Friday, February 4, 2011

My top 10

In the past year, I have been exposed to all sorts of new experiences. Some, pretty simple everyday situations, and others, more life changing. Here is my list of my top 10 fav things along the way...
10- The "metronome" bugs chirp (honest to god it sounds like a Dr. Beat amped)
9- ALLLL the amazing colors (I know, kinda cheesy, but it's true, I have NEVER seen colors like this before. Vibrant!)
8- My fan (no explanation needed)
7- "Ms. Kill-George" (about half of my co-workers and students call me this. I used to hate it, now, it makes me smile)
6- Soca (music! If you dont know what it is, watch this. Then you will understand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTEkkDONJxs&feature=related
5- Tomatoes! (Holy good gracious! I L.O.V.E. them here!)
4- Goats and sheep "baahhh-ing" (and sometimes baaahhh-ing back)
3- Watching the foamy sea water splash over the rocks (again, kinda corny, but I sit and just stare at it for way too long sometimes)
2- Sweeping rainstorms (when I am INside and don't have to go anywhere)
1- Small fishing boat silhouettes on the sea at sunset (perfect)

Can't wait to see what the next year brings! (Oh, we are approaching the one year mark, which is where this all came from. New volunteers come tomorrow! Hope they like it as much as I dooooooo)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Peace!!!

Goooooood evening my friends and family! My life here in Grenada has been a trip! Ups and downs and everything in between! But, all in all, things continue to go well.
Last term I was at 3 work-sites which kept me super busy. Glad that's done. I got some stuff in order and now I have dropped one so I am down to 2 school in 5 days. MUCH more manageable, not to mention, I actually am starting to meet my co-workers AND my students, that's weird, eh? I love it!
I have started a recorder marching band and our first performance is next Wednesday! I am pretty confident in them... but they still have A LOT to learn.

The new volunteers come on Saturday which will be fun to meet them!

I like to walk these days.

Until next time.... :)

Thursday, September 2, 2010

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!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

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!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

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.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

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?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

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!