Weeks 5 and 6

Thursday April 12th

We went to the beach at Ti Kai village.  This beach is harder to get to so we were trying to go on a cruise ship day to try and bring a little order and sustainable tourism.  Its an interesting problem to solve because everyone is used to doing something a certain way that probably is actually hurting everyone's business.

Friday April 13th

I just realized that we had a Friday the 13th like two weeks after the fact.  A testament to how busy we've been.  This day was interesting because we went down and met with our southern branch and some hotels to check out the happenings in Vieux Fort.  This beach had a massive amount of sargassum seaweed.  Right of the coast is one of the nature reserves that is a major point of interest for both nature nerd and traveler.   The Maria Islands are beautiful from the beach and I can't wait to take a tour and possibly the endemic Fer-de-lance snake (which is poisonous).  I also tried some new foods like creole bread (delicious), and pig tail bouillon (fatty and not my cup of soup ).  We also got to go around the small fishing village a little more and have more of an island type experience.

Vieux Fort Beach with Sargassum

Another Part of Vieux Fort Beach

Maria Islands Nature Reserve from the beach

Saturday April 14th

This day I finally went into Castries to experience the Market.  I bought some local curry, onions, and green peppers for some Chicken Curry....which turned out amazing.  We also met up with several of the two year volunteers for lunch and discussions.  I spent this day walking around til I was finally exhausted, but it was extremely productive buying things to cook some delectable dishes.  Need to add more dishes to my repertoire while I am here!

Week of April 15- 21

We spent a lot of time in the office trying to prep for our school visits.  I think we are making some progress.  We also were privileged with a trip to meet more of the members of the Saint Lucia National Trust who we will be working with on our project.  We made a few stops on the way to our meeting to take care of some NCA business on the beaches as well.  We got our foot in the door with the Director of the National Trust and became members of the National Trust and made plans for Earth Day with them on Sunday.

Reduit Beach with Pigeon Island in the background

Lunch after our Meeting  Curry Chicken (one of my favorite dishes now)

April 22nd EARTH DAY 

 How do I explain this eventful day?

We started off meeting the National Trust bus in Castries to head up to Pigeon Island.  We cleaned up probably about 15-20 bags of trash, and another effort the day before cleaned up 47 bags of trash on Gros Islet Beach.  It was a successful effort. While waiting for the evening activity "Sòlèy Kouché,"  we walked up signal peak again and spent some time swimming on the beach and getting burnt. It was totally worth it.  We went for a snack while it rained for the last few minutes before the event and it didn't disappoint.  They had really passionate speakers on the theme of "Ending Plastic Pollution."  Several people from volunteers to the Fisheries department came out.  We even were treated to some cultural music and a dance performance from a local dance troupe.  I have been having fun (and working hard), but this was by my favorite day to date.  It just so happened that it was an event similar to volunteering with my favorite groups back home.

The Dance Performance: A Tree, Plastic and...I think the girl was either humans or Mother Earth.

Second Trip to the top of Signal Peak