We hung out at the Chargé d'Affaires' house Tuesday night. He is basically the US Ambassador here, but gets a super cool/pretentious name because Grenada is small. He's funny though. Anyways, we are at his casa for the launching of this Grenada Alumni Association. It's for Grenadians that spent time in America studying or working and are now back, something like that. All I really remember is that they had good finger food and the house was insanely nice. I'd insert a joke here about taxpayer money, but I'm told he throws us a nice 4th of July party, so I'll refrain.
I felt super important at NaDMA when they handed me a sheet of the 2011 Hurricane Predictions and I then forwarded it to our Safety and Security Officer in St. Lucia, potentially saving hundreds of lives. If you're interested, we are predicted to enjoy a total of 80 "Named Storm Days", 35 Hurricane Days and 10 Major Hurricane Days this year. Sounds like a blasty blast. I also have a list of the names they are going to use for the storms this year. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I will tell you that there is going to be one named Gert, I'm positive that was one of the names of a Swede in the Die Hard movies. And pray that we don't make it to Hurricane Tammy, have you ever met a Tammy that wasn't a stuck up bitch? Me neither.
On Wednesday I was volunteered to be the guest speaker on NaDMA's TV program that runs on Thursdays. A day's notice wasn't too much of a problem. I excel under pressure. Just ask Taylor, he envied my last-minute-paper-writing capabilities. The topic for the show was the role of the Peace Corps and my specific role as well as some discussion on disaster management. No biggie. I figured our APCD Eugene could come on the show with me and help out if I needed to phone a friend. Nahhh, Eugene had better things to do, but he was nice enough to tell me he had faith that I wouldn't blow the interview on my own. I prepared some notes Wednesday night and Thursday morning before hiking down to the GIS studio at the Ministry. I arrived early in hopes of talking about the interview and questions with my co-worker, he was conducting the show so I knew he wouldn't throw me any curve balls but I just wanted to make sure. Well I hung out outside what I thought was the door to GIS for half an hour before someone walked by and asked if I needed help, he then informed me that they don't use that entrance anymore, oops. The interview was fine, I was bit nervous beforehand. I mean, I had never been on tv before, let alone in a foreign country. And everyone watches tv here. One time I was hanging out in a little snack shop near my school and the lady was just limin and watching Bonanza, don't ask why, and don't ask if I sat there for 30 minutes and watched with her, because I did. I was prepared to talk for a good half hour, I like talking, but he expected me to summarize the role and programs of the Peace Corps and my service in 9 minutes... Oh well, 9 minutes is better than no minutes, and lots of my community saw me, so I'm basically famous.
I made a nice little Cinco de Mayo meal for myself that night. It was sort of a Roti, sort of a burrito, I guess those two are kind of the same anyways. I cooked pumpkin, black eyed peas, rice, okra, potatoes, plantains and spicy chicken and then mixed some of it in a roti wrap(100x better than tortillas). The only error in my meal was that I forgot cerveza. Fail.
On schedule for Friday was an afternoon meeting at Errin's place in the fishing town of Gouyave. Some of us were there to discuss ideas for a summer camp we are running at an orphanage in the town of Victoria. Of the many good ideas we shared, I mentioned the energizers we did at Montreat, so I think that may be one of my jobs. Thanks, Pc. Gouyave is famous for Fish Friday which is a nighttime party type thing that happens every Friday night in town. The streets are lined with tents selling all different types of fish and other foods, even Lo Mein. The food was sooo delicious, Errin is pretty lucky to live there. Totes jealous. The only problem was that it was crawling with white people, ew.
My lazy Sunday was especially lazy. But I did take an hour out of the day to go explore and climb around Fort Matthew. I had the whole Fort to myself, probably because the gate is locked like always, shhhh. The Fort is super cool, I don't know why they Ministry of Tourism keeps it closed. They had a project a while back to restore it and make it into a tourist hot spot, but apparently they stopped half way through, it has a lot of potential, but for now it's my little ghost town I get to go run around in. I'll make sure to take pictures if I go again. The only problem is that is is easy to see a white guy with his shirt off climbing around on the top of a hill. Plus, using an ant hill as a hand hold isn't fun for anyone. At night, I was busy watching some episodes of Parks and Rec minding my own business when my neighbors showed up at 8pm. It had been a while since I got to play with all of them so we went up to the road to lime. They wanted to race me so I humored them. FYI, racing a bunch of children after eating dinner and red wine is not encouraged. The little boy always cracks me up, he is always asking for things. I don't mind giving him duct tape to fix his kite, or glasses of water. But he always tells me to go buy him a PSP or when it is his birthday that he wants a bike. Me and my PC stipend having only enough to buy food, like the fresh mangoes the grocery store has started carrying (which he also wants me to give him claiming he has never eaten one before...). And besides, if I have enough to buy a bike you better believe I'm buying myself one, everyone knows how much I like to bike.
I learned today that I get to sit in on an all day training session on May 18, super sweet... I also learned that although putting bananas in the freezer gets rid of fruit flies, if you forget they are in there then your bananas are ruined. Which brings me to my next point. I am declaring Marshall Law on all the ants, weavels, fruit flies, flies, millipedes, spiders and whatever god forsaken insects manage to find a way into my apartment. Screw the Geneva Convention, I'm straight going genocidal on their asses. PC stipend willing, I plan to buy copious amounts of insect traps/repellents/killers/stds until my home is a bug free zone. I may even purchase one of those Navy Seal dogs that went postal on Bin Laden's face. Maybe I'll entice my neighbors with the ol "I'll give you 5cents for every bug you kill". Child labor shmild labor, it's only a crime if they lose a limb. And in the event that they are bitten by something I've seen enough Man vs Wild episodes to know what to do. Usually the solution is drinking your own piss. And as my fraternity brothers will be quick to point out, I have accidentally done that before. But that's neither here nor there...
Brice
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