New Abode, New Wheels and New Challenges

The end of the week, the end of September and a few beginnings. Early in the week Dale, Sue and I, along with Carl, who had arrived here only several days before, we packed up our possessions and headed off to our new house. We had dropped many items off the weekend previous and at the same time we met the local priest along with our landlord’s extended family. They had just finished blessing, complete with holy water and prayers, the house and each of its five bedrooms. If the house is blessed, then we too must be, or at least we hoped we could try and stretch that train of thought to come up with a link there somehow.

The house is working out well in terms of size. It has many areas to escape to for some privacy as well as many areas to congregate and socialize. From this place we have access to two Caribbean beaches, one on either side of the point on which our house is situated.

Being close to the shore, means we are far from the main road. The only sound we hear in the evenings and through the night is the relatively loud, twelve hour chorus of tree frogs. The one pictured here is a petrified one I found in the kitchen this morning. I surmise that he (she?) took his or her final voyage in through an open window. If someone knows how I can capture and post a recording of the sound, let me know since it is special.

Other than that, we are still working through the concept of two kitchens, one electric the other gas powered, and who eats where, when and with whom.
From food to food now, as I relate how we visited the market this weekend, taking full advantage of the car Dale and I purchased, only yesterday. To profit from the many attractions the island has to offer, we felt the need to buy some type of vehicle and the Toyota you see here is what we ended up finding. Negotiating the price, the paperwork, the insurance and the registration (and I do hope we get a document that isn’t as skewed as my driver’s licence is) has been easier with Carl’s assistance. Just goes to prove it’s good to have a retired guy around to do your running around :).

Enough of the car, back to the market and food. The Castries market is quite the collection of people and foods. Although none of us has yet been brave enough to purchase any meat or fish there, we continue to venture into new territory with the vegetables and fruits we are willing to try. Note the breadfruit in the picture (it’s the big green veggie in the back). Sue picked one up with the intention of trying it. Stay tuned for details on how that turns out. You can also see some red avocadoes, two types of mangoes and some other items that are more common.

Tonight I’ll try cooking up my first batch of locally grown okra. Interestingly, at the market in Castries, we also found bags of Grand Falls potatoes that were being sold for much money here than they would have been back home.

My Slovak friends, Palo and Marta, arrived on Wednesday. Carl and I headed off to pick them up at the other end of the island where they were flying into. Our plan was to drive down the west coast (the Caribbean side) and then to return via the east coast (the Atlantic side). The road down the western side of the island is narrow and quite windy and also devoid of place names or other road signs of any type. While watching the incredible scenery, we took a fork we shouldn’t have and ended up with the water on our left instead of our right. We ended up seeing the Atlantic coast twice that day.

Both of us noticed the drop in temperature from the Caribbean to the Atlantic side of the island as we stopped for this photo. Palo and Marta were amazed that I should have goose bumps in such a warm climate. I guess I have become acclimatized. Maybe those sweaters I wore all summer back home as I trained for this assignment helped. That is a comforting thought since I had to endure the laughter of my neighbours all summer. They thought I had lost my mind or something along those lines as I struggled to keep those sweaters on, for longer and longer each hot NB summer day through July and August.

Meanwhile, back in Vieux Fort, at the southern tip of the island where the Hewanorra airport is located, I found this eye catching sign. I wanted to go in and see what specialties they had on the menu but our difficulty that day, in picking a coast to follow and then sticking to that choice, had eaten up most of the extra time we had allotted for the trip.

Now the title of this blog spoke of challenges and so allow me to explain. The first one of the week actually dates back to the middle of the previous week and will last to the middle of next. Our principal’s mother in law passed away and she and her husband flew home (they are from south western Ontario). Sue was asked to fill in and she accepted the role of acting principal. At the same time one of our colleagues took some previously scheduled personal time off to fly home to England. This person is only half time mornings and, as principal it fell to Sue to take over her classes. For most of us, the absence of those two has only meant picking up a few extra duties but for Sue, it has been a long week. She is very much enjoying the long weekend we presently have (it’s Thanksgiving here on Monday).

The second large challenge of the week we faced showed us just how addicted we can become and how serious it can be when we are without something we are so accustomed to having in our lives. This is true even if this is something that several years ago, many of us, if not all of us here, could have done without. Why we may not have even noticed its absence. When I contrast this adventure with one I took 13 years ago, picking up my family and heading off to Slovakia for the year, the difference is full-screen in-your-face. Back then we also left family, friends and financial matters behind and headed off to a far-away place. We sent cards and letters via snail mail and searched for fax machines to really communicate quickly

By now, some of you reading this may have deciphered that I speak, of course, of the internet. Although we were told it would be here when we moved in, our house is not yet on-line and surely won’t be until only a Caribbean God knows when.

We are also without a land-line phone here, but who cares? We all have cell phones, but we need our internet. We are antsy without our daily, if not hourly fixes. Dale went into the school twice yesterday to get his. I will do the same later today.

The neighbour has graciously given permission for us to use his wireless network but we both live in big cement block and plaster or stucco walled houses. Trying to find even one small bar of connectivity is a nerve racking experience. Let me close today with a mental image for you, since none of us are willing to pose for this shot. (Would you blame us? What addict would want a picture taken of him or her getting his or her fix?) Knowing how we feel this deep need to connect and knowing how difficult it can be to do so in this big house of ours, picture, if you will, the four of us, each standing with our laptops, either at a window or on a balcony, frantically pointing our machines towards the neighbour’s place, hoping upon hope that the winds or frequencies or fortune blow our way. Ah, life can be tough when you are living in the Caribbean......