Friday, normally my school visit day, was going to be a special day because our school was having a fair to raise funds for the 6th grade graduation fund and general funds. I was excited and all the teachers and community members kept talking this fair up like it was Woodstock or Bonnaroo for you hipsters. I was also excited because the fair didn't start till 2pm, which meant I got to sleep in an extra hour before heading to town to take care of some errands. I caught a bus to St. George and set off to my first stop: a sketchy Tailor shop to get fitted for my tux for the Rigot wedding. Obviously, I put this chore first because it got me happy for the rest of the day. This place had been recommended to me by my coworker at NaDMA, one of the district coordinators owned the Tailoring shop. Well, Mr. Chan was not there when I arrived, (by the way this place is at the top of a giant hill and the sun is out blazing at 11am) so I enjoyed some light conversation with the other workers there while sweating profusely. Seriously? All I was doing was sitting on a stool, indoors, and I was dripping with sweat. Welcome to Grenada... The light conversation turned into the workers asking me if I was married, then to telling me that I should find a girl here, it's easy, we've got one in the back, here she comes, oh it's not awkward, you should marry her. Sarcasm doesn't really translate here, so subtle hints and pity laughs don't usually throw people off the conversation every time they talk about me getting a wife. I wasn't mad though, because I was still really excited for the day and excited for the wedding in a month.
After getting my sizes written down I crossed the road to pay a visit to the GNOW (Grenada National Organization of Women) office. My host mother/land lady works there and so does another PCV, so it's nice to stop by when I'm in town and enjoy some friendly company. I said my "good afternoons" and then headed of to find lunch somewhere. I was craving a smoothie from this ballin smoothie place down town, but, for whatever reason, this place is always running out of bananas and peanut butter. You'd think they'd realize that those are their two most requested ingredients and therefore buy more of them, but no. I'm not going to tell you what I actually ate for lunch because I feel guilty... Okay, fine, it was Subway. You can't just walk past a subway, catch a whiff of that bead baking, that deli meat being sliced, cookies warming, and not say no. It's a siren's song that leads you to your "fresh & healthy" death, and I was buying what this siren was selling. I say that I feel guilty because I'm sure when you picture the Peace Corps you don't imagine fast food to be within a 100 mile radius of any volunteer. Well that's not always the case, maybe so for volunteers in parts of Africa, but in today's economy and technology it is hard to hide from Colonel Sanders or Ronald McDonald. Although, we don't have McDonald's and I'm glad for that, the golden arches are a poster child for America and I don't want to see that on the horizon here.
After quickly paying my absurd electrical bill ($145 EC!!), I vowed to stop using my fan so much and then went to the hardware store to pick up a cutlass. Cutlass, panga, machete, sabre, wherever you are (outside the US) this puppy is an essential tool. Whether it's used for yard work, cutting open waternuts/coconuts, home security, building, picking your teeth, making a pb&j, chopping a man's arm off, you name it and it can be done with a cutlass. It was high time I bought one here. I need to do some yard work on our property, preferably with my shirt off to combat on my everlasting paleness. Small hitch in that plan is that I forgot to also pick up a sharpening stick. Rookie mistake. The only thing you can do with a dull cutlass is wave it around pretending you're a pirate. And yes, I did just that.
At 2pm, I promptly rolled up to St. Joseph's RC School Morne Jaloux to get my school fair on. Teachers were still setting up some of the final booths and bringing in different food and snacks. I walked over to talk to Senorita, obviously she teaches quantum physics to our elementary students, and by physics I mean Spanish. She's super cool, and she was busy painting a child's face. I made some jokes about her "skills" and then told her I could help out with the face painting booth. After she saw my first masterpiece, (according to her), she designated me face-painter and herself the money collector. Cue the next 5, tiring hours. Now, I consider myself an artist, but painting isn't my forte, especially on small children's faces with water colors. But I sacked up and got the job done. In truth, I spent 5 hours at the fair painting faces, Senorita and I racked in $93 EC from our booth (charging $2 a face). Yea, that's a hell of a lot of face painting. You might ask "Holy smokes Brice, what did you paint on 45 different faces??" About 30 of these children wanted butterflies... I pretty much just made that one up on the FLY. Ha get it.. Some of them turned out great, some not so much, but I didn't let the kid know that. Other things I painted on faces included: Dora the Explorer, Spongebob, spider webs, horses, stars, starfish, hearts, t-rex, optimus prime, a dragon, the Bat Symbol, and masks. Needless to say, I was exhausted by 7:30pm and oblivious to what had been happening elsewhere at the fair. We closed up the face painting shop and I awoke from my trance, drank a Carib and walked outside to a startling scene. Hundreds of people were liming outside the school, listening and dancing to the music, eating the barbecue and getting crazy. My principal had told me that the fair was a big deal and that the streets would be lined with cars and people. I didn't believe her until I saw it with my own eyes. Our school was packed. It didn't even look like a school anymore. We had barbecue chicken grillin out front next to a tower of speakers, DJs were up on our stage remixin music, inside the dividing walls were removed and our 3rd grade classroom had been transformed into a bar, in our 4th grade class room was one of those carnival-ring toss games except you were aiming for bottles of rum and you won the bottle if you rung it. It was quite the soiree. But this was just a tease, just foreplay for the main event. BINGO!!! Around 8:30 we started a giant bingo game. People go ape shit for bingo here. Pardon my language, but that's exactly what it was like. The cash prize for the big game was $1000 EC which created a LOT of incentive for everyone to play. Come 9:30pm I couldn't hang anymore and had to head home for sleep and dinner.
Saturday was an equally fun filled adventure day. I woke up and performed my typical weekend chores: cleaning the house, washing dishes/prepping food, washing clothes yadda yadda. I decided to pass on the Hash this weekend and visit the Jazz Festival that we were supposed to be helping out at. "Supposed to" because the festival wasn't advertised to its potential and no kids showed up in the beginning for our kid sections (face painting, bouncy castle etc.) The actual Jazz part was phenomenal though. There are some really talented jazz musicians and drummers in Grenada that always make for some easy listening. Around 8pm, Casey and I headed downtown to grab some dinner and cold beer. We paid a visit to D Bar, a nice hole in the wall that a group of us like to visit every so often because we are really good friends with the owner and staff. We always have a fun time there, this night was no different. Unfortunately, right when Casey and I showed up everyone was out at the Carnival Jump Off. Now, our Carnival isn't until August, but the Jump Off is a chance for bands to preview their music and performances for the upcoming festivities. Although D Bar was empty, Eeron, the owner of the bar and rum maker, was still there. He's been making rum for quite awhile now and has awards to prove how delicious it is. Casey and I chatted it up with him while waiting for two other volunteers to meet us. We also got free rides on the pool table and dominoes table at in the bar. Normally they are always taken and we don't get included like we are Rudolph the red nosed reindeer or some bologna, I like to pretend it's not because we are white. We hung out for awhile and then decided to call up a bus driver to take us to Bananas. Remember Bananas? That club/bar I went to one time that was a bit out of control? We decided to visit it again, it had been a while since we had hung out and there was a performance that night, some guy by the name of "Baby Killer" which should have been a sign to not go. Alas, we headed out. Since they don't let backpacks into Bananas, I left my bag at D Bar so I could pick it up on Monday. We had a really fun time dancing and socializing. That is until a local girl decided to dance all up on me from the stage, and this wasn't PG dancing either. I was a target at this point. Her next move? To pounce on me like a jungle cat, tackling me to the floor where she proceeded to whyne all up on me, especially my face. The force off this maneuver hit me full on in the nose. It's a miracle I didn't come out of this looking like Owen Wilson, but I did wake up the next morning with blood in my nose. Everyone just stood there and watched while I became a victim of dance-rape. When it was all over I was delirious and stumbled off to the bathroom to wash my face and regain my dignity. Katie later said "I heard I missed some girls nanner all over your face". Yes, Katie, you did, consider yourself lucky. I have no idea what this Baby Killer character was rapping about, all I know is that this place was hot and stuffy and I was soaking wet with sweat. Eventually, we called it a night and headed home. On the way back I had a sudden epiphany, in my bag I left at D Bar were my house keys. SOB... I had no way to get into my place. What's the logical thing to do at this point? Sleep on the ground outside your apartment using your doormat as a pillow. Honestly, I deserved that. I woke up at 7am, surrounded by a swarm of ants, feeling like Dr. Frankenstein pieced me together while I slept. I marched up stairs with my poker face on and luckily Lorice was out and about and helped me find an extra key to one of my doors. She also gave me a bunch of mangoes. Feeling victorious, I waltzed into my apartment, showered, and promptly slept in my bed for another 5 hours. Mmmmm.
I hope these tales gave you a chuckle to get through the mid-week hump.
Brice
well thanks, now I all I wanna see you do is wave it around like a pirate.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll go ahead and clarify that - yes.