28 August 2008

Change of pace as things begin to fall into place. ^_^

Hey wonderful people out there.
Today's the 2nd day on island. It's nice here and there are certainly noticeable differences for certain. One could see different styles, sizes, and types of buildings along the roadsides. There were many banana farms as well--very cool. I tried to get some pics from our bus, but we were moving too fast to get good shots.

There were a few surprises here.
We found out quickly that CNN was available in our dining hall. In fact, about 14 of us are sitting in front of it now--awaiting Obama's nomination acceptance speech. Another treat was wi-fi. It isn't super fast, but is certainly does the trick. Lol....probably doesn't help the bandwidth that there are many laptop in use right now. The last surprise was my placement assignment. I was supposed to go to Dominica, but when I signed in on island I was informed that I am going to St Vincent instead. This totally threw me for a loop. Of course, I had spent lots of time reading up on Dominica and was very excited to go there. Yeah, I'll admit I was disheartened to hear the change--but like water, I will flow with the change. A quick reflection reminded me that there are many others in our group going to St Vincent and I will be lucky to have their company--well when we can see each other anyway. ^_^ More importantly--I joined the Peace Corps to help others and have to stand for our first goal--to identify the needs of the people we'll be serving. This means I go where the help is needed and it happens to be needed on St Vincent at the moment. So although I don't really know much about this new spot--I can learn. Life will be good either way and talking with the others is really making me look forward to our new start on Saturday. ^_^

Otherwise, the staff here are great. They are patient and answer our questions. The food is really good too--even for veg-heads like me. It is hot and humid--but duh, I'm in the Caribbean. Lol....I just noticed that my arm and side has been all bitten up with little red marks, probably bug bites...they didn't even itch. I have no clue how long it has been there, but I can already tell that my brain is giving me phantom itches elsewhere. Today we got all sorts of info--with much more to come tomorrow. We talked about hurricane prep, with much more detailed plans to come on our individual islands--so those worried about me in a wind storm can breathe easy. Oh, how could I forget--we got a visit from the region's Ambassador, whose office is all the way from Barbados. She had lunch with us and gave us thanks for our service.

Maybe early tomorrow, I'll get my first chance to go for a splash in the Caribbean. A couple of us found a beach only 5 minutes walk from here. A few of us are talking about getting up early before our classes for a dip.

I have to get my blog reviewed yet by our country director, so I can't really give out too much info until I have approval.....so I won't spill many details till I have the ok. So keep on checking back for more later, whenever I get a connection at least. ^_^

ciao ciao
~your wannabe jedi
~Shawn

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