Celebrated our 1-year anniversary in Antigua this week with an ice cream social. Although several people from our group EC71 have left from other islands, all 5 of us on Antigua (me, George, Jim, Lansana, and Joanne) are still here.

After returning from vacation, Smores the cat and Scroungy the pup were noticeably absent. I soon discovered that Smores was nursing a new litter of kittens, but by early this week there was only 1 kitten left, and now there are none. Smores herself is limping on 3 paws, carrying the 4th up in the air as she hops along. I don’t know if her injury is at all related to the disappearance of the kittens... I had hoped that maybe Scroungy had been given away, but my curiosity finally got the best of me and I asked. Sometimes I think it’s better not to know the answer to life’s questions - during my absence he was hit by a car and killed. Poor Scroungy, only 4 short months old. He was always so happy to see me. I’m just so very glad that I wasn’t here to witness it. Then yesterday as we were leaving the Peace Corps office in town there was a young goat lying across the driveway. It was still alive, with no visible signs of trauma, but obviously injured and unable to move. As it cried out, the rest of its herd came running from across the street. The largest one, dragging the bush that it had apparently been tied to and pulled out of the ground, approached gingerly and sniffed at it. It was a heart-breaking scene that I couldn’t bear to watch. Life is not easy for the animals here.

Hurricane Ivan hit Grenada full force yesterday as the eye passed directly over the island with sustained winds of 120 mph and gusts up to 160 mph. The latest news reports indicate that 9 people have died, concrete homes were reduced to rubble, and the capital city of St. Georges was devastated. There was also hurricane damage on the islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Lucia. We have Peace Corps volunteers on all of these islands. Due to power and phone outages in Grenada, we have not had any confirmation one way or the other from the staff in Grenada regarding life or property. Our Country Director planned to fly there today on the first plane that he could catch, but for now, we can only wait and hope… A hurricane is not something that I hope to experience during my two years in the Caribbean. Here in Antigua we’ve had very high surf for the past two days. My normally calm, Caribbean shoreline has been pounded with breaking waves and the rough seas have mostly destroyed the boat dock at Curtain Bluff resort. We also had some rain and a bit of wind, but we were really quite far away. I do find it odd though, that the exact town that I would have chosen (St. Georges, Grenada) had I been given a choice of assignments was directly in the path of the storm. I can look at this as confirmation that I was not supposed to be there (Grenada), but can’t pretend to understand why someone else was (there in my place).

FINALLY back at work today. Well, it was only a meeting at the College, but it got me out of the house and interfacing with people, and I have work to do going forward, so that’s good. My classes start on Tuesday and we’ll be going in to the College every day until then to get ready for the semester. In addition to our teaching duties, Ms. Martin (head of the Computer Dept) wants us (Jim and I) to help “build” several new courses, in other words, create the syllabus and lesson plans for some new classes that they haven’t taught before, plus assist with the computer labs and another class that one of the other instructors is teaching. Plus I’ll still be doing the teacher/principal training classes at the Ministry. Should be a busy semester, I’m very glad about that.

It was indicated to me that I made no mention of visiting my Kenai while back in the US. Well, I did! Visit her that is… It was wonderful to see her again. It was so hot out in the desert where she lives (94 deg. F at 11 pm when I left), but we were able to get in a short walk in the evening, plus I was invited to stay for dinner so I was able to visit with her and her husky roommates and caretakers at their home. I’m so pleased with the progress that she’s made socializing with the other dogs; she’s come a long way in the past year. I feel very fortunate to have found Mark and Joe to care for her.

This information was posted today on the Peace Corps website regarding hurricane Ivan’s impact on Grenada:

"As of this evening, all 23 volunteers in Grenada have been contacted and are unharmed. The Peace Corps country director traveled by boat today to the northern region of the island to contact the three volunteers located in a safe house in the area. All volunteers in Grenada have food and water and will remain at their safe house locations until further notice."

There was nothing specific written about the other islands affected, namely St. Vincent and St. Lucia, but I understand that they were affected to a much lesser degree. By the way, the same website also says, "Volunteers are thoroughly trained in their role and responsibilities in the Emergency Action Plan. Posts are prepared for all emergencies." That's good to know :)

Tropical Depression “Eleven” (sustained winds less than 40 mph) passed over Antigua today bringing with it approximately 24 hours of heavy rain. As it leaves us and heads northwest, it has been upgraded to Tropical Storm Jeanne. I had to go to the college today, but wore my Tevas and packed another pair of shoes and a rag so I’d at least have dry shoes for class. The first day of class went well and I was surprised that even with the driving rain, we were only short 2 students.

I realized something recently, and that is that I really have no worries. God watches over me and leads me and I have only to listen and follow and everything will be exactly, perfectly as it should. There is nothing more wonderful than that!

Was scheduled to fly to Dominica this Wednesday for our Mid-Service Conference, but due to hurricane Ivan’s impact on Grenada, MSC has been cancelled. Very disappointing. It would have been the first time that all of the EC71 volunteers have been back together since we left Pre-Service Training in St. Lucia one year ago. George and I had planned to stay a few extra days on the island to vacation and scuba dive, and I was very much looking forward to the trip, as we all were. Hopefully MSC will be rescheduled once things are sorted out.

The 23 volunteers on Grenada are spending this week in Barbados, debriefing from their ordeal and getting Disaster Relief training. Senior Peace Corps staff members from the EC traveled to Grenada over the weekend to assess the housing and communities where the PCV’s live and work. The two volunteers that I’ve heard from both report total devastation on the island. The trees are gone, wiping out the nutmeg industry that accounted for a large portion of the island’s economy. Estimates on having electricity resumed are 3 to 4 months. Both have nearby access to waterfalls for bathing and have food and drinking water. And both are very anxious to return to Grenada to begin the process of rebuilding and moving forward.

Spent a nice birthday going out to dinner Friday evening in English Harbor, then Saturday went sailing with Bernie; besides Bernie, George and I were the only crew to show up, so we both had to work. I got to grind for a short while (hard job!), but my upper body strength is really not adequate to handle some of the more physical tasks on the boat, so I was not disappointed when George took over. Still it was a good day sailing, although light winds. George and I have done it enough times now that we were able to set up and take down the boat ourselves and leave Bernie to cleaning the hull and other tasks that he alone takes care of.

Have completed 3 weeks of college classes, and still not made it out to ABIIT yet. First ABIIT wasn’t ready for us and then there were bus problems, so we’ve been conducting classes in the business department classrooms at the college where there are only desks, no computers. There are computer labs at the college, but there aren’t sufficient workstations for all the students. Today we were starting Windows and needed to use the computers, so we cut the classes down from 2 hours to 1, then staggered the starts so we could get everyone into the labs for an hour. My class, I think, all had sugar or caffeine for lunch; they wouldn’t settle down. Maybe they were just excited to finally be getting on the computers, since this is a computer class after all. I don’t know; I hope next week when we finally get settled at ABIIT and have a regular routine with work for them to do and assignments, that they’ll finally calm down. What a contrast from my last class – I couldn't get them to talk for anything. This bunch won’t shut up. Another lesson learned in “be careful what you wish for”!

Also started this week assisting Ms. Alexander with her CAPE IT class. CAPE stands for Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exam and has a preset curriculum and specific course requirements. This is the first time that she has taught this course and it meets four times per week, so it’s a lot of work for her to do. She is doing most of the teaching, but we’re pulling sections out of the syllabus for me to cover. Next week I present “Data flow diagrams”, then after that I’m doing the section on “Emerging technologies” and “remote communications”. This is more of a challenge for me than the normal applications training that I have been doing up until now, because I don’t necessarily already know the subject matter. I have to research it using the referenced materials (teach myself first), plan what I’m going to present, and create any handouts or assignments for the students. It should be interesting because I’ll be learning as well as we go along.

I have been spending a lot of time at the college lately, going in usually for at least a few hours per day, working in the staff room or teaching my classes. I have enjoyed the time getting to know the other instructors and find that the work that I used to spend hours on in the evenings, prepping for classes, creating and grading assignments, etc., I can get done during the day while I’m there. Of course the downside to that is now I have nothing to do in the evenings, so boredom is a problem.

Don’t know what is going on at the Ministry of Education. The teacher/principal training that I was doing has not started back up yet since summer. There is some kind of shakeup going on there with the staff, different people in charge, that sort of thing, and it apparently affects the people that I was working with and their responsibilities regarding the training program – we really haven’t been given much detail. It’s all politics that I really would rather stay out of; I’m sure that when it gets sorted out they’ll let us know. In the meantime, I’m happy to work exclusively with the college; I’m welcome there and the staff is all very helpful and friendly.

11 months to go and counting! Finally the numbers are getting smaller, that is, we have less time left to go than we have been here. Today at the college I was reading, and so not paying attention to the conversation, but I overheard Ms. Martin say, “But Joy won’t be here next year.” Mrs. Isaac asked if it was possible to get an extension and if I would want to stay longer. I managed to suppress all out raucous laughter, but I think my reaction was sufficient to indicate my answer. She said, “You wouldn’t want to stay? I’m hurt.” I told her it wasn’t personal.