The Eventful Day

Today has been one of those days that you just simply look back and say "how did alllllll of that happen in one day?" Often times, days here can be so unpredictable and no two days are ever the same. So I decided to compile a bullet list of my eventful day:

I walked into school today greeting everyone and got dropped a bombshell. "Morning Miss Garst, Miss SO and SO is ill today, would you mind teaching 1st grade?" "hahahaha". That's exactly what my response was, and then I of course said yes, skipping off to figure out what the H*#% I was going to do with 20 first graders all day.

• We transformed the room into nontraditional learning day by having painting class, coloring page contests and carpet reading time. Did you expect anything less? I love painting and coloring!
• The girls attempted to plait (braid) my hair during break time, which turned into 6 girls tying my hair in knots. I wore it the rest of the day.
• One of my girl students asked me why I didn't have long skirts, a bonnet and weird shoes like the rest of the white people (Mormons and Mennonites) in her village.
• I had a deep discussion with a 6 year old on why my skin is "different" than her skin. She settled for God made it that way.
• I witnessed ten 11 year olds and a teacher slaughter 25 chickens after school. I am now a full time vegetarian, forget the flexitarian. The teachers laughed as I stood there in udder disbelief of the process of killing a chicken. Never again.
• Five students were in deep trouble after last nights school fair for wining or jamming up on young girls. Wining is a form of dance that takes a very serious sexual approach. YouTube it and you will understand. Today they received physical punishment and had to write letters about the appropriate way to act. Below is the letter from a student, written as is:

Miss Mitchell,
I should sit outside and play with your friend and do not go in the dollar jam and wine up and drank rum and fight with your friend and cuss dem. Do not wine up with your friend, and if her friend said don't wine up on my friend and I will say Shup and go jam someone.
-Javon

What do you even say to that? hahaha. Thank goodness it wasn't my job to discipline after that letter.

This evening I got the chance to go to dinner with two officials from USAID and the Charge d'affaires. We ate at a really nice restaurant in the tourist area of the island while talking about US funded projects in the region and specifically Grenada. I was given the nice chance to explain the work I'm doing with women's empowerment and the reading program at my school. Thankfully, the two USAID officers were former Peace Corps Volunteers, and if you have ever been around PCVs, we can talk about the Peace Corps for days.

Just another day in the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer...."The hardest job you'll ever love"

Hurricane Tomas

WE SURVIVED!!!!!!

Friday was a bit of a hectic day on the island of Grenada. I was calmly sitting listening to Parliament pass the new Family Law Act (which is another post) when the Speaker announces the early dismissal of all public service workers due to "approaching hurricane storms". I'm from Missouri and we don't even know what a hurricane is because we have things like 12 inches of snow, tornadoes and blistering hot summers. I wasn't to worried when I heard we were being dismissed, until of course my counterpart rushed us out, followed by the rest of the general assembly.

We arrived in town to MAD CHAOS. There is no other way to describe it. Hurricane Ivan in 2005 had a profound effect on Grenada, ruining over half of the island. This invariably leaves Grenadians on edge when they hear the word hurricane now. I attempted to walk into the grocery store to get some staple items to last me through the weekend and walked into a mad house. People rushing around grabbing everything they could see, children crying and the constant 'ding' of the cash register. Everyone was in full mode to hunker down and ride this storm out.

THANKFULLY, in the last hour before reaching land, the hurricane took a slight turn and headed directly at St. Lucia and St. Vincent, both of which have Peace Corps Volunteers on them. We were immediately put in a Standfast warning, which means we are not allowed to leave our houses and should have our bags back and prepared to move to our safe house (a hotel). The Peace Corps takes safety very seriously and especially makes sure procedures are in place to ensure we are well taken care of in the event of a serious storm.

Unfortunately, we have gotten word that our fellow volunteers on the islands of St.Vincent and St.Lucia were not as lucky to avoid the storm and had substantial damage to their homes. Two Peace Corps staff had extensive damage to their own homes as well. I pray that things can return to normal and their projects can continue as planned.

So for now...Breaker 1-9 WE HAVE SURVIVED!