Mustaches...they're not just for the French.

In honor of our friend Nicole's 25th birthday, we celebrated like normal grown-ups and had a "Mustache/ White Shirt & Sharpie" party. What does one do at this type of party, might you ask?
Rule #1. You must wear white in order for your friends to draw graffiti on you throughout the night.
Rule #2. You must come bearing a mustache...whether this be grown, drawn on, or attached somehow.

I opted for a creepy, curly 'stache similar to "V for Vendetta" and had it sketched on with eye liner. My friends had everything from the "Hitler patch" to the "Yosemite Sam" waterfalls of chin hair, which Lauren made with construction paper and taped to her face! We were classy, let me tell you!


Although this all lasted only about 30 minutes. I was standing still so someone could write on my back and so I asked Lauren if she could hand me some cake to tide me over (a girl's gotta eat). She saw this as a prime opportunity, and I don't blame her, to shove the ENTIRE piece of cake into my mouth and then smear the chocolate frosting all over my face...thus the food fight ensued! Let's just say one thing led to another and later we were cleaning cake and salsa dip and whatever else was once an appetizer, off every surface of the kitchen and living room. There was definitely cake on the ceiling too. It was fantastic! Although it does sadden me a little that so much perfectly good chocolate cake ended up on the floors rather than in my mouth.

AIDS doesn't discriminate...why do we?

This week I flew out to St. Lucia for an HIV/AIDS workshop funded by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, designed for some of the Peace Corps volunteers and our community partners who are working in the field of HIV awareness. Our facilitators were from all over the Caribbean and did an excellent job teaching and leading us in activities surrounding the topics of the biology of the virus, stigma & discrimination, prevention & intervention techniques, raising awareness, and planning specific projects for each of our communities. We also had 3 HIV+ guest speakers who bravely shared their stories with us and left some of us in tears. I was in awe of the bold approach they take on life and how they aren't afraid to speak out and be the face of HIV. HIV/AIDS is still such a fragile subject here and some have been practically ostracized from their friends and family once their status is made known, not to mention the treatment their children get, even though they made not be HIV+. All in all, the conference was exceptional and the trainers were great at what they do...very engaging and so much fun to learn from!



Then I got to spend the weekend with my good friends Lilly (a volunteer on St. Lucia) and Adam (St. Kitts & Nevis) down in Lilly's fishing village of Anse la Raye! We had so much fun just unwinding, cooking meals together, singing karaoke at the Fish Fry, hitting up the beach, and going on long walks. It was also great to see Lilly in her element with her community...teaching PE at the primary school, her daily walking club with whichever women and children want to come along, playing violin in her church, getting personal updates from her postman, and my all-time favorite...they have a town crier! You pay him a few bucks and at 5pm he starts ringing his cow bell and spreads the news! I love it! Needless to say, great times were had!

Happy Birthday Shereen!

One of my favorite girls from the Limes Program turned 18 this week! She's a huge support to me during classes and helps me keep the kids from causing too much destruction. They have to listen to her too because she's related to most of them and they'll have to answer to their mothers later if they misbehave, haha! So I took her out for ice cream on her birthday and then later we had a party at her house with the whole neighborhood. She pretends she's shy and avoids the camera at all cost (hence why she's not in many of these photos), but I got one of her!