In the end, the winner's song is played over and over and over and over throughout the rest of carnival. Saturday night I went to a pan (steel drum) competition. Another one of those live and learn experiences. It was neat to see but so extremely boring (compared to the night before). Sunday was rest day. And then chaos began! Monday morning we all met up in town to play J'ourvet in St. Georges. This is where you get together with a group of people and paint yourself all crazy. Our group played with Skittles, taste the rainbow, so we were all different colors. This event starts pretty early, 4:30 a.m. and drinking is involved. It was a blast! EVERYONE! was sooo happy! Everyone! That afternoon we watched the fancy mas parade and took it easy to rest of for Monday Night Mas. For this, we played with LIME (a cell phone company). In this event you parade down the street with your group (this time a LOT bigger group). Everyone who is playing bought a package that comes with fun little light up toys, a shirt, a whistle and a big ol' cup! We didn't get done with this until about 2:00 a.m. and someone had the great idea to take a bus to Grenville to do some more partying in the morning. After 2 hours of sleep, we headed back out to play some more J'ourvet in sauteures. We played with the pink band this time because they were the ones we passed first. Clearly we were picky. All in all, carnival was terrific. Exhausting, but once a year, totally fun!



That is my summer in short. But now I am back to work. I have soooo many ideas and new things to work for this term. I am very excited about all my work-sites at this point because each of them have so much potential. I hope I can organize my thoughts enough to keep it all straight. Right now I have lists of lists of lists. Gah!

On a similar note, anyone reading this who is a classroom teacher (preferably elementary level) interested in doing a pen-pal program? Through peace corps it is called World Wise Schools (correspondence match). In short, it's a two-year exchange of ideas, stories, pictures, and artifacts that helps U.S. students in the classroom learn about the people, geography, environment, and culture of the world from the direct experience of Volunteers living in other countries, and vice versa. Shoot me an email if you are interested. elkilgore@gmail.com or if you know of an AWESOME teacher that would be interested. (Too bad my EC friends are like all music teachers... not sure how that would work? But if you think it would I would love to hear from yoooou!)

I seriously miss marching, guess I am bigger nerd than I thought. When I get back, I am going to march my brains out, watch out!

Peace, love, and chicken grease!

Summer time!!!!

It is officially summer in Grenada now. The schools are on holiday and it's hot, still. This means I am not at my typical work sites everyday. BUT! I am staying plenty busy.

On June 29, Grenada celebrated fisherman's Birthday. It's a big event in Gouyave because Gouyave is a fishing town. I walked to the beach that morning with a class from my school. We saw the "blessing of the ships" where a priest said some things I couldn't hear and then put holy water on the boats. It was neat to see even if I couldn't hear a thing. I noticed that some people were wearing these really cool shirts that said, "Gouyave is the place to be. Fisherman's Birthday 2010" and I wanted one so bad! After about 30 min of investigating I found a kid who took me to a guy named Kevin that told me to go to a bar that told me they didn't have any so I asked another kid that took me back to Kevin and I ended getting one for free from Kevin! I tried to pay! I even offered to buy him beer, but he didn't want anything. Oh well, awesome shirt! Later that night the calm scene that was filed with holy water and blessed boats turned into extremely crowded streets, loud music, and lots of fun being had. This was more like it! I have never seen so many people in Gouyave before. The entire beach was full of people and then we made our way to the main street and that was even more crowded (left). All in all, it was a very fun night.


With the end of the school year came lots of graduation ceremonies and other end of the year events. I attended two primary school grade 6 graduations and that was pretty much enough of that for a while. They were both kinda really long and I made the mistake of sitting right in front of a speaker at one of them. I ended up finding old tissue in my bag and stuffing it in my ear because I thought I was going to have hearing damage. Glad that's over! I also helped out with an end of the year exhibition for the special ed school I am at. We practiced, "10 Little Monkey's Jumping On the Bed" for a few weeks. The kids were the monkeys and then one would sit down as they each fell off the "bed". All in all, it went really well. Hahah, it was fun but a little nerve racking because EVERYONE (parents, teachers, kids, co-workers, bosses) was watching! Ah! It was fun though.

Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZegEcx8UXw

This past week I ran a week long music camp (on recorder) at one of my schools. I had 12 students attend and they did great! They all had been attending my recorder classes this past term. We learned about 5 songs and they got to perform in front of the class the last day. There was this one little girl who seemed like she was not paying attention or wouldn't have her instrument or would fall out of her chair, you get the idea. Well, I wasn't sure how much she was really getting out of the class because of these things. When it was her turn to play for the class she played better than all of the kids that went before her. Shoot, fooled me, man! It was a lot of fun and they kids did really well!

I had my first birthday in Grenada a few weeks ago! It was absolutely awesome. We spent it at the beach, swimming, drinking and cooking and it will go down in the books as a really hard birthday to beat. Unforgettable. To da left: A picture of my "Birthday cake", it's cheese sticks with candles in them. My friends know me! And to de right, I am totally sound asleep in this tree. I laid down for a sec but I guess getting old is exhausting.


My time here so far has been wonderful! Ups and downs of course, but the downs haven't been too low and the ups are way high! I am very happy with the work I am doing right now and how many names I am remembering! What what! Slowly but surely, I am starting to "fit in" a little more. Now I just need to buy some bright orange skinny jeans!

It sure has been a while!

Sorry folks, again, for not keeping up with this. I could stretch the truth and tell you all that I have been just too busy to get a chance to sit down and write, but that might not be completely accurate. However, I have been busy!

The school year is starting to wind down, only 3 more weeks left. This term, I have been volunteering teaching a swim group at one of my schools. Sure, I have never had formal swim training and have never swam competitively nor have I been to a meet ever, but hey, that's what the PC is all about, right? So yeah, I have been helping out and so far so good. We had tryouts to build a team to take to a inter-primary school swim meet in St. Pauls, in a real pool too! 9 students from my school were chosen to represent St. John's RC. I was their coach. Heheh, I felt like I was in one of those movies where they kids all show up with the wrong equipment, and not matching clothes and having a coach that knows very little about what's going on. But overall, the meet was awesome! It was a 2 day event and very chaotic. All 9 kids were great! It was so cute bc they were very nervous to get in a real pool for the first time but once in, they loved it!

I am also teaching recorder at my other school. It's "coming" along. we have 3 classes left for the year but I am developing a summer music camp for several weeks in July. This should be fun because I will get to build the classes by level, age, experience, etc and only have like 8-10 in each class, instead of 30+ all at once. It's a bit much at times :)

I have my first visitor now, Hayley Nelson, a friend from college. She has been here about a week and is here for about one more week. It's been fun showing her around and letting her experience some the quirks Grenada has and also meeting lots of new people.

Speaking of her visit, we have been REALLY busy this past week! After I finished up with all the crazy swim meet stuff last Friday we made a trip down to Fish Friday in Gouyave. There were 4 of us total and all of us were exhausted so we only made it until about 10:30. Ooops. This weekend, we shall do better.
Saturday was eventful though. We went to 7 sisters waterfalls in St Andrews. It was great! It's been a long time since my heart has beat that fast! We hiked about 20 min on a nice little path to get to the falls. Once there, we all took our shoes off and continued the rest of the way barefoot. This part was fun but VERY steep. At the top there really was no turning back because the hike was so steep going up, going down the same way was a bit out of the question. So, we rinsed off in the river and began our decent of jumping falls. The first 4 were nice. A little exciting but nothing too high. We then approached #5... we were at the top of a 35 ft water fall (4 stories about) and only one way down. Guess who went first? Yeah, me! I could see my heart beating through my bathing suit. It was intense. The high after I jumped was way cool though and totally worth it. Scary as all get up, but worth it. That night, once again, we were all exhausted.
Today, Hayley and I took another adventure and ,without a guide, hiked to concord falls. We found the first one alright but then started off to the 2nd and could not find it at all. We even went back several times looking for a different path that maybe we didn't see the first time. No such luck. We still got in the water a bit and had a nice hike, just no fall. OH! But I fell! Haha, crossing the river on some slippery rocks I biffed it hard! HA! My first fall in Grenada. Oh well. I looked a bit ridic for a while because my backside was soaked. Fun day all together though. Tot wiped out!

That pretty much recaps the main events of the past few weeks. I know I forgot things and THAT is why I am going to try really really really hard to write a little more frequently than once every 2 months or something.

After 3.5 months in Grenada, I have come up with 3 very serious goals to have accomplished by the time I leave here...

1. Be able to french braid my hair as well as Liz Soules
2. Learn all the words to Busy Signals, "Night Shift"
3. and I guess develop some sort of program for the youth here?

because when I arrive, I, I bring the party!

Mooooovin' out! Alright, so for those of you that don't know, I lived with my host family for an extra month while we fixed up an apartment they had below their house. My first place was... yeah. So, one month later, I moved out! (well, one month and one day. Not bad for Grenadian time) My place is wonderful. I am close to a great family, in a safe neighborhood and there are PEOPLE living around me. Unlike my last place where the only person near me was some old lady. Some good she's going to do if anything happens. The only bad thing about my new place is there is no mirror... yet. I havent seen my face for 48 hours now. Who knows that going on there.

This past weekend was another volunteers birthday. We celebrated by going up to Victoria, a town just north of me, and doing a little nature appreciation. It was absolutely beautiful. It has been raining more so now things are starting to get more green and boy was it green up there. We had a really REALLY good time with all the volunteers, EC-81 and 79. Another volunteer and I ended up staying all day while the others left earlier. A group of kids came in the afternoon and swam with us for a bit, 2 of them turned out to be my students.

Nothing on this island can be done without someone knowing about it. In a way, I feel like Grenada is like the music department at UW-EC. Except, in EC, there was only a little river, here we've got the friggin Caribbean sea AND the Atlantic ocean.

Ok, so on Wednesday of last week I helped the special ed school, V.S.S.E. do a health day. I put up some pictures on FB but here is what we did. When I got to school I had a full day of sessions planned. However, those plans quickly went out the window when they asked/ told me if I could play any fruit songs. Thank goodness I know Mr. Piper, bc we sang the wiggles all day long. We did some warm up exercises and then a few movement songs then went to town with the food. It was tricky because there are lots of fruits that we dont have at home and you can always put ANYTHING in a fruit salad. But all in all, it was very cool.

This Wednesday, after lunch I held my first teacher guitar class. I am teaching the teachers that want to learn, guitar. So far, after class one, I have decided that adults are WAY easier to teach than kids. DANG! But I think this is going to be cool. There are 2 teachers that are REALLY in to it so that is always a plus.

Speaking of guitar, I bought a Guitar last weekend. I may have spent more than I was planning, but you know what? Oh well. It's done and over and now it's time to start saving again.

Well, I feel like I had more to say than that but I guess not. My mosquito bites are almost all gone! This only means one thing, time to get like 30 more this weekend. Going to go on another hash, I am excited about that!

Dude, May is coming!

Alrighty folks, it's been a while! Last time I wrote I was still a trainee and very much looking forward to becoming an official volunteer. Now it's official! All 8 of us made it through the long "exciting" process that was training.

During training I was going into town about 3-4 times/week which meant I was not in my community but instead, sitting in a classroom. Now, I am finally in my schools full time! I am very excited at this point. Like I mentioned in previous entries, I am at 3 schools. At the 2 in Gouyave, I am doing pretty much the same things at both right now, administering a reading assessment so we establish groups and to have a baseline of where the kidos are starting at. While this seems necessary, holy cow is it long and boring. Asking the same ?s and doing the same activities all day gets old quick. I have tried to find ways to entertain myself, like inventing games to go along with different areas of the assessment... however, the excitement only goes so far ;) Oh well, only a few more weeks of this (I HOPE!)

On a more exciting note, I taught my first recorder class today. I had no idea how many kids were interested but about 20 showed up. I think that number sounds about right. I was picturing like 50 kids showing up and having to listen to 50 3rd, 4th and 5th graders play recorder. Not looking good. They were actually really well behaved too! I guess I had worst case scenario playing in my head.

At my 3rd school I am doing MMMUUUUSSSSIIICC!!!!!!!! Im a little excited about this. I am going to be leading 4 music therapy session one day a week and also teaching 1-2 of the current teachers how to use music as a therapeutic tool. I really am enjoying this because I am teaching not just the students, but the teachers too. The biggest point I want to get across is that when the kids are in music, let them be more independent. It is possible to adapt the material to them if it seems to be too challenging or whatnot. Holy over prompting mania! But like quite a few things here, there are a handful of challenges. We held the sessions outside last week as to not disturb the other kids working but that meant no boundaries, no chairs, so the kids were either running free in the field or swarming my guitar, and rain is never really good for a guitar. I'll keep you posted on this adventure for sure.

Two weeks ago we had our swearing in ceremony. It was cool because now we are volunteers but goodness do some people have a lot to say. Or maybe it just felt super long because I was excited to go CELEBRATE. Either way, I got my patch. Hah

This past weekend ended up being quite the eventful one! One amazing thing after another. It started off with turtle watching in Sauteurs. We all took a bus up to Sauteurs, a town at the northern most part of the island where one of the other volunteers lives. They made enchiladas and homemade chips and salsa and I got to help by grating the cheese! Yay! Around 9 or so we headed out to the beach. We took 2 car trips to get everyone there but once we were all there we only had to wait a little while for the fun to begin. At first they saw some baby leather-back sea turtles in a bucket after just hatching and we got to see them make their first plunge into the sea. Oh life. Then, not too long after, they called us down where a massive mama turtle was laying her eggs. I completely reset my watch at some point in the night so Im not exactly sure how long it took her but I would say about an hour or more to lay 26 eggs and 90 something yolks. It was the kind of thing you see on the Discovery channel. Very cool.

Saturday afternoon I participated in my first Hash. A hash is a mixture of athleticism and sociability, hedonism and hard work, a refreshing escape from the nine-to-five dweebs you're stuck with five days a week. Hashing is an exhilaratingly fun combination of running, orienteering, and partying, where bands of harriers and harriettes chase hares on eight-to-ten kilometer-long trails through town, country, and desert, all in search of exercise, camaraderie, and good times.
Hashing began in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1938, when a group of British colonial officials and expatriates founded a running club called the Hash House Harriers. They named the group after their meeting place, the Selangor Club, nicknamed the "Hash House." Hash House Harrier runs were patterned after the traditional British paper chase. A "hare" was given a head start to blaze a trail, marking his devious way with shreds of paper, all the while pursued by a shouting pack of "harriers." Only the hare knew where he was going . . . the harriers followed his clues to stay on trail. Apart from the excitement of chasing the hare and solving the clues, reaching the end was its own reward . . . for there, thirsty harriers would find a tub of iced-down beer.

Alright, so I just copy pasted that because I can. The hash I went on took about 2 1/2 hours, about 6-7 miles, and boy was I wiped out after. It was very very cool though and really want to go again.

Sunday was filled with even more walking! We had signed up for a Diabetes walk about a month ago and it turned out to be the day after the hash. The walk was about 3 miles putting me close to 10 miles walked this weekend. My body doesn't know what just happened. That is more walking than I would usually do in like a year I feel like. So, needless to day, Monday morning was a rough one. Hitting the hay early tonight.

So, I think that is a decent update on what's been happenin' here in the EC. I am still truly enjoying myself and continuing to learn more and more everyday. And I love that.

Today is Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two more weeks of training and then we are freeeeeeeeeeeeee!


This past weekend I went up to Victoria. It’s a town just of Gouyave and the last Saturday of the month they have a food fest. I went up with my 2 host brothers, Daxton and Dexter. When we got there we met up with their cousin or uncle or something. They were drinking local wine and boy was it tasty.

Speaking of “local”, due to the accent that the people here have, some words sound like different words, for example, local. The times that confuse me are when they are referring to food being “all local”. This concept is great and I am always very excited to try local food but when they say it I hear “low cal” as in more healthy. So, local wine… is low cal wine. I was amazed that they made low cal wine in Grenada! Then I remembered low cal = local.

So! At the food fest my host brother was asking me all about the kind of food that I have tried here so far. I soon found out he really just wanted to get me to eat the things that might not be extremely “normal” (in my book). For example, blood pudding. Ha Ha! I got him though, because I had already tried that independently, and well… I prolly wont be eating that any time soon. But I tried it. So blood pudding was out. He then asked me if I have had “souce”. Hahahah, if only I knew what that would entail. He got a cup of it and it looked like large pieces of onion in a broth with some seasonings. Now onions are not my favorite but I thought I wouldn’t mind trying something new, veggie too. I was wrong. Turns out, the onion-like food was cow skin. Oye, boy! Ick! It was like eating a slightly softened racquetball, but maybe a bit thicker.


Alright, so on Sunday, after getting home at like 2 am Saturday night, I headed down into town for church, palm Sunday too! My alarm didn’t go off on Sunday morning so I had about 10 min to get ready. The service was neat though. Well… the parade like activity that took place before the service was neat. I’ll put up some pictures on FB soon. There were about 100 or so people in 2 lines all with palm fronds dancing their way to the church. It was cool to see and ended up sweating through my shirt big time. Glad I woke up late and didn’t shower.


I got a second typhoid shot today. I took the pill when I went to Africa but the shot lady in AZ didn’t sign my passport, just listed the shots. Honestly lady, who does that!? Needless to say, my arm hurts like a real bad thing.


It’s spring break in Grenada and when 65% of the population is under 25 yrs old, the scene changes when the schools are on break. Because all of my worksites and attachments are with schools I have a break too. Yay! But I am keeping busy. Tomorrow I am going to hopefully buy a snorkel! After I help out another volunteer with a YMCA easter camp. It’s not ALL fun and games here believe me. I just choose not to write about how training is going.


I am currently in the process of deciding whether or not to extend my stay with my host family. I really enjoy living with them. They are all great people, fun to be around, VERY knowledgeable on just about anything I ask them about, and also very respected and known in the community so I feel pretty firkin safe here too. It’s different living with a family again though. I have lived with roommates for the past 8 years and gotten used to fending for my self, cooking and cleaning my stuff and that was it. So this has been a change. Not too hard though. Not too hard at all. I would only extend a month or so because I don’t want my apt. to get rented by someone else while they wait for me to need it. So, I have some thinking to do in the next week or so.

This is hard

I am not very good about keeping up with this... and writing in my journal too... just don't usually make the cut. But here I go!

Today I got to attend a funeral. It was a really really neat experience. When someone dies, 3 days after they hold prayer. This is basically people getting together to sing and repeat things (religious things). I felt a bit out of place at the prayer because I knew lots of the people but didn't realize the person who died was a teacher. She was actually a teacher who worked at one of the schools I will be at.
So today was the actual funeral and it started at 1:30 and finished around 4:30. It was pretty hot in the church but neat to see all the people who gathered for the occasion. After the service we all walked, following the casket in the car, over to the cemetery. Now this was hot and I now know why they wear white and black and not all black. I am glad I went.

The TV is way too loud so maybe I'll write more later... right now, I need a break from noise.

5 seconds later, host mom came into the room and turned down the TV... do they have remote access setup on this thing?

I got to go to the beach 2 times last weekend. That puts my total at 3. I don't mean to rub it in or anything but the water here is absolutely perfect. It's cool but bc it's so hot outside the water feels amazing! I really need to start going everyday... there just isn't enough daylight! Maybe as my project I should hold classes from... 8:00pm to 3:00am. That way I can then swim all day? But anyway, the beaches are great and you can pretty much open your eyes under water too. It burns a little bit but nothing like pool water burn. Really cool stuff.

I found some music to get involved with. I will be starting a recorder program at one of the primary schools (all you ed peps, any suggestions? Liz?) I am excited about it because any music at this point is good. I also found a band that plays all sorts of music and my host dad took me to "try it out" last week. The other band members were very excited to have a white American girl playing with them. Now I just need to learn trombone... heheh, brass tech come back to me now. Too bad they don't have a cello. It was fun though.

My training is half way over as of this week. It is kind of going fast actually... unlike that first week on St. Lucia/ Florida, which had a time frame from another planet.

I got to meet with my APCD (the director on the island) and the country trainer coordinator today and overall, I left that meeting feeling pretty frikin' good about things. Just need to continue doing what I am doing.

This Thursday I was supposed to attend both of my worksites but neither of them have school that day because it's national primary sports day. SO! I made arrangements to attend the sports. No biggie if I don't get to sit in on another classroom lesson, I get to go to the stadium and cheer those kidos on! I am pumped!

While they do speak English here I am still having one heck of a time understanding the kids. These young folks nowadays with their slang and their baggy pants and their backwards baseball caps (hah, caps), but for real, I have to ask them what like 5 times! Maybe they will start thinking I should be in a special pullout program.

Well, life is going well here and I am enjoying everyday! There are things that aren't perfect but I get over that stuff easily. (so far!)

What a day!

Today I visited my 4th school in 3 days. This week has been a bit exhausting. But then, not THAT bad. Just glad the week is almost finished so now I can start memorizing the 5,000 names I have been introduced to in the past 3 days. (I think I know all my principals) Today was by far the most eventful day I have had in a while. Instead of sitting in a classroom for 8 hours learning about how to be safe, I was out in the 2 schools I will be with for my time here. Pretty exciting stuff.

The first school is the St. John's Anglican Primary school. The principal took me around to each classroom, introduced me to each teacher and then to each class. She started off introducing me as Ms. Kiljore, but after a few classes I corrected her. Then I had to correct other teachers and then of course kids. So, apparently "gore" is not a Grenadian friendly name. So, I am Ms. K. (Ew! Reminds me of my 8th grade science teacher who was missing an earlobe).

In the afternoon, I walked about 3 min over to the other primary school in town, St. John's R.C. I was given a tour of the school again and introduced to all the teachers and all of the classes. However! When I first got to the school, recess was just ending so I was just chatting with the principal. Then this kid came in holding his finger and balling big time! I thought his finger looked a little funny but couldn't tell what was wrong until he came up to the desk and oh my goodness! Because today was SOOOO windy, the doors that are usually just propped open, kept getting slammed shut by the wind. And sure enough, this poor kid got his tall man finger slammed in the door, basically slicing off the tip of it, oye! it was still hanging but literally hanging and then he shook it and kjfhsjdhfsfhskal! (THAT'S ALL I CAN SAY ABOUT THAT)
So, since I have been introduced to basically every child in Gouyave, everywhere I go, kids are saying hi Ms. K. Wow, this is intense :) (But very cool at the same time)
I also got to go to "Sports" today. It's similar to a field day but today was only track, so lots and lots of running. I headed over to the park after I finished observing at R.C. The school that was competing today was the secondary school (high school) that is in my front yard. The top 3 finishers from todays events then go to a next division and so on. But it was really neat to see because so many people were there cheering on the runners. (I'm not sure I would ever have gone to a running competition in the states... nope, actually, I know I wouldn't have) It went until about 6:30. This thing was a big deal!

Oh, and the people here say basically like Nobu.:)

Effective Teaching

Today I observed at my school attachment. This is not to be confused with my shadowing placement or my worksite placement, no, this is my school attachment. I will be at this school for a minimum of 6 months but most volunteers remain with their school attachment longer than the 6 mo requirement.
I sat in on a 6th grade class first. It was nice to just sit back and take it all in but after a while my eyes started wandering and found a stack of books on the teachers desk. I then saw a large black handle stick out from within the stack and noticed it was the handle to a giant knife. Ironically, it was resting peacefully on a book entitled: "Effective Teaching- a practical guide to improving your teaching". I'm not sure it could have been better placed.

Last night the power went out for about 7 hours and reminded me of home actually. Back in AZ when the power would go out in the summer from the storms and stuff. The cause for the outage was a kite. It's kite season right now and some kids got their kite stuck in the wires. Instead of leaving it alone they started pulling on it and pulled so hard 2 of the power lines touched and boom, no more power. :)
We all sat out on the deck watching the town in complete darkness and man were the stars cool then. Unfortunately the moon came out shortly and completely lit up the sky. (Which was neat in itself).
Because of the outage, no TV was being watched so we were all talking more. I started talking about AZ for some reason and found out that my host dad thought that we get lots of snow in AZ (like similar to one of the Dakotas). THIS is why when I told them I was comfortable with the heat and kinda of used to it they didn't really believe me ever. I am sure glad we got the cleared up. Now maybe they will be more comfortable with me walking around in the middle of the day :)

One more thing, mosquitoes here are like little ninjas! I have yet to see one land on me but about 5 min ago I got 7 on my thigh. Ah! I need to get better at this bug bite thing.

act of kindness

So today I took the bus and traveled up to Sauteurs (a town at the top most north part of the island). It is actually the location of my "safe house". In case there is a natural disaster, or something along those lines, I can just jump on a bus and travel for an hour and then get off and walk like 20 min and then I'll be safe... something like that.
So, my trip was fine and dandy and everything and I was on the bus back to Gouyave (my town). This little kid sat next to me. In front of us a woman dropped a dollar (here it's a coin) so the kid and I both tried to look for it but the bus is small and you can't really move much so we couldn't find it. When we stopped next, the woman got off and when the door opened the kid started looking again and I saw it b/c the light from the open door caught it. I pointed it out to the boy thinking he was going to keep it (free dollar!!!!) But he picked it up, yelled after the lady and gave it back to her. It was so neat to see that kind of honesty. Fun little Friday story.
Oh, and my gosh it's hot here.

Hump day

Well, I have been on Grenada for only 4 days now but time is moving in strange ways. For example, staging was on a Saturday then Sunday we flew to St. Lucia. All the trainees met that Saturday for the first time but after about 3 days we couldn't believe that we had only known each other for so little time. Very strange feeling actually. Now that I am on my island I am feeling the same way. I just counted the days I have been here and it most certainly feels longer than 4 days.
We are getting a lot of information thrown at us each day but I have already started to feel more comfortable with little things here and there. Like public transportation! Getting to and from the bus stop and also the bus terminal to the PC Office is a-piecea-cake.
The sun is hotter here... or something, dang! Got a wee bit pink the other day on a little walk.
Today, I got to meet the two principals I will be working with. They are both very nice people and it was good to have a face to put with all the names and information. The rest of the day was spent making fun of Crystal's food.
The other volunteers are great and it's so nice to share our stories. I need more bug spray that is not expired and I think then life would be pretty good overall.

Oh, and I'm reading Wicked and Daaaannngggg, so different from the show ('cause that's clearly good reading material for cultural integration).

Work Site info

Today I got my work site information and an idea of where I will be living on Grenada. I am going to be teaching/ helping with special education in a pre-primary school and also in a primary school. I am very excited about these placements! It looks like I will be living in Gouyave, st. John's with my host family for about 2 months. Then I will move out on my own and it appears I will be somewhere near Mt. Nesbit, St. John's. Both schools are in Gouyave so I'll have a little bit of a walk if there is not a bus that runs there.

So far, I am pumped!

Here I go...

At the airport waiting to fly to Miami where I will be until Sunday. On Saturday I will be in an orientation/ staging most of the day. Then Sunday morning I head down south to St. Lucia for about a week. After only a week I then will be flying to Grenada. Grenada is the southern most island of the 6 that the peace corps serves. Once there I THINK I then move in with my host family and should be there for a while. But who really knows. Here goes nothing! Time to EAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Flight reservations!!!

I just made my flight reservations for my staging in Florida. I leave from Phoenix on Feb. 12th and get into Miami that evening. My staging begins that next day (13th) at 1:00pm. Making these reservations really makes this whole thing "real" :) I then head out the next morning at 5:00am to begin my training!

I visited GSI, my old work, today and it was so nice to see everyone. I was blown away by how many of those kidos remembered me! The new school is pretty cool. There is sooooo much room and its full of awesome supports. Man, ALCA needs more space :) Joy gave me an awesome tour but my favorite part was saying hi to my old kids! ZL had the biggest smile and said hi like a frikin' rock star! Same with SP! Ahhh! I miss those guys... I did get to see a little bit of the stuff I don't exactly miss but man they are good kids. It was nice to see all my old co-workers too. What a day!

Phew!