St. Lucia is a very beautiful place, as long as you keep your eyes up. Unfortunately, many of the locals throw their waste alongside the roads and into the trees, so parts of the island are actually quite dirty. In an effort called “It’s Our Environment; Step Up and Clean Up” this weekend has been declared as a time to consciously clean up the island. To help promote the movement, we spent Friday afternoon at school cleaning out all of the classrooms, the fields and the surrounding streets. Perhaps motivated by the thought of getting out of class, the students did a great job finding all of the trash and making the school look very nice in a short period of time. Hopefully, the entire island will participate in the movement and the island will be looking beautiful from top to bottom in no time.
The weekend brought more sightseeing and experiences I will never forget. On Friday afternoon, my “sister” Judia asked if I wanted to go with her to pick up a pizza for dinner. I agreed well before realizing what a “quick pizza run” entails. After walking a mile and taking two buses to get there, waiting the twenty minutes after we ordered, and then walking a few blocks and taking the two buses home, we returned two and a half hours later with a semi-warm pizza! I will never take for granted the luxury of delivery service again! Later that night, we hitched a ride to Gros Islet for the popular Gros Islet Friday Night Street Party to enjoy the music (yes, I even sang karaoke!), food and drinks. Fortunately because of the great weather, they can have this party year round so it is a major hotspot for people to meet up and hang out.
On Saturday, we took the half hour bus ride down to Castries to browse the markets and see some of the buildings in daylight. The capital city of St. Lucia, Castries was bustling with people shopping, eating and hanging out in the parks. After looking through the markets for quite some time, (and wishing I had brought more cash with me!) we visited the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The interior, made entirely of wood, was absolutely gorgeous and I really enjoyed the elaborate paintings on the walls. We also went to the library, various street shops and the Derek Walcott park. While my friends went to buy a few quiches for lunch, I made a stop at the building labeled “Public Washrooms.” Expecting to just walk in and do my thing, I was quite surprised when the lady at the entrance made me pay 50 cents and then handed me a small bundle of toilet paper! Things continue to surprise me every day!
We finally made it to the Food and Rum Festival on Sunday afternoon and the event proved to be 90% free samples of rum and 10% of food. The $10 entrance fee was a small price to pay for a fun evening with many other tourists.
I’m finally starting to establish a comfortable routine at school and I’m teaching more and more every day. We are still working with money in math class, but we’ve progressed into talking about profit and loss when it comes to buying and selling. Teaching language arts is a little bit of a struggle for me. I mean, I can handle nouns, adjectives and verbs, and I thought spelling would be a piece of cake, but here they spell some things slightly different. For example, “color” is “colour” and “practice” is “practise.” I guess these are the French spellings, so I always have to check twice before marking a student’s paper incorrect.
We had a faculty meeting at lunch today to discuss some of the activities for Mathematics Month. Some ideas included t-shirts, quiz competitions between the classes, a game day, and an open house for parents to see the mathematics art work the students will do in their classes. It sounds like a lot of fun and seems like it has been a big success in the past, so I’m anxious to see how everything unfolds.
The weekend brought more sightseeing and experiences I will never forget. On Friday afternoon, my “sister” Judia asked if I wanted to go with her to pick up a pizza for dinner. I agreed well before realizing what a “quick pizza run” entails. After walking a mile and taking two buses to get there, waiting the twenty minutes after we ordered, and then walking a few blocks and taking the two buses home, we returned two and a half hours later with a semi-warm pizza! I will never take for granted the luxury of delivery service again! Later that night, we hitched a ride to Gros Islet for the popular Gros Islet Friday Night Street Party to enjoy the music (yes, I even sang karaoke!), food and drinks. Fortunately because of the great weather, they can have this party year round so it is a major hotspot for people to meet up and hang out.
On Saturday, we took the half hour bus ride down to Castries to browse the markets and see some of the buildings in daylight. The capital city of St. Lucia, Castries was bustling with people shopping, eating and hanging out in the parks. After looking through the markets for quite some time, (and wishing I had brought more cash with me!) we visited the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The interior, made entirely of wood, was absolutely gorgeous and I really enjoyed the elaborate paintings on the walls. We also went to the library, various street shops and the Derek Walcott park. While my friends went to buy a few quiches for lunch, I made a stop at the building labeled “Public Washrooms.” Expecting to just walk in and do my thing, I was quite surprised when the lady at the entrance made me pay 50 cents and then handed me a small bundle of toilet paper! Things continue to surprise me every day!
We finally made it to the Food and Rum Festival on Sunday afternoon and the event proved to be 90% free samples of rum and 10% of food. The $10 entrance fee was a small price to pay for a fun evening with many other tourists.
I’m finally starting to establish a comfortable routine at school and I’m teaching more and more every day. We are still working with money in math class, but we’ve progressed into talking about profit and loss when it comes to buying and selling. Teaching language arts is a little bit of a struggle for me. I mean, I can handle nouns, adjectives and verbs, and I thought spelling would be a piece of cake, but here they spell some things slightly different. For example, “color” is “colour” and “practice” is “practise.” I guess these are the French spellings, so I always have to check twice before marking a student’s paper incorrect.
We had a faculty meeting at lunch today to discuss some of the activities for Mathematics Month. Some ideas included t-shirts, quiz competitions between the classes, a game day, and an open house for parents to see the mathematics art work the students will do in their classes. It sounds like a lot of fun and seems like it has been a big success in the past, so I’m anxious to see how everything unfolds.
2 comments:
it seems like you are settling down. yes, there is a difference in spelling between the European and American spelling. You will catch on pretty fast. Any differences in pronunciation?
Dr. D.
wow u had to pay to use bathroom i dind't think it was real but now i know that it is.
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