Field Walk

Here is a short video clip showing what some of my farm visits are like. This just a very short walk as this farm is close to the road. Some fields are a twenty minute walk through dense rainforest, over rivers and through steep valleys. I usually travel those longer walks with the digital camera wrapped in plastic so that if I fall or it starts to rain suddenly, the electronics are safe.

Click Here

Jason

Video time

click here to see a video of Kristy jumping off a waterfall at seven sisters! It's a short video, and Jason only started the camera when I had started jumping, but it gives you the proof that I did indeed jump off. (And didn't even lose any parts of my swimwear in the process!)

Jacques Cousteau Eat Your Heart Out

November 18, 2006

The week has just flown by. Things are really happening at GRENCODA and my plate seems to become more filled with projects and tasks as the weeks seem to slip by faster and faster.

This week saw me heading out into the fields and back country of the parish of St. John’s (the parish that we are located in). These farm visitations are revealing to me a new Grenada, one that highlights the effects of hurricane Ivan as felt by the farmers. Grenada, I am told, looked quite different before hurricane Ivan made its mark on the island. Before Ivan, the most recent hurricane to visit Grenada was Janet in 1955. This translates into an almost sixty year time period where the vegetation on this tropical island was allowed to reach a maturity rarely seen on other Caribbean islands located closer to the hurricane belt. On many parts of the island, palms grew over 100ft tall, an almost unheard of feat in a hurricane region. Stands of cocoa, nutmeg, mango and other trees were large and imposing with canopies that provided cool shade for less heat tolerant plants and animals. This extensive canopy also contributed significantly to weed control by limiting the heat units that reach the ground.

Today, Grenada lacks the protection of that canopy and the weeds have over run the island in many places. Vines have grown and covered many acres of previously farmed land, suffocating the surviving trees while robbing them of precious nutrients and moisture. The major job of many farmers today is to reclaim this land, uncover the surviving trees and start the job of planting new trees. Having visited some nine farms and seeing the extensive growth of these vines firsthand, I can give testament to the enormous task that lies before many of these farmers. The Cocoa Revitalization Initiative, which is organized and dispersed by GRENCODA, supports these farmers by allowing them the opportunity to hire day labourers to help clear the land. After only a few days I have seen some of the progress that this project has supported and I am encouraged by the changes in the appearance of these farms. There are a lot of farms yet to visit and I hope that the progress goes as smoothly for rest of them. (Though I know there will be stalls and set backs along the way.) Don’t worry, those of you that love the visual reporting aspect of the blog will get to see some of the pictures I have taken of these farms when I post them in the future.

Even with all of these farm visits and progress monitoring responsibilities I guess I just can’t help heaping more work onto my plate. I spoke up at the weekly staff meeting on Monday, offering to help one of the staff with some problems she had been having with a PowerPoint presentation. Now I find myself having agreed to facilitate three workshops on various aspects of multimedia training in the upcoming weeks. Just a sucker for punishment I guess.

Kristy has also been saddled with a lot of work but I believe that she prepared her own post, describing and detailing the tasks before her. So I will only say that she has found a bundle of work that will keep her busy well past Christmas.

Enough about work, you’re probably tired of hearing the details of our workweek. You probably want to know what we did on Saturday. Yes, we did go for our first SCUBA diving lesson. For those of you that have already taken a lesson or gotten your certification, then you already know that diving is a bizarre and amazing experience. Within half an hour of Kristy and I signing our liability release forms, we were in a hotel pool, learning the basics of our equipment and taking our first breaths underwater. We were quite lucky as we were the only ones scheduled for Saturday and as such we didn’t have to wait for other people to grasp the techniques and processes before we could progress onto the next step. And what a step the next one is! It all seemed to happen very quickly; one hour after we arrived at the dive shop we were sitting on a boat and heading out for our first reef dive. After getting into the water and descending slowly to a depth of 35 feet, we swam over to a small reef. I know it is terribly cliché but words can’t really describe our experience. The abundance of life living in and around the reef was astonishing. Everywhere you looked, things were moving and vibrant. I was amazed at how close we could get to many of the fish before they darted away. Our instructor showed us many interesting things on the reef from small anemones that quickly retracted their tentacles when she touched them to some sort of water eel that glowed an iridescent blue when she fanned water over it. We are still trying to process our first reef dive experience but those 48 minutes were filled with many, many firsts. We felt like a couple kids wanting to say, “What’s that? What’s that?” all the time. I think that we are hooked and we plan to head back to the dive shop soon to finish up our certification. If anybody is curious about the dive shop that we are using, their website is: www.ecodiveandtrek.com.

I guess that’s about it for now. We are currently wondering where we can get water on a Sunday when all the stores are closed as the town water supply has been off for about 24 hours. I am not too worried about it though, as the situation doesn’t seem to bother the local residents. Now I have to go brush up on Microsoft’s Access software so that I am one step ahead of the students I will be teaching next week.

Later,

Jason

More pictures

The result of not having water for 24 hours. Us women, we must wash our hair!

My Grenadian look has been completed. Hooray for not having hair in my face, but man oh man did my scalp hurt for the first day!

The winner of the 'name the caption' contest is.....
Doug Peters for his creative verbosity! Honourable mentions go to Andrea & Erin Peters for their straight forward 'tell it like it is' captions!


The question of the day is:
Have you ever had to 'make do' without a shower for a number of days? How did you cope?

school system

I’m going to start a new post because I have something on my mind that I just can’t shake. It is triggered by my recent visit to Grand Roy Government school, where I am doing an after school class with six grade 5 students. I knew going in that these students were the lowest in the class and was expecting some difficulties with reading and writing but I did not expect what I found. At least two of these children have very little to no ability to read. When they asked how to spell a word and I prompted them to provide at least the initial letter, they had extreme difficulty. In other words, my grade 2 students last year were for the most part above these grade 5 students. The sad thing is that they will not really have time to do anything about it, since this is their last year of primary school. After grade 5 they are expected to take exams to gain entrance into secondary school. Now, theoretically, these children should never be able to pass this exam, but then again, they also should not have been passed every year up until grade 5! Apparently some students are taken into secondary school even without passing the exam or knowing how to read. Their English books are filled with writing that they can’t read but have diligently copied down from the blackboard. So, one has to ask how this has happened. How have these children been so completely missed? Why is there no one working with them individually? When I started to ask more questions, the answers I received have left me in deep thought. Here in Grenada, education has a somewhat bad rap. Yet, so increasingly does farming and fishing. Students who are not ‘bright’ enough to achieve the illustrious professions (lawyer, doctor, etc) do not have the motivation to continue their education, but do not want to enter the ‘lowly’ professions associated with agriculture. So, there are tonnes of young people simply sitting on their step, waiting their lives away. Or they might emigrate to England, Canada or the U.S. to find work. It seems to be an all or nothing kind of situation.

Back to the school, I wondered how these poor kids had been allowed to get to this point. Now, I’m not completely naive, and I know that kids in Canada and the U.S. experience the same things through teacher neglect, poor programming, and simple bad luck. Students have to commit to helping themselves, and must be willing to put in some hard work. I was shocked to learn that teachers in Grenada do not have to have a teaching degree to become teachers. They are essentially graduates of secondary school who have a certain amount of subject areas. They can apply to any school and be accepted as teachers if they passed enough subjects in secondary school. They go through a brief orientation prior to their start, but it is nothing like an education program. Once I heard this, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of these students failure is in fact a failure on the part of the teachers to identify at risk students. There is also no remedial system in place to help students who are dealing with learning disabilities or just generally need more help. There is one guidance councillor who meets with students, however this is not one per school, it is one per dozen or so schools. Hardly leaves time to meet and work with all the needy students. So, here I am. Teaching a group of six kids for two hours a week. To be quite honest, I don’t believe I can make much of a difference with them. My main goal is to help them achieve some self confidence. Unlike the principal who said when she introduced me to them told them that ‘you know you aren’t very bright, so Ms. Kristy is here to help you catch up”, I want them to begin so see themselves as actually having a brain that they can use. At our Monday meeting of GRENCODA staff yesterday, we were discussing this topic and it is on the radar, but it is hard to know what can be done to change it. GRENCODA is a small organization in the relative scheme of things and cannot effect policy change on a national level, which is what needs to happen. For the time being I am racking my brain for good remedial instruction for these students, if anyone has resources that could be helpful, please forward them to me. The children thank you.

Are these guys just in Grenada to have fun or what?

And the winner is.....................Lori Franz! You are correct. Bakanek is indeed the back of the neck of a chicken! Grenadians seem to think that this is hilarious when they mention it to us foreigners. Your prize is five awfully silly pictures to make you laugh. Ah, Lori laughing. I can hear it from here. :) (it is one of my favourite sounds!)

Look at the size of those avocados!!


Almost as good as bakanek. Next time it goes in the oil down.


Hiking through the jungle does strange things to people! (Plus, can you all see the yellow remnants of steam down crab on Jason's chin?)


Posing in front of Sugarloaf Island off Levera Beach. Rumpus on the left, Malcolm (Short Man) is front and centre, with Drew (housemate) representing west side.


Do you really need an explanation? Let's have a contest for best caption! Place your best entries in our comments section.

I looked at our last few posts and realised that we haven’t been discussing any, or at least very little, of the work that we have had to do for GRENCODA. In truth, as indicated earlier, we have had to adjust to the significant change of pace that our volunteering has brought. But now, with over a month under our collective belts, we have begun to collect some projects and work assignments that will keep us busy for the next month or two. After waiting patiently since we got here, Kristy has work with the after-school program, tutoring students (usually Form Five or senior-level high school) in various subject areas. I believe that I outlined the subject areas in a previous blog entry and so I won’t remind everyone that I have been frantically trying to scrape the rust from my memories of high school math. Luckily, of the few students that have signed up for the after-school program, there has been little call for help with math. The after-school program is also calling Kristy over to a neighbouring community, Grand Roy, to tutor a number of younger students (between 5 and 10 5^th graders, I believe) over there on Monday. Kristy has also been engaging here creative skills while compiling and assembling a photo journal for GRENCODA. This journal highlights some of the post-Ivan building projects that Johnson & Johnson sponsored through GRENCODA and ART (Association for Rural Transformation, another NGO). The general secretary of GRENCODA has been so impressed with Kristy’s work that she is promising more projects of a similar ilk. There is also talk of Kristy applying her creative skills to the GRENCODA website (grencoda.org, I think). It’s good to see her engaged in these creative projects, as I believe they are something at which she excels.

After much patient waiting on our parts, Andrew and I are to finally begin working with the Cocoa Rehabilitation Initiative this coming week. We have been paired with two extension officers from the Cocoa Farmers’ Association and will be making trips into the farming communities three times a week from now until Christmas. After the Christmas break we may resume our work with the Cocoa Initiative but the nature of our work may change due to the onset of the dry season. The first couple of weeks of this work will consist of us getting out into the field and learning about cocoa farming, maintenance and production. Some of our job duties will involve coordinating the transport of planting materials (cocoa and banana seedlings), fertilizers and mesh shade screens to the various farm sites. In addition to these duties we will be heading out to the Maribeau Propagation Station (on the west side of Grenada), a government-run nursery that provides the vast majority of plants for Grenada’s farmers. While they produce seedlings for nutmeg, cocoa and banana, there are an abundance of other plants available from produce and vegetable plants to fruit trees of a wide variety (mangos, breadfruit, citrus, star-fruit, golden apple, etc.). All of this work will keep Andrew and I busy for some time and I am looking forward to actually having some projects that carry a little responsibility with them, it makes me look forward to going to work in the morning.

Yesterday, we took to the day off and headed into St. George’s. A Grenadian contact that I had made while we were living in Canada kindly arranged a meeting for us with two people from the ARD (Agency for Reconstruction and Development, a government organisation) who are well-versed in Grenadian agricultural issues. I guess I should explain how I made the contact that enabled me to secure some time with government officials. Earlier in the summer, my mother, while reading one of the farming publications that she subscribes to had come across an article written by a person living in Grenada. The article described the positive effects, namely the opportunity to start over and diversify, of the devastation wrought by hurricane Ivan on the farming communities in Grenada. I emailed a letter to the editor of the publication, which they then forwarded to the writer of the article. The author (a Canadian, Manitoban actually, ex-pat that has been living in Grenada since 1988) responded quickly and with enthusiasm regarding my interest in the article. After exchanging a few emails we agree on making contact once Kristy and I had settled into our routines in Grenada. When I had made plans to visit the ARD headquarters, I had envisioned a quick tour of the facilities and maybe receiving a few pamphlets describing the agency’s mandate and programming. I didn’t think that I would have the opportunity to steal an hour of their time on the questions that Andrew and I had regarding agricultural policies and aggregate trends in Grenada. I think they were impressed (and a bit surprised) by an undergrad student who managed to finagle a meeting with them. Afterwards my contact (whose privacy I am respecting because she is a government employee and I didn’t ask if I could use her name on a publicly accessible blog) extended an invitation that we should head out to Grenville for a weekend some time to visit her and her husband and try their version of ‘oil down’, that wonderful Grenadian dish.

This is my first time dealing with what some travellers call the ‘community of ex-pats’ in foreign countries. I am struck by the impression that Canadians working abroad believe themselves to be bound in inextricable ways to other ex-pats, despite having little in common but their country of origin. I didn’t come to Grenada to find Canadians but at the same time, I promised myself before arriving here, that I would meet as many people as possible. I do feel, however, that there are more commonalities with our contact than just country of origin. She grew up on a farm in McGregor, Manitoba before moving to a small farming community 25 minutes north of Saskatoon. I still don’t know how she made the move to Grenada, (though I will certainly ask) but the farming connection is familiar and comforting. I look forward to visiting with them in the future.

After our meeting with ARD, we fulfilled one of the (selfish) reasons I had for coming to a tropical island for my practicum, we went to the beach. Before coming to Grenada, I had hoped that would be the way things would work out; work hard in the morning and head to the beach in afternoon. Needless to say I felt no shame in soaking up some rays, reading a good Russian novel, and playing in the gentle surf. The beach was very un-crowded and since there were no cruise ships in port, the beach vendors weren’t out in force either. I don’t begrudge these vendors their right to make a living but it can be tiring to politely, but firmly tell them, “No, thanks”, only to have their compadres approach us two minutes later. We used to give explanations, “No, thanks, we are living in Gouyave and won’t need souvenirs” but it didn’t seem to lessen their drive, so we changed tactics and became more assertive in our approach. Grenadians, by and large, seem to really appreciate a straight forward answer, without any fancy verbal dancing, and respect honesty. I believe that is something that is true in most of the world. It seems that as a consequence, the exchanges move quickly from the retail context to conversational.

As much fun as Grand Anse beach is by itself, I had a further goal in mind. There are four dive shops located along the beach and we had parked ourselves under a small shade tree in front of one of these shops. I went in and chatted up the people working behind the counter. Before coming to Grenada, Kristy and I had talked about the possibility of obtaining our open-water certificates for SCUBA diving but the costs are quite high. Most shops, with good reputations and qualified personnel, charge over $400 US for the three to four day course. It turns out that it pays in many ways to inhabit a tropical for longer than a few days. For local people (which we are considered by the dive shops) the cost of the certification drops significantly. Needless to say Kristy and I are quite excited about the possibility of obtaining our certification (at a discount) and exploring some of the reefs around Grenada. Our only trepidation is that neither of us has done something like this before and there is always the possibility of claustrophobia when wearing all that equipment. We are planning to take an exploratory class in a couple weeks and see how things progress from there. I know that SCUBA diving is not afforded by many Grenadians. I wanted to live as closely to the locals as possible when spending time here, but the opportunity to go diving in the Caribbean Sea is a luxury that we find ourselves willing to indulge. Besides, Kristy intentionally saved her tip money from the Heritage Village Restaurant with this express purpose in mind, so it doesn’t detract from our overall budget.

I guess I can say that we find ourselves, this weekend, looking forward to the coming weeks. We have work to do, we have recreational plans and some possible social activities and we are beginning to feel quite at home here. Now, if only our landlords could get the washing machine hooked up, we would smell better, too. ;)

Much Respect and Love,

Jason (and Kristy)

Pictures for Previous Post

Picture #2 - Trailhead

Picture #3 - Falls

Picture #4 - Cliffon 'Super Butterfly' Jumping

Picture #1 - Hurricane Ivan Damage at Grand Etang Lake

Picture #5 - Bathway Beach

Waterfalls

It is my pleasure to share about what was, for me, the most memorable day I have had in Grenada thus far. It began with a feeling of disappointment as a GRENCODA staff member, Malcolm, called us at 8:15 to tell us that he had car trouble. We had arranged for him to pick us up at 8:00 A.M. to bring us to Grand Etang rainforest to do a little hiking. He assured us that it was still on, but he had to wait for the mechanic to pick him up at 9:30 and we should expect him around 10:00. He arrived at 10 and we hopped in, dressed in our hiking boots, pants and carrying swimwear and water in a backpack. We went first to the Grand Etang visitors centre to find out how exactly to get to the hike we wanted to take. The people there were very helpful and we found the place without difficulty. On the way down we stopped at Grand Etang Lake, which is a crater lake from one of the volcanoes that formed the island. There were still a lot of visibly damaged trees from hurricane Ivan 2 years ago.

See Picture One (for some reason blogger isn't letting me put pictures embedded into the text. I don't know why)

At the falls parking lot we were required to each pay $5 EC (or $2 U.S.) to access the trail to the falls, since it went over private property. We were reluctant to pay the fee, but forked it over. We were also approached by a young man who was certified as a guide. He really wanted to guide us to the falls, but since we were only interested in a short excursion at our own pace we declined. I informed him that we would have visitors in the future at which time we would employ his services. We started our hike down a cement road and past a few houses. We went over a bridge and then turned onto a small dirt trail past one of the houses. If we hadn’t known this was the trail we could have walked right past it without knowing. The trail led over the hill and then down into a great valley.

Picture 2

We had been told to grab hiking sticks which we all thought we wouldn’t need, but were very glad later on that we did! It had been raining a good bit the previous two days and the clay/dirt trail was VERY slippery. Although the trail has actually been maintained quite well, there is still a steep drop to one side of the trail. As we neared the waterfalls the guide, Cliffon a.k.a. Super Butterfly, caught up with us. As we were admiring the two waterfalls he told us that you could jump off the top one.

Picture 3

Since the waterfall is a good 25-30 feet high I suppose we looked a little sceptical so he promptly scaled the walls around the falls and jumped in off the top, being sure of course that we had our camera ready first!


Picture 4

He then asked if we wanted to jump off. Unsure about scaling the wall we expressed our doubt but he told us that there was a trail to the top. Not sure what we were getting into we all stripped down to our swimwear and proceeded to follow him up this narrow mud path in nothing more than our basic swim wear for protection, which in my case wasn’t much! (I was sure to tie my bikini top extra tight though!) So without all the clothing that we had worn to protect us from biting insects and poisonous plants we trekked in bare feet through some of the densest part of the rainforest! Seems a little crazy. I still have red welts from the razor grass and some sort of really itchy spots on my legs that I assume are bug bites, but have no way to be sure other than letting time do its thing! After what felt like a loooong time we arrived at the river. I promptly jumped in to wash all the mud and plant matter from my legs and drown off any insects that had their noses stuck into me! The spot on the river where we ended up didn’t seem to be the top of the big waterfall, which was were I had believed we were going. Instead we were about 5 or so waterfalls higher up than that, with only one way to get down. That’s right…jump. Cliffon was a superb guide, making sure we knew exactly where and how to jump, then demonstrating so that we knew it was safe. There were a few sketchy spots where I wasn’t sure about my ability to jump safely, but with some good advice we all made it through safely. The two places that stick out in my mind are where we had to make sure to jump and land sort of on our backsides so we didn’t go too deep (the water was about chest height and we were jumping from 7 or so feet). The other spot that had me quite nervous was a location where the water funnelled in between two huge rocks with only about 2 feet of space for the water to flow. Although the water was not higher than our knees, it was flowing very, very quickly. Again Cliffon was a great guide, showing me step by step how to get through and lending a hand and shoulder when I needed it. We made it though but I have to admit that I was somewhat worried. At least at the bottom of the chute there wasn’t an immediate waterfall so even if I fell I wouldn’t have gotten swept down anything too large. If the rocks underfoot weren’t such sharp volcanic rocks we could have slid down like a slide, but as it was that was definitely not a safe idea. Eventually we made our way to the large waterfall at the end and although I don’t have a picture of Jason jumping off (he jumped before me and went to get the camera) we do have a short video of me jumping.
Once we were all safely down we spent some time swimming around the bottom two waterfalls, jumping off to the side of the smaller one. The bottom there wasn’t super deep. Just last week a tourist dove off the rock and cracked his head open on a rock and broke his arm. For visitors who would consider this excursion, don’t be worried that this was the fault of the guide, as he warned us that the bottom was shallow and if we wanted to dive it had to be a surface dive. In the end we paid the guide for his time, as I’m sure he was hoping. It was well worth it and an experience that I will never forget.
The rest of our day was also busy as we went with Malcolm to do a little more sight seeing on the island, seeing some of the beaches on the north eastern part of the island. They have a rugged beauty not seen in Grand Anse and we enjoyed feeling like we were off of the major tourist track. It is nice in a way that the beach is not easily accessible unless you have private transportation, but it does make it problematic for us to visit using public transportation whenever we like. We had a late lunch with Malcolm and his friends, something he called ‘steam down’ since it didn’t have breadfruit and callaloo it couldn’t be called ‘oil down’, Grenada’s national dish. Their pot also contained bakanek (which they all think is terribly funny…can anyone guess what this might be??? We will look for your guesses in the comments and will let you know in our next post!), swordfish, and crab. It is flavoured with coconut milk, saffron, and other spices that I can’t at this moment recall. Needless to say, we had a great day and arrived home at 6:30 absolutely exhausted. I’ll leave you with one last photo of the beach where we had the cook up, Bathway Beach.

Picture 5 & 6

As requested...Pictures!!

Gouyave Coast at Night

Our housemate Andrew teaching Kelci X's & O's

Abandoned Russian Planes at the old Pearls Airport

Kristy, Kelci and Tan (Kelci's Great-grandmother)

All Saints Day

For a week that started out looking like it was going to be very boring, things have changed significantly. Monday and Tuesday were very slow at GRENCODA headquarters and it looked like the week would be similar to the previous ones. From the two previous sentences you would expect there to be a ‘but’ coming and, of course, you would be right. Things picked up for Andrew and me, as we were charged with an interesting project. We have been given the task of drawing up a business plan for three young men that are planning to enter the fishing business. It will be a small venture but very important, as these three men have had trouble with the law in the past. This fishing business represents a chance to make changes and avoid falling back in with the wrong crowd. Andrew and I know very little about the fishing industry but with a few business plan outlines from the trusty Info SuperHighway and questions put to our local fishing expert (Malcolm, GRENCODA’s accountant) we have devised a good plan that will hopefully address the various problems and potential issues that may arise from this business venture. Now we are just waiting for these guys to show up at the office.

We finished up our business plan before lunch on Wednesday and didn’t have much on the plate for the afternoon. We had heard that Ms. Williams, GRENCODA’s secretary general, was heading out for a meeting with some consultants contracted by USAID for a post-project evaluation, namely the reconstruction following hurricane Ivan. Andrew and I got ourselves invited to the evaluation meeting as neither of us had previously had the opportunity to attend a meeting such as this. I must admit that I was leery of what USAID would have to say in such a meeting. I was expecting a lot of self-directed, congratulatory style questions, and that was what I witnessed. However, I also learned that more often it is the personalities involved in these projects that enable them to be comprehensive and accountable. I am trying to keep this blog as apolitical as possible so I won’t go into the outcomes of various projects but let’s just say that their success hinged on who had supervisory control. Maybe I’ve said too much already, in any case I am glad that I attended the meeting.

On the way back to our house, Ms. Williams asked what if we had plans for the evening, to which I replied in the negative. November 1st is All Saints Day in many countries around the world, wherever the Roman Catholic Church has a good foothold. Ms. Williams invited us to join her and her brother and his wife at the gravesite of their father and two brothers at the public cemetery in Grenville. We agreed and were on our way across the island in no time. Since we had no time to pack any provisions, we stopped at a little bakery along the way. I will have to digress on Grenadian food shops and local stores for a bit here. Most local shops are quite non-descript, having no signs, hours of operation, often even lacking windows. When you walk by and you see a small counter with cakes and such behind some glass or plastic, then congratulations, you have found a store. Like anywhere else in the world, busy stores are usually an indication of good stores, but it can be very hard to distinguish a busy store in Grenada. One store may be filled with people but they are not customers, just friends of the owner and thus maybe not a good store. Another store may not have anyone in it and very little on the shelves; that can be a very good store because the owner does brisk business and sells out of the popular items. Of course, the best thing to possess when looking for a good local food shop is that most intangible of items; local knowledge. So, back to the story, on our trip across the island, Ms. Williams pulled up beside one of these anonymous-looking food stops. As soon as we stopped I understood why this was a good shop; the air was filled with fragrant smells of spices and baking. We sauntered up to the counter and looked at all the freshly baked goodie behind the glass, from soft and light butter bread to ‘meatloaf’ (which I would have called a type of pizza bun) to coconut drops (cookies). Normally I am not that much of a fan of coconut in baked goods but these drops were filled with some of the freshest spices I have ever had to pleasure to know. Grenadians always tell me that although Indonesia produces more nutmeg, Grenada’s main export is of a much higher quality. I can’t tell one nutmeg from another but these coconut drops were excellent. We hopped back into the car and continued on our winding way to Grenville. As we travelled and Ms. William answered our various questions about Grenada, she also divulged the history of the gravesite that we were going to visit. Her father and two brothers passed away within the span of a year and a half. We were therefore following the All Saints tradition of going to the cemetery and placing lit candles on the graves. This tradition is also a gathering of family to the places where loved ones have been buried, an opportunity to visit and hang out. It is not the solemn event that one might imagine; children are running around, teenagers are hanging out and trying to look cool and adults are catching up with old friends. This evening was quite nice with the wind rising only intermittently to blow out a few of the candles. As we were honoured to share in this moment of remembrance and celebration we got to observe the beautiful spectacle of seeing a large cemetery lit against the surrounding darkness by the glow of thousands of candles. I am quite sorry that I forgot the camera at home, but the images and memories are definitely etched into my brain.

After such a moving and beautiful Wednesday evening, Thursday looked like it might be a bit boring. However, we, all three of the Canadian volunteers, have been handed some longer term work. We have all been recruited into GRENCODA’s after-school program to help tutor students in various subjects of their choosing. Although we will all may be call to tutor in any subject, we have also been split into three major subject areas. Kristy was handed the English and language arts core area, Andrew chose the sciences and I got Math. As we all know, Kristy will do very well with the English area. I, however, am a bit intimidated by the grade 11 math with its emphasis on algebra, trigonometry and quadratic equations. It has been 11 years since I last seriously worked with any of this stuff. For the next week or so, I will be cramming as much math into head as possible. I didn’t think that I would end up doing math homework in Grenada, but life can deal you an interesting hand sometimes.

I think that I will wrap up this post for now. Kristy and I are going to the local and very undeveloped beach after I upload this post. I have been running on a regular basis this week and it has been tough going but the hills are getting easier and the distances longer. I may not be able to find a bike to ride in Grenada but my legs will definitely be ready for the spring rides when we get back to Canada. Today I will save my legs for tomorrow as we have plans to head over to the Grand Etang National Park and Rainforest. We are being picked up by GRENCODA’s accountant, Malcolm, in the morning and plan to do one of the medium length hikes in Grand Etang. It is a hike to Grenada’s Seven Sisters Falls. Not to worry I will not forget to bring the camera, there will definitely be some excellent pictures to post next time.

Jason

Package from Canada

I guess it is my turn to write a post. Usually Jason does it, mainly because it seems as though he gets to it sooner than I do. I find it somewhat difficult to write about what we experience here, and I’m not really sure why. I do remember feeling the same when I spent time in South America. I’ll do my best none the less.

I’ve been asked what I’m doing while Jason is working with GRENCODA. I am actually volunteering with GRENCODA as well, theoretically I am supposed to be helping with their after school programme, but since the after school programme is still not started (it was supposed to start last month) I have been sitting around the office learning how to just ‘be’.

Otherwise I am enjoying immensely the beauty surrounding me in the forest and green that grows wildly everywhere. The people at the office have been (for the majority) friendly and extremely willing to take time to talk with us and encourage us to come to them with questions and so on. This coming Sunday we have made plans to go with Malcolm, an accountant here at GRENCODA, to Grand Etang National Park and hike up to the Seven Sisters Falls. I am looking forward to the excursion, especially since he has his own car and we will not have to take the busses that make me motion sick!

We received a package today (Nov. 1) in the mail from Jason’s mom. It was pretty darn exciting to go to the post office to pick it up. I first had to go home from the office to get identification and then to the post office. When I got back, Cindica, the secretary, remarked that I returned very soon. I told her that I had to go home first to get my passport and her eyes got wider as she expressed her amazement at the apparent speed with which I walked home, to the post office and back to GRENCODA in the hot hot sun. This is something that we have certainly noticed in Grenada. For the most part people take their sweet time getting from place to place, and there is very little incentive to hurry or walk quickly. Some afternoons on the way home from the office when I am feeling sluggish and dehydrated I join in the slow pace and I think I just about drive Jason crazy. He wants to walk beside me but keeps pulling away as he tries to shorten his stride to match my snails pace! It is funny how easily I fit into the slow pace here when in Canada it would have driven me nuts. I realized today, however, that my quick pace is still inside, but it needed a little bit of an incentive to kick into gear.