Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head....

The rain is falling and I am without an umbrella.  I do have one, but it's at home and I'm at the office.  It never fails. I have bought three umbrellas since I arrived in St. Kitts and I never seem to have one with me when I need it. As many of you know, I grew up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, specifically Seattle, or more specifically, Des Moines.  In all the years I lived there, I never once used an umbrella; not even during my two year return home as an adult.  Walking in the rain was just something you did, like knowing all the different species of moss carpeting the earth as you hiked in the woods.  Frizzy hair and damp clothes were part of the package, a small price to pay to live in nature's paradise.


The very first coffee shop opened in Basseterre last week.  It's called Rituals and it seems to have been designed to resemble Starbucks - even down to the pastry choices and the green and tan color scheme.  I stood in line with everyone else on opening day and ordered a tall cappuccino to go. When I took my first sip, I felt like a little piece of home had come to visit.


The Department of Youth is hosting it's 28th Annual Residential Summer Camp for the next two weeks.  Two hundred children between the ages of 8 and 16 will be sleeping at the Beach Allen Primary School where they will enjoy a variety of educational and enrichment activities organized by my office.  It is the first widespread community volunteer effort I have experienced while on island with 100 adults serving as group leaders and supervisors.  While the organization for this event was at times chaotic, the staff was especially professional and worked well as a team.  I am glad to have been a part of it.  I will post some pictures of both the campers and the staff sometime next week.


The school year ended last Friday and I said goodbye to my third grade students.  I'm not sure if I will resume teaching at Maurice Hillier in September; that mostly depends on whether Miss Matthew returns.  While I enjoyed the kids and the opportunity to share creative writing with them, it was largely because of the teacher that the experience was so positive.  She and I worked well together, better than most, and the children benefited from that relationship.  If she doesn't return, I will find something else to try.  I am committed to make the most of my two years here and working directly with the youth is one of the areas I most enjoy.


I'm borrowing a picture to share with you that my friend Chris posted on his blog.  I think it was one of the ornaments made for the Peace Tree during the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary celebration in June, and it is also a well known Peace Corps slogan. 

Peace Corps Slogan

And so it goes on July 19, 2011, the 199th day of the year.  Enjoy the moment.  I am.

Aracnophobe in the Caribbean

Creepy Crawler

Big hairy tarantulas have always struck immediate fear in this aracnophobe, but none quite like this Caribbean tarantula that I caught lying in wait in my yard as I left my house last Sunday.


It was at least 10 inches wide and 10 inches long - as big as a dinner plate - with 8 beady eyes watching my every move. I'm sure it was a she just after sex, looking sleepy and satisfied she moved slowly as I approached, still using her savage jaws to consume her mate - him being of no use after fertilization.  Creepy cannibals these spiders that eat their mates, no wasted romantic sentimentalism from the female arachnid. She eats her man simply because she's hungry and she can.  A life lesson I might well consider.

In other news, one of the projects I'm working on is generating a lot of interest.  The 25 Most Remarkable Teens in St. Kitts, a program I introduced in Riverside many years ago, is well on its way to success in the Eastern Caribbean.  To market the program we had this banner made and hung it above Fort Street, the main thoroughfare in Basseterre.

Remarkable Teen Banner, Fort Street, Basseterre, St. Kitts

As of today, we've received 75 nomination forms for young Kittitians ages 12 - 19.  That's 20 more forms than we received the first year I implemented the program in Riverside - a city of 300,000 people - St. Kitts has a population of 35,000.  Now the real work begins with telephone calls to nominators, meetings with endorsers and community supporters, panels and personal interviews.  All the steps in the process of selection have been designed to find out the real story behind each of these remarkable kids. At the end of it all, recipients will be featured on a local television program produced by us and presented with their awards at a special meeting of Parliament during National Youth Month in November.  A long way to go, but a great start with the enthusiastic response of teachers, principals, parents, service clubs, and faith based organizations all submitting nominations.


It's hurricane season again in the Caribbean.  The time when exceptional weather creates an unstable atmosphere with the convergence of warm moist air and other stuff to produce the greatest storms on earth.  While the real threat of hurricanes doesn't usually concern locals until late August, I'm already rehearsing my landing for when my roof flies off my house and I end up back in Kansas with Dorothy.   Random thunderstorms displaying the frightening sounds and sights of thunder and lightening were the highlight of my weekend and it's only the beginning of July.  I looked up the names of the projected Atlantic hurricanes for 2011 and found Arlene is expected to be the first, followed by Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katia, Lee, Maria, Nate and Ophelia  - the tragic madwoman of Hamlet. Yes, I think I'll stop there. Ophelia will be the one to unleash her fury on my little tropical island, another adventure. 


Do you know you can actually make mock bets on which hurricanes will hit land?  There was a report on ABC News last year about Ken Horowitz, a man initiating such a platform.  Traders would buy and sell Hurricane Risk Landfall Options that represented different regions of the Atlantic coasts.  If a hurricane hit land in the region that corresponded to your option, you would split the payout with others making the same bet.  If it's still available, the website is called Weather Risk Solutions and it's headquartered in Palm Beach, Florida. I'll put my money on Ophelia.

Before I close, a comment.  News reports this morning said that the Marist Poll shows that only 58% of the Americans surveyed knew when the country declared independence and only one in four knew which country we gained independence from. Troubling.

And so it goes, on this our country's birthday.  Happy 4th of July.