"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." --Henry David Thoreau


"Service is the rent we pay for being, It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time."

--Marion Wright Edelman


"The fruit of love is SERVICE. The fruit of service is PEACE" --Mother Teresa

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Visitor #2 and School Starts!

Excuse my lack of updates for all of you religious followers of mine. My life has been crazy hectic since I last checked in and I hope this post makes up for all of that lost time.

One of my best friends Ali came to visit me ALLLLLL the way from Topeka, Kansas Sept 1st-7th. It was the perfect time and I was so happy to show a best friend Caribbean culture. We spent her first day at the beach of course, enjoying the beautiful weather, sand in all the places you don't want it and the calm waters of the Caribbean Sea. I don't get to see the ocean as much as I would like because I'm so busy with work, so anytime I can break away for a day of relaxation I just right on it. I introduced her to roti's, which are a burrito like thing with veggies, curry and chicken. We made sure to do a little hiking and man was it exhausting. The other volunteers informed me it was a short hike, maybe 45 minutes or so. LIARS!!!! That damn hike took nearly 2 hours, 4 total. It might of been because I'm not in the shape they are, but one of the other volunteers even said it was hard. Note to self: never listen to skinny Peace Corps Volunteers!






Sadly, Ali's time here is over and now its time for me to get back to focusing on work. School started here on the 6th of September and I was so excited to see my new students. I went in over the break with Ali and handed out school supplies to grateful teachers and heard many many thank you's, so for anyone who has donated to my school, THANK YOU! My classroom teacher was so grateful and excited to get to use all the supplies. She just kept smiling and saying we were going to do this and this and this. It was a great feeling. The relationship between my counterpart teacher and myself has dramatically increased since last school term and its making me feel really good about the work I'm doing. Over summer break she called multiple times and even got to meet my family while they were here. This year is going to be a great year and I'm really excited about the things to come at St. Pauls Primary School.




Work at GNOW has slowed down a bit after completing my project proposal for UNIFEM, so I was really excited to get into school mode. With the international economy being so terrible, the NGO's are struggling more then ever to sustain projects and keep the doors open. This makes our job as development workers even harder because in order to promote new ideas and projects you have to have some funding available. That funding is drying up in the region and making my work even more hard. I hope in the coming months as tourist season kicks back in gear Grenada can get back on its feet and the cash flow will increase.

That's all for now. I promise to be better about updating this from now on. I will have some good things coming since school is back in session. Stay tuned...