Saturday, February 28, 2009

A trip to the city



Friday morning looking off my balcony. This was the day we were taking our trip down the mountain to the capital, Castries, St. Lucia. We hit rush hour traffic in the narrow windy roads so getting to the city took about 45minutes.








Our first stop was at the Peace Corps regional office of St. Lucia. Here is where we had our administration training sessions on the office balcony with this amazing view.






This is a snapshot of the foods we were taught about and got to sample during our Nutrition session. Here you can see an eaten green mango, a sour orange, bananas and plantains, lemons and in the back there is ginger. Another thing we sampled was cocoa tea from the cocoa stick, smelt cinnamon bark, ate guava cheese (which is actually a candy-not cheese), and the raw vegetables included dasheen, breadfruit and yams.






Here is a market street downtown. We broke off into small groups to discover the city. Our task was a scavenger hunt of about eight questions to answer. Things included how much a straw laundry basket is at the market? how many flavors of ice cream does Elena's have? why is Derek Walcott Square named after this gentleman? It was very educational and helped us to meet the local people and talk to them and ask them questions about their city. They seemed to enjoy helping us out. We had plenty of extra time to walk around as well. We spoiled ourselves at the cafe where we got iced coffee drinks-we figured we should get them while we can still afford them!


The Roman Catholic Church sits in the heart of the city and has an open invitation for locals and tourists. This was part of our hunt to find the denomination and year of foundation... 1899.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Welcome to St. Lucia



To begin my trip I flew from Detroit to Miami where registration took place. After spending Monday night there we left early Tuesday morning for Miami Int'l airport. My training class is EC 79 including 22 of us from all over the United States. Here we are arriving to the island of St. Lucia. We were greeted by P.C. staff and taken to the retreat center where the first week of orientation takes place. Our bus ride from the airport was a long and windy one. We passed through many communities seeing banana plantations and amazing views of the Caribbean Sea. Locals were "liming" aka hanging out alongside the road, on porches and restaurants. Children were walking home from school neatly wearing their green and white uniforms. They also drive on the left side of the road here so that alone makes for an interesting ride!

We have now successfully made it through 2 full days of training here on the island. We will continue to go over our safety and security, policies and procedures of the peace corps and medical issues, etc. over the next 7 weeks. However our time on St. Lucia is limited. Myself and seven other volunteers with fly to Dominica on Monday morning to meet our host families and move into our new homes for the duration of training.



This view is directly from my balcony of the retreat center. Facing north towards the tip of St. Lucia.










Here is a picture of the capital from my balcony (zoomed in of course). This is a very common area for cruise ships to port so we have seen a few so far. At night the view is beautiful when the city is all lit up. When I sit out on my balcony I can hear crickets at night and the crows of roosters in the daytime!







The place we are staying is very nice and hospitable. We are given three meals a day between training sessions. The fruit here is amazing, there's just a taste of complete freshness to them. Thus far we have had bananas, cantaloupe & honeydew and grapefruit. Pumpkin is one of the main vegetables in season right now so we have had it in a hot cooked veggie medley with red & green pepper and eggplant. Last night they also served us a pureed pumpkin soup. We are definitely taken care of here.

Tomorrow we are going into town to see the regional P.C. office in Castries. We will have some more training sessions and then have the afternoon to walk around the city. We all are a little anxious to get down there-some cabin fever being up on the hillside for the last 3 days-and interact with the people and get the chance to see more what our living conditions may be like :)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

It's almost time!

As most of you know I am about to embark on one the greatest adventures of my life. I have been accepted into the Peace Corps. On February 23, 2009 I am flying down to Miami to meet with the Eastern Caribbean training class of 25 enthused volunteers. We will begin training in St. Lucia on February 24, 2009 and continuing in Dominica, Guadalupe and St. Lucia for the following 6weeks before service begins. I have been assigned to the island of Dominica.

I am working in Community Development as a Youth Developer. My duties will include :

Promotion of healthy lifestyles and employment skills in schools
Assistance to teachers where needed
Development of after-school programs
Service learning camps
development of youth leadership through big brother/big sister programs, self-esteem and personal responsibility promotion programs.
Outreach for out-of-school youth.



I can't wait to get there and tell you all about it. The island itself it simply BEAUTIFUL. Please feel free to comment and ask questions.

I just wanted to get this blog started before I left the states to get it up and running properly.

If you want a sneak peek of the island and some of the sights, check out these links:
http://www.dominica.dm/site/index.cfm
http://www.avirtualdominica.com/home.cfm

for information on Peace corps visit www.peacecorps.gov