Getting Thirsty?

Let me quench your thirst with a tall glass of blog. The title of this blog is brought to you by my lovely's new catch phrase. Keeping hydrated greatly affects our mood and I am not exaggerating when I say that the words "I'm thirsty" come out of her mouth more than routinely.

I was fairly misleading at the end of my last post by promising a new entry shortly after. I got busy! I'm going to try to get back on track here though. I hope I haven't lost too many of you frequent visitors. My apologies.

What I really wanted to talk about was our island tour with the significant others group. At the time it was probably our favourite day thus far. The goal was to circumnavigate the island and hit some of the hotspots along the way. We did something very similar when our parents were here but in the reverse direction. I wouldn't hesitate to say that this was our new favourite day. And just because I really want to induce some confusion, I am going to attempt to tackle some of the overlapping events at the same time.

All the forts on the island are quite fascinating. We visited Fort Frederick, Fort Matthew, and Fort George. It stretches one's imagination to picture the time and circumstance that they were built. I often forget that people have stood where I am standing and had an entirely different experience. We were lucky on our first visit to Fort Frederick to have a great tour guide who refers to herself as "Alice in Wonderland".

Alice In Wonderland

When the French took over from the British, they were able to do so by attacking from inland, rather than the expected naval assault. This is why Fort Frederick, cunningly built by the French, has all of its cannons pointed inland and was also given the nickname the "Backwards Facing Fort". Even more interesting than that, Alice in Wonderland told us her story of hurricane Ivan (as a quick recap, hurricane Ivan in 2004 practically obliterated the island. It was the worst since hurricane Janet in 1955). The winds were treacherous. She took her bed sheets and tied her children to her body and furthermore,  to the top of their roof to keep it from blowing off. Wisely, she had a knife at the ready should she need to cut them free. Her story had a bit more impact because of the tremendous wind we felt up there that day.

A lot of hairspray was needed in the making of this shot

Fort Matthew, the friendly neighbour of Fort Fred, has its own stories to tell. From the perspective of tourism, Fort Frederick is far more popular. If you are asking me, I think Matt has the edge. At one point it was a mental hospital. After seeing some of the wreckage and the intricate tunnels here, I'd wonder what a place like this would do to someone's psyche, let alone someone's whose is already delicate. This Fort is not as well preserved as its kin, but I think it has a lot of charm. One of the reasons it is in rougher shape is the US intervention in 1983 (they came in to extract American SGU students and to put the kibosh on a violent revolution involving Cuban and Russian communists). Unfortunately, a US bomb meant for Frederick hit Matthew instead, leaving much of it in a more ruined state. One could go on an on about the place, but I suggest you visit the bar that it now houses.

I hope she's taking a better shot than this one

Fort number three is Fort George. As I just recently read, the French originally named it Fort Royal. As with the other forts, there is a great deal of history here. One tid-bit I'd like to mention is that apparently there were connecting tunnels between all three of these forts. Given that two, Fred and Matt, are on the hill, and George down at sea level, it seems like a pretty astonishing distance to me to have a tunnel. Fort George is where Maurice Bishop, the prime minister at the time of the revolution in 1983, met his demise in the way of execution at the hands of the revolutionaries from his own government. This would be the straw that broke the camels back when the US decided it was time to intervene. For a somewhat B movie recommendation, watch Heartbreak Ridge—it's a Clint Eastwood flick with a dash of Operation Urgent Fury attached to the end (actually, don't waste your time).

Atop Fort George

Next up, Carib's Leap in the town of Sauteurs. Sauteurs in French means "jumpers". No, the people in this town did not wear cozy little pullovers—it was named by the French not the British, remember. It was when the French decided to try and colonize the island that the aboriginal Caribs became hostile to the idea, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the French fortified and killed nearly all of the Caribs on the island. The survivors were cornered to what is now known as Carib's Leap. An estimated 40 Caribs jumped to their deaths to avoid surrender and enslavement.

Leapers Hill Monument

Belmont Estate is part of what they call the Agro-Tourism business. Currently, it is cocoa plantation. We learned a whole heck of a lot about the process of harvesting cocoa, a process that I guess I had absolutely know prior knowledge about. First of all, did you know that this where the cocoa bean comes from?

A Cocoa Pod

Inside the beans are covered in a white flesh that is sweet. Part of our tour here let us try sucking on a bean. Depending on your tour group size, it may be off-putting to see a dozen different dirty hands in one cocoa pod fumbling around for a white gooey bean. I thought it tasted good regardless. They take all the beans from the pods and cover them up in banana leaves and burlap and let them ferment for 8 days. From there, they dry them in the sun thoroughly and every half hour someone needs to walk the cocoa to turn the beans over. What I mean by that is this:

Walking the Cocoa

I think if they can get a new tour group every half hour they'd have it made. For those that are concerned about the possible toe jam in their Butterfinger, the actual cocoa comes from inside the bean after they crack it open. But you can take pause and think of our sweaty feet next time you sip a hot chocolate. Before cocoa, the estate also was a sugar cane plantation and a cotton plantation and was an estate run by the labour of slaves. Interestingly enough, here remains the slave bell they would call them with.

Belmont Slave Bell

For me something seemed slightly awry when all the tourists (white skin in nature) rang this bell. I can see keeping the bell for tourism's sake, but am not too sure why the Grenadian people didn't choose to destroy it instead. I guess it is possible that such a bell's role was reversed and sounded to mark freedom as well.

Belmont has cocoa, history, oh, and of course a petting zoo.

Who is petting who?

On to Pearl's Airport i.e. an eerie abandoned runway that they sometimes do drag racing on. It was built on Amerindian remnants. Later my lovely's father and I attended a talk by a US Marine that was part of the US intervention. He mentioned to us this airstrip was partially funded by the Russians to increase tourism to the island, however, the strip was just wide enough for Russian military aircrafts and not the typical passenger flying aircraft of the time. If there is truth in this, I have absolutely no idea. There is a couple of old planes still sitting on the side of the strip. They apparently have a bull guarding them (this is likely happenstance because there are cattle and goats along the entire strip). During our time there with the SOs some of us played matador so others could get photos of themselves with the plane. I think he just wanted some attention.

See, I wasn't bull-shtuffing

This is where most of the overlap finishes. If you want more info on any of the places we went to, I'd highly recommend coming for a visit. I think my idle banter and photos can only do so much justice to the place.

Again, I am left with enough material to write another blog post and so you will be spared until the next post. No promises on when that will be this time. But I truthfully really want to have it done sooner rather than later. We may be four hours ahead of many of you (daylight savings doesn't affect us), but I think the Grenada pace is really starting to take hold.

For the new mothers out there, I will leave you with this...

Behind a fish store in Grenville

Getting over the hill

That's it! Midterms are over. It's an accomplishment that marks the halfway point of the semester. For those counting the days, Wednesday the 12th was the actual halfway point. It looks like we both came out alive. It was dicey for a little while there. Every morsel of snack food slowly vanished from the corners of our cupboards as study fodder. An emergency trip for Sun Chips had to be made to fuel the study-machine. She arrived out of the book-laden trenches victorious on her first of many battles.

We celebrated by going to a dinner for a fellow student and friend at a restaurant near our place. We had a table of ten. At SGU they have a photography club that recently started up. Apparently this means when a group of five or more students show up in a given location, a photographer materializes and then dematerializes with captured photos of you with which you have no idea what they will do. I decided to join the club. Dinner was good and fun. There are few significant others of first term veterinary medicine students, and at this dinner I was the only one. Being the night of their final, and toughest, midterm they were fairly inclined to talk shop. I was mostly pretty lost, I'll admit, but it was a fun night regardless. They clearly had something on their minds.

On Saturday we went for a relaxing day at Grand Anse. The beach was littered with SGU students. Some were still stuck in study mode. One student created an enormous sand sculpture of a dog's scapula with all its intricacies. Everyone was taking guesses at what they thought it was. What worries me is that all the future doctor, current HUMAN medicine student folk apparently guessed it was a penis. I fear for all the poor men who may endure botched vasectomies or knee surgery. I think we spent a solid four hours soaking in the sea and the sun. Feeling fairly waterlogged we made our way to the IGA to pick up a couple things. We got way more than we thought, so it made more sense to catch a cab than a free bus that is overcrowded. We were left somewhat stranded though because I tried to talk the driver down by 5 EC. My bargaining skills need some work. It was extra embarrassing when the next cab that came by twenty minutes later was the same one and I had to eat my words and pony up the extra coins.

We have been doing more research on transferring back to a Canadian school. Grenada and the school are fantastic. But we have been thinking about the transfer option because it means we are closer to family, it's way lighter on the wallet, and I would be able to work more easily. There are only five veterinary medicine schools in Canada and only three will accept transfer students. In some cases it makes no sense to transfer—the Quebec school is a 5-year program, and you need to redo a year of schooling. This essentially adds an additional two years to your program, compared to continuing studies here in Grenada.  In Saskatchewan the program is 4 years, but you need to redo a year. And finally in PEI, it is not certain, but you may not have to redo anything. The main setback on all of them though is getting in. Spots only become available if their class isn't at capacity. At PEI, for instance, they have been plum full for the last 4 years, and this year they were even over their normal maximum. The process seams daunting and a long shot, but we're crossing our fingers and snorkeling in the meantime.

That's what we did this Thanksgiving. We took an eco-tour by boat around some of the island. The guide provided some great information on some of the species we might see and some background on Grenadian culture. More on that later. Our first stop was snorkeling. We spotted an iguana and some pelicans en-route which was a bonus.

Pelican, briefly.

Under the sea we saw a school of squid drifting along near the coast. These were pretty easily the coolest things I had seen that day. Although, it took me quite sometime to even understand what kind of creature I was looking at. Their eyes being at their back perplexed me and the way their tentacles undulated was fascinating. When we pulled our heads from the water we realized we were a ways from our group. Granted we may have been a bit more advanced in our snorkeling skills, those with a life vest, a pool noodle, and a life preserver seemed a bit overkill. Any more floatation devices on a single person and I think one might take flight. We actually didn't stop in this bay just to see squid and a plethora of colourful fish. The prime reason was to see the sculpture park. Local artisans have created fifty or sixty different under the sea attractions. Some are objects like a bike, or a desk that as articles and information laminated to it. Others are sculptures and statues actually based on locals of Grenada. Coral and corrosion has taken to them largely, adding to their intrigue. We'd forgotten our underwater disposable camera, but here is a shot from National Geographic:

National Geographic photo of the underwater sculpture park.

Our second stop was in the Carenage, a naturally formed volcanic bay ideal for a harbour. Historically, it was where large ships would dock and have their hulls cleaned. They physically roped their boat and pulled it nearly horizontal to clean each side of the bottom. Now the Carenage is part of St. Georges where restaurants and storefronts and a great deal of colourful buildings are scattered along the waterside.

Carenage

It's from here we were able to see the prison. There are approximately 400 inmates and in Grenada apparently there is no chance for parole; however, I think having one of the best views on the island from the hillside might significantly lessen the dejection of their stay. The prison is entirely self-sustained, even rearing their own cattle. After hurricane Ivan all of the prisoners escaped the prison. A number of them incarcerated for drug trafficking were able to hijack small boats and brave the short 150-200km Ocean back to South America. Others, native to the island, either voluntarily came back, or were very quickly rounded up. Being that the island is so small, there are very few places to hide and word travels rapidly.

Grenada Prison

Oh yeah, the fiancée also made us a delicious Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. The pre-made graham wafer crust we were going to use expired last January. I find this strange, because I thought I bought it a couple weeks ago. We had to come up with an alternative and we had none of the usual ingredients to create a crust. We did have chocolate chip cookie dough though. Somewhat surprisingly, it worked out very well and the pie was über tasty. We managed to forget about cranberry sauce and stuffing and the other Thanksgiving fixin's  all together (But I'll admit that now I am looking forward to Christmas for these things). Instead we had cocoa ball tea, a Grenadian specialty. They use cocoa and a variety of spices, often including nutmeg, to create a hard little ball. They smell edible, and the fellow shopper we asked laughed at us when we asked if we could. We were lucky that she was there to explain to us that you boil them in water. What you are left with is a sort of a spiced up hot chocolate that I would definitely recommend trying.

Cocoa Balls

The other thing we tried was the lumpy looking Atemoya I took a photo of in one of my previous posts. They are commonly known as sugar apples. They look disgusting when you crack them open:

Disgusting looking Atemoya

Yum!

 It turns out the flesh that encapsulates the seeds is sweet and somewhat custard like in texture. You should try one, but try it for the first time blindfolded or in the dark.

It's been far too long since my last my post and I have enough material for another already so I'll cut this one off here. Stay tuned.

Getting Curious?

For those waiting with bated breath, de-bate. We still have frogs. Not much has changed on that front. Although I think we have finally gotten the concept across to our landlady. I guess the confusion was somewhere between frogs living with us and frogs living at us. I think the former being our issue. The irony I find is in the herpetology club. They go on walks and are routinely amazed by the frogs they discover. I am thinking about inviting them over as a field trip. But hopping along…

Our landlady does not actually reside in Grenada at present, and so we've been dealing with her proxy. I think I have mentioned her a couple times. She's a very nice lady. We were told not long ago that a new 'official' bill-taker etcetera type person would be coming. She just landed back on the island the other day. We ran into her. She introduced herself as the landlady's name and so we were confused. I assume she knew that we knew that she wasn't exactly who she said she was. She was someone else. It certainly was pretty plainly obvious to us as she drove away from the house—the same house the landlady resides while she is here. It all got sorted today when the first proxy outted the second by introducing her as her actual name. The peculiar bit is that I feel she had no real motive to be someone else. She seems pleasant. I guess it's possible she doesn't like her name. Or perhaps she has always been jealous of our landlady. Perhaps she is stealing her identity. Maybe we are at the very root of a giant Grenadian conspiracy tree. Did I mention we watched the Bourne Ultimatum the other day—it was a good flick. And that lady actually is nice.

We feel pretty secure in our home. We are in one of the nicest neighbourhoods on the island, Lance Aux Epines. SGU has security driving by frequently to deter any unrest or suspicious activity. And lastly, we have an entirely fenced yard with a gate that is locked at all times. By the way, we only have one key to this gate. Typically my student (I don't teach, she just happens to be mine) gives me a quick ring or text as the bus arrives at our stop. I meet her at the gate and let her in. She left her phone at home and today she was left straddling the fence. I can't really surmise how long because I was grooving to my music when I was suddenly disturbed by a rapping at the door. She made it over; she's the only one that can attest to how long I may or may not have left her stranded. I can only imagine what security thought as they passed by. I am guessing she didn't seem too threatening jumping into someone’s yard with a computer, unless of course she was hacking our wireless network in an attempt to unleash a dangerous new computer virus under her hacker alias orca_4219. No, we haven't watched Hackers, or The Net, or basically any movie where the Internet is the focus of the plot recently.

During the summers in BC, one would have to be sure to mow their lawn frequently. Leaving it for a week or two meant a little extra work. Your grass was a little shaggy. I've mentioned the grass here before. I honestly thought it was long at the time. It had been chopped down since. Our field now reminds us of flowing wheat in the prairies. One gets pretty hypnotized staring into it as the wind tosses it back and forth, rippling it like waves on the ocean. It has been about a week and a half since its last buzz cut:

Trade a wood for a wheat?

On the subject of pictures, I think I want to put it into my daily schedule to be overlooking the beach with my camera at sunset. I was a hair late here, but you can see the tail end of what was an amazing sky:

A typical sunset in Grenada.

Midterms are upon us. Students are studying like mad. You know what they say about medical students though. The more they study, the more they think they have what they are studying. I've felt this first hand whenever I look up my own symptoms online. By my count, I have had lupus at least five times in my life. Fair enough, it happens. I am beginning to find it a little odd when certain veterinary students start diagnosing themselves though. Ninety-nine percent of the time I am sure she just has a hairball or is adjusting to her new food.

Please feel free to comment if there is anything of particular interest you'd like to see featured in any of my posts. I'm not likely to describe the texture of off-brand Cheetos, or driving on the left. This would probably only happen if I were eating said faux-eezies while making illegal right turns at stop signs. I would be happy to talk about pretty well anything else. Often I wonder if readers like to hear about some of the more mundane things like our 1/2 ply toilet paper.

Getting Older

Today is the first of a few birthdays I will likely be having on the island. It's a bit surreal to be on a Caribbean island on your birthday. Of course being apart from family, and especially my sister on our birthday (we are twins 4 years apart; my mother had an extremely long labour) is a bit tough. We've spent the majority, if not all of them together. But as I said, we are on a Caribbean island, and that does tend to be a good cure for many ails. My pulchritudinous fiancée made my day an amazing one. She tried to have me killed.

The day was a surprise. I didn't know where we would be going or what we would be doing. We took a stroll along our quick dip beach, of which a hotel is attached. The hotel also has a dive shop that caters to tourists and guests of the hotel. We didn't go diving. To keep a long story short, I have a temporary filling that I need to have fixed before hand. Instead she had us booked for some water sports. We were going out tubing. They have one big triangular tube that the both of us were able to clamour onto. Look at us here all clamoured up:

That fish skeleton looks ominous

Contrary to the photo, we were actually laying the other direction on our stomachs for the ride. You pay per quarter hour. I figured we'd end up going at least twice. I've done quite a bit of tubing in the inlet back home and at Ruby Lake. At least I thought I had. Prior experience had not prepared me for the extreme gauntlet this 3-400 horsepower behemoth would whip us through. The air we must have had on any single bump must have been between five and ten feet. On a number of occasions I felt my body perpendicular to the tube. On others the tube was perpendicular to the ocean as well. Fortunately we managed to somehow stay on. I guess our primal instincts must have kicked in. Had we let go, I think we might have landed on campus somewhere. We should have had an inkling beforehand when he said, "Keep your tongue in… No, seriously". It was awesome; but the muscles in our arms are pretty sore and 15 minutes was enough for the week. Typing never seemed so taxing. After the tubing we made our way to a new beach. Getting there on a Sunday proved to be far more difficult than any other day. Even the busses that constantly honk at you, convincing you to ride them, were nowhere to be seen (I can't tell you how many times they almost had me with their honking and I would have been on my way to Grenville). A friend finally drove by, picked us up, and dropped us on the main road. It was smooth sailing to Magazine Beach from there. They didn't have any selections of Macleans or People, but I wouldn't put it past anyone to bring books and magazines here. It is yet another phenomenal beach I could see spending hours on. We took to the sea for a short jaunt around the reef with our snorkels. We spotted a small school of squid, and some trumpet fish. We were without our flippers and not as mobile as we otherwise would be. Our future sessions look to show some promise though. The real reason for coming here was the great restaurant called Aquarium. Not that they need one, given that they are on the ocean, but the aquarium they had did look a little sad with just 2 fish. They had live music, good food, and they gave me a free piece of cake. They've won me over on all three accounts. It was a fantastic day. But now I am going back in time for some other news…

Accreditation. The AVMA this week announced that SGU is now accredited. This is absolutely huge news. For all veterinary students, including fiancée. This means there is no need to write any foreign graduate exams after completion of their program. This is a real boon for them in terms of cost and stress of such an exam. What the accreditation really speaks volumes of, however, is the quality of the program here at SGU. You can check out an article on the announcement here: AVMA Article. There looks to be some mighty happy folks in their photo.

People that are also happy are us. We found another perfect scenario in which to capture our amphibian acquaintance. Back into frog hunter mode, we sealed every hole the room, including the last one. That frog would not escape. Had we been in there too long, we'd have asphyxiated. We had gained a lot of knowledge from our past foray into frog hunting. This time we managed to capture him within moments. It was then when our conscience finally spoke to us. Jiminy helped us as we debated whether we should turn him loose to the cruel bitter outside world or if we should seriously just let him go back under our tub. Fiancée felt a little worse for him than I did. She is the veterinary student. I assured her he would make lots of friends and would find himself assimilated into the croaking community in no time flat. We let him go…with a little water dish filled with water, should he ever be homesick and wish to visit. She was pleased (that may be the wrong word) to hear more chirping the next morning. He had roommates. To make matters worse, I found there were children in the mix yesterday. Perhaps we separated him from his family. Perhaps his however many kids he has, now think of him as a deadbeat dad. Frog culture is so complicated. Fiancée is game to evict them all now, including Jiminy.

P.S. - Those with commenting issues, I have opened it up to everyone now. The flood gates are open.

Getting it

Each day there seems to be at least one new discovery, but more often than not, there have got to be more like ten. My last post had a lot to do with some of the new discoveries in our backyard. To be honest, I had thought we'd have sucked this place dry of discoveries in the agriculture department. It turns out there was one (at minimum) place we hadn't sucked yet. We have sugar cane right in front of our face and we had no idea. It was not until our landlord (proxy) offered a couple stocks she'd cut to us that we even realized it. She found it pretty amusing that we didn't know. To eat sugar cane you need a good knife. Our stocks were about 2ft in length and we thought we'd try something a bit smaller. After a solid ten minutes of hacking, I finally got us down to a more manageable size—and then I had to peel the skin. I resorted to YouTube here. Sometimes you get good how-to videos; other times you get baby monkeys riding a pig. In our online search we found out that sugar cane in the Caribbean was a lot like cotton in the days of slavery. Slavery is a big part of Grenadian history and most of the inhabitants are descendants of slaves that would have worked on the sugar plantations here. Having this sugar cane now really makes us appreciate where and when we come from. I did find videos on peeling sugar cane though. Many people use their teeth where I was having a heck of a time with our largest knife. To make a long story short, I got it skinned. To eat it, you just take a bite of the stock, chew it, suck it dry of its yumminess, and spit it out. It's not a snack for someone who is hungry; in fact, it is quite the opposite. It's very delicious but unsatisfying for the stomach that anxiously awaits food.

There are a lot of stray dogs that need food here. But as it turns out, most of the stray dogs here are actually owned dogs that freely roam. SGU has a program to help owners in need. They have their dogs fully checked out and spayed or neutered for free. Actually, the only exchange is that they MUST have their dogs spayed or neutered by SGU students. The program is called Pothounds Against Pregnancy. There are enough unspayed and unneutered dogs that every Sunday they pick up at least 15 or 16 dogs. They accept volunteers to come with them on these trips and help collect the dogs from owners; this past Sunday we went for a ride. The benefits were three-fold. We got to see some new parts of the island; we got to help out some dogs; and PAP got some help. Our destination was Morne Jaloux (its supposed meaning in French is Jealous Mountain. We're unsure where the word mountain is though…). There were a couple old forts up there. It makes a lot of sense because there was a fantastic view. We also met a lot of dogs in sad shape. Dogs here are treated quite differently than what we are used to in North America. In a word, I would say they are utilitarian. You can tell by the dictators' names one owner dubbed his canines. The names we give things tend to say a lot more about ourselves than the thing we name. On our trip we met a cute Mussolini, a splendid Hitler, and even a likable Bush. One fellow, who was apparently not an owner of any of the dogs we picked up, was fairly adamant that we could experiment on Hitler because "Hitler can't die. He's been poisoned so many times". To be honest, everyone around thought this guy was an idiot and I am inclined to agree. Along the way we gave flea and deworming medication to quite a number of different animals that weren't coming with us. It was great to be a part of something that is helping the community and animals alike. Everyone was pretty interested and pretty happy to see us, including this little guy:

Puppy

Back at home base I've got a new friend. He comes every day at around one or two in the afternoon for lunch. And every day I chase him down with my camera trying to get a good shot. So far, this is the best I've got:

Dine

Dash

Also back at home base, the frog saga continues. We now know there are three main kinds of frogs in Grenada; none of them are poisonous; and we can apparently discern which kind is which by their individual chirps; we have done so listening to the outdoor frogs through our window at night. I found our indoor amphibian buddy relaxing poolside on our tub the other night. This is the first I have ever seen him outside of the confines of under the bathtub. He's about the size of the end of my pinky. I told miss frog-hunter and she came rushing in with the duct tape. We closed the bathroom door and sealed the place off. I had a small Tupperware container and she had a wooden spoon that she gently used to prod the frog in the direction we needed him. By the way, frogs tend to jump in whatever direction they want as we discovered. He eventually ended up right behind the faucets of the bathtub. This is a very precarious position for us because of the awkward tiny space. She managed to inch him out and I was at the ready with my temporary holding pen waiting for a flat surface to cup him on. He got to the wall of the tub where we very suddenly noticed the one hole we neglected to duct tape. We scrambled, and before we knew it, he had slipped betwixt the cracks and was off chirping on his merry way. We've since tried coaxing him out with a very tempting frog pond, but he doesn't seem very interested. Our next best bet might be to bring in a fake froggy female friend. I think he likes the talkative type though.

We spent a couple hours at Grand Anse on the weekend. We have yet to bring our snorkel gear, but are looking forward to it. I can't say enough great things about the beach here. Every time you are there the sea seems to marble differently depending on the time of day. I think it's the kind of place that is breath-taking every time you see it. There are some resident beach bums, naturally. We always see some guys playing some sort of Ping-Pong without a table or net. There are also some artisans that traverse the surf and offer their hand-crafted trinkets. The frog-hunter considers us locals now, so she figures they should stop asking us soon. I'm pretty sure they'll ask us every time we are there for the entire length of our stay in Grenada.

Getting more acquainted

I fear that perhaps my last post may have left some rather distasteful visions of a dilapidated home where the frogs and crocodiles are scratching at our windows to get in; a place where out of the darkness the silence is only broken by the chirping beneath our tub. This is not the case. I honestly can't find any proof one way or the other that crocs, other than the splendidly comfy shoes, exist on the island. I'm trying to self-correct by posting something of the contrary in the way of photos—those will come later (in this post, not in life). Regardless, when I am home alone it is somewhat reassuring to hear the chirping and know I'm not alone.

In actuality, I think my post may have even swayed my female cohort's thoughts about the place. We did some looking around in the last week at other places. A logical, but pretty inconvenient, aspect of using a real-estate agency to find rentals is that they will only show you the suites that they currently list. We used a different agency from the one I used to find our present place. The apartments they (there were two of them) took us to first were "next to the White House". I did a little research, the house is White, and so that's the name. Next to that white house, were the 80% completed suites they wanted to show us. They were fantastic suites for those that like the open-air concept. The next place we saw was in an area called "Golf Course". At this point we began to really appreciate how small the island is. The reason this entire neighbourhood is called "Golf Course" is because this is where the only golf course on the island is. It's only 9 holes. What we had discovered was one of the most amazing views of Grand Anse. You could see clear to campus from up this hill. The building itself had a magnificent foyer that overlooked the island and we could see ourselves spending many hours studying or relaxing here. From then on, the appeal unraveled into what can only be described as a real monster mansion. We wandered through a maze / labyrinth of rooms that even the real-estate agents admitted resembled Hogwarts. Nothing really appealed to us except the seemingly sporadic views we'd catch around the odd corner. I wouldn't suggest a dip in the milky pool. They said there are very few security issues because basically no one wanted to go up the side of a cliff for their criminal activities; I must admit, on the way back down the men with the machetes were rather friendly. For whatever reason, we asked the agents what rent would be in one of the rooms here. They talked each other down without our intervention. I think it was then we queried "How long have you been doing this in Grenada?" "3 weeks". At this point I felt better equipped at finding an apartment having been looking for the entire length of our stay (4 weeks) just to keep our options open. I think we might just stick it through for awhile.

This weekend we did some more exploring in our own backyard.

Nuestra Casa

No crocodiles or alligators in sight here. Our biggest discoveries are actually around back. This was more of an excuse to show you the front. The yard is pretty substantial. We are really looking forward to having the dogs here to fully utilize it. In the meantime, one of our pets is this guy and all of his twins:

Dino

They are pretty cute little lizards that run around the outside of the house. They're probably keeping the mosquito and ant population down to a reasonable level. In this particular photo Dino is at the ready. He is our guard lizard. He makes sure no one steals these:

Mango

We've got them. Mangoes! They aren't ready yet, and probably won't be for a few weeks at least. Traditionally mango season is finishing at this time of year; but apparently given that there are so many different varieties, there are some that have yet to produce. I wonder if some of our other trees also had mangoes, but they have since been picked and eaten. This is pretty good news because they will go great with:

Atemoya - i.e. some lumpy fruit thing

I'd actually seen one of these on the tree earlier. I figured it was basically a growth defect. It only occurred to me yesterday to actually Googlify it and find out what it really is. It apparently resembles a piña colada in taste. This had only skirted away our attention from the mangoes for a moment before we came across:

Yoshi

He was climbing our purple banana tree that may also be a dinosaur in itself, given its long slender neck. It seems fitting, as perhaps Yoshi is its offspring. It seems pretty ridiculous (just bare with me), but I bent down to check to see if I could find any more banana lizards and found:

Bananas (this links to a Grenadian Night Club/Restaurant of the same name)

Actual yellow (well, right now green) bananas! These are going to go great in our smoothies provided Yoshi doesn't eat them all before we get to them. The next item technically isn't in our yard, but it was a discovery nonetheless. I think it might be okay if they are on our side of the fence. Fruit foraging ethics are slightly foggy on this. We'll have to snag a couple of these:

Seaside Grapes

Another discovery I made was just how quickly our grass grows. And on the flip side, how resilient it is. We get sun basically every day and I haven't seen one blade of brown grass. On the note of sun, I've found that my Vancouver mindset is still holding on strong. Everyday I feel like I should be outside because it's sunny; turns out tomorrow will also be sunny and the next day...and the next. But, back to grass:

St. Augustine

I think we have St. Augustine. It seems fairly coarse and feels funny on my feet. These other things that are coming up, I have no idea about. They look pretty neat though. At the rate they are growing we may not be able to see the road by the end of the week. Luckily I took a photo from the road where the bus stop is:

The Bus Stop

The AC here can weigh pretty heavily on your electricity bill. I try to hold off from using it as much as I can. At nights I set the AC on a timer of approximately 3-4 hours; this is enough to ensure we are asleep by the time it goes off. Unfortunately it also acts like an alarm. After those 3 or 4 hours we simply just wake up grouchy and sweaty. At that point I set it for another few hours, just enough time to wake us up when we should be getting out of bed (again, we are grouchy and sweaty). Luckily this is mitigated by what my lady gets to see every day before she heads to class—see above. I'm not jealous. I could be floating next to that boat every day if I want. We run the AC all night now though. Avoiding the grouchy sweatiness is worth it even when you have a view like this to wake up to.

Getting Antsy

There are quite a few creatures in Grenada. We've seen a number of them so far; I'm hoping to see more by the time we leave (like the mysterious monkeys at monkey point). Some I am sure we will never see, but we are very aware that they exist. Others we will see a lot, but will have trouble believing they exist. And of course, there are those that we won't see and hope don't exist. Those last ones are probably the ones we will worry about the most.

Many a lizard runs amok. Sometimes they are on your doorstep. Sometimes they are on the inside of your door. They're actually pretty neat little creatures. The majority of them are blue and green. I haven't figured out their particular breed(?) yet. At our quick dip beach they are always sunning on a concrete wall. There are a bunch of small caverns that I assume are made by the lizards. Sometimes I think something that doesn't exist might be in there though. I'm not daring enough to stick my head in and look. I bet it’s Tremors.

Many normally domesticated animals are about too. On the bus route to campus it is fairly common to see the odd goat or cow meandering through the bushes on the side of the road. I feel like these animals must be very lost or confused. I figured them both to be grazers, not bush whackers. Somewhere along the way they must have forgotten their life purpose or decided that they were a much more rugged creature stuck in a cow or goat's body. There are also the stray dogs, and the not so stray dogs that we often see. Someone carries kibble in her purse, so naturally, no dog's affection discriminates. At the beach just the other day we made friends with some dogs that like to eat. From then on they would bark at anyone that came near us. They became so quickly attached to us I felt a little bad that we ran from the beach as soon as they turned away to pee on a tree. *Don't sit under the tree near the fence of where the hotel starts. It smells like pee.

You'll find a vast variety of insects here. This is pretty well expected when you come the Caribbean. I would say there are about as many mosquitos per person as there are hairs. The worst time is the evening. I may have a receding hairline, and bubble at the thought of the Sun, but at least the mosquitos don't have the same love for me as they do others. The other person in the room is constantly itching but is golden like a graham wafer and has a nice thick coiffure. Take your pick. Other insects include these really tiny, basically translucent, ants. They'll swarm anything you leave out on the counter. Having to constantly wipe up immediately seems to be instilling some good habits though.

And lastly there are many a creature we haven't seen, but they sure make their presence known. At night we hear the constant buzz from whatever that thing is and the cooing of something else. Actually, I might have any idea what the buzz is coming from. On our hike up Grand Etang I saw a moth gyrating it's bum to generate the noise. All I can think of now is a thousand gyrating bums in the moonlight. At least knowing what the noise is gives you peace of mind.

I mentioned a post or two ago about our visitors. We had the place sprayed to keep them out. It doesn't work so well with the guy who wants our water nuts—he came back. The spray worked otherwise, we thought. After dawn I had discovered a few expired visitors. The other day I found two in one day and then I decided to have a shower. This is when I heard chirping from beneath my feet. As far as I know, this is not atypical. I should preface this with, a couple days prior we cleaned the bathroom; in the grout of the tile wriggled out a thin earthworm (I hope). Needless to say, the previous worm, and now this noise irked me. As it turns out, according to Google, visitors make either a hissing noise, or a chirping noise depending on type. My discovery, and then my Googling, all took place while she was at class. I was not so careful with the terms I used when I described our problem to her as I have been here. That being said, she'd been in class all day, studied for countless hours, and I decided to reward us both with a light movie before bed called Alien Resurrection. We slept very little and paranoia was set in a bit more in one of us than the other. This lasted two nights; but we slept easier the second night regardless of the fact that the chirping had persisted and our imaginations grew wilder. The chirp itself sounded cute, but the implications seemed dismal. We began to believe that any living creature in this post, save for maybe the goat or cow, might be living under our tub along with all the creepy crawlies. Today we were to have the underside of the bath sprayed. I peeled back the 'door' of the tub and saw something half the size of my pinky hop away. Our cohabitants are frogs. That has put at us much more at ease, for what reason, I don't know. We're sorry to say that we are hoping to evict chirpy Kermit and his family; I hope they find a nice puddle beyond the orange tree.

Getting On

Writing about Grenada and our experiences isn't particularly difficult. Often it's a matter of filtering. I'm not sure that you care that we spent countless hours over multiple trips choosing curtains. They have a decent selection here. They just don’t have the one item that you would prefer to select (something sheer, but not too sheer, and in teal). I would expect more from the apparently only remaining "Linen 'n Things".  I also don't know that you'd care that we have to hang all our laundry and for some reason I am always hanging at least one sock. Considering no one in the house is wearing socks, I have no idea who keeps dirtying them or what they are being used for. Maybe this is what my other uses to transport her marbles to the school yard.

We haven't been playing many games; although, she mentioned that her classes would all be easier if they were video games. I just keep imagining Tetris with animal limbs and at the end you've built a dog or Frankenstein's version at least. Educational videogames never seem to pan out, but maybe it’s because they don’t fully utilize the social aspect of them. Maybe there should be more quests in World of Warcraft that teach you how to spell. For those that don't know, World Of Warcraft is a massively popular online game that actually has nothing to do with Grenada or our experiences here.

There have been a few get-togethers with people (mostly ladies) from her program. It reminds me a lot of living in a small town. You begin to recognize people all the time. Soon you aren't sure if you recognize them from meeting them or from eavesdropping on the bus. The students here are nice, for the most part, from what I have overheard. All her fellow classmates seem fairly excited about school and I get pretty lost as soon as they start talking about the thoracic limb. I’m glad she has some folks that understand what the heck she is talking about.

The locals seem pretty friendly. They don't have the same politeness we are used to in Canada though. When trying to get service their initial response will often seem frosty. If you simply ask how they are and make the slightest chitchat, they'll change their stance 180 degrees in an instant. Something about it feels much more genuine. Don’t be fooled into thinking everyone has woken up on the wrong side of the bed (a piece of foam on wooden slats). Some individuals go over the top though (for friendliness, not grumpiness). Our landlady is currently out of town and we have yet to meet her. We have talked on the phone and e-mailed a handful of times. She now signs off her e-mails with “Love”. I am hoping that this will go some distance in getting a rent reduction.

We have been eating out now and again. One very Caribbean dish we recently had was Rotis (the vegetarian version—they are typically made with meat). It is a bit like a Samosa or a curried Shepard's Pie, but in wrap form. It's very delicious. I actually had one a couple weeks back not knowing that this particular one would have chicken in it. Apparently removing the bones before wrapping is optional at this restaurant. In the interest of saving money, we are trying to cook more often now. I mentioned our trip to IGA. We have since gone again. They have a handy recipe book at the till for traditional Grenadian recipes you can cook at home. One of the recipes called for 1 1/2 lbs. of Dolphin. I think it was called Flipper flambé. (Okay, maybe they mean Mahi Mahi / Dolphin Fish)

I went around and took a few, less than amazing, photos of our surroundings. Earlier I mentioned we have coconuts/water nuts:

Look, see, I wasn't lying.

We've also got some of these:

Oranges...green ones - it's what's on the inside that counts.

And of course this:

Bananas maybe? This thing looks like a dinosaur.

It is pretty neat to have fresh fruits, and whatever you classify the Banana tree with a neck. Every so often I'll pluck something from a tree and bring it in to eat. The one kind of tree I really wanted was a Mango tree. This might be in the qualifications for the next place. Fresh Mangos would be delightful.

To get some perspective of where we are, I hopped the landlord's staircase and snuck up to what appears to be some sort of watchtower. It's a pretty amazing spot from which you get a great view.

See!

I also found that I could spy on my other at the bus stop if I wanted. Her stop is pretty idyllic. You can stare wistfully at the beach before being whisked away by the bus to campus. It actually sounds like a bit of torture if taken out of context, but it really is pretty nice.

Her stop is precisely at that fire hydrant, give or take 10-15 meters in any direction.

All in all, it's quite a fine spot to be. I think I'll go grab a bite and take a dip.

Getting Settled

I mentioned we had visitors and a landlord in my last post. I forgot to say we found a place to live. Some(one) call it a monster mansion. It is a pretty large place and as of yet we are the only tenants. It does feel a bit like you have stepped into a time warp. Being fair, I think this is likely the case with a great many apartments for rent in the student budget. The chesterfield and chairs, which we have since swapped, are gold floral and are quite worn. The curtains were probably a similar shade, but time, use, and the sun have since transmuted them. I'm not too hung up on them. We'll do a little TLC and the place will be right up to date with the '80s. What I am most concerned about is the propane oven. These are in a few apartments I took a look at, but none had tanks that seemed so volatile as ours.

Propane tanks for the oven

* I really want to stress here, we are in no danger and our place thus far has been great. I took a few literary liberties. Those tanks do look a little grungy though.

One of the hurdles of living in Grenada is the currency exchange. The Eastern Caribbean Dollar (XCD) is directly related the US dollar by a rate of 2.67 XCD per 1 USD (the rate depends on whether you are buying or selling). In Grenada many places accept both currencies—this I find to be really great if you are American. It is fortunate for us that the Canadian dollar is very close to the American dollar as of yet; regardless, making the conversion from EC $100 to USD and then to CAD get's a little tricky at the supermarket. My whole sense of value is out of whack.

We went to IGA last Thursday. Thursday is stock day. Apparently every student on campus knows this. It's the day when you actually have a chance of getting things like fresh milk. If you miss the fresh milk, apparently there is a lot of canned and boxed milk sitting unrefrigerated on the shelf. I also want to mention that they store their eggs in a similar fashion. It's pretty warm and humid in Grenada, I wonder if some of those eggs end up hatching. Things at the IGA are generally more expensive than in North America. Despite being pretty far and between glasses of water, we couldn't bring ourselves to buy the EC $200-300 Brita filters (without the pitcher). Our tongues have been fairly desert like until recently. Spices on the other hand are dirt-cheap—we have a lot of spices now. We just need a few things to spice up.

All we have to add flavour to in our fridge is some fish. The fish has been there a couple days now; we went out for dinner at Charcoals and didn't have any leftovers so the (one) ordered some. There are a lot of stray dogs in Grenada and we spotted a practically skeletal one on our street last week. She's been looking for him every time we leave the house to give him some food, bless her heart (and the rest of her). This is also the reason she carries kibble in her purse in a Ziploc bag. She's a true veterinary student if I ever knew one.

She takes the SGU bus every morning to school. Their schedule can get dicey, especially on a weekend. Sometimes they show up eleven minutes early when you think you are in good time being ten minutes ahead. Weekdays seem to be better, or the opposite and they show up a bit late. We have a gate that can get a little wedged. Things get a little frantic when the bus is coming and I am fiddling as fast as I can fiddle to get the gate open. It mostly works out, except when they are eleven minutes early. Leaving the school they are more or less right on time. I mentioned these busses aren't as fun as the Reggae busses; this isn't so when it comes to the off-road, off-route, night busses. Their mandate is to get you directly in front of your home safe and sound. Often this means going on pothole-ridden roads or hills that must be 50% grade. I am glad the busses have ceilings to hold us in. It's a pretty fun ride. The somewhat awkward part is when they drop you at your house. The security guard (he only rides on the night busses) and the driver both stare at you while you get into your house. That's great, and feels secure, but then you realize that everyone on the bus is watching just the same. I almost want to see what happens when an altercation does occur. Does everyone jump out and doggy pile the perp?

There are a lot of other SO's on the island. They actually have a club that I have joined. On Sunday we went to the SO Social. I would have called it a SOcial but I am not on the board and I don't know yet if they are the type to appreciate puns. We met quite a few people; but I am going to be honest, I feel a little outnumbered by the gal to guy ratio. A lot of them are mothers. I have to admit, it does seem like a perfect time to raise children. You can't work anyway and you save on day care. I think the oldest kid I saw was possibly 3. We don't have any kids to raise, so I am looking forward to taking our dogs to play dates. I did meet some guys; I haven't met any that aren't in Graphic or Web Design though. I guess we are all a similar breed.

Finally I have taken a few photos. It is just too bad that they are of rusty tanks; most of you were probably expecting some gorgeous beach shots and some photos of my famously tanned bod. In the biz, that's what we call the teaser. I will have some nice ones soon; after all, I have to prove that we didn't decide to fly into Toronto to campout for the last two weeks. The duvet might have made sense in that case.