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.

Getting Acclimatized

By now I haven't mentioned one of the biggest parts about living on the island. What contributes to roughly 90% of my efforts and energy is sweat. I either am sweating, or I am dabbing my forehead to remove sweat (by the way, this is a lost cause). My dryer half doesn't seem to sweat nearly as much. I suspect she uses antiperspirant a great many places she shouldn't. I just checked the forecast on the weather network. Apparently it will be 29°C every day and it will feel like 41°C. At night it is hard to sleep. Often we wake up stuck to one another so we turn on the AC. We set it to a cool 25°C. Less than that and we already feel it's too chilly.

I have heard a lot of, what I think are conflicting, opinions on the seasons. Apparently this is the hottest time of year and it cools down to something reasonable by January or so. But also, it is apparently the wet season where it might rain for 3 days straight. It has only rained for a maximum of 5 minutes at a time so far. Some people say this is the worst of it, others say the worst is yet to come. If either the wetness or the hotness increases I may stay stationary until things dry out.

Now, I do not have pictures yet, so I cannot really prove this, but I do in fact have a tan. This is mostly incredible because I packed and have been using 60SPF sunblock every day. My tan is farmer by nature. I have considered going out naked, but then there are just so many more parts to put sunscreen on and so many parts I would much rather not burn. And the real issue is that some parts are already more tanned than others—I would need to wear complimentary clothing to the pattern I currently have. I can only assume this is how the invention of butt-less chaps came to be.

The sun sets at about 6:30 / 7 pm every day. It feels a bit strange coming from Vancouver when dusk is about 9:30pm. Here, your evenings seem to slip away into darkness much quicker than you’d expect. The benefit to this is even during winter this will be the case. The sun likes to get up at 5:30 / 6am and demand to pour into our windows. I tend to wake about 3 hours before our alarm because my eyelids are being seared.

I may not have mentioned it, but we have been to a couple different beaches so far. There is one not 5 minutes away from us. This is our quick dip beach. If you are hot, you can just bolt down, jump in, jump out, and be back for tea (right now I can't imagine having a cup of tea, mind you). The other beach, the beach you have likely seen photos of, the beach that is in the top ten list of the Caribbean, is Grand Anse. My sweat-less beauty and myself went with her classmates just the other day. The water is surreal and the surf stretches on and on. We managed to time it right for the 6:30 time slot. For this, I wish I had had my camera. It was probably one of the most beautiful sunsets I have seen. I think the best part is that the sunsets here are likely to be equally as amazing every single evening. The only thing that could make it better was a milkshake. We went back to try it out last night. It was sublime.

Dealing with the sun and the heat has been fairly straightforward. Just the other day we moved into our new apartment. By the way, I have never had so much trouble scrounging together all the money necessary for our deposit and rent. I had to do it installments. This seems like it must be a common thing because they were completely okay with it. I guess RBC, Scotia Bank, and CIBC all own or are affiliated with the banks down here. But, I quickly discovered they really have very little to do with their affiliates when it comes to getting your money. I was pretty stressed out when I could not access my funds, but I was forgetting that Grenada runs on much slower time than we are used to. It does not seem uncommon for a person or business to tell you that they will be somewhere at a very specific time and then show up an hour later, or perhaps not at all.

Sometimes you get unexpected visitors though. Today we had someone come and look at all our trees. I think they wanted to buy the water nuts (something like or related to coconuts). They taste a bit like water and an itty-bitty amount of coconut. The dry one told me that I should stop thinking of it as coconut; she's right, once I did I was able to realize just how watery the water nuts tasted. But, back on the topic of guests, we had a few others. I guess they are common. They are still pretty gross, and they do fly, and possibly land on you. We have only seen the two so far but we have asked that the landlord kindly have the place sprayed. She had it all organized for today; the only hitch was Grenada time. No one showed up except the guy who wanted our water nuts. He seemed pretty confused when I asked if he was going to spray.

Getting Oriented

I was unsure of the origin of the phrase "Hit the ground running". A quick Googleification on the term brought me here. You don't have to read it; I most liked the example from the early 20th century about "...hobos jumping from freight trains..." However, in our case, we were hopping from a Dash-8 onto the tarmac. It was not long before dropping our luggage at Casa Bella before we were on the road into St. George's.

The day we landed was the last day of Carnival in Grenada. It is a national holiday and moreover, a pretty big deal. We caught the bus into St. George's to see the festivities. Sorry, that is an under-statement. We rode, to the fullest extent of the meaning that word can have, the bus to St. George's. The local bus system is this. You see a bus, you wave, you get on. The bus blasts Caribbean music while it navigates the winding roads at top speed, honking at other drivers and pedestrians to say "hello" or ask if they need a ride. In our case, costume and glitter clad woman got on now and again. I found that like California Screamin', the music's rapid beat really adds to the intensity of the ride. There's no height restriction and it costs 2.50EC (less than $1 CAD) on a non-holiday. No fast-pass required.

The locals are very helpful. We were off the bus no more than 10 seconds before we were told where and when to get the best pictures of the parade. In Grenada the population is roughly 100,000. If I had to guess, I would say it seemed like 70% of the island was in the parade—and of course, the remaining 30% watching. It was a fantastic parade that filled the entire street from start to end. We were pretty burnt out from travel and the cumulative lack of sleep, and headed back by about 5. Had we stayed we would have seen what they call the Jab Jab: men covered in automotive oil adorned with horns (non-automotive horns).

It's fortunate we got home when we did, because by that time we were ready to hit the sack pretty hard. We were literally holding each other's eyelids open until an appropriate hour. Oh, just before that we made a quick stop at the beach just down the road—it was fantastically refreshing. This will probably be the first of many interludes that I will eventually stop mentioning. That's more for your sake and not mine; I don't want any jealous or resentful readers.

We caught the boring bus (the SGU, non-reggae, non-roller coaster, non-fun, bus). It gets you where you are going and is free for students, faculty and SOs (significant others). For the price it’s pretty great, but lacks the thrills. Day one of SGU orientation seemed rather hectic. We got the impression that everyone else already knew what was going on and where, when clearly we had no idea. We glommed on to random students and tour groups until we got up to speed. This gave us a great opportunity to scout out the amazing campus. Many of the buildings look out over the water and the entire place is very well taken care of. You can’t help but feel like you are one of the “Others” or part of the Dharma initiative.

The first lecture for orientation was about the history of Grenada. I thought this was a great way to start the program in a country other than your own. I wish this section could have been longer. The other lectures I honestly don't remember a thing about. You'll have to ask my other half. The next day we went on a group tour up Grand Etang. There is a supposed bottomless lake up there—I'm not sure how sound their reasoning for this deduction is. Basically no one has found the bottom; therefore there must be no bottom. You are also not allowed to swim in it and I find this may have an underlying motive. We also hiked a muddy hill to get a good view of the island and to visit the weather tree (this tree has the ability to more accurately predict rain than any meteorologist). Finally, we went to "Monkey Point". I think it may lack an official name, but anyway you should see monkeys here. Apparently they are quite mischievous and have stolen things such as digital cameras. I can only imagine the paparazzi shots these guys get of Oprah and other celebrities that own property on the island. We'll go up there again with some bananas and see if we can coax 'Scar' out. He has a scar on his eye and is the king of the monkey pride; no one can eat until he has finished.

The next few days were full of team building orientations. Orientations I chose not to attend. Perhaps this contributes to my feeling of being disoriented and my apparent lack of working with others. I searched for apartments instead. This was mainly a boring, uneventful venture ranging from apartments that turned out to be in the middle of nowhere, and others still in mid-construction.

Hopefully my next post will be littered with photos. I haven't taken any yet because we have been constantly on the go. If you can imagine a lush Caribbean island with beautiful beaches and an apparently large university on it, you are about 80% there. Wow, I just saved myself a cool 800 words.