Midterms

Since this week was midterm week for the students, my friends and I decided that we should try to stay out and about as much as possible so we weren't around to be distracting.

On Wednesday night we went to bingo at Prickly Bay Marina.  It's always an adventure at bingo night and this week was no exception, their big prizes were a bunny, 3 sheep, and a cow.  I don't have a clue what I would have done with Margaret the Moo Cow, but I really wanted to go home and tell Evan that I won a cow.  I didn't win anything this time, but it was still a good night.  There was a lot of entertaining dancing.  A 71 year old Grenadian woman won a bingo and her dancing was awesome.  I wish I had a video of it, but sadly I don't.  I did however manage to get a video of another lady getting her groove on.  There's a lot of alcohol consumed at bingo...enjoy.

Bingo at Prickly Bay Marina

Margaret the Moo Cow

Thursday was our big adventure of the week.  The guys were studying for their last midterm and we took a trip around the whole island.  We wanted to go to the chocolate factory which is on the opposite side of the island from SGU so we went up one side and came back the other.  It was a pretty awesome trip.  First stop was Belmont Estates (the chocolate factory).  We took a tour there where we learned about the process of making chocolate and how the estate harvests and dries out their cocoa beans.  It's a really cool process that takes a lot of work and a lot of time.  After our tour we looked around at some of the other things at the estate.  They have some land turtles, some cool birds, and a talking parrot.  The parrot didn't say much to us, but he did say "Polly want a cracker?"

Our tour started out with a quiz of local fruits.  All of these grow
on the estate.

Cocoa tree

The inside of a cocoa pod.  We had to pull a bean out
and suck the white stuff off of it.  It was a really
nasty texture, but it didn't taste too bad.

Cocoa beans fermenting under banana leaves and burlap

Cocoa beans drying out in a green house type of building

These drawers come out from under the green house
building for the beans to dry out in the sun.  They shuffle
their feet to stir the beans.

After Belmont Estates we continued our drive.  The side of the island that we live on is all the Caribbean Sea, but the other side is the Atlantic Ocean and we were excited to see some beaches over there.  I've decided that the beaches on the Atlantic side are definitely scenic and beautiful, but I like sea side more for swimming.  After stopping to look at a couple beaches we were back on the road.  The last part of our drive back was along the coastline and it reminded me of driving along the Oregon coast.  It was bittersweet because it was a beautiful drive, but it definitely made me miss home too.  Thankfully I had an awesome weekend to look forward to.

One of the Atlantic beaches

Evan's finals are not comprehensive, so that meant that after midterms were over he had nothing to study for over the weekend and it was fantastic!  On Friday night we went to Magazine Beach to go snorkeling with some friends.  It was Evan's first time snorkeling here and I was really excited to go with him.  We stayed until sunset and then went to see a movie.

Sunset at Magazine Beach

The clouds were really cool after sunset at the beach

On Saturday Evan and I went to our favorite beach and then into downtown St. George's.  Evan had never been downtown before so we just walked around and looked at some of the shops there.  At the spice market we found calabash that had faces carved into them, since carving pumpkins for halloween isn't an option we bought two of them to use as our jack-o-lanterns this year.  It's funny because I see pumpkin all the time here, but it's all cut into 1 or 2 pound pieces to cook with and it's green on the outside.

Our calabash jack-o-lanterns

We ended our adventure in town with a nice walk along the waterfront looking at the boats.  We even saw an octopus in the water and it inked!  It was super cool.  Our bus ride into downtown was pretty tame, but our bus ride home was true Grenada style.  The driver pulled over randomly because he needed to relieve his bladder...which he did on the side of the road next to the bus.   I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Evan thought it would be fun to make me a sand mermaid tail

In downtown on the water front

Evan at the old telephone booths we found downtown

Cool telephone booths on the waterfront

Even though this week was full of stress and anxiety, it was one of my favorite weeks on the island so far.  Evan did amazing on his midterms and we got to spend a wonderful weekend together before it was back to 24/7 studying.  

Babies Everywhere!

I have two lovely friends here who are having babies here on the island.  They are both due at the beginning of this month and we are all really excited for them.  We decided to throw a small party/shower for them this week.  It ended up being harder to organize than we thought because you can't just run to Walmart and grab all the decorations you want for a reasonable price.  Thankfully we were able to find some things and come up with a few fun ideas for some games.  It was a pretty fun night.

Speaking of babies, if you haven't seen the NutriGrain commercial my title is referencing, you can watch it here: http://youtu.be/JC2gIPnUCgw

This week we decided to go out of our comfort zones a little bit and try a new grocery store.  We drove a little further away to a store called Foodland.  We have heard that they have pretty good prices.  We found that this was true, they had decent prices and were pretty well stocked, but there was a very strange smell coming from the back of the store.  Not sure if that is a normal thing or not, but it definitely gave a bad first impression, I'm not too sure that we will go back.  It's a little sad that trying a new grocery store is a big part of my week...but it really is.

My friend Tessa has been anxiously awaiting the arrival of her pallet of baby stuff that she had shipped down here.  After some drama they finally got it this week and we got to spend the afternoon helping her get it all unpacked and set up before her mom came into town.  It was pretty fun to see all her cute baby stuff, but it was exhausting work.  After an hour we had to all sit down and take a break.  It's amazing how much the heat here really drains your energy.  Speaking of shipping, Evan and I purchased something small and cheap online last month just to see what the process of receiving a package was like and we got to go through that this week.  It was a little frustrating.  If it comes USPS the University carrier service has to pick it up and we get charged a fee for that and then we have to pay customs and taxes too.  But worst of all, I couldn't pick it up on the day that we received it on campus.  I was second in line to pick it up the day I did I had to wait until all the people picking up their packages from that day were done.  It took about 45 minutes and I was pretty irritated by the time I finally got my package.  Definitely not worth it.

This week was an extremely rainy one which made it pretty uneventful.  It is hard to do anything here when it rains because almost all activities are outdoor ones.  Thankfully we were able to get one fun adventure in on Friday morning before the rain started.  A small group of us drove up to Mount Carmel to go on a short hike to a waterfall and rock slides.  We were the only ones there and it was very peaceful and beautiful.  Shortly after we got in the car to drive home it started raining.  Tori and I then had a pretty fun drive (on my scooter in the rain) from the meeting place back to our neighborhood.  We were pretty cold by the time we got there.  It actually took me a couple hours to warm up.  It was kind of awesome, I haven't been that cold in a long time and it was a welcome change!

The trail down to the waterfall

Mount Carmel Falls

Tori and I in front of the falls

Tori and I climbed up next to the falls, it was super slippery
and we got soaked, but we made it!

The rock slides

Preparing to go down the rock slide

I got to close out the week by watching General Conference.  Sadly because Evan had midterms starting on Monday I didn't get to watch it with him, but I enjoyed watching it with friends on Saturday and sitting across from Evan while he studied on Sunday.  It may not have been the best or most eventful week, but at least it had a good ending!

Our New Ride

This week we decided to try something new and participate in one of the service activities that the SO Organization organizes.  We went to the an orphanage to help the kids with their homework and then when they finished their homework we got to play with them outside until it was time for us to leave.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I didn't have a clue how to help the girl that I was working with and it was a little stressful.  After we finally finished though it was a lot of fun to play with the kids!  They had a lot of fun running around and playing with our hair.  Overall it was a really good experience.

Getting my hair played with at the orphanage

On Wednesday Evan and I were going heading out to catch the bus and saw a great site.  The scooter shop where we purchased our scooter from had a bunch of crates outside, it had finally arrived!  The next morning I was to pick up some info, get a license and insurance and then pick up the scooter.  I was so excited I could hardly wait to get home from the insurance office.  I got to the scooter shop only to find that it was another day away.  The insurance information had to be taken to get the scooter registered the next morning.  I was so bummed.  Telling Evan the news reminded me a little bit of the time I was supposed to get my braces off and didn't, and then having to face my friends.

Behind the wall you can see the crates our scooter came in

The next morning I went with a group of friends up to Annandale Falls.  I had been there once before, but didn't swim because we were on a campus tour and it was really crowded.  This time I jumped off the ledge a couple times and swam under the falls.  It was a little cold, but super fun!  While there we met Jack the monkey.  While he was sitting on my shoulder for a photo he grabbed my sunglasses off my head the threw them on the ground.  It startled me and made everyone laugh.  On our way back to St. George's we stopped in Port Louis for burger friday.

A group of us enjoying the view

Jack the Monkey

Jack stealing my sunglasses

By the time we got home Evan had picked up our scooter!  A few hours later he taught me how to drive it and then I was off to take maternity photos for my friend Tessa.  I'm still editing the photos, but so far I'm pretty excited about them!

Our scooter :)

Tessa 

Rocking the sun hat

It was a perfect night for pictures!

To end the week the SO Organization had the opening social for the term.  I managed to convince Evan to come with me for free lunch and an hour of relaxing at the beach.  We went on a tube ride and that was super fun.  My teeth were nice and salty by the time we were done from the water.  I tried to keep my mouth closed at first, but we were laughing too hard and I gave up.  It was a good break for Evan before midterm prep week.  

On Saturday night my friends and I went to the church building to join the other Relief Society sisters in watching the General Relief Society broadcast.  The messages that were shared were great, but my favorite part was actually the choir/congregation hymn.  I could hear the sweet Grenadian women behind me singing and as I listened to our small group singing along with the conference center on TV I realized just how amazing the church is.  We always hear it mentioned that General Conference brings church members from around the world together and I have to say that witnessing it in person is a pretty cool experience.  I know it's a little cliche, but I thought it was cool.  It was the perfect way to end the week.

Off Roading

This week started off like any other, a nice afternoon at the pool followed by yoga next to the beach. Then the next morning the SO organization had organized a hike to hog island.  I almost didn't go because I was feeling too lazy to get out of bed, but I managed to convince myself it would be worth it. And it totally was.

The bridge to hog island

A cool tree we saw on the trail

The hike started out in Lance Aux Epines (a neighborhood in St. George's) and we walked to this bridge that crossed over to hog island.  Once on the island we walked through the trees and such for a little while before coming to a quiet little beach.  Two of my friends and I swam out to a catamaran, they swam underneath it while I watched.  Yes I'm a chicken. Then we just spent some time chatting with other SO's for a while.  When we were done we took a water taxi back across and around so we had much less walking and hiking to do.  The taxi was a wooden boat that seats six people and as it was approaching the driver was scooping out water from the bottom with half of a gallon milk jug. Never a good sign.  I just told myself it was probably just water from the rain. The good news is that we made it safely! The rest of our day consisted of a really big group grocery shopping trip.  We went to three different stores and completely filled the car up.  The trunk was stuffed and we also had groceries all over the floor and on our laps. It was really nice to get our cupboards all restocked.

There's a fruit stand at the bottom of our hill that sells local honey and I have stopped by a couple different times in search of some but they have been out for quite a while. Finally this week they had the bottles of honey and I could hardly wait to get home and try it.  Best honey I have ever had, it's amazing!

Huge bottle of fresh honey

This week there were some free Zumba classes and we decided to try them out.  It wasn't the best class I have ever taken, but we had a lot of fun and it was a really good workout.  I have never sweat so much before, it was coming from places I didn't even know could sweat. One night after Zumba my friend Tessa was driving me and another girl home. Our other friend lives up one of the worst roads in the area. On our way back down the road we hit a huge rock that neither of us saw and it made a terrible sound. A couple days later we had a relief society game night where we played bunco.  Afterwards we gave the same friend a ride home and this time we had Tori with us. All three of our husbands were studying at our apartment so after we dropped our friend off we were heading back to my place.  Tess and I spotted the rock on the way up that got us a couple nights prior and we're ready to avoid it.  Now the road was being prepped for paving so there were ditches dug out on both sides that were about 2 feet deep, but it was hard to tell where the edge was because there was some grass and weeds growing on the edge.  We were taking it slow and being careful and right as I was about to say that I thought we were getting close it happened.  Front tire off the road.

We sat in the car for a second just soaking in the moment.  Then we got out to see what we were dealing with.  All we knew is that we couldn't call our husbands because we wanted to prove that we could handle ourselves.  We were a little nervous though because it was dark and we had no clue what our options were.  Tessa had a really good idea thinking that if we could stack rocks under the tire maybe we could get some traction.  It didn't work, but it was a good idea!  We also tried pushing, but in a two foot deep ditch in flip flops we didn't exactly have the best set up to do so.  A nice Grenadian teenager came over to help us and we were eventually able to get it out.  Tessa decided to try turning the wheel and backing up.  It was risky because that could have resulted in the back tire ending up in the ditch, but she was successful.  Crisis avoided.

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful.  It rained a ton so we spent most of the time inside.  A lot of the buildings here have tin roofs (thankfully our apartment is not one of those buildings) and the church building is one of those.  During sunday school it started raining and it was loud.  The rainfall progressively got heavier and eventually we could hardly hear the person next to us talking because it was so loud.  There really isn't a point to this story other than it was just crazy!  My favorite part about it raining so much though is that it makes for extra beautiful sunsets.  

The view from my kitchen window.