A Day in Paradise

There are some days I can't complain about living on an island...

I eat, sleep, and sweat volleyball.

I now have volleyball 5 times a week, sometimes 6 (playing and coaching). I never thought volleyball would be this big of a part in my life after high school. But I don't know if I believe in coincidences.

Last summer a group from the States came down to Grenada to teach a volleyball camp to anyone interested and then left behind volleyballs, nets, and a growing interest in the sport. Now the Grenada Volleyball Association, that has been dormant for over 10 years, is bringing back volleyball and looking for coaches for all the secondary schools. (Enter Rachel) I'm now coaching all boys at PBC (Presentation Boys College)! It's such an exciting opportunity to teach a sport I love, and meanwhile, hopefully equipping young boys with a pastime that will keep them out of trouble. I was a little nervous at first for how they would react to a female coach, seeing how most of the Grenadian males speak to me on the street, but so far I've been pleasantly surprised by the respect they've shown me (at least to my face). My friends laugh and say the opposite, that there should be a bigger turnout now, so maybe being a female in Grenada is finally going to come in handy. For example, this week we had an uneven number of players so I offered to bump with one of them, and almost all their hands shot up in the air!

We've also been holding volleyball clinics around the island, teaching the fundamentals to anyone who wants to learn. It's fun spreading the love.

Learning to read good

This past month I've been tutoring a 19-year old boy who can't read. Johnney said he dropped out of school after Grade 8, sadly because his father refused to give him bus money anymore. Not only was I horrified that a parent could withhold education from a child like that, but I was shocked that he had even made it to that level without knowing how to read. How do so many teachers not notice? Or what kind of techniques does a student adopt to slip under the radar that long? Illiteracy is a scary thing that is becoming more and more common, or maybe I'm just becoming more aware of it. And it's not just in Grenada.

Well the good news is that Johnney can read. He's very limited, but he knows the alphabet and I'm teaching him phonics so he'll know the sounds for all the letters and can decipher new words himself. Many kids I've worked with use "sight recognition" to pick out words they already know, which is a great memorization skill, but also hinders them when they mistake any similar word for one that begins with the same letters. The great part about teaching adults though is that they already have a wider vocabulary than children, so you don't have to always explain the meaning of words. So with Johnney, once I teach him the rules of a sound, he can name examples of words that apply. He's a great student, patient and hard-working, and every session we have together is an encouragement to me to keep going. I've never taught adult literacy so this is a learning experience for me too. And I'm thankful to him for trusting me, as his teacher and confidante.

Got milk?

I knew there would be sacrifices I'd have to make when I came to Grenada. I was willing to adjust to cold showers and hand-washing my clothes, mosquitoes and cockroaches everywhere I turn, anything that you could throw at me. But milk in a box? Which for some reason doesn't need to be refrigerated? What?!

That is why I dedicate this entry to Real Value Supermarket for providing me with REAL MILK! Maybe they've had it all along (I don't even want to know), but I just now found it and it's changed my life!

My first funeral

Death is something foreign to me. I've never had anyone close to me die, except one of my adopted grandfathers, but even then I was young and don't remember feeling that affected (and I caught the flu the night before so I wasn't able to attend the funeral). So I've never gotten to experience that kind of mourning and therefore have always been a bit afraid of funerals and death. But I know it's something I'll have to deal with sooner or later.

Three of my volleyball friends lost their father this week, so some of us players went to the funeral to support the brothers. I felt a little awkward at first, feeling out of place not only because it was my first time, but because my first time was going to be in another country. So many thoughts went through my head: "Am I dressed appropriately? I'm the only white person here. Can I talk to my friends during the wake? Where should I stand at the cemetery? Why are people walking over other graves? I don't know the words to this song. How can those gravediggers act so casual? Why am I crying...I never even knew this man." So many emotions flooded over me, putting myself in the shoes of someone burying a loved one.

Funerals can really wake you up...even the funeral of a stranger. It reminded me to not take life for granted. To be more vocal with the people I care about. To treasure each moment I have with friends and family.

In the end, I realized that funerals aren't all that scary. I know it's not going to be that easy when I lose someone close to me, but I feel slightly better prepared for it now. My favorite part was afterward, how the family and some close friends went back to the house to eat, drink, and play draft (their version of the game Checkers). It was encouraging to see that mourning didn't have to crying and wailing, but spending your time in community. Some people refer to funerals as a Celebration of Life and I like that. Because we'll all die someday, but we should be happy for every minute we get to spend with the people we love and how they've touched us.

How you know you've made it...

Having lived in Grenada for a year, we as Peace Corps volunteers have learned that it's no big thing to be on TV here, since Grenada is a pretty small island and there's bound to be media coverage at most of the community events we attend. Well I'm not gonna lie, I still think it's pretty great when my neighbors or friends tell me they saw me on TV the night before.

But on a larger scale...

One of my close Grenadian friends named Lisa just spent the summer in New York with her extended family (ironically there are more Grenadians in New York than here on the island). Since they missed out on Carnival this year, they found a Grenada Carnival 2008 DVD somewhere on the streets and bought it to feel connected to the action. Well she just called me and it turns out...me and my friends are on it...dancing in the streets front and center! She said she started screaming and pointing at the TV screen, yelling "I know those white people! That's my friend Rachel!"

It's another hot one in St. Lucia

This month officially marks a year since I've been in Grenada...can you believe it? Halfway through our service, all the Eastern Caribbean Peace Corps volunteers fly back to St. Lucia for a Mid-Service Training where we reconnect with the other islands and have refresher training courses. Hearing about the projects of other volunteers really put my work into perspective and encouraged me that I'm on the right track, and also gave me new ideas to implement this next year. Something that worries me though...I remember the previous group of volunteers telling us how hard their first year was, but then how quickly the second year goes. Well, my first year was great and flew by, so what does that mean for my second?

And of course it was so much fun to hang out with old friends! Most of us stayed longer in St. Lucia to have a vacation and see our old homestay families, so Team Grenada took over Lilly's house in Anse la Raye for the next week...always a guaranteed good time! My highlight was climbing Petit Piton. Last year we hiked the slightly bigger Gros Piton, but Petit Piton is literally 2500 feet straight up, takes twice as long (4 hours), and you have to climb ropes at the top! Afterward Lilly and I kept looking back in disbelief, saying "I'm so proud of us."

Oh yeah...and I went to the doctor and I've had tonsillitis for the past 4 days.

volunteers reunited...
some of my favorite girls (representing St. Lucia, Grenada, & St. Vincent)...
Adam, Lilly, me, & Amy at Fish Friday...
at the summit of Petit Piton (with Gros Piton in the distance)...
it's safe to say we've never sweat more in our entire lives...
Petit Piton...
how I get around...
Lauren & me playing chess...
having a Piton at the Piton...
my St. Lucian homestay sisters Tremahni & Mikayla (who are so big now!)...

Carnival!

Carnival has taken over Grenada these past few weeks, but the past 48 hours were by far the most exciting...and sleep-deprived. Let me paint the picture:

Monday
4am-11am: Walk into St. George's for JOUVERT (get covered by everyone in paint or fuel oil, whine up on each other, and dance through town behind huge trucks blaring Soca music)





12pm: Walk back to my house, shower in the rain, and scrub the paint & oil off our skin
1pm: Squeeze in some Olympics
4pm: Take a nap
7pm-12am: Walk into St. George's for MONDAY NIGHT MASS (parade through town behind your band's music truck wearing costume, wave glow stick, blow whistle, and look pretty much amazing in sombreros)


Tuesday
1am: Body starts shutting down and I get a high fever
3am-9am: Take a bus to the opposite end of the island for their JOUVERT (get covered in pink paint and walk/dance for miles behind a really slow music truck to Sauteurs)


9am: Arrive in Sauteurs exhausted (still with a fever and now swollen tonsils)
10am: Get a ride back to St. George's to shower and sleep
2pm: Wake up and walk into town to catch a glimpse of the FANCY MASS PARADE (all the Carnivale bands and queens in their extravagant costumes)





4pm: Go back to sleep
8pm: Wake up to eat and pop some more Tylenol
10pm: Sleep (thank GOD!!!)

Mt. Qua Qua & Levera Beach

Today was Emancipation Day, so for the day off my friends Junior, Isaiah, and I went hiking at Mt. Qua Qua. It's not necessarily a mountain, but rather a steep ridge that rises above the Gran Etang Crater Lake up to a point where you have a gorgeous 360 degree view of Grenada, and can see both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. We ate our picnic lunches on a huge boulder and I actually felt cold for a change, which was glorious. Afterward we drove up north, stopping along the way so I could check out an old abandoned airplane, then went to Levera Beach (where the sea and the ocean meet) and spent the rest of the afternoon in the waves. And we got ice cream on the drive back, so it was a great day!

Grensave Summer Camp

The whole month of July was consumed by Grensave's Summer Camp, in which local and Peace Corps volunteers helped as counselors to the 50 kids, ages 4-12,that would come every morning, bright n' early at 8am (the earliest I've had to wake up all year, since all my school-year projects are in the afternoons). I came 3 days a week and we did everything from snorkeling, swimming, salsa dancing, hiking, art, sign language, sports, learning about our bodies & teen pregnancy, pet farms, museums, river tubing, and going to the beach on our last day in the pouring rain. So much fun! And I got to know a few of my previous Grensave students even better while also meeting some new kids from my neighborhood...like my twin buddies Jervon & Josanne.

sailing & snorkeling...
hiking at Concord Falls...
me, Grensave's secretary Merril, & Samantha (a volunteer from Canada)...
me & some of the older girls...
my little ladies Josanne & Tori-Anne...
I once told my buddy Jervon that I could read minds, so every morning he would find me and ask me to do it again...
river tubing...
some of the staff & volunteers...

Windward Island Games

Every year the 4 islands of Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada send teams from their secondary schools (Jr. High & High School equivalent) to compete in a series of sports for a week. This year's games were held in Grenada, so my volleyball friends and I assisted as referees, score & statistics keepers, and line judges in the volleyball portions of the competition. Grenada has just recently been revamping the volleyball programs in its schools so this was a great opportunity for the athletes to be challenged and see their potential.

HOPE-PALS Summer Camp

Thanks to a PEPFAR grant (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), I was able to organize a 3-day overnight camp for the children of the Hope-Pals members. We had sports, arts & crafts, sessions on sexuality and personal development, a puppet show on HIV/AIDS, taekwondo lessons, a movie night, and then our final day at the beach. It was stressful bringing it all together, but oh so worth the effort when a few of the kids said this was their first time at summer camp and one child even told me, "I was scared to come to camp, but now I think this is the most fun I ever had." I grew so attached to them within the first few hours and was so humbled to have them trusted in my care.

Dr. Marianne Szauer leading a session on HIV/AIDS with the puppets...
me & the kids...
Beach Day at Grand Anse...