Travel Day and Training

Tuesday May 13 Travel

This was a fun day of not sleeping because of worrying about my 5 am flight and then sleeping on the plane all the way to Saint Lucia.  Arrived at the southern part of the island at Hewanorra Airport and went through customs.  It went pretty fast all things considered. I met up with my Peace Corps driver and we made our trek up to Rodney Bay where I will be staying for the first portion of training at the Peace Corps head quarters.   I was pretty silent because I was in awe of the natural beauty and the awesome change in elevations and curvy roads.  Had to get used to them driving on the left side of the road a little, but it shouldn't take long! Our Country coordinator, Remi, is extremely nice and took us out to dinner the first night and I ate this savory Jerk tenderloin pork.  Then of course, I went back to sleep because traveling is exhausting!!!

My 1st Day of Training (the 2nd official day)

Well since I was delayed in departing I am a day behind on training.  Today we did some medical emergency training, Peace Corps goals training, Harassment training, and the best one which was Culture and History training.   This island has such a diverse culture and has been traded between the English and French several times due to its position along trading routes. The speaker was a professor nicknamed "Boots" and he was very knowledgeable.  He actually is an artist and participates in Carnival.  It was interesting to learn that Saint Lucia moved their Carnival because of tourism and that all the islands stagger their Carnival so that people attend.   Trinidad is the island with the largest celebration and they dress up and speak out against different social and political issues during this time. The subversive culture here is basically a way to preserve their African heritage among the French and English occupations. The steel drums and music is to tell stories and such that the French wouldn't allow to be taught, and the French Creole has a lot of the African structure  in it but sounds French so that the people occupying didn't care because it sounded like the locals were trying to learn French.  I also met my landlady today and ate some lamb neck bouillon from the back of a truck.  It was delicious by the way!  Short posts for now while my days are busy and I am getting settled in.  So far this place is amazing and I haven't even seen much of it yet!