So much for updating once a week! I’ve been pretty busy with
training, exploring St. Lucia, and just being a boss, so here’s one massive
story/photo dump. I give you permission to skip to the end for the best part!
In the last few weeks I’ve been to the sulfur springs in
Soufriere, which is basically a black, smelly hot tub that’s heated by a
volcano, and to a few different beaches, including Pigeon Point, which is my
new favorite. At Pigeon Point, some people from my group met this guy, Edward,
who was octopus hunting and brought them along for the experience. They got
octopus, cuttlefish, and a few types of unidentified fish. I’m definitely
trying to find Edward once I get me snorkeling gear!
Alright, so now that I’ve gotten that update out of the way
I figure I should probably let you know about the work I’ve been doing so you
don’t think I’m just bumming around 24/7. That’s just the weekends.
In training we’ve talked about a lot of different things-
health and safety, cross cultural differences, education, etc- but in the last
few weeks our main focus has been literacy training, which is what I’ll be
doing for the next 2 years. This pretty much entails dumping a bunch of
information on us as fast as humanly possible so that we have everything we
need in order to do our jobs. For me, most of this is review because I studied
elementary education as an undergrad and then speech pathology as a grad student.
So I’ve got this whole education thing down.
Other people, not so much. There are quite a few of us who
have never taught at all or taught much older students, and they’re getting
several years worth of college in just a few weeks, so naturally they are
feeling overwhelmed. I’d probably be crying in a corner eating ice cream if I
were them. That being said, we are getting really great information and
honestly I don’t see how else they could provide us with so much given the
short amount of time the PC allots for training. I think in the long run it
will be very helpful to have had so much info, but for now it’s feeling like a
lot.
Because we’ve been so stressed my rooftop has become
increasingly more popular. My host mom has an amazing view of the ocean and
sunset, so anytime we have a bad day at training several of us just go and
watch the sunset on my roof. So it’s pretty much on a daily basis. This week
was especially stressful because we are planning for model school next week, so
on Friday I had a pretty baller rooftop party. Well, pretty great until “The
Baby Incident.”
M host mom’s best friend’s daughter, Tara, needed a place to
crash with her 17month old for a few days until her new apartment was ready so
she stayed in the spare bedroom at our house. On the night of the rooftop party
my host mom and Tara left to go do something, and we continued living our
lives.
After about an hour or so, one of my friends went downstairs
and discovered that they had left the baby home, presumably thinking we’d be
home and able to check up on her. Except nobody told us. Not only that, but the
baby got sick and puked on the floor and all over my friend. So I’m having a
grand ol’ time on my roof and then I just hear a very nervous “Christinaaaaa,”
and I turn around to see my friend covered in puke, holding the baby over a
bush so she can continue puking. So then I grabbed the baby, got puked on, and
nearly slipped in vomit trying to get her to the bathroom. Thank god for my
friends because they all helped to clean up the mess, and I don’t do well with
other people’s vomit. We’re lucky it was just the baby’s puke that we were
cleaning up. My host mom and Tara come home just as we’re finishing the clean
up, of course, and laughed about it as I wiped carrot chunks off my dress.
Maybe this is a difference in culture, and in retrospect it was kind of funny,
but that night will forever be known as “The Baby Incident.”
No comments:
Post a Comment