volleyball!

I have a fellow volunteer who shares a passion for volleyball with me and since day 1 we have been determined to play here. This weekend our day came! There is a local team near town that practices wednesday and friday evenings. The two of us were picked up by a new friend and taken to the court. We were told it was cement and thought, "this will be interesting". We arrived and saw the outside of what looked like a deserted stadium. Apparently that's pretty much what it was. It was originally built for a net ball tournament. The tournament happened and the entire stadium was no longer used for several years. Luckily, for us, now it has become a practice court for the volleyball team. We also found that it wasn't just cement but covered with a cheap kind of sport court ... still painful when diving on it. We sat for about 1/2 an hour waiting for the guy to come who had the ball, then we played 4 on 4 until more strolled in and it became a full out scrimmage! There are no lights on the court so we played until dark, it was amazing seeing the sun set over the Caribbean Sea while playing volleyball! "I could get used to this", is what kept running through my head. I was ridiculously comfortable with the setting and the company of the Dominicans.

Swearing In Ceremony 4.22.09

Training has ended. All 7 of us trainees successfully completed our 7 weeks of training. The day to take our oath came. The ceremony was held at the West Indies University in Roseau. There were 3 key speakers; our Assistant Country Director, the Country Director from St. Lucia and the minister of community development and gender affairs. Our language teacher was the master of ceremony and he had a few jokes to tell during his time on stage, he's hilarious. He is on the radio and does advertisements here in Dominica. Everyone knows him, or atleast his voice. There was a special thanks to all of the host families and certificates were given. The 7 of us then gave our oath and were officially sworn in at Peace Corp volunteers. We prepared a speech which one of the trainees gave on behalf of us all and then another gave our vote of thanks and he spoke it in Creole. The audience loved that!

The media was also there and it was played on the news that evening. The VIP row: includes project design management, youth development and language trainers

Cabrits National Park

View from Cabrits, overlooking Portsmouth

All of the trainees spent the morning at Cabrits. We had two final training sessions in the building and then were supposed to have a lesson on the history of Cabrits. However the individual in charge of that had been attending the opening of the Portsmouth school and would have been late. We all decided to go, we still saw the sights just missed the history lesson, there are plans of going back.
We spent the afternoon visiting each others home villages. We had not seen where anyone else of the volunteers were living. We dropped 2 PCVs off in the north and saw there homes then made our way back to town for a quick shopping trip for home essentials. Three of us were left and were each driven home heading south from town and up the east coast to see a whole new area we'd never seen. It was a great day of seeing the island. The good news was that I was so happy to reach home when I did. The familiarity was so comforting! Thats got to be a pretty good sign :)

Sights around the village

6am walk to the bus stop

Bay Oil factory
Big project in my village was the road construction.
It just recently finished and the roads look fantastic!

Middleham Falls

Smaller fall on hike to ...

Middleham Falls

Easter in the islands

This past weekend was the longest stretch of time I spent in my community. Starting with Good Friday all businesses were closed for the holiday. Friday: it was a slow morning. I tried to sleep in as long as possible knowing the day ahead had no set plans.But my body clock has set itself to wake up after just about 9 hours of sleep and therefore I was wide awake at 7am. The sound of my host brothers running around and playing didn’t help either. I had my morning cocoa tea and my host mother cooked me a plate of plantains, an egg and Sukies bread (the most popular bakery on the island). By the afternoon both myself and my host brother were getting bored. As he was investigating my belongings he found some latex gloves (from a clean up project) and started using them as balloons and water balloons. It was an entertaining hour watching him crack up over the inflated gloves. Later we walked up the road to a friend’s house and met them in time for a cricket game. We reached the field set just above the sea on a small flat piece of land. It is perfectly nestled between a variety of hills and ledges. Waiting below was a large group of men ranging from 8 – 25 years old. The cricket games take place every Saturday and Sunday, but being a holiday weekend games were going to happen for the next five days. I learned much about the game as I sat and watched. Quite often the ball made its way up the side of the hill leading to a boy running straight up the side to fetch it… they are in great shape. The boys were animated and competitive just as a pick up game of baseball would be in the U.S. I am noticing many similarities here and back home, we’re not so different.
On my walk to the game I met a traveler from Austrailia. She was an interesting women taking 6 weeks to travel the islands of the Caribbean. When I met her she was taking pictures of the children by the road and mentioned how beautiful they are. She sounded like she had traveled many many parts of the world. She walked to the field with me and shot questions at me about my experience so far and the things I will be doing. It was nice not being the stranger in the village for once. I, at the time was the familiar face and she was foreigner. After her photos of the cricket game she made her way back to her hotel.
Saturday was quite like most, but Sunday morning was bustling with people making their way up the hill to church. There was even a bus driving people since its such a popular church day. (I, however, walked the way). The service was beautiful and following I mingled with church – goers feeling a better sense of involvement with in the community. After everyone bought their cakes and ice pops we found a rides home. The afternoon is popular for “cooking a pot”. It is basically a stew where provisions such as dasheen and plantain are thrown in a pot with fish or chicken and spices. It boils for about and hour before eaten. I was invited to experience this with a friend and it was delicious. And after that everyone limed and enjoyed the day.
Easter Monday is a national holiday here. Seeing as though Easter falls on the weekend a day is taken off the Monday following the holiday. Easter Monday is a the most popular day for cooking out and going to the beach. I went with a group of friends (yea I have friends now!) to a local beach / river. We made another pot of food. I helped to peel the fig (which are green bananas), while some guys gathered wood and palms for a fire. We chilled for awhile and swam in the river. The weather was not very good so each time it rained we all stood under a tarp we’d brought along. It was a day full of adventure.
The weekend was nice. I feel I am making many more connections as time goes by. And being in the village for 5 days straight helped me to spend time with new friends, get invited to events and adjust to the concept of simply doing nothing for hours on end. Training ends today with final interviews … I am anxious to move into my apartment and continue making a life here.

Palm Sunday

Church on Palm Sunday morning, decorated with palms

(they are much easier to get here than in Michigan!)Walking to the river where our palms were blessed before service
Blessing of the palms by the Father
Lazy Sunday afternoon in the village

A Sea Bath

I took a walk around my village as the sun rose over the Atlantic…I was feeling energized! Slighty after my return home a heavy rainfall began. Today was the day of my service learning activity for training; I was to do a clean up down by the bay (the skies had other plans). We were going to cook and swim afterwards. I spent the day in the house listening to the rain on the tin roof and playing UNO with my 7yr.old host brother. I don’t think I am very used to being up at 6am on a Saturday morning, but here people get up with the sun and so my body is adjusting. With that there was still time for the sky to clear. Just about noon the clouds did break and the sun shone down with an intense heat. The air was as thick as a sauna! Although the clean up day had been assumed to be cancelled, the girls involved wanted to still go to the sea. The waves crashed on the huge rocks and the girls quickly climbed up the rocks and back down into the water… I was quite a few steps behind. After an exhausting time in the water fighting the waves we found a pool on the cliff where we subside. This little pool was formed from the splash of the waves filling in a crater on the flat part of the rocks. God’s homemade bathtub. The inside was soft from the plants growing on the rocks and there were snails slowly crawling around. After seeing the girls slip right in, I followed their lead, and was assured nothing would bite me. Whew! I laid there looking out at the ocean and the massive waves between the sturdy rocks and the horizon. This is my new life … (for a couple years).

Another day in the Caribbean

I feel I haven’t had much new information to share. Although things continue to happen each day I am simply more accustom to them now. They do not seem as extreme as they did at the beginning.
As I stood at the bus stop I watched the sunrise over the Atlantic and saw the children in their freshly pressed uniforms walking to school. Everyone greets me like anyone else; I am becoming a part of this community. As I sat at the stop the time ticked by and realizing it was past 7am I knew the bus had left without me. He chose not to come down the hill to all the stops, for whatever reason. I seized the moment and continued talking to the two gentlemen next to me. One was an elderly man and the other was younger and visiting from Martinique. The elder talked about the way the community used to be and Jamie compared Dominica to Martinique. He is adamant about me seeing “his” island too. They often shifted completely to French in which I was no longer in the conversation only sitting back to pick out the words I knew. Jamie brought out a piece of fruit from the local tree to give me a taste. He was unsure of the English name for it but the elder recalled it being Soupsa (or something along those lines). The fruit was oddly shaped, green and full of wart-looking bumps. Inside it was white and extremely juicy. The texture was closest to a mango, if I had to say and it tasted very sweet but like no other fruit I’ve ever had. It wasn’t my favorite; the one piece was enough for me.
I decided there was no longer a bus so I said farewell and walked up the hill. I had no plan in mind. I could not walk the whole way and expect to be on time. I walked alongside a teacher going to school but my stop would be another 5-6 miles past hers. My thoughts were positive that I would get a ride somehow. Sure enough after 15minutes of walking a local bus driver picked the two of us up and took us to our stops! People here are so generous and seem to help out anyone whenever they can.

The Beach!

A day off! The current volunteers planned a day for them and us; trainees, to see a new part of the island, get to know each other and spend a day at the beach! How is it that we’ve been on a tropical island for almost a month and not to the beach yet? I don’t think so. We were lucky enough to have a bus for the day so we didn’t have to worry about individual busses back to our villages. Some leave town as early at 1pm. Businesses on the weekends are limited; they tend to be ½ day on Saturday and closed on Sundays. Our trip was up the west coast of the island to the village of Portsmouth. This area possesses the most hotels on the island. The beaches are sandy and waters calm. We spent the day swimming, sunbathing, playing Frisbee, swinging (pictured) and well…liming. There was a nice beachside restaurant/bar near us which we got drinks and lunch at. There were a handful of us with lobster red skin as we departed- but they wore sunscreen, they swear! We took our time to slowly come down the island. The driver stopped to get himself plantain and codfish (a local favorite). He showed us bars along the way and another beach where we got out, got refreshments and watched the sun going down. As we reached town volunteers got out and grabbed their busses. It was the first night I saw the sunset over the Caribbean Sea as a fellow trainee and I got chauffeured back up the island to the east side. It was dark when I reached home. I had a full day! That was something new to me – it was nice to be busy the entire day, come home and crash. I felt refreshed, tan and wonderful.