Brownies, French Monopoly, and Art

A lot of people have been asking me about what my typical day is like, and while I would say that everyday is different and special in its own way, I'll give it a try.

I get up at around 7 during the week, an hour that seems ungodly early, but to Lucians means I'm sleeping really late. If only they knew that sometimes on weekends I sleep till 10, a completely normal hour in my mind, but if my neighbors knew that they would think I was deathly ill. Oh yes, they will party till 4 am and still wake up before 7, I swear they don't sleep which could explain why everything happens at a slow pace here. But back to my typical day, after breakfast, ironing my clothes, and making lunch I usually am running late because I couldn't get my butt out of bed, so I hurry off to work. Me being in a rush also makes my neighbors think I'm strange, not to mention that I walk the 10mins to work instead of taking a bus, another thing that is unthinkable. It sort of makes sense though because you can get sweaty and wrinkled walking to work, of course that happens to me even if I take the bus so I might as well save the money.

I then spend the next 7 hours trying to meet with teachers and the school counselor to plan out projects and figure out what other things the school needs help with, or I guess should say which things are the top priorities. Number one on the list reading, the kids can't read, the teachers don't really focus that much on teaching them to read, but everyone tells me its the schools biggest problem. So obviously I'm starting to work with the special ed teacher to create a literacy and numeracy program, step one for that get the principal on board. The principal is big into sports which is great for me, and we just gave out a survey to the kids about their interest in different sports, and the responses are really positive, now lets see if they actually want to participate next year. Kids without food is also a big problem and we came up with a hypothetical budget and wow does feeding kids get expensive fast, so now its time to figure out funding. If it happens to be a day I'm at the primary school I work one-on-one with two students that struggle reading words like had, what, where, ect...or helping the fifth grade boys with math. My new movement at the primary school is to change the teaching styles around so 3/4 of the the students by the time they are finishing 6th grade will no longer be below grade level for reading and math. We had a staff meeting today where we talked about it. The principal was verbally on board as were a handful of teachers, but lets see if they really embrace it and work with me to make this change.

After school comes the fun part of my day, not so ironed clothes are quickly replaced for my standard basketball shorts and whatever t-shirt is nearby, seriousness gone, and its time for small children to start showing up at my house, they are so much more fun then adults, kids rule and adults drool. At some point I will leave my state of denial and accept that I am now an adult, but I'm not there yet, and I think my behavior sometimes would suggest I am still 10. I have four standard kids that come over everday, if I have a study session then there are 10 6th graders at my house instead. My the normal four live within shouting distance of me and know the second I get home from pretty much anywhere. We usually just read together, but on monday I bought the cheap version of monopoly, which here is the french version from many years ago, its in broken english, uses the franc, and feels like it will all be torn apart within a few weeks, but real board games are expensive and the kids don't seem to be bothered by it. Yesterday we, me and the 4 regulars, built a small table out of the boxes my milk comes in and a cereal box so we had a place to rest my french monopoly. We started playing after the "table" was complete which was a bit chaotic because the kids had no idea how to play, after a bit of a headache and one of the 2nd graders not knowing what happened to their money pile we called it quits with plans to play again the next day. Of course this prompted the two 7 year olds and the 5 year old to start running around in circles in my living room, I have a big open space that's perfect for such activities. Of course then I decided it made the most sense for me to catch them and carry them out of my house and pretend to throw them out, a game that quickly turned into me being a monster. I think I added monster sound effects to encourage that progression. The game ended with one of the children being a monster and eating the rest of us and us all becoming monsters. If that wasn't enough for one day the playing moved to the porch where a game of mr freeze or something like that started. Its really just freeze tag with a different name. Playtime finally ended when it got dark and I kicked the kids out. Today we continued monopoly which everyone seems to be getting, the addition and subtraction and banking aspect is hard for them, but that could be partially due to the large numbers needed to make french francs worth something. Tomorrow we are continuing the game where we left off, and may make some pretend money that the kids can earn by doing things like reading or writing stories and then can use to buy lollipops or other things that I make or are at my house, who knows maybe I'll sell them my drawings for their cardboard money. To top things off today I made some baller brownies from scratch with my Lucian cocao stick.

After the kids leave me alone, if I don't have a meeting in the evening, I figure out something for dinner usually a concoction of whatever I made a ton of early in the week and a random collection of vegetables and fruit. Then I talk to friends, read, and draw. Lately I have been doing a lot of drawing, mostly with pastel, but I also did one in charcoal. I'll put some pictures of the ones I like more up. So that's pretty much a day in my life, give or take some activities. Also I'll put up a picture of me after some of my kids put flour all over my face.

Leatherback turtles and more!

Its been awhile since I've last posted, so there is a lot to inform people of. Some ridiculously fun, some frustrating, and other really rewarding.

As some of you know there has been a teachers and civil servant strike in St. Lucia, it ended friday but lasted two weeks. There is about a month left of school with only about a week and a half till exams start. There were really mixed feelings about the strike from St. Lucians including the teachers because the kids have national exams and they are missing critical preparation time, but there was also the principal of workers right and getting what people felt they deserved. For me personally it was frustrating because I was just getting started on some projects at the school and this slowed things considerably for me. Hopefully in the next month I can get to a point with my counterparts that things will be in place enough for me to do a few things over the summer and have things running by the beginning of next school year.

The plus side of the strike is that I had more time to catch up on things that were being neglected and to spend with neighborhood kids. I made cookies with about 7 kids in my community ranging in ages from 5-12, and it was really a great experience. We all just got to be silly, and I think it was a new experience for most of the kids. Of course they asked if we could do it every week, and other kids heard about it and wanted to be invited next time.

A few days later I went for a walk in the community with five 12 year old girls, it was sort of a safe time for the girls to talk about anything both with themselves and with me, which makes me so happy that they are comfortable enough to open up to me. I'm think of starting a girls group to talk about important issues and give them something fun to do.

The kids really make my life so much more enjoyable, there are a lot of frustrations of working with grown ups here, and sometimes I come home completely defeated and drained, but then one of my kids comes over to say hi and say the sweetest thing and life is good. For example when I was reading to a five year old, she turns to me and asks if I'm going to come back after I go back to where I came from. After I explain that I won't come back to live here again she says Miss when you leave all the children in the Valley, no all of St. Lucia will be very sad and miss you. Another child told me that my pastel belonged in a museum, and a child I work on learning to read asked me if I could work with him everyday. I already feel like I'm making a big difference for the kids that I get to work with, its incredible to think about.

I also have now been to all 3 fish frys on the island, really they are just big street parties by the beach, if you go earlier in the night they are more food focused, but by the later hours when all the locals go its just a party. There are a lot of fun, some more so than others because they are more dancing orientated, the music and dancing is different from home, but I think I'm learning.

This past weekend I decided to go turtle watching with some of the Japanese volunteers and other peace corps. Of course I decided to go about 45 mins before we needed to meet the group, it just wouldn't be any fun if there was planning involved. The beach that we went to is really isolated and completely off road, I think we even drove through a creek. First a little background on the leatherback turtles, they average about 4 feet long and 3 feet wide with flippers span about 6 feet, they have been around since the Cretaceous period about 110 million years ago, are the fastest reptiles (in water not on land), and can dive to greater depths than other reptiles. Sadly they are a critically endangered species, which means the are close to extinction in the wild, part of this is due to predators that eat baby turtles, and part of it is that people steal the eggs for different reasons throughout the world, and that they eat trash in the ocean because they think its food, this causes them to choke and die. The leather back turtles come onto the beach in the middle of the night to lay their eggs, so you just have to walk to beach back and forth until you see one. Fortunate for us a turtle came on the beach before 11 so we didn't have to wait all night. The turtle then uses its back flippers to dig a hole about 2-3 feet deep to lay the eggs in. The eggs are about the size of billiard balls and she lays close to 100 of them. After the eggs are laid she tries to cover them and begins her slow journey back to the ocean. Its really an incredible thing to see, especially when you think about how long the animal has been around and that it may be something in 50 years nobody will be able to see anymore.

The pictures are of the leatherback and honey harvesting.