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!
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