Sunset cruisin'

Life has been busy in our Caribbean paradise as we prepare for the Christmas break.

We enjoyed a special treat last Friday night. Our British friend Judith and her husband Paul invited us, along with all of their friends, on a sunset cruise to celebrate her 50th birthday.

We all boarded a catamaran and sailed along the shoreline from the Castries Harbour to almost Rodney Bay and back for about two and a half hours.

We got to see, from the water, all of the places we've been discovering on foot. There was lots of food, drink and music. It was a great time. Near the end, the Unicorn, AKA the "Pearl" in Pirates of the Caribbean sailed by with its sails lit up. What a beautiful sight.

Later that night, back at home, Dale took out his guitar and we sang some songs together. We googled the lyrics on the laptop so that everyone could follow along and when that was over, went for a late night dip in the pool. Ah life is rough down here.

Saturday was market day. It was a tough time for Norm because we couldn't buy as much produce as we have been since we're leaving at the end of the week. But he did get to visit his favourite grapefruit lady and picked up a backpack full to bring home. For weeks this grapefruit lady wouldn't say a word. She would just hold up four fingers to indicate 4 EC dollars for 5 grapefruit. But now she smiles and her face lights up whenever she sees Norm. And she always gives him an extra grapefruit. She even wished us a Merry Christmas.

After the market we visited our favourite cheese and yogurt place. They import different kinds of cheese and it's the cheapest place we've found for yogurt. Their yogurt is processed so it can stay on the shelf for months without refrigeration so it's really convenient. The only problem is they haven't had any for about three weeks. Knowing we've got company coming over the next couple of months, we stocked up and bought 7 cases. The coconut yogurt is absolutely yummy! For lunch we went to Josephine's, an interesting restaurant we found in an old section of Castries. It's not much to look at from the outside but they barbecue fresh chicken and pork on Saturdays and the food is good and very, very reasonably priced.

In the afternoon, the three women (Sue, Wanda and I) went to a book launch at a local park. It was a book by popular artist, Llewelyn Xavier. At first we felt out of place because we were under the impression there would also be an art exhibit. But the champagne and shrimp they served put us at ease.

Sunday Norm and I took a long walk along the beach. The waves were too high to swim but it was a beautiful day. At night we went to a concert at Kalalu, the St. Lucia World Music Festival. The four groups were from Zaire, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti. There was quite a diverse mix of colour and sound. The group from Zaire had three African dancers. And man, were there were ever a lot of pelvic thrusts and shaking booties when they felt the beat of the music.

And if all of the above wasn’t enough excitement between Catamaran rides, market, book launching and all the other, Tuesday was a school outing to the rain forest for some zip lining. I went along to help chaperone Sue's grade 7 class and got to see the forest from the top of the trees.

Tonight, our last night here, we're doing a ham supper at the house to have a Christmas meal together and then it's off to the airport tomorrow to fly home. We're looking forward to seeing the kids, the dogs and to spend time in our house and the cottage. We'll definitely miss the weather, the early morning and late evening swims and the walks along the beach. Norm will be back in three weeks. I'll return in four. I've got a couple of weeks of work at the CBC before my official retirement on December 31st. I guess I will have to take a break from my life of leisure.

Shake, Rattle & One Leg or Two?

The big event in St. Lucia last week was an earthquake that struck onThursday at about 3:00 pm. The epicenter was in the ocean near Martinique but we felt it here. It was 7.4 on the richter scale. It was enough to make the walls shake. (as well as my knees) I was glad we were at home when it happened. The scene was quite chaotic in Castries where we often go to the market. People were running out of buildings and screaming. There was a bit of structural damage in St. Lucia and people were left pretty rattled.
The rest of this week’s blog will be a collection of thoughts and stories. I'll add pictures from the Island that won't necessarily correspond with the story but they'll give you an idea of the beauty of St. Lucia.
I was reading some of the reviews from visitors at various St. Lucia resorts recently. One tourist, while praising the natural beauty of the Island and the generous and kind nature of the people, commented that the weather was "boring, always sunny and 30 degrees". I can't really say that it's boring but it's certainly something we expect every day. Nice sunny weather, a few clouds. We were quite annoyed and dismayed a couple of weeks ago when we awoke one Saturday morning and had to cancel our plans to travel that day. The sky was overcast, threatening rain...just not a good day to do the exploring we had planned. It struck us how spoiled we had become, expecting perfect weather every day. It seems the rainy season has ended. Whereas we had short but heavy rainfall sometimes two to three times a day in October, we now haven't had a shower in at least three days. I expect it will get quite dry in the coming months.

Most of this week has been spent going to the immigration office to straighten out our documents. It turns out that the Customs people at the airport and the Immigration people in town don't always agree on what needs to be done in order for the teachers to have permission to work in the country and for the spouses to be able to stay longer than six weeks. We have been hobbling through the process with one of the supervisors at the Immigration office. We were stunned to see yesterday that all of the information she is gathering from our passports and work exemptions etc, has to be hand written into a large ledger. None of it is computerized. It's no wonder the poor woman looks frazzled. She promised our documents would be in order by this Friday. We need to get everything sorted out in order to leave the country next week and then return in January.

We had a lovely evening last Sunday at one of the three Sandal’s resorts. It was a Japanese dinner that was organized as a fundraiser for the school. There were four different rooms in the restaurant, each with a different Japanese specialty. There was the Sushi room where all the sushi was already prepared, the raw fish room where you could prepare your own Sushi, the teriyaki room which had a lot more than teriyaki and the stir fry room. The food was excellent as was the wine. There was also a silent auction where Sue, one of the other teachers, purchased a four serving set of dishes as well as two large vases. We're still not sure how/if she will bring these things back home to Moncton. If not, we'll enjoy them while we're here.

Since we are staying until May/June of next year it's important to find people to provide the regular services we have at home, ie. hair cuts, leg waxing, etc. For any of you who have any experience with waxing, you know that once you've gone through the pain of leg waxing and you're at the point where you only need to do your legs every six weeks, you will do anything you can to avoid picking up the razor again. Hence my quest to find a place where I could get my legs waxed. One of our roommates, Wanda, and I walked to many beauty salons and spas in our neighborhood to check out prices. (It's awkward to phone because we don't always understand the accents.) The prices, when they did offer the service, were quite high until I found a little beauty salon that offered leg waxing at 40 EC dollars...that's about 16 dollars Cnd, close to what I pay at home. I quickly made an appointment. I showed up a few days later and was escorted into a back room. I knew it wouldn't be the same as in Canada but I was still surprised to see that in order to wax my legs, I had to sit on a chair across from the girl, with one leg propped on her lap. It was fine to do the front of my leg, but then I had to twist and contort my body so that she could do the back. I couldn't help thinking how fortunate it was that I hadn't asked for a bikini wax. The girl was pleasant. She told me how she was planning on joining the British Army as a way to get a college education. She wanted to become a nurse. My affection for her dwindled however when I handed over 50 ec's and told her to keep the change. I thought a 10 dollar tip was quite generous. She looked at me all confused. "But Mam", she said, "the price is 40 ec's per leg". Per leg! Who gets one leg waxed? Who gives the price of waxing per leg? I told the story to one of the other teachers at the school. She had also been quoted a price for eyebrow waxing that ended up being for one eyebrow. Once again, who gets only one eyebrow waxed?

I’ll do my best to do another blog before we leave at the end of next week. We're both anxious to get home although we're not sure how we'll react to the freezing temperatures and all of the snow Moncton has received this week. For those of who who read this from Moncton or the Maritimes, we hope to see you over the holidays and if you're available, we’re planning our goulash party at the cottage in Cap Pele on Saturday, December 29th. We are even bringing back some St. Lucian paprika just for this event. Hope to see you there.