Spent a very nice weekend camping at Half Moon Bay with many of the other volunteers, as well as a couple of British Challenge volunteers and several other guys who live and work here on Antigua.

Karen had arranged for tents and transportation, everyone brought food and drinks to share, the weather was beautiful and the bugs somehow stayed away. I didn’t have a sleeping bag, but slept in one of the small tents right on the sand. It got a little cold for a few hours before sunrise and the ground was a bit hard, but that was it. I especially liked the time late at night after everyone went to bed and the music was finally turned off and there was only the booming sound of the waves crashing up on the shore. It was amazing to be able to sleep through it, it was so loud. The seas were a bit rough and this beach is on the eastern, Atlantic shoreline, so there were actual breakers that could almost be called waves, although still nothing surfable.

At night, we had the beach to ourselves, then as the sun came up a group of local kids came to swim, and others began arriving soon after. We packed up around 2pm then headed back home, exhausted but happy after the chance to spend the weekend with friends enjoying some of Antigua’s beauty.

I have been in a rare (low) mood for the past several days. It started Sunday afternoon with a theft at the beach. George and I went snorkeling at my beach and as usual, used the porch of one of the rooms from the abandoned Callaloo Resort to store our clothes and things to keep them out of the sand. After snorkeling, we set our gear on the porch, grabbed our towels, then went just a short distance away to sun and read on the beach. When we went back, I noticed that George’s water bottle had fallen off onto the ground – must have been a strong gust of wind. Then looking in his bag, he noticed that his cell phone was missing. There had been nothing in my bag other than my dress and house keys – my keys were gone as well. They had been stolen.

There was another couple sitting not far away and we asked if they saw anything, but they said no. An old guy who apparently lives in one of the rooms also saw nothing. We thought that the person may have taken the keys thinking that they belonged to one of the cars on the beach, and as we were searching the area around the first couple’s car to see if the keys had been discarded nearby, they became somewhat defensive and now admitted that a “little guy” had been snooping around.

We looked around some more and as we were leaving, a local guy pulled up in a car and asked if we had something stolen. We said yes, and he said that he had seen a kid taking a cell phone out of a car on the beach and he took it from him and gave it back to the vehicle owner. We told him what we had lost and he said he knew the kid and would go talk to his parents. I told him where I lived, then he drove off.

We walked back to my house and shortly afterwards the guy in the car showed up with George’s cell phone, but said that the kid said he didn’t have the keys. I called my PC Program Manager and she instructed me to report it to the police, which I did. That night I slept with a padlock on the front door until my landlord could get the locks changed the next day.

Monday I lost my cell phone. I checked every vehicle that I rode in and every place that I went, but it is gone. Trying to replace it is an ordeal by itself. Sometimes trying to buy things here is just plain annoying. It just seems to be so much harder than it needs to be.

Monday afternoon I thought I’d get out and take a nice walk down along the beach and shoot a few pictures for my mom with a disposable camera that she sent me. I ran into a young girl that I had met previously. She saw something in my hand and thought it was a phone and wanted me to give her the phone. I explained that it wasn’t a phone, it was a camera, so then she wanted the camera. Then she was admiring my earrings and wanted me to give her one of them. After repeatedly telling her no, she commented that some people don’t like to share. I have seen this attitude before among the children here – they see us and think that we should give them whatever we have. Antigua is raising a generation of children who think that they don’t have to earn anything, that they should just be given things because they’re poor. Where does this come from? George tried to question a kid once when he told us to give him a dollar. He wasn’t begging – he just saw us and thought we should give it to him because he wanted it. George asked him why he thought he should ask that, but he didn’t understand the question.

The college term is coming to an end and I have been facing rampant cheating in one of my classes. Jim reports the same problem. Students are turning in identical assignments, with identical mistakes, and identical properties on the diskette files. We turn them back to them with zeroes on them. Although we specifically stated on the syllabus what the consequences were for cheating and plagiarism, their response makes you wonder if no one has ever called them on it before.

The election is next week and we have been told to stay home the day after just in case there may be trouble. Not a day goes by lately that the motorcades aren’t out blaring their slogans and songs on the giant speakers attached to the vehicle rooftops. It’s ALP (Antigua Labor Party – the current ruling party) vs. the opposition UPP (United Progressive Party). And it very heated. There is rumor that the ALP won’t go peacefully in the event of a loss at the polls.

Jim and I have been pulled from Culture. Classes have been poorly attended and we aren’t making the progress that our counterpart would like to see with the computer training. She actually is restructuring all of the ICT training for teachers, principals, and everyone so that participants will have to pre-register and pay for the classes, and Culture is included in that. One of the Ministry staff will take over their classes. It’s disappointing because I was really enjoying interfacing with the people there. We might be working on their website, assuming that the Culture Division remains under the Ministry of Education after the election, and could probably assist with some computer tutoring outside of classes, but that’s all up in the air for the next few weeks until everything shakes out.

Today is Election Day in Antigua and it is unusually quiet out. The calm before the storm? We’ll see. It was an eerie feeling walking through town late yesterday afternoon as the street vendors had all packed up and gone home and many of the stores had covered their windows with metal hurricane covers. The contrast to the racket of the crowds and incessant political motorcades of the past few days was quite obvious. But it wasn’t a peaceful, reassuring silence, it was more… tense.

Yesterday my counterpart from the college called to say that since many of the schools are being used as polling places, all of the schools, including the state college would close for the day, so my class was cancelled. Whether or not tomorrow is declared an official public holiday, we’ve been told to lay low – stay off the buses, stay out of town, and keep an ear to the local news, so I have two days off with no where to go. Not that I mind anymore – I have much to do around here. It is a welcome break, I just hope that it doesn’t go on any longer than that and we can get back to work on Thursday.

After the events of the past week – the theft on Sunday, losing my phone on Monday, the little girl on the beach, the excuses from my college students, the deafening, non-stop noise of the political campaigners – I just wanted to get away from everything and go somewhere away from all the people and noise and sit quietly and enjoy the silence. Restricted by the confines of a small island, the options for doing that are somewhat limited, but places like that do still exist here.

My village of Old Road is at the end of the route along the southern shoreline before it heads inland and up through the hills via the scenic Fig Tree Drive. Carlisle Bay is the beach and resort at the furthest point along the paved road. Beyond that, there are several other beaches accessible only by 4-wheel drive or foot. Saturday George and I got too late a start, so we hiked to the top of the trail past Carlisle Bay to find the path and survey the conditions for a future trip to one of the secluded beaches. Sunday morning we hiked the trail to the top of Monk’s Hill, southeast of Liberta. On the way up we passed a few guys on donkey and horseback who confirmed that we were on the right trail, then we proceeded past an old sugar mill to the top.

At 866’, Monk's Hill is not as high as Boggy Peak, but still gives a wonderful view of most of the island. There are ruins at the top of an old British fort – Great George Fort – some of which were mostly intact. It was exactly the peace and quiet that I was looking for. From the top we could see an alternate path down that took us into Falmouth, very near Sweet T’s - so we stopped in for sandwiches and ice cream cones before heading home! It was a perfect ending to the weekend.

I was going to do a write-up on the election, but the following, written by a fellow volunteer, says it so much better than I could:

Historic Day for Antigua-Barbuda

The national election results are in. After 27 continuous years in power, the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) finds itself out of office today. The United Progressive Party (UPP) has won 12 of 17 seats (4 seats won by ALP, 1 remains undetermined, ending with a tie). The former Prime Minister Lester Bird, son of the first Prime Minister and father of Antiguan independence, Vere Cornwall Bird, did not win re-election in his constituency district.

The UPP has been agitating for change ever since 1999 when the UPP alleged election tampering by the ALP and subsequently forced a major election system reform implemented this year. The UPP has been campaigning on a theme of transparency and intends to complete a forensic audit of the government's finances within the first two months in office...

...voter turn out was very high: Over 90% of registered voters waited in line outdoors for hours in the rain to cast their ballots yesterday. Polling places were open 6:00am to 6:00pm, but the hours were extended into the late evening for everyone who was in line by the 6:00pm deadline.

The ALP conceded at 2:00am today. Prime Minister Lester Bird appealed to the people of Antigua to accept the results and to keep the peace. ...shortly after the results of the election became known, streets filled with cheering UPP supporters and loud music. In the days before the election, there was fear of street violence. Businesses closed early on March 23, protecting their buildings against possible damage by putting up their hurricane shutters. Earlier this week, Peace Corps asked that all volunteers remain at home and out of sight just in case there was violence.

...Although Antigua-Barbuda became an independent nation in 1981, the Bird-family has been in power since 1943, when V.C. Bird was elected president of the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (AT&LU). In 1946 V.C. Bird was elected to the colonial Antigua government as a legislator. In 1956 a ministerial system of government was introduced, and the AT&LU won all seats. In 1961 the position of Chief Minister was introduced and V.C. Bird became the first Chief Minister. Except for a chaotic economic period between 1971 and 1976 (when the Progressive Labour Movement's Antigua Workers Union took power for one term) Antigua has been lead by... V.C. Bird and his son, Lester Bird. Therefore, the transition process is virtually unknown and unpracticed here. It will be a very interesting, and probably very confusing, year or two. How the change of government affects Peace Corps and the Peace Corps projects remains to be seen.

REQUIRED LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO DISCLAIMER: The views presented herein are those of the author and not those of the United States government or the United States Peace Corps.

I haven’t been to town yet, having also spent the day at home as suggested by our Program Manager, but the mood that I’ve seen and heard from my apartment windows seems to be one of elation. I stayed up last night watching early election results come in, and by the time I went to bed at 11pm, the ALP had a lead in only 2 of the reporting constituencies. The writing was pretty much on the wall by then. I was awakened around 2am by a nearby car blaring one of the UPP tunes from its stereo and I knew then who had won; that lasted about half an hour. Then before dawn, I was awakened again by an extremely loud horn (not your typical car horn, more like a huge truck) and the sound of cheering and yelling people. When they came through my village the second time (at 6:42am), I got up to see a flatbed truck (with the loud horn) full of people followed by a small motorcade of more trucks and cars full of more people, all honking and cheering. I don’t know what’s happening in town in the former Prime Minister’s constituency, but people in the south appear to be very happy with the election results.

The Prime Minister is not directly elected by the people. The people of Antigua and Barbuda vote for 17 parliamentary representatives, one from each constituency, then the Prime Minister is selected by the Parliament from the elected representatives. Each party has one person that they promote as the PM candidate, but that person must win their constituency first to be eligible, as well as win the appointment of the Parliament. Since the incumbent Lester Bird lost in his constituency, he was automatically disqualified to resume as PM. UPP candidate Baldwin Spencer won his constituency and was sworn in today as the new PM. There is no lame duck period here; Parliament is dissolved prior to the election and the new representatives begin duty the following day. There will be change, but exactly what that means remains to be seen.

This is the last week of school, then no more classes at the college until Fall. It’s been exhausting work, so I’m looking forward to the break. Some of the students are a joy to work with; they put forth a real effort and want to learn – others, well, don’t. It’s a required course, so some are only taking it because they have to. I’ve got all my lesson plans and class handouts created now, and I’ve learned so much about working with the students, so I expect things to go much smoother next time through.

Our training schedule at the Culture Division ends this week also; other than that, I have one group of school principals that I’m training right now, then we switch to the pre-register/pay for training classes. My guess is that we’ll go from low attendance to no attendance. Either that, or they’ll put up such a fuss that the Ministry will relent and revert back to the free training.

Several Caribbean islands are cooperating to host an Internet Fiesta during the last week of April and I’m supposed to be involved with that. It will be like a mini-convention at each of the islands with prepared talks, vendor booths, competitions at the schools, scheduled chat sessions, Internet access, etc. Both Jim and George have already been assigned significant tasks (Jim is writing a series of promotion articles for the local newspaper and George will be presenting a paper on Internet security at the Internet Summit meeting), however my subcommittee hasn’t met yet, so I don’t know exactly what my level of involvement will be.

We have also been asked to help with web development for the Ministry of Education as well as the Culture Division, and I am converting some of our ICT training materials into web pages so that they can be accessed online. This will give me a chance to learn more than just the basic web development and HTML that I’ve been using up until now, so I’m excited about the opportunity to upgrade my skills.