I'm Late!

I just had a wonderful breakfast with Dave & Theresa from MN today and was reminded that I hadn't posted to my blog as yet this week! I met this lovely couple via the St. Kitts/Nevis Forum online and hooked-up when the arrived over the weekend for vacation. How nice to make new friends using this fantastic medium of communication.

Besides working on my two main projects - researching the history of Wingfield Estate which means spending many hours in the dusty archives of the Museum of History and Historical Society; working on Nevis designing a marketing campaign for their first international film festival next May; I am also helping to turn their Community Cohesion group into a full-fledged NGO (non-governmental organization). Lots of paper work, mission statements, constitution in 'legal-ese' which must be approved by the government to become 'official.'

The island is now plastered with 'Good Luck President Obama' posters. The locals were all thrilled with the outcome of the election. It's interesting that with all these Caribbean islands being so close to our shoreline, there is hardly any American presence on them. The Chinese and Taiwanese are everywhere and fund a large majority of projects throughout the Caribbean. Interesting.

The St. Christopher Chorale has it's first performance next week, so extra rehearsals for that, sewing class continues and I just signed on to teach a one-on-one small business class on Friday evenings. Maybe retirement wasn't so boring after all! But yes, I'm having a blast.

The most exciting thing that happened this week was a torrential rain storm that turned my street (the ghut - or main drain) into a raging river in minutes. I was coming back on the Nevis ferry when the storm broke downtown, but it had been raining all day in the mountains. Torrents of water come rushing down the mountainside, sweeping everything in sight along with it. Cars, washing machines, large pieces of metal, tons of garbage - all go rushing down the hills, down my street and into the sea. I walked home in rain so hard I couldn't see. When I got to my street, I was in water up to my knees and had to hang onto the rod-iron fences to make it to the raised portion of the sidewalk in front of my door. I heard the next day that a woman got caught in the water and was saved just before being swept out into the ocean. I stood on my balcony for hours just watching. The sound of all that 'stuff' tumbling down a road was so loud. And the silt and sand that came with it took 3 days of bull-dozers and men with shovels just to clean it up. My apartment was and still is covered with dust and grit, even though I've scrubbed the floors and furnishings twice.

So, life is never dull. I am absolutely loving every minute of my life as a Peace Corps volunteer and the local Kittians and Nevisians are wonderful to work with. The holidays are fast approaching and I am hosting a small group of 9 for Thanksgiving. don't have a clue if my oven is accurate as far as temperature, so will be an adventure to cook my Butterball and see if it gets done! And this will be the very first Christmas I will spend without at least one of the boys. It's going to be hard, but it will also be Carnivale that entire week and I understand that will be an experience not to be missed.

Until next week - take care of each other.

ReAnn

PS - I almost forgot! I played my first full round of golf since the 16th of August, back in North Carolina. After teaching the kids all morning (and we had 12 brand new ones, not one had ever held a golf club in their hand!) the members asked us if we would like to join them for their every-Saturday afternoon event. I played like crap - but the course is so beautiful as it hugs the sea, who cared?! I used a set of Cobra off-sets that drove me crazy and I couldn't hit worth ca-ca. But is sure was great swinging a club again. We all then went to the beach and had a great dinner and great conversation. A wonderful way to spend a Saturday.