When I say Peace Corps What Do You See?

When someone tells you they are going into the Peace Corps what do you imagine? Do you see that person living in a mud hut? Playing with children? Working in a field? I know when I applied to the Peace Corps I had a certain image in my head about what that meant. I pictured myself going out into communities of developing countries and saving the children. A lot of my images changed when I found out I was coming to the Caribbean. The image of living in a hut had vanished; the image of walking a mile to pick up my mail disappeared. All the stories I had heard from past volunteers didn’t apply here. The eastern Caribbean is far more developed then other countries. This does not mean they do not need our help or that there aren’t  children to “save”, it just means I might do the saving while living in an apartment with running water and internet access. However yesterday I experienced the true Peace Corps image. Which, up until now, I wasn’t sure I was going to.

                There have been some issues regarding my work sites so I have taken the steps to possibly change them. Yesterday we were schedule a “networking” day. This was perfect because it allowed me to spend a day at my new possible work site, The National Training Agency. The NTA is working to train unemployed youth in both life and technical skills in order to make them a more competitive candidate in their given field. There are a variety of different sectors that the NTA provide training for and when they finish their training they receive a level 1 certificate, which is suitable for an entry level job. They can reach up to level 5 which would be the equivalent to a bachelor’s degree.

Cosmotology Training Site

      I spent my day shadowing a woman named Kay. We had met hiking with the “institute hikers” group so we were already familiar with each other. She had an extensive itinerary planned so I could get a general idea of all the things that happen in the office. The morning was dedicated to getting to know the office and visiting different training sites. First we stopped at the Cosmetology training site. We walked into this small classroom where a group of women were sitting around a woman receiving a pedicure.  Off to the side I saw a collection of products used for beautification: Hair spray, foot cream, scrubs, etc. I was given the opportunity to introduce myself and ask them questions. The next site we went to was for computer skills. This group was significantly bigger and was sitting in rows. When we got there the trainers were reading aloud the students’ scores that they had received on their interview ability.    First I thought it was strange that they were reading the scores aloud. I can only imagine the anxiety it would have caused if my professors has read my paper grades in front of the class room along with their comments on what I needed to improve on.

Computer Skills Training Site

As the trainer read the scores aloud I noticed that all of their scores were based on appearance:

“Hair,10; Makeup,7; Color coordination,9;Posture;8” Not till the very end would they mention their actual interview.

“They thought you were pleasant. A little too shy, but that you would make a good candidate.” I realize that first appearances are very important, however there is so much more to an interview besides the color coordination of your outfit. On top of that the feedback on their interview was extremely limited and vague. Most of the comments were very similar to each other and overall not very helpful. I would be interested to go back and see what the training sessions are like when they are actually training.

On the itinerary, the afternoon was blocked out for “recruiting” however I did not know what that would entail. We took the company car, a man named Dax drove us. They said we were heading for the country, which is about 7 miles away but an hours drive. As we approached our destination we began to turn up a street and stopped at the corner where an old man was sitting.

“Are there youth up this road? Unemployed youth?” Kay said

“Yes continue down this road and you’ll see people,” Replied the man.

Signing my First Trainy up for the Garment Production
training course

As we continued up the road we began seeing people outside and on their porch. We parked the car and Kay handed me a clip board which had several applications on it, along with brochures. Kay began walking towards the people and calling out  to them,

                “Hi  we are with the National Training Agency and we are looking for unemployed youth in the St. Andrew’s area who are interested in getting technical training in Cosmetology or Garment Production. People began gathering around as she explained. All the girls were between 17-23 years old and more than half of them carried a baby on their hip. As the woman filled out their applications I was handed their babies. I helped answer questions as best I could, but mostly I directed them to Kay. The girls asked questions about the other training opportunities, but Kay explained that these were the only trainings offered in St. Andrews at the moment and the other ones they would have to travel to St. Georges for. This is a problem because they are only given a daily stipend of $15 for transportation. It has also posed a problem for the mothers because they are unable to find child care for long periods of time. I observed these girls and listened to their stories. They were all in ratty clothing, several had not graduated high school, and most said they had never worked before. After all the girls signed up we got back in the car and went to the next village over and did the same thing. We did this all afternoon until we finally ended at a school. I girl living in Trivoli had contacted Kay inquiring about the program. Kay offered to come out and talk to her and asked her to bring anyone else who was interested. We were expecting a maximum of 10 girls but when we walked into the classroom it was closer to 25. Kay was overjoyed with the turn out. We explained the program and began handing out applications. With only two pens everyone had to wait. Once again I was handed babies to hold as each mother looked over her application. Have you ever the show Dog Whisperer? Because I’m telling you, I’m the Baby Whisperer.

Baby number 1

Baby Number 2

Baby Number 3

By the time all of this was done it was nearly 7 oclock and we had an hour and a half drive to get home. It had been a 12 hour work day, but it didn’t feel like work at all. I got to talk to so many people, and see what life is really like here. Children playing in the streets, flying kites, men gathering outside their rum shops, woman baking in there homes. It was everything one would imagine when you hear Peace Corps. 

Random Acts of Kindness

          As Youth Developers in training one of our tasks was to plan a service learning activity with one of our school placements. From the beginning we were told that we would be evaluated but weren’t given defined criteria. We all began to stress and imagine the worst, aka that we would fail the assignment, be publicly humiliated, and then be sent home.

Tamika(middle) and Kazia(right) giving their friend
a heart for a hug. 

                We were given 2 months to come up with an activity but was given no real guidance as to how long the activity should be, what it should entail, or that we would eventually have to give a presentation in front of ALL of our superiors explaining in detail the steps that were taken to reach our final outcome. However, seeing as I am anything but a procrastinator I chose to ignore the fact that I was missing this vital information and hadn’t even been to my school assignment yet, and started researching service learning activities. Before I knew it I had started and finished my plans within 24 hours.  My idea consisted of two steps. The firs t is something I stole from camp (Shout out to Frost Valley YMCA! ) We use to have an activity called Random Acts of Kindness. During this block of time your cabin could chose to do a selection of things: Set up the dining hall, make jewelry for another cabin, help paint something around camp, etc. The one I incorporated for my activity is called Hearts for Hugs. Every child is given cut out hearts and then is told to go out and find someone to give the heart to in exchange for a hug. For my activity I added that they also had to pay that person a compliment. The idea of this was to get the class thinking about what it means to be nice to others, how it feels to be nice, and the types of reactions they would get. I assigned the activity right before lunch, so they were all given an hour to give away 3 hearts. When they came back we talked about all of these things and then I introduced the main activity. This is when my boss came to observe and evaluate me.

Miss James admiring her hearts 

THIS is the funny part, and not a haha laugh out loud kind of funny, a shocked/”wow this is something I will have to get use to” kind of funny. I’m use to being in an American school system where on the first day of class we are given a list of all the necessary materials, a schedule of our assignments, and the criteria that we will be evaluated on. For this project I found out that I would be observed three days before the activity, found out I would have to give a presentation in front of my superiors that would be based on very specific criteria which I received THE DAY BEFORE I was doing the activity, aka yesterday.  At that point there was not much I could change, I had been working for weeks on acquiring the necessary materials to do the project, and working logistics out with my counterpart, Miss Lazore. While my project was pretty simple and to the point, there were definitely things I would have done differently had I been given this information when I had received the assignment.  

Andel writing his Letter

                So as soon as Eugene got there I tensed up and tried to remember the steps I had laid out to explain me reason behind the service we were doing, aka the learning aspect. This is when I introduced the second activity. While researching idea’s on service learning I found a website that had a registry for chronically ill children in America.  So for the rest of the afternoon I had the children write letters to their assigned pen-pal.  The literacy level of the class is way below where it should be at so I had to write sample letter’s for the class so that they could copy and fill in blanks. Of course I stressed myself out for no reason, and as always everything worked out. Eugene was impressed with my ability to control the class, however little does he know that as soon as he left the kids completely lost focus and were bouncing off the walls like they were on liquid crack. Overall while the activity went relatively smoothly and can be deemed a success the experience made me see how much  do not now, nor ever want to be a teacher. Anyway to conclude this entry, I can happily say that today is not the day I failed, got publicly humiliated, or got kicked out of the Peace Corps.

Who Are You Calling Fat?

          Weight is one of the many things that is seen differently here. It is very common for people, including men, to comment on women’s weight to their face. For instance one may say “oh I see you’re gaining size” or even more bluntly “you’re getting fat.”   Yavett has told me several times to cool it on the mayonnaise or I will gain size. It’s hard for me to explain to Grenadians my love for condiments, so I just let it go.

                A few weeks ago Leanne and I were at a bbq talking to some men and they asked us “so do you have any kids.” And both of us instinctively laughed, because to us at this point in our lives, as 23 year old single women, in the Peace Corps, financially unstable, even the thought of having kids is funny. The man who asked was confused by our laughter. Another man explained, “See here having kids is different. Similar to how you think of your weight. When I was in American,” he continues “ I was at a restaurant and our women was curvy and I told her she was fat. She was extremely offended and stormed off! But here we like size!! So I thought I was giving her a compliment.” I tried to imagine a random man calling me fat, and it definitely would end in me crying, which if you know me, really isn’t saying much.

                Anyway, while I have heard stories, I have not experienced it for myself until yesterday. Yavett and I were in the Supermarket and as we were checking out Yavett says to the Checker

“Hey, why you getting fat? Why is your bum spreading?”

The checker remains silent, so Yavett repeats herself.  

“Hey, why you getting fat? Why is your bum spreading?”

“I would rather not answer that.” The checker says, as calmly as ever.

I couldn’t help but laugh, so I had to excuse myself. 

What Does Frozen Crab Mean to You?

I don’t know why but everything in the freezer is kept in plastic bags or wrapped in news paper. Every once in a while Yavett will get live crabs from the market, she then puts them into the freezer which then slowly kills them. These are the one thing that are not wrapped in a plastic bag. Therefore every time I open the freezer there are several dead crabs scattered amongst the freezer staring at me, and almost every time I jump. Last night as I pulled the ice cream out of the freezer it got caught on one of the crabs and it came flying at me out of the freezer. As it hit the floor, its frozen claws broke off and shot out in different directions like some sort of weapon. All the while I am screaming.

“My girl what happened!” I hear come from the living room. I run in and tell Yavett that there is a dead crab on the floor and that I’m too scared to pick it up.

“eh I don’t feel like getting up right now. Just pick it up with a spoon.”

I make my way back into the kitchen, and just stared at the crab working up the courage to pick it up. I found two of the largest spoons I could find, maneuvered the spoons around the crab, picked it up, threw it back into the freezer, and slammed the door so I didn’t have to have it look at me anymore.  When I came back into the living room with my ice cream cone Yavett asked if I had done it.

“yes, but Yavette, I hate those crabs.”

“Hush my girl, the ice cream will make it better.” 

This week I…

1. Found a Frog in my bed.
2. Learned how to make Balloon animals
3. got caught in a rain storm on the beach
4. Got spiked in the face with a volleyball
5. Learned what Wining is (look it up on Youtube)
6. Got mistaken for Queen Elizabeth 

Volleyball on Island Time

Ever since I got here I have been looking for a way for me to play volleyball. Through other Peace Corps volunteers I was put in touch with a man named junior who runs a club team.  He told me to come to the courts on the Carinage at 3:30 on Sunday and we could work something out. While people have explained to me that time here is different than it is in the states, and when people say 3:30 they don’t mean 3:30, I still can’t get myself to show up to anything later than the time they tell me to be there! An old camp rhyme rings in my head: “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.”

So of course I get to the courts at 3:30, and of course I am the ONLY person there. At 4:00 a few people showed up. They looked pretty young but they had a volleyball and were hitting around, so I worked up the courage and went over and asked to hit around with them. We did this for maybe 30 minutes, more people showed to play basket ball, some other people showed up and were skate boarding. I was beginning to get confused as to what was going on here. At around 4:45 some older looking people arrived and began to sit against the fence. At this point I was so confused as to who was here to play what and who I should be introducing myself to. I decided to sit along the fence, at this point it is now 5:00. I heard people asking where Junior was, so I figured these were the people I should be sitting with, which then made me realize that the people I had been playing with for the past 45 minutes had nothing to do with the club. As it approached 5:30 people started complaining saying “junior told us to be here at 3:30, where is he!” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud! These people were complaining about waiting around since 3:30, when I was the ONLY person here at that time. When Junior got there, at 5:30, people began warming up, and he came over and introduced me to everyone. The warm up is happening very quickly and all of sudden the girls line up to start doing spikes. I’ve never done spiked in my life! I try to stay in the back of the line and have people cut me to avoid going. I try to explain that I’ve only played very casually, but the girl behind me insists that I go. As the girl sets the ball for me I jump, and of course I jump too early and land back on the ground before my hand could reach the ball, and end up spiking it right into the net. The people sitting on the side lines laughed. I tried to hide my embarrassment, and the fact that  I was completely overwhelmed. When we actually started playing it was 6:00. The two teams, the girl’s team and the boy’s team, were going to have a scrimmage. It would be best out of 3 games. They rotated me into the second game. I was extremely nervous and more or less avoided the ball in hopes to avoid embarrassing myself again. The few times the ball came my way I handled myself well. At the end of the night I asked the captain of the girl’s team, Stacie, if I could come back to their next practice, she said yes. At this point I thought that everything was set, however I didn’t realize that after I left they would be discussing whether I was good enough to join the club. Last night I received an email from junior reading “Cara, so we evaluated your playing, you bounce well, but I noticed some things you might want to work out. We would like to invite you to come back and play, and if we decide to invite you to be a member it will be 10 dollars a month.”  I felt like I had applied to a job and made it to the second round of interviews. Practice is at 6:30am on Saturday, aka tomorrow, so tonight might be another lame night at home.

The Institute Hikers

Hiking with the "Institute Hikers" group on Saturday, February 25th

This is a raw Coco plany. The bean is under the white coating that you see in this picture. When the plant is raw like this people suck on that white coating and spit out the bean. The white coating is slimy and sweet, and the bean is bitter and dry. 

Week 4: February 19th-26th

4 weeks of training down and 5 more to go! A few things happened this week. First I finally got to visit my second primary work site, the Lutheran school. My counterpart here is Janelle. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Grenada 17 years ago. The school is still in the process of being built so we met in Grand Anse in a rented space. Grand Anse is a 10 minute bus ride from town and is directly on the beach, this is probably the town I will be moving to once training is over. The day was pretty relaxed. I met with Janelle, the pastor, and the pastor’s wife Ellen. All of which are ex-pats. The pastor and Ellen moved to Grenada 4 years ago and are originally from Seattle.   The three of us went over what the goals of their school are and some possible projects I can work on. The room is filled with musical instruments ranging from pianos to drums to guitars. They explain to me that in the afternoon children from the church come and teach lessons, practice, and mess around. When the children got there I was asked if I was interested in learning to play the guitar, when I said yes, I was given my first lesson!

Saturday was pretty awesome! Our youth developer trainer is a part of several hiking groups, one of which goes hiking on the last Saturday of every month. This Saturday they were doing a waterfall hike and invited us all to come along. We were told to meet at 6 am, so of course Leanne and I woke up at 5 and arrived on time. However the Grenadians did not start showing up until 6:20,6:30, and 6:45, aka Island time.  We drove into Grenville, the second biggest city on the island, and met the rest of the hikers. There were 13 of us in total. We began our way up the path when we bumped into a Mr. Paterson. He explained to us that he ran a duck farm, in case any of us wanted duck on our way back.

Mrs. Kay: How much are they?

Mr. Patterson:  $5 a pound, so around $45 a duck.

Mrs. Kay: I’ll take two. Can you have them slaughtered by 12?

Mr. Patterson: yep!

We continued on our way. 10 minutes or so down the path Mr. Drakes see’s a Yam sticking out of the ground. He says “hold on! I want this yam!” he puts down his back pack and takes out a compact shovel!  We all stand around as he begins to dig. Once Drakes has dug up the yam we continue. Every couple of feet people are pointing out different trees saying, “that’s a pineapple tree, a cashew tree, a mango tree, a cinnamon tree, a coco tree.” As we were walking people were picking things and eating. In America I’m not sure one would describe this experience as a hike, but more of a picnic. At each waterfall we would all sit around and hang out and go swimming. The group was wonderful and overall the day was fantastic. I’m very excited to go hiking with them again.

My goal since I got here was to find a volley ball group that I could play with regularly. In my experience I have made all my friends through sports, so I figured I might as well try it here. I was put in touch with this man, Junior, who has a team that practices Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. So this afternoon I am going to go my first practice so we’ll see how it turns out! 

My First Guitar Lesson with Marvin

I see Rainbows like this everyday

Week 3: February 12th-19th

My first two weeks here have gone relatively smoothly. Leanne and I go running every morning, which means waking up at 5:30, which for here is relatively late. Interesting fact, Grenadians hate the sun. They do everything they can to avoid it. Therefore if one is going to exercise it means waking up before the sun comes up.  So, when in Grenada, do as the Grenadians do. Anthony, my host father, exercises in the morning as well, so after Leanne and I run around the port along the water I meet him at the track and walk some laps with him. When I get back Anthony has picked coconuts from the back yard and cut it open for me to drink with breakfast. It’s a pretty nice way to start off the day. This past weekend I got to go to the BBC which was amazing. Leanne and I spent the whole day there, and then met up with the other volunteers later in the afternoon.

I am the third volunteer to live with the Josephs, and what’s awesome is that the other two girls who have lived with them are still on island, Katie and Stephanie. Let me explain, there are three sets of voluneets on island right now: the group that has been here for two years and is getting ready to leave (EC 81), the group that has just finished their first year (EC 83), and us (EC 84). Having Katie and Stephanie as a resource has been wonderful. I really enjoy listening to them discuss all the projects they’ve done and talk about all their friends and the types of things they do on their spare time. Katie also works at one of my work sites which has also been really helpful.

As a peace corps volunteer we are given a primary work site and a school attachment. The school attachment is one day a week and only lasts 6 months and is meant solely to help us integrate and meet more people. The primary work site is the job which we are meant to be our full time job. As time progresses we are then suppose to pick a secondary work site based on our interests. My situation is a little different because I’ve been assigned two work sites: The Limes school for special education and The Lutheran school. I’m a little disappointed that I’ve been placed at two schools, only because I do not see myself pursuing a career in the education system, but we will see how it goes. There is however a children’s home, The Belair Home, which I am very interested to check out. Katie also works here so before training is over I will be given the opportunity to shadow her.

This past Friday my host family took me and Leanne to a cook out their friends were having. It was really fun except for the fact that I was more or less falling asleep on myself (I have found that I am very tired here). It was a very interesting social scene. When we first got there the men all gathered in a circle and began to talk and drink heavily while the women sat on the outskirts. My host father kept asking me if I wanted a drink I kept insisting that I was fine, however he thought I was just being shy so he kept asking. Finally when Leanne and I agreed to have a glass of wine, my host mother looks over at me and goes “don’t be getting drunk now! I aint driving you home!” I’m pretty sure they think that we Americans can’t handle out alcohol.

The one thing that I can’t get over here is the driving. Every time I get into a car I think back to when my mom use to take me driving when I got my permit and she would grip the side of the car out of fear. I can honestly say that there are not road rules. People drive at all kinds of speeds, pass each other as they please, and on top of it there are not side walks! People and cars share the road. So I haven’t decided which one is scarier, walking or being in the passenger seat.

My Backyard

Week 2: February 2nd-February 8th

I’ve officially had my first weekend in Grenada. We arrived Saturday morning, we had the first flight out of St.lucia which left at 6:30It was a very early morning to say the least. When we arrived in Grenada the current volunteers were waiting for us at the airport. It was a really good way to be introduced to the country. They gave us a quick tour through town, and when we arrived at the peace corps office we got some time to talk and ask questions before our host families picked us up. It was a huge stress reliever when they all knew my host family and work sites and had only good things to say about both. At 11:30 My host mother, Yavette Joseph, Picked me up. As soon as she walked in everyone gave her a big hug. She runs a small shop where she serves breakfast and lunch which is how all the volunteers know her. I said goodbye to all the volunteers and wished them luck, we all wouldn’t be seeing each other again until Monday. The Josephs live in St. George walking distance from the Peace Corps training office. They live at the top of a driveway that is set at a 90 degree angle, but it has the most incredible view of the harbor (seen in picture above). The house is beautiful and surprisingly very big. It has two floors, the top floor having three bedrooms and the bottom floor consisting of two apartments, one of which their son, Mighty Man, lives in. Yavette gives me a quick tour and then says that if I’m up for it that she would like to take me in to town to do some shopping. As soon as we get into town Yavette starts saying hello to people, she knows everyone. As we are walking through the Market I notice that if I am not obviously standing next to Yavette that I get mistaken as a tourist and get bombarded with people trying to sell me stuff. Yavette shows me all the different kinds of fruit and vegetables that she will get for me to try: there’s bread-fruit, love apples, yellow apples, okra, mangos, 5 fingers (or star fruit), coconut, pumpkin, guava, dashin, and yams. Half of the things I had never heard of and the other half I wouldn’t have recognized, for instance the avocados are as big as the coconuts and are a completely different color. When we were done shopping Yavette asked me if I was up for going to Grenville to get fish. I didn’t know what going to Grenville meant so I said sure. Turns out Grenville is a 45 minute bus ride away. When we get to Grenville we look for a shop to buy a bucket, I have no idea why. Even though I’m sure Yavette explained to me why we needed a bucket her accent is so think I only understand a quarter of the things she says. When we find a bucket we make our way to the fish market. Outside the market there are a group of boys standing around with machetes, Yavette goes over and talks to one of them who then follows her over to the market. At the market she looks at all the fish and then selects the one she wants and then pays the fisherman. The fisherman hands the fish to the boy following us around, who then takes the bucket and tells us to wait. This boy cleans and cuts up the fish which he then puts into our bucket. Once he is done he brings it back over to us and Yavette pays him. Seeing that I’ve been away since 3 am I’m basically sleep walking, so we make our way back to St. Georges and I call it a day. We wake up early the next morning to go to church. Walking into church that morning I could have sworn I was walking into an amateur Christian rock band concert. There were four women singing on stage accompanied by a man on the drums, an electric guitar, an electric piano, and then several tambourines scattered through the crowd. To the right was a huge screen which had the lyrics to each song so everyone could follow along. It was mildly ridiculous. Tuesday was Independence day. Independence Day is huge! The day before Independence Day is colors day, so everyone wears yellow green and red. And by everyone I mean EVERYONE! There is a huge cultural performance that goes on at the big stadium which started at 1:30. Before we headed down there Mighty Man drove me and Leanne to the beach. The water is a mixture of bright blues and greens and there was barely anyone out on the beach which was perfect. We came back to change and make our way to the stadium. Overall it was long and boring but then out of nowhere they had parachuter’s dropped from above and flew down into the center of the stadium! One of the parachuter’s didn’t make it and fell into the crowd. It reminded me of something you’d see on America’s funniest home videos. After that we went and met Mr.Jo and Mighty Man at a party up at Fort George. It was a huge cook out! People were dancing and grinding up on each other, there was a huge pot of Boildown, which is the national dish. When we went over to get some food someone offered me Pigs foot, which I had to pass on. I can’t help but think about how quickly life can change. A month ago I would have been walking to temple on Friday, and now I’m driving to church on Sunday. A month ago I wouldn’t have been able to find pork anywhere and now I’m being offered pigs foot.

Week 1: St Lucia

This first week we were in Pre-service training, also known as PST (there are acronyms for everything). Overall it’s been a lot of information about all of the bad things that can possibly happen to us ranging from sexual assault to rashes and skin fungi.

While the days have been really long I’ve gotten to go to the beach everyday! A few of us have swam laps at sunset which has been a great way to exercise and release some stress. I still haven’t processed that I live here now and that I will be able to do this everyday for the next two years.

Yesterday afternoon we received our work site information. I’ve been assigned to two schools in the St. George’s area: The Limes, a school for special education, and The Lutheran School. It says that at Limes i will be “assisting with current activities in the school” while at the Lutheran school it says I will be “assisting with planning and development (knowledge of databases using filemaker pro would be an asset).” Well I have no experience working with special education and no knowledge of filemaker pro so this should definitely be a learning experience.

For the next two months I been assigned a host family: Anthony and Yvette Joseph. If the experience is anything like the one I had in Israel then  know it will be wonderful. I’m really excited to meet them on Saturday! If this arrangement works out I could potentially live with them past training until I wish to move into independent housing.

It’s been wonderful meeting the entire Eastern Caribbean volunteer group. While everyone is really excited to get to their posts and get started, I know it will be really exciting when we all come back together for mid service training a year from now.