How to save a life

Before I get into "saving lives" it's time for a culture lesson.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November. Anyone who has seen V For Vendetta has a general understanding of Guy Fawkes Day. Anyone who hasn't seen that movie should stop reading this post and go watch the movie. Seriously, it's a cool movie that has been made even more famous from the recent Occupy Wherever The Hell You Live movements. In case you spent more time paying attention to Natalie Portman and the stellar action scenes in V For Vendetta, I will explain Guy Fawkes Day in simple terms. On November 5, 1605, the Gunpowder Plot attempted to blow up the House of Lords because the Catholics didn't like the Protestant King James I. Guy Fawkes happened to get busted even though he wasn't the mastermind behind the project, he was just good with explosives. Anyways, he was arrested and tortured some for his crime and the people of England celebrate the 5th of November as a Thanksgiving Day because the attempt on the King's life failed. The day is also referred to as Bonfire day because the King allowed people to make bonfires all over in celebration. Sometimes, people burn effigies of Guy Fawkes.

Why am I going on about some Brit holiday? If you recall, Grenada is a Commonwealth Nation and as such we share a lot of holidays with the Queen, whom we also have tattoos of on our arses. Unfortunately, most of Grenada doesn't observe Guy Fawkes day. Luckily, there are two communities that do, one is mine and we do it big. Throughout the week leading up to Guy Fawkes day, the stuffed doll thingy of Guy Fawkes (see picture) sits near the bar on our ridge which is right down the street from me. On Guy Fawkes night, festivities start early in the afternoon because people here look for any excuse to get together and drink. On this particular Saturday I had work all day. We, NaDMA, were doing a Flood Drill in a community near Grenville on the east side of the island. It was a pretty good drill and I always enjoy experiencing new communities, making new friends, and playing with the kids there. It was a long day though, I was picked up at 8:30am and reached home from work at 8pm. Yowza. Next, it was time for a quick shower and drink before heading down the street to the celebration. I could hear all the hoo-ha from my place and it sounded like a grand ol time. Turns out it was even more fun than I had imagined. There had to be about 1000 people there celebrating. When I showed up, the DJ was blaring soca music, everyone was dancing, liming, drinking, and just all around having a good time. I was definitely the only white person there. I know this for a fact because it was night time, and, not to be racist, I stood out very well in this crowd. But that didn't bother me at all, it hardly does anymore unless I go into town. I'm used to being the minority now. Don't get me wrong, being a minority has many drawbacks, but I'm used to it. And it felt fine this particular night. As I walked through the thick crowd of people from my community and the neighboring ones people didn't make "white boy" comments, nor did they ask for money or just be rude in general. They noticed me, but not as something out of place. They might not know my name but they know of me, kind of like the new kid at a school. That sounds bad, but it was quite nice, it was like I walked through the crowd and felt like I belonged. My friends found me easier than I could find them. What? It was night time and poorly lit, I could hardly tell who was who, but they knew it was me because I was this one white guy in a sea of Grenadians. I was able to lime with some of the fellas on my football team, chat with my kids, and talk nonsense with my neighbors. The music was awesome, as it always is here, and after a little while a truck pulled up with a steel pan band on the back to get the people going. People were dancing everywhere and having a great time. Some guy took the Guy Fawkes effigy off the stand and put it on some weird contraption so he could wear the doll on his shoulders and dance with him. They then took Guy Fawkes on a little parade up and down the street, not many people followed because that would mean leaving the drinks and music, and when Guy Fawkes came back they lit that sucker up! After watching him burn like I do at the beach after 15 minutes, it was time for me to head home. I wasn't interested in the after party or staying out to drink with friends. That doesn't really create a good image for my work and the Peace Corps, plus it was now 11:30pm, waaaaay past my old man bed time.

So, there is a little culture for you, I think... But my challenge to you is to take some time this year and observe another culture/religions holiday. It is really eye opening and a cool experience. There should be plenty of opportunities for this in the melting-pot that is the United States of America. Here are pictures of the celebration:

Guy Fawkes Effigy

Lotssss of people

Taking Guy Fawkes for a stroll.

Making him dance.

Steel Pan getting the people going.

Another look at Guy Fawkes

Get de riddim

Whenever there is music on a truck, people dance behind it and help push it.

My camera is a p.o.s. but sometimes it takes cool photos.

The drummer might have been Animal from The Muppets.

Burn baby, burn.

Now, How to Save a Life:

Yet again I would like to apologize for a delayed blog update. As I told my big brother and his wife the other day, I sometimes feel like I have to out-do my last post or wait for something interesting to happen here. In actuality, interesting stuff happens all the time and my first thought isn't "OHH I'VE GOT TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THIS", usually it's more "oh that was strange/cool/funny". If I was good at keeping a journal then you might have more to read. But honestly, I could write a lot about anything, in just a minute I'm going to write about one week even though my last post was about a month ago, oops. And look at this, I haven't even approached the title of this post yet and I've already made y'all spend 15 minutes reading. I guess what I'm saying is I always feel like I don't have any juicy material for you to read, but then I write a novel about one small instance. Silly me. Without further ado, allow me to whet your appetite,

This past week EC 83 had another IST session. Hopefully you've caught on to our many abbreviations by now, if not then get with the program. Speaking of programs, that was the purpose of our latest training session. November 8-10 we all gathered in town to go over Project Design and Management. We all showed up with ideas for projects or programs we are either working on or wish to implement. If you are one of my avid readers (I sure hope so) then you might recall the program I am working on with NaDMA which is still in a holding pattern at the moment. BUT, in order to design that project I consulted the many many pages of literature the Peace Corps dumped on us during PST. I found what I was looking for and was able to work together with my counterparts on a good project idea which hopefully will come to fruition before the end of this school term. Hopefully. So, during our Project Design Management session (PDM) I had a solid grasp on the material already and I was able to use the time to plan a new project I hope to implement. It was really great to talk things through with the other volunteers, hear their ideas for projects and all. We like to bicker about our training sessions being really drawn out and condescending, but I think they are important for all of us to pool resources and bounce ideas off each other. They are also rather inspiring gatherings. It is so easy to lose focus here or feel like wasted potential, then we meet up and realize our struggling is universal though we all have these ideas of grandeur for the island. It's nice when the gang is all together, especially when you haven't seen some of them in a month or two--yes, even though it is a small island you can easily go that long without seeing each other.

My project idea? the inspiration might have been born out of the mentality here or my dad's career profile, but I am hoping to implement a mentoring program at my school. Why? What do you mean "why?", you don't think children deserve positive role models? You heartless bitch... Kidding, "why?" is a good question. My answer is that the youth in Grenada (hopefully just my school) lack a positive role model or mentor figure. It is incredibly depressing and frustrating when students show no respect, responsibility, dreams of their future, the list goes on. To combat this epidemic I am hoping to institute a mentoring program where I along with other teachers will partner positive community members with one or two students. Over the course of at least two months we will meet in the afternoon at the school to have discussions on topics like respect and responsibility, self-confidence and the understanding that the students can be whatever they want in life as long as they apply themselves and work hard. I don't want to shove the material down their throats, instead I hope that through spending time and observing their mentors the kids will learn about the positive qualities in adults. I don't know, it's just an idea at this point, just a piece of paper. The project has a long way to go before it actually gets implemented. I haven't even discussed it with my principal and teacher counterparts yet. I have to see if they think it is a good idea. I won't let them say no. This is something I'm passionate about here, I don't know what I will do if I ask another kid what they want to be when they grow up and they say "I don't know, nothing".

Side note, A lot of people have been saying that I should pursue something along the lines of working with children when I finish the Peace Corps. I probably won't. Leonardo Da Vinci was good at painting, but that's not all he did. And yes, I did just compare myself to Da Vinci. Truth is, I have been thinking about the next chapter a lot lately. Believe it or not, it was just about a year ago that I had my phone interview with the APCD in Grenada. In two months, the next batch of volunteers will come to Grenada. In 5, EC 81 will leave us, sadly. I'm not entirely sure the next step, but it starts with this; Step 1: cycle across the USA, Step 2: Buy a motorcycle, Step 3: this next career I am considering and also keeping a seceret (shhhh).

back to reality, I don't want you to think that Grenada is just full of bums and kids without imagination. Sure, that exists, and Grenada is still considered 3rd world, but there are successful people and brilliant children. This past Friday I had an awesome day at school. I was only going to be there for a few minutes in the morning, but ended staying the whole day and then I got mad when the day was over. I was mad it was the weekend, a rare phenomena. My purpose for going to my school that morning was to pick and instruct the students we are going to use for my Cross Guard program. Remember that program I designed waaaay back in like march? Yea, well the second part of it starts now and I was there to train the students on what to do and show them their super rad safety vests that they will wear. I was afraid these kids would be sour and not interested, but they were totally stoked and can't wait to start! It is a good thing too, because we picked some of the kids that have attitude problems and lack drive, hopefully this boosts their behavior. Then, we spent the day cleaning out the cupboard and we gave the students some old workbooks to go through while some cleaned. They all ran up to me to grade them, I was pretty surprised that they were actually doing the work and were excited about it.What the hell? I was on cloud nine while some of them sat around me crunching out math and language arts problems. One of my kids was doing some pretty heavy subtraction problems, something we have been struggling with the class on for a couple of weeks even though it was way below the level of 6 graders. I was speechless as I sat there, explained one problem to him and then watched as he finally put the pieces together in his mind and crank out the rest of the page in 2 minutes. These were the Good Vibrations Marky Mark talked about. To sit there and watch some of the kids finally understand things and get excited about it? Wow, that will give you chills. This was good timing too, because another reason I was at school that day was to capture an image for our Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Documentary. The idea for the picture was to create a "Message to the youth of Grenada". I created some signs that morning and took the picture with the kids during lunch. Here is my message which applies to the idea behind my next project and the experience I had with some my students that morning:

"Believe In Yourself"

That afternoon, my principal and I opened up our boxes from Hands Across the Sea, an organization that operates in the Caribbean working a lot with PCV's to deliver books and materials to create successful libraries. We were pretty excited. I didn't think that we were going to get any at all because I requested spanish work books and sent the request in late. But then my contact called me a few months later to let me know that she was able to get 8 boxes together for our school. Boom goes the dynamite! There were tons of donated books in there from strangers back home, it was awesome and totally a trip down memory lane. After that, my principal asked me to accompany their teacher choir next week when they perform at some event. I told her that was a bad idea because I am god awful at singing, she laughed and said I could just stand there and hum haha. So I am excited for that, another opportunity to rub shoulder with locals and get into the culture. In addition to that, one of my counterparts at the disaster agency invited me to his family Christmas dinner which absolutely floored me. It's good to not feel like a stranger.

Lastly, our final day of IST was done by the Grenada Red Cross Society and we became certified in First Aid and CPR. So, even though I knew the basics to save someone's life, now I have a cool card that says I am allowed and obligated to, super cool.

Well I guess that is enough reading for y'all this post. As always, feel free to send me a letter, call me, skype, email, whatever works. I almost always forget to include stuff in the blog or choose not to, so getting in touch with me that way would provide you with cool stories and laughs and will help keep me sane here. I'm up to about 4 pen pals now, if you want to be one then send a letter!

Remember, show some respect for other cultures and religions by experiencing them. You don't have to do something super cool like join the Peace Corps, you can find something closer to home. Second, don't like the way the youth today behaves? Stop bitching about it and be a positive influence.

ps. Whatever happened to The Fray?