Two people called me by name on my walk up the hill from the bus stop to my house tonight. People recognize me, but very few people “know” me, so that put a smile on my face. My road was a real mess after the rains recently with huge ruts, mud, and large pools of water, so I started taking an alternate route up and down the hill. After the road finally dried up enough to be passable, I was walking down my normal route and waved good morning to someone out on their balcony as I passed by. He returned the greeting, then called back, "I hadn't seen you in awhile, I thought you went home." People assume we're transitory, that we're maybe just here visiting someone on vacation, and when they don't see you for a while, they assume you went back home. If you hang around awhile, eventually they'll stop you and ask who you are and why you're here; that is, unless they already know from talking to the neighbors (most people in the village that I stop and introduce myself to already know where I live). Diana has been here for a year and says she sees this all the time. Even though she goes to great lengths to let people know that she's just going to be gone only a short while, invariably when she returns someone will tell her, "oh we were so worried, we thought you left." I think that’s part of the problem with getting to know people here; they don’t go out of their way to build relationships with you because they assume you’ll be gone soon anyway.

Diana told me about an aerobics class held from 5-6AM at the outdoor basketball courts in Old Road. I went today for the first time. Two people share duties leading the group and they play music from the cassette player in one of their cars. It’s pitch black outside at 5AM; there are some streetlights, but not at the worst part of my road where it’s been washed out by the rain. So it’s an adventure just getting down there. And then there are the mosquitoes to contend with once the sun starts to rise. All in all though, I really enjoyed it and plan to keep going. Afterwards Diana invited me over to her house for tea, then we went for a dip in the Sea. On Wednesdays and Fridays I’m going to have to rush off immediately after class to get to work on time, but on Mondays we’re going to make it a regular routine.

Sitting here typing by candlelight and the light from my monitor. I’m hoping that the power will come back on soon because I have prep work to do still for the class that I’m teaching tomorrow. The sporadic electricity here makes it hard to procrastinate because you can really get yourself in a bind! Jim and I are co-teaching a weeklong workshop for former typing teachers from the secondary schools. They are trying to update their skills to electronic document preparation, so we were elected to conduct the course.

Had a pre-Christmas get together yesterday. Peace Corps paid for a turkey and the rest of us brought potluck. Joanne lives next door to Stingray City and has gotten to know the owners and employees quite well, so she was able to secure a free trip for the volunteers. That was a lot of fun, then we got out all the food and had lunch on the picnic tables on their grounds. Afterwards we went up to Joanne’s for a visit, and as Sarah put it, “sorry about your view!” She’s right on the water in Seatons, overlooking the mangroves and inlets on the north shore of the island.

Discovered a beautiful reef just down the hill from my house. I had been snorkeling regularly on the east end of Morris Bay, near the Curtain Bluff jetty. The abandoned Callaloo resort is at the west end of the bay, and Friday George came down and we tried out that area. The reef there is as spectacular as any I’ve seen. Huge corals, forests of sea fans, sand trenches heading out to sea in between irregular rock structures, schools of fish, and all within 10-15 feet of the surface so it could easily be seen without scuba gear. I even saw a small turtle, the shell was maybe a foot long at most – I didn’t even know there were turtles here, so that was really a highlight. I think I have a new regular snorkeling spot!

It was just a matter of time really. When, not if. I was walking through town Friday afternoon and a woman stops me, “Joy, where have you been?” Oh, oh. Who is she and how do I know her? I shrug my shoulders. “You have to come around on Monday.” Where, where? Is she from the Culture Division, wondering why I wasn’t in to teach this week? “We’re having a special program.” “Uh, where is that going to be?” “Down at the basketball courts.” Oh! Exercise class. This is Ruby, one of the instructors. It’s hard enough to remember all the new people, and it doesn’t help that it’s pitch black out every time I’ve seen her. “I’ve been teaching a workshop all week and have been up till 11 or 12 each night preparing for it.” “So you couldn’t get up.” Class starts at 5am. “Right.” Actually I was up that early, but that was the only time that I had to do laundry and clean my house, and get other things done. “Okay, I’ll see you Monday.” What a class it was too. The local radio station showed up to cover it – I even had a brief interview on air! A good crowd was there as well. They’re trying to get the word out to get more people to show up or inspire other communities to do similar things.

Finally got out with the Antigua Hash House Harriers this weekend. They’re mostly British or American ex-patriots, with a few locals. There are a several hard-core runners, but most people walk/hike the course. They’re a much tamer group than the San Diego Hash that I’ve run with before. Still the course was quite challenging. It had rained in the morning, so it was nice and muddy. We don't have poison oak or ivy here, but the underbrush has lots of Acacia plants that have killer spines on them. One lady came back with some nasty gashes on her cheek and blood all over the shoulder of her t-shirt. Another was bleeding from a good-sized cut on her leg. I had a spine grab me from just below the knee and drag down across my shin half way to my ankle. It was mostly superficial, didn't really bleed, but left a nice long red scratch. Such fun. The festivities broke up pretty fast once the sun started to go down, as we all quickly became mosquito bait.

Oh crud, it’s started raining and my semi-dry (now wet) towels are still on the line. Rats.

Christmas Eve is quite an event here in Antigua. The stores get decked out in thousands of lights with elaborate scenes adorning their sides, they stay open till midnight for shopping, the buses run till after 12, and the entire island it seems heads into St. John's to get in on the action. There are no cruise ships in town at night, so it’s nearly all locals and a few scattered tourists from the hotels. The streets were packed with people. It reminded me of Pearl St. in Boulder on Halloween night. You could hardly move. If you wanted to get from one end of town to the other, you either inched your way down Market St., or headed down a side street and took an alternate route.

It occurred to me, as one of the very small minority in the crowd, that if this exact scene had been transported to the US somewhere, say LA, it may have been very uncomfortable for me, even frightening – a feeling that I’m not supposed to be here. But here, it’s just life – people going about their business, doing some last minute shopping for Christmas, hanging out in what was definitely the place to be, enjoying themselves. I can see some real changes taking place in me already. I don’t like to think that I was ever particularly judgmental, but it wasn’t long ago that being nearly the only white person in a crowd would have made me uneasy. Today it’s an everyday occurrence and I don’t think twice about it. Sometimes I even forget that I look different, that is, till I’m walking through town and hear the all too familiar now, “Taxi?” Well, I guess that’s fair – we get up to 4 cruise ships a day docking in St. John's now that tourist season’s here. That’s probably something like 1/4th the population of the entire island wandering around downtown and hopping on taxis to the beaches and historic sites around Antigua. At least down south people are starting to recognize me and don’t mistake me for a tourist so much. Today I caught the bus in to Jolly Harbor to go to the grocery store there, and on the way back, as we approached my normal stop, the bus driver looked in the rear view mirror at me, then pulled over to let me out without me ever saying a word. Doesn’t matter that I had intended to get off at a later stop, I was just so happy that he knew me and where to drop me off that I got off anyway.

Christmas day most of the volunteers who were still on island got together and cooked dinner together. It was nice to get with everyone and visit. RJ, an EC69’er (they’ve been here a year longer than our group) from Dominica was here visiting with Jake and he spent the day with us as well. He said that he always likes coming to Antigua because there is so much more going on here than where he is. Where he lives is not so much a village, he says, as an area with about 20 other people. It’s stunningly beautiful, but very rural and very isolated. I think I would have had a real problem with that. I’m quite glad to be here.