I finally took pictures of the inside of my house. It's still weird saying that: MY house. It's probably better than anything I could afford on my own in the states...
My bedroom
The front entrance
The kitchen with my tiny oven that barely fits my baking sheet =(
The 2nd bedroom that I only go into when I need to iron, or have guests. I need to buy more pillows before people visit...
The bathroom
The living/family room that I never really use either. The TV is just for show, I decided not to sign up for cable. It's an unnecessary expense.
Eid Mubarak to everyone =) I had my first interaction with Muslims since leaving home, over three months now! I took Will and Julie Ann with me to the Eid potluck held by the Windsor Medical Students MSA. As with most MSA's, the group seems to be more on the conservative side. I was a little surprised that they had the brothers and sisters completely segregated. I'm glad Will and Julie Ann were able to experience a little bit of my culture. Ironically, Will said it was really nice to hang out with 'Americans' which made me a little sad that my fellow Muslims were more American than desi. But oh well. The girls were all extremely nice and hopefully I will be able to go to more of their events.
After a whole week of baking and cooking for Thanksgiving, I had to stay up late and bake brownies as a part of the breakfast fundraiser SOS had this morning. Despite my worries because of the lack of coordination and member involvement, it went surprisingly well. If things had run on time, we would have sold out a lot earlier. We had meant to try and catch the St. Maarten boat rush at 6.00 am but because everything ran late, we didn't sell out till around 10.00. We made quite a decent amount, and it looks like we will be able to fund all the great events we have coming up. I think things are starting to look up for SOS =)
This past Wednesday we had a board meeting scheduled, but PAM (one of the political parties on the island) had demonstrations in the city. According to Peace Corps regulations, I wasn't allowed to go into the city. As volunteers, we aren't allowed to associate ourselves with any political party and have to be very careful. The different parties have different colors (which we have to be careful about NOT wearing, so no red or yellow for me while on the island) and we aren't allowed to take part in political conversations either. And therefore we had to stay far away during the demonstration.So our board meeting has been rescheduled for Monday evening.
Last week I gave a presentation at one of the high schools as a 'Youth living with Diabetes'. I thought that I would be presenting to the same kids from the high school quiz we held, but it ended up being kids from the 2nd form instead (2 grade levels below the quiz students). They didn't have the background understanding I had expected so I don't think my prepared speech was as applicable. Some of the questions they asked were quite absurd while some were actually really good. A couple that stood out were: 'Can you get diabetes from having sex' and 'If your pancreas isn't working anymore, do you have to take it out?'
An unfortunate incident from this week is that my phone was stolen =( A lot of children from Will's neighborhood attended the Thanksgiving dinner. My phone was primarily sitting in Will's room, and for the most part there were always volunteers hanging out in there. However, one of the girls apparently decided to pickpocket it, which I didn't realize until the end of the night after all the chaos was over. We know this because Will asked some of the children later on and they saw her with it and heard her talking about it =( We tried to convince her to return it but she denied it and pointed fingers instead. Needless to say, I'm a little jaded with children right now although I am trying to be very understanding of the fact that the temptation is hard when you see things that you want and can't normally have.I'm more upset about the loss of all my contacts than the actual phone, because my primary contact with a lot of people here has been via phone.
Another random update, I no longer have the kitten I was fostering. They found another home for her, which I am actually relieved for because she was a handful and more than I could handle right now. Right now I just don't have the time or energy to invest in properly training a kitten and was looking for an already trained calm cat. Apparently bottle fed kittens are a little crazy, and she was just too much for me.
A lot of the work I am doing right now involves a lot of assessments and planning. Things are running slow, which can be frustrating but I think I am slowly getting used to it.
After over a month of intense planning, we had our Thanksgiving feast on Thursday. It was a great success =) I think I showered about 5 times because as you can see, a whole day in a kitchen with two ovens and stoves running filled with volunteers can get a little more than stuffy and yucky.
This was only one of the three counter tops worth filled with food.
Main Courses
- Turkey - Glazed ham
- Breadfruit curry
- Lasagna x 2
- Green bean casserole
- Whole wheat pasta & green vegetable casserole
Side Dishes
- Coconut brown rice
- Stuffing
- Mashed sweet potatoes w/pecans & brown sugar
- Garlic mashed potatoes
- Fried okra
- Lumpia - Filipino spring rolls
- Buttermilk biscuits
- Cranberry Sauce
-Cornbread Muffins
- Guacamole w/breadfruit/plaintain chips - Green fig tater tots
- Egg and Tomato dish
- Squash and onions
- Kale
- Gravy
I'm pretty sure there were additions that I didn't add in there, because there was some soup like thing and a couple of pasta dishes in there too.
Everyone enjoying the yummy food =)
And then my favorite part of course:
Dessert
- Cheesecake x 2 - Pumpkin piex 2
- Banana Guava pie
- Coconut Pecan cookies
- Swedish Apple cake
- Passion Fruit cake
- Apple Cranberry Crisp
-Starfruit
They were pretty excited to get started on the dessert
As were Julie Ann and I
After a hard days work, it was all totally worth it. Ironically I've never really celebrated Thanksgiving on such a big scale back in the states. But this is also the most I've been around people who do celebrate. I think all the planning paid off because we were paid one of the nicest compliments here by being told that it was 'Better than the Marriott', which is saying a lot over here =) That being said, I definitely don't think I'll be taking on half as much next year. I was in charge of practically all of the desserts, made the breadfruit and helped with quite a few of the side dishes as well. I had been prepping for over a week, having frozen the cookie and pie
dough well in advance, along with baking and chilling the cheesecakes beforehand and having cooked the breadfruit curry the day before. I'm an overachiever, what can I say...
This week has been really really REALLY busy. Saturday was World Diabetes Day, and the St. Kitts Diabetes Association had a week full of activities dedicated to Diabetes Awareness. The world theme is Education and Prevention, and our local focus was Obesity as a Risk Factor. I won't go through the entire week's activities, but I will go over some of the highlights.
Sunday was service at the Catholic Church in the city. It was pretty long, and it involved a lot of standing up, then sitting down, then standing up again (you get the picture). There was a lot of singing. The priest spoke about diabetes in his sermon and about the associations work and our week's activities. I don't think I'll be going to church unless it's for this kind of special event to show support...
On Tuesday, we had a symposium at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Auditorium. Dr. Sahely, Dr. Wilkinson, and Margaret all spoke. It went pretty well, they were all very informative but kept it interesting at the same time. Especially Dr. Wilkinson who had us laughing quite a bit. I even got quite a few SOS members to attend as a group which was really nice. There was a good turnout, ranging from university students, diabetic clinic patients, doctors, and business professionals. But there's still plenty of room for improvement for next year.
Wednesday I was on another radio show, except this time it was live with Eulynis and Margaret. I spoke for a little bit about being diabetic. This Monday and Wednesday the other radio show I was on will be rebroadcast at 8.15 am Kittitian time: http://www.dominionradioskn.com/
Thursday we had our high school quiz. It went amazing for our first
time. I was one of the score keepers. We had a pretty good sponsor and
the kids got real excited and were cheering their teams on. Cayon High
School won (my village, woohoo!) and they all literally jumped out of
their seats screaming when we told them the score. We had prepared a booklet for them to study from, based on the questions we had formed. I think they really learned a lot and we really made an impact. Eulynis put me on the spot and called me up to speak for a couple of minutes to 'share my story', so I had to make an impromptu speech about my experience with diabetes. I started with how long I've been living with it, and got a loud 'awww' from all the kids. I started blushing because I hadn't meant it to elicit sympathy or pity. But Eulynis had wanted the kids to see that diabetes isn't just for old fat people who eat too much sugar, and that you can live a normal life (like me).
On Friday we had a screening in Independence Square. Now in the States not just anyone would be able to perform the screening, but since I'm a diabetic myself they trusted me to go around sticking people apparently. I personally diagnosed at least 4 people =( One man's glucose was 427. We told him we needed to admit him, but he started screaming that he wasn't diabetic and would just stop eating sugar before he literally ran away. I didn't know how to react. I was pretty much the only one who wore gloves and even bothered to try and talk to the 'patients' while I tested them. I had someone else from WINN FM interview me while I was there, distracted nonetheless. A girl from one of the high schools stopped by, and as I tested her she was like 'So you've really been living with it that long?' She asked some more questions, and I'm glad the quiz convinced her to get screened and is making her learn more about it.
Yes, that's me with my latex gloves testing a woman on the left.
Christina explaining some of the literature we provided
We also had the blue lighting all over town like the rest of the world. Basically all over the world big businesses lit up in blue (the color for Diabetes). The banks and hotels here all participated which was nice.
Then Saturday morning, finally our week culminated with our Diabetes Walk-a-thon from the Cayon Health Center to Independence Square in the city (a good 5 miles) in honor of World Diabetes Day. The week is finally over! Although this Wednesday I have to give a presentation at one of the high school's speaking about life as a young diabetic. I know it will have an impact (hopefully), but I personally am not looking forward to the pity and sympathetic reaction again.
In addition to the week of activities with the DA, I also had a couple of SOS strategic planning meetings along with a Barrier Analysis meeting with some of the other PCV's and have been working on our action plan for the SOS website and ICT training etc. A blessing in disguise, Julie Ann came to spend a couple of nights in St. Kitts because her place in Nevis was broken into. She wasn't hurt and nothing was taken thankfully. But it was nice because it gave me, her and Will a chance to hang out. We cooked and baked and watched a movie at the cinema (which is the ONLY thing on the island that's cheaper than in the states). We also did more Thanksgiving planning =) Still SUPER excited and can't wait to begin the baking!!! Wait for the ultimate blog entry on Sugar High...
Today I dragged Will and Laurent with me to the Ross Vet School Adoption Day. Will and I came home with kitties. I failed at convincing Laurent to take home Beans, one of the cute dogs they had even though it was SO obvious that he really wanted him. Will adopted and I am a foster mommy. Which basically means that they take care of all the food and kitty litter, but I have to take her in about every 6 weeks for adoption day and give her up if someone chooses to adopt her.
Sleepy time, in my lap =)
If I totally fall in love with her, I can adopt her myself. But honestly, I don't know if I want to spend the money. We'll deal with that when/if the time comes.
She's 8 weeks old, a black and white short-haired, and I've renamed her Sugar. I think it is very appropriate. Symbolizes the sugar cane industry on the island, and my sugar high bakery =) She's nothing like Nala, but not like I was trying to replace her. Cuz that's impossible. Sugar is insanely playful. I was leaning forward while she roamed around the couch behind me and all of a sudden she jumped on my shoulder. She likes to climb up all over me. I need to buy her some toys...
At the end of all this, I will be an expert on writing constitutions, registering NGO's and understanding all the legalities of organizations. Constitutions, mission statements, by-laws, articles of incorporation... you name it, I'm on it. Getting organizations an official 501c status is no easy task. Especially here, where most people give me a blank look when I mention it.
I'm a little bummed. I was offered a position as the liaison for the Pakistan Cricket team when they come here in May for the ICC West Indies twenty20 matches. BUT as a Peace Corps volunteer, I'm not allowed to drive and won't have the required personal vehicle necessary for the position. The next offer was as the teams personal attendant while in the stadium grounds. Can't accept that either because it involves a stipend, and as PCV's we aren't allowed to accept payment for any services rendered. So I've demoted myself to a regular old volunteer. Not sure what I'll be doing yet. I did get to see England's Womens team practicing the other day at Warner Stadium (where the World Cup was held in 2007).
The highlight of my day: when my 5th grader neighbor across the street came running to hug me at school today. She waves and calls out to me from her window every time I pass by =) However, school was frustrating today. I feel really lost with these boys. Remedial reading is not my forte. Only one of my boys is making any progress and I don't think it has anything to do with me. The others don't even look at the words sometimes. They see a letter and guess what word it is most of the times. I'm scared I'm going to get frustrated and give up...
Michele heard me on the radio the other day, and I was updating her on my work with the Diabetes Association today. I told her how I'm going to be presenting at the High School, will be on a live TV show, wrote a newspaper article being published in all the papers this coming week, etc. She said she was really surprised because she never would have expected this sort of thing from me. She said her impressions had been that I was a really quiet and shy person. And she's kind of right. If you had asked me to be a part of panel discussions, be on the radio, give speeches and presentations before, I would have laughed at you. I'm normally more of a behind the scenes kind of person. But I also have a problem saying no, and I haven't said no to any projects or assignments requested of me so far. So aside from the valuable professional development I'm receiving, the PC is doing a lot for me on a personal level as well.
Thanksgiving is going to be amazing. We've been planning the menu (what Julie Ann and I are the most excited about!) for a while. I think I've updated it practically everyday since the planning began. When you see pictures, you will be jealous. Guaranteed.
"Honorable Governor General, Prime Minister, Peace Corps Staff
Members, distinguished guests, friends and Volunteers;
This is the bad thing about being the last to speak, you feel like everything has already been said.
Welcome and
thank you for being here today on what promises to be an unforgettable moment for
all of the members of the 80th class of the Peace Corps in the
Eastern Caribbean.
Since the first
day that we landed in this beautiful federation, St. Kitts & Nevis has been warm
(and I mean that in both meanings of the word) and welcoming. Sure, there has
been a lot of heat, a lot of mosquitoes and new dialects to adjust to. But there have
also been a lot of friendly personalities, welcoming attitudes, and who can
forget the natural beauty of the federation. with the lush mountains on one side and the gorgeous ocean on the other.
There has also been the completely different sense of breathtaking on our rides
with the reckless bus drivers.
One of the Peace
Corps slogans is: How far will you go? Well, in actual distance we may not have
gone as far as we could have in comparison to some of the other countries the
Peace Corps serves in. But in our actions, both what we have and have not done,
by being here today about to be sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers, I
can say we have all gone very far indeed by leaving our friends, families,
homes and everything that made up our lives; to make new ones here.
We all believe
that we want to make the world a better place. But what sets us apart is that
we don’t believe that change needs to be on a large scale to make a difference.
Which is why each of us in the class of EC80 strives to make at least a small difference
every day, even if one day that small difference is simply bringing a smile to
the face of a Kittitian child.
In the past few
weeks of training especially we have learnt a lot. And not to take away from our amazing
trainers, but a lot of it has been outside the classroom than in. Little things that set us
apart from the tourists. Little things that add up to make all the difference.
Will has learnt where and where not to sit on the bus. Tiffany is fitting right
in with her Kittitian timing (that’s my nice way of saying stop being late
Tiffany). I am learning to come to terms with the thousands of monkeys slowly
taking over.
I think special
thanks go out to all of our incredible trainers for having the patience to
teach us invaluable skills that we will carry with us throughout our next two
years and even after. From working with schools and youth development, to
safety, security and health, to program management and NGO development, we have
learned a lot from you.
Special thanks
also go out to all of the wonderful community members that opened up their
homes to us. You shared your meals, family events, church services, friends,
conversations and time. Your kindness has been priceless and I know that all of
us have cherished the last seven weeks.
On behalf of my
fellow EC80 members, I would especially like to extend an extremely grateful thank
you to our dedicated Peace Corps Staff Members who made it possible for us to
stand up and be sworn in as volunteers today. Special thanks go out to our
staff on island: Vicky, Michele and Mavis, who despite being sick at different
times, worked incredibly hard to help us get through training.
I know we can
all say we’ve been waiting for this day for a really long time and I think some
of us are still in disbelief. This ceremony is a little bittersweet because
we’ve lost three of our trainees due to unfortunate circumstances. But I can
safely say you will have to pry the rest of us away after everything we’ve been
through to get here. And honestly, we are in love with the Federation of St.
Kitts & Nevis and are only sad that each new day means one less day of our
time here.
That being said,
we look forward to spending the next two years being a part of your communities,
ranging from St. Pauls, to Tabernacle, to Gingerland, and working together for
our common goals. We all come from a
multitude of educational and professional backgrounds along with a variety of
life experiences that we are all eager to share. We have all undergone
extensive training in the past 8 weeks in order to prepare ourselves for
immersion into the wonderful communities of St. Kitts & Nevis and to learn
about your culture. While we all have individual personalities and skills, we
all share a common goal of making a difference in our time here. We look
forward to collaborating in order to integrate and meet your goals and we look
forward to challenging yet unforgettable life experiences involved in this
cultural exchange.
We are pleased
to have the honor of representing the Peace Corps in the Eastern Caribbean.
Thank you. "
I was chased by two dogs in my neighborhood today. It was kind of scary. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to panic and run, but they were at my heels, very vicious and barking their hearts out. So yes, I ran uphill, was breathless and probably a sight to see once I was safely behind my door. And needless to say, I won't be taking the shortcut down the hill EVER AGAIN.
Aside from that, I had a pretty busy day today. Went in to the Cayon Health Center this morning to conduct some Barrier Analysis interviews. I'm working with George, Chris and Kelsey on finding out what prevents diabetics on the island from taking care of themselves. I only got to conduct 5 interviews (note to self: get there by 8.00 a.m next time) but none of them were able to check their sugar levels regularly (only two even had meters but were out of test strips!) and no one knew what the HbA1c test was. Most of them only tested once a month during the monthly diabetic clinic at the health center.
Then I had a productive meeting with two of the founders of SOS about issues we have with the organization and how to go about those issues. After that I had the weekly Diabetes Association meeting which was a little intense since we have the Diabetes Awareness Week coming up from the 8th-14th. I'll be updating on the particular Diabetes Association activities in one go after the week is over. After wards there was the general SOS meeting, which was actually surprisingly productive. I see a lot of promise for the organization, especially with some of the plans we have for capacity building.
I have had a couple of people tell me that I am looking 'bigger' and 'chubby'. Apparently it is a part of the culture to say things like 'girl you got fat' as a compliment, meaning you look good and healthy. But in my culture, saying you look 'healthy' is a diplomatic way of saying you got fat. But my clothes fit the same, so I'm not sure how to take it...
I have a problem. I try multi-tasking too much, and then I get side tracked and start doing things I never meant to and don't always finish everything. So I always feel incomplete and unfinished because I don't just work on one or two things at a time. For instance, while I am blogging I am looking up Thanksgiving recipes, checking my email, reading the news, working on strategic plans for SOS and organizing my papers. I need to slow down.
I went in to AVEC today. One of the biggest problems is motivating the kids. AVEC is basically for all the kids kicked out of secondary school, or the dropouts. The IT class is very practical, for skills they can actually use in an office environment etc. But when attendance is less than 50%, teaching can be a little frustrating. Wish me luck with this TA and substitute assignment. On a brighter note, it's another resume building activity.
For Thanksgiving, we've already started our prep. It's going to be potluck style at Will's place, since he has an awesome backyard perfect for the occasion. I think Julie Ann, Will, Kelsey and me are the most excited. Julie Ann and Will want to have a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving =) There's going to be A LOT of food. I can't wait, 23 days and counting!
David, Julie Ann and I won the PDM competition so Dougie treated us to dinner at Sprat Net. We all ordered the lobster... I don't think I'm a huge fan. I like lobster meat in cakes,
wontons and bisque. But on it's own, I need more seasoning. But it was
still really good. And I absolutely LOVE Sprat Net. Awesome setting and the owners are super nice. Sophie/Amar I am totally taking you here when you come.
Julie Ann spent thursday night over at my place after dinner, so we stayed up pretty late talking which was really nice. I really wished we'd been placed on the same island =( Darn the disconnect between St. Kitts and Nevis.
Friday morning we went over to Kim and Geoff's and baked sugar cookies and cupcakes to decorate for the Halloween party Kim threw for the kids with disabilities on Saturday. I had wanted to stop by BUT the last minute community committee meeting with SOS ran a lot longer than I had anticipated and it was getting dark by the time I got on the bus so I just went straight to David and Ingrid's. They had everyone over for a Halloween game night and made some really good chili and garlic bread for everyone. They are the most awesome, gracious, generous hosts ever.
Moving on: I feel like I'm always busy but nothing is really happening. I don't know how I can have so much to do but not really be getting anything done. Everyone keeps saying to have patience and to take things slow. But that's another thing. Anyone that knows me, knows I am one of the most impatient people you will ever meet. I HATE waiting and I hate being late. I don't know how I've survived the bus system here so far. Or lack thereof. It's basically like the vans in Pakistan. There is no schedule, no bus stops. There are a few designated spots that the buses always go to, but you basically just flag a bus down when and where you see it. From town, they always wait till its completely full before leaving so you might be sitting and waiting on the bus for 45 minutes before it actually leaves. And they have this thing where they pull in and out honking the horn for quite a while before they leave, letting everyone know they are going to be leaving soon. But soon is a relative term.
Nothing happens when it rains. If you have a meeting, forget about it. And even if it's not raining, meetings are more likely than not to be 'postponed' for some reason or the other. Getting things done is pretty difficult. It's part of the extremely laid back attitude here. I'm already worried about how this is going to affect me when I come back home, readjusting to the fast-pace of life in the states is going to be really hard.
On a happier note, I really like my place and neighborhood and feel pretty well settled in here =)
