Starting the New Job

Jan 9
First day on my new job. Just orientation, nothing too big. Had to get up and give an impromptu speech, since the school administrator and VPs of the overseeing entity forgot that..oops...I might want to address the students as the other instructor was. Soooo...I needed to establish my presence, she she already had been there for a year and a half....and I have to say, first impromptu speech I have given since college. HAHA Yeah, I have to say I nailed it. Does that sound pompous? ;)

Feeling really homesick today, missing family and friends in a big way. :( Yeah, already. LOL Is this going to warp my kids? What about other stuff, will it all be okay when I get back to the states? Am I sure I did the right thing? Who knows.

Can you spell "esophagogastroduodenoscopy?" I know about 20 people who better know how to very soon. :)

Jan 10
First day of class, and I was a bundle of nerves. I have a great bunch of students. Most of them are poor, and they are here because this is a government-sponsored class that is tied in with the University of W.I. and a special government program, and they aren't having to pay for it. I asked my students to write a short essay stating how they came to be here, giving me a little info about themselves, and just whatever they wanted me to know. One of my students, a young Muslim girl, stated that she "loves the toilets at the school." Okay, I will just leave it at that, because I didn't dare ask her what was so special about them, they are just average toilets. I will leave this for you to draw your own conclusions. I have mine.

Jan 11
These people clearly do not know anything about driving. They force each other off the road (most roads are narrow...main highway is okay, but any other road, good luck at winning at a game of chicken). haha Quincy is a brave soul, and at this point, I spend half of the time when I am in the car with my eyes halfway closed so I don't stroke out. The normal driver behavior here is to force your way into traffic and just lean on the horn, the kind of behavior that might get you shot somewhere like Baltimore. :)

Jan 13
We were supposed to go up to Maracas to the beach this coming weekend, but about 6 people at work came down with the flu, Quincy being one of them. Not me, I had a shot..wooohooooo. Glad i got it now! Bummer, no beach this weekend. Will wait until Quincy gets over the flu, cause I sure as heck ain't hiring a taxi or anything, someone I don't know, to take me to the beach. All the locals tell me not to do that, because (just because I am white and everyone here equates whiteness with richness) I would be charged 4 times the normal amount. I have already been overcharged when buying stuff twice since I have been here, one time I let slide, the other I called them on it. That sucks.

I miss everyone so much.

Jan 18
Threatened by the little creep at the golf course (okay, picture miniature Jackie Chan here) with arrest and prosecution for trespassing!
Long story short, the shortcut to the mall from my house involves going outside the community gate, walking through the golf course (of course, completely on the cart path, only for about 2 minutes, to where the sidewalk leads out to the road in front of the mall). On my way back from the mall, this little creep stops me at the edge of the parking lot and tells me that his manager told him to tell me that if they see me trespassing again (hahahaha trespassing..no gates, no fences, golf course is part of the development), they will have me "arrested and prosecuted for trespassing." Now, you have to keep in mind that you could bleed to death before any law enforcement or medical help arrives. In fact, they have been noted to just not show up. I was pissed. I contacted Ms. Universe, and she is supposedly currently working on using her goddess celebrity to pull some strings for me, so now little creep at the golf course better leave me the hell alone. On top of that, seems I have a spy keeping up with me when I sometimes walk to the mall. Quincy's friend is a cop who monitors the mall parking lot from the roof, and he calls Quincy every time he sees me walking to the mall. Nothing wrong with walking to the mall..I mean, it is so close, I am NOT calling Quincy to take me for a 2-minute drive over to the mall when I can just walk. He says cop friend can see me from a mile away because i am so white. haha If you are blonde here, you obviously stand wayyyy out. I can feel my whiteness, like glow-in-the-dark. HAHAHA

Class is going great. School let out early today because of flooding. Maybe that is contributing to class going so great. HAHA We aren't having it! :) I was very proud to hear today that the school officials are so happy to have me here, that I am getting rave reviews, and that the students absolutely LOVE my class. Woohoo. A group of people I don't annoy yet. Give it time. :) I will be their worst nightmare soon.

Jan 25
RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY...
School let our early today due to flooding. There is a river on the way out to the school, and the water floods over into the rice paddies and all across the road.

Jan 26
Drove in to the office, had to go through about 1/4 mile of 2 feet of rushing flood water. Goats everywhere, people stranded because they were stupid enough to try to drive their itty bitty British cars through the water. People just getting out of their cars and leaving them and walking through the flood water. I wish I would have had my camera. Went to the school long enough to see that no students were coming in, then left.

LIMING
The term here for hanging out and doing nothing is "liming." All people do when they are "liming" is drink and talk about what a bunch of drunks the national soccer team is (yeah, woohoo, World Cup contenders this year, I see an inspirational movie on the horizon if they win). They sit around and listen to Soca music, and the same 10 songs play in constant rotation on the local stations. I know them all by heart now. Soca is like calypso and hip-hop mixed, but on steroids and a lot faster. You get tired just listening to it for a little while.

Okay, so I had the experience of my life on Thursday night: Quincy picked up his best friend, a very philosophical, rum-drinking, chain-smoking, cruise ship pan-playing, almost rasta-type guy who thinks too much; they came over for a little while, then they decided they were taking me to get Indian food. Okay, so I said I would go. They take me to seedy downtown Arima, and there it was, midnight....we are on the main drag, and I am the sole whitey for miles. People are staring at me, and a few beggars came up to me and said things that were completely unintelligible....and every time, Quincy would say something back to them that was equally unintelligible to me, and they would get the heck away from me as fast as they could. So we walk down to this street stand where they sell Indian food called "doubles", and I am like, really feeling my glow-in-the-darkness qualities by this point. Quincy and Kirk would not let me get outside of 2 feet away from them, thankfully. Remarkably, for some reason, I was not scared at all. The whole situation seemed a bit surreal. Trash all in the streets, so third-world. I was like, OMG...I cannot believe I am here! haha I wished I had brought my camera along, but I am glad I didn't, because God only knows what might have happened if I had been out on the street taking pictures. I almost felt like I was in some Night of the Living Dead movie, and at any moment, everyone on the street was going to descend on me for fresh brains. :) WHAT A RUSH. HAHAHA Doubles are okay, but I guess I am just not that big on Indian food. What I don't get is that there is virtually NO Mexican food here! I am jonesing for Mexican, and if there is a restaurant somewhere on this island, I am going to eventually find it. The people are really nice here. I have some great neighbors, too. Mostly embassy workers in the neighborhood, but met another neighbor who is in investment banker and is trying to get something going in MT in other islands in the Caribbean, especially Grenada. hmmm.... never hurts to have connections, I suppose. Would be interesting if some big opportunity came out of it.

Sure is quiet around the neighborhood. I miss Booboo and Syd...I think Eric is fine without me driving him nuts...hahaha..but I miss human contact. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss hugs. How cheesy does that sound. I wish I could kiss my kids goodnight in person instead of on the webcam. Booboo tells me that she keeps "her head full of math problems" so she won't think about me and cry. How awful am I? But she tells me she is just fine and I think the kids are probably going to be spoiled absolutely rotten by the time I get back. Sydney is busting her butt to be a DJ online at Habbo Hotel. What ambition for a 10-year-old. :))))))