Thanks for checking out my travel blog! My husband Jade and I recently moved to the island of Grenada for medical school at St. George's University. We love nothing more than to travel and experience different things so check back often to see what new things the Kings are discovering and konquering!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving Goat


I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving (and Thanksgiving break for those in school)!  It was a little weird not being there.  This was my first holiday to be away from everyone because even when traveling for Alpha Sigma Alpha I was home for Thanksgiving, my birthday and Christmas.  Thursday didn’t even feel like Thanksgiving with all the students being in classes.  To avoid any homesickness Jade and I hosted a Thanksgiving potluck at our house Friday night for the other couples living in our neighborhood.  We filled every seat in the house and had a total of thirteen, which included one baby. 

The food rivaled any Thanksgiving I could have had in the States.  Jade and I wanted to do traditional turkey, but it would have cost us about $50USD and probably would have been much more difficult to cook.  We instead bought two whole chickens, although my family thinks we captured and cooked a Mont Toute goat because that’s what Jade keeps telling them.  But really, we had chicken.  I know I’ve griped about my oven enough that you don’t need to hear it again, but with my crazy oven I was really afraid of ruining the main part of the meal so I asked my friend Emily to cook the second chicken.  I have the oven space to cook two at a time, but if I ruined a chicken at least there would be one other one.  So backing up a little bit, I asked Jade to go with me to buy the Thanksgiving meat because I didn’t know how much would be needed.  Once we settled on chickens, Jade picked two out.  He said the innards looked like they were bagged and stuffed inside, which is exactly what I told Emily.  Emily is a five year vegetarian, but she cooks meat for her husband and just recently started eating a little meat because they want to have a child next year.  So Friday afternoon we start preparing to cook our chicken and Jade discovers there is no bag; all the guts, including its disgusting feet, are inside the body.  I never even touched the thing.  Within minutes of our discovery my cell phone rings and of course it’s Emily, horrified.  Her husband would be home too late to get the chicken cooking at that time, so I sent Jade down to rescue her.  He brought back all her chicken’s insides and gave it to our landlords to give to Vodka, the dog.  It was pure carnage. 



I used the nifty oven thermometer my parents’ sent and managed to not melt the roasting bag.  We triple checked for doneness and the USDA recommended temperature of the inside of the bird and (to my knowledge) we didn’t give anybody food poisoning.  I think that’s a success for it being the first meal we’ve ever hosted.  Jessica and Daniel brought great homemade stuffing and awesome baklava.  Sarah and David brought homemade rolls and homemade cranberry sauce, which completely changed my opinion of cranberry sauce.  The last time I ate real cranberry sauce was at my Great Aunt Grace’s when I was a child.  My immature taste buds hated it and I have eaten the Ocean Spray jellied kind ever since.  Well not anymore.  I’m bringing cranberry sauce to the next Thanksgiving!  Marieke and Ryan brought killer mashed potatoes with the skin still on and two pumpkin cream cheese pies that practically melted in your mouth.  Sayeh and Hamed brought a delicious corn casserole, juice and (thank goodness) extra silverware.  Emily and Jonathan cooked our other chicken and made a fantastic green bean casserole. 

Stuffing

Baklava

Corn Casserole

Cranberry Sauce

Green Bean Casserole

Jade carving chickens






























































































We could not have had a better evening!  The house had festive fall flare courtesy of Emily, Marieke and Jessica’s decorations.  It was hot from using the oven earlier, but not sweltering like it could have been.  All the girls ended up sitting together in the dining room while all the guys sat in the living room.  There were endless laughs, some really hilarious impressions of Jade’s southern accent when he tried to teach all the girls about NASCAR (thank you Emily) and the most adorable You Tube video you’ll ever see.  I think everyone pretty well stuffed themselves to the brim and it actually felt like a true Thanksgiving.  We may not have been with our families, but we definitely had great company and great food.  Oh and what Thanksgiving in Grenada would be complete without the ants mysteriously appearing and feasting on our leftovers?  I’m immensely grateful for the girls’ help in packing away food and washing dishes since basically every dish in my house was dirty.  I’m lucky to have thoughtful friends.  The evening wrapped up about five hours later and I’m sure everyone went home to a food coma.  It was perfect.  Same time next year gang?


Jonathan, Marieke, Sayeh (with Lilia) and Hamed

Me, Jessica, Sarah and Marieke

Hamed, Ryan, Jonathan (behind Ryan), Jade, David and Daniel
































































We also had big plans Saturday as it was the end of term social for the SO organization.  They had a buffet lunch at Ali Baba’s Bar & Grill with usage of their pool.  They also rented a boat and water toys for a few hours.  Jade went on the tube twice and got flipped off of it twice- it was pretty funny.  It rained a couple times while we were there, which made it chilly on the beach.  The food was delicious though and it was a good time!

Monday, November 21, 2011

We'll Be Famous in England!

It was an exciting weekend for Jade and I!  Thursday I found out (for sure) I'm going to be an aunt again.  I have one niece and nephew through my brother and now my sister in expecting her first, due in June!  Congratulations, again!

Friday morning Jade and I woke up to an odd squeaky, squealing noise outside our bedroom window.  I listened for a moment, not able to place the sound, before I mentioned it to Jade.  Once he was out of that half-asleep stage he said, “Vodka’s having puppies!” 

Our landlord’s have two dogs: an old, all black, pothound male with a graying muzzle named Panther and a beautiful and strong tan pit bull named Vodka.   Dogs like her are rare around here because as I said, the native dogs are all one incestuous breed.  She is Kurlon’s pride and joy and she’s treated more like a pet than most dogs are in Grenada.  She was bred with another pit bull somewhere on the island so they could sell the puppies.

We thought she was due next month sometime, but Jade said the sound was unmistakable.  He threw on some street clothes and ran upstairs to tell our landlords.  A few minutes later they all went outside and sure enough, Vodka had one black puppy in her cage with her.  We watched and talked to her for a few minutes before going back inside.  She’d had about three more by the time Jade and I left for the grocery store an hour later, six or seven by the time we got home from the grocery store, and eleven by the end of the day.  They are all tan like mom, black like dad, or a kind of grey mixture and Kurlon said they’re mostly males.  Jade told me first time moms sometimes eat their puppies if they don’t know what’s going on or if they think one won’t live.  Each time we checked on her I was scared I’d accidentally see her eat one and be traumatized, but she seems to be a good mom.  She’s really a sweet dog.  By Saturday we were down to nine puppies (but their bodies were there; she didn’t snack on them) and I didn’t check on Vodka Sunday because it rained and everything is really muddy.  I’m also not venturing out because I’ve been eaten alive by mosquitoes and sand flies, which believe it or not are itchier than mosquitoes.

So yay puppies.  Puppies are fun!  I can’t wait for them to be older and cute and playful!  I have to tell you a funny story.  So Teshawn is the youngest kid in the family (our landlord family).  I’m pretty sure he’s eight.  He is a sweet and really funny boy and he likes Jade a lot- go figure.  Kids always like Jade because he has interesting things to say.  He was really shy when we first met him, but now he will chat our ears off given the opportunity.  He was in the backyard with Kurlon, Jade and I Friday afternoon swooning over the puppies.  He had to leave for school Friday morning as soon as we’d found out Vodka was in labor so I asked if he told his school friends about his new puppies.  He looks to his brother and says, “Well, I don’t know if I can tell people about da puppies.”  (He says “well” a lot and the “da” is my attempt at his Grenadian accent.)  Kurlon says he can and Teshawn looks at me and says, “I told my friends about da puppies” with a smile on his face.  He’s so funny. 

Friday night the SO group rented a catamaran-style boat to take us to Fish Friday in Gouyave (pronounced like Guava without the last A).  We went to the store and bought AA batteries specifically to get some good pictures of the evening’s events.  Unfortunately the batteries didn’t even give my little camera enough juice to take a single picture.  I don’t know if it was the batteries or if it is my camera, but alas, no pictures still.  Anyway, Gouyave is on the same side of the island as St. George’s, but further north.  It’s a fishing village and the third largest town on the island I believe.  Fish Friday is something done every Friday night where the locals set up vendor booths to sell prepared seafood, homemade sweets and handmade crafts.  There was music set up (Celine Dion Christmas music played mostly) and a lot of people wandering around.  It was our first time to go and I hear that boat is the preferred way to get to Fish Friday.  See, the roads in Grenada aren’t great and they’re generally extremely curvy.  Combine that with fast driving and the time it would take to drive to Gouyave and even the most iron stomach would be at least a tad uneasy by the time we arrived.  The boat trip lasted about an hour to an hour and a half (wasn’t really checking the time).  We met on Grand Anse Beach and left at sunset so nearly the entire ride was in the dark.  The stars were the main sight though.  While I would have loved to see that much coastline in the daylight, the stars were just breathtaking.  Jade named numerous constellations and planets and pointed out the Milky Way.   We even saw a satellite and Jade spotted a shooting star.  The night could not have been more clear.  They played good music on the boat and had a bar to get drinks.  When we pulled up to a shore in Gouyave the boat staff escorted us through an alleyway and led us to the streets blocked off for Fish Friday.  Jade and I looked at a couple booths before getting in line to get some grub.  We wanted to try different things so we shared everything.  We got a fried fish fillet in fried bread (Jade’s favorite), noodles with a skewer of meat and veggies (not entirely sure what kind of meat it was), a skewer of shrimp and veggies, a homemade doughnut ball and a coke.  I wanted to get some homemade pumpkin ice cream, but we kind of hit our “fun” budget for the month.  It’s okay though, I’m sure we’ll be back at least a few more times in the next two years!  Maybe that’s where we’ll try lambie, also known as conch.

Photo courtesy of my friend, Andrea.  Thanks!

On Sunday Jade and I went with our friends Marieke, Ryan, Emily and Jonathan to take Christmas pictures on the beach.  The two other couples went first because their husbands had to get back to campus for an info session.  We had a lot of fun trying different backdrops and writing things in the sand.  Ryan and Jonathan left and then Jade and I began taking pictures with Marieke and Emily as our photographers.  At one point I went to the girls to look at the pictures they’d taken so far and I didn’t notice that a man had approached Jade and was talking to him.  As I went back to Jade with a puzzled look on my face, he and the man started explaining what they were talking about.  Turns out, the man works for the Sunday Mirror, a British tabloid (one of the largest in London at that), and he and another woman are on a paid holiday to write a travel piece on Grenada.  He asked if he could take a few pictures of Jade and I, and of course we agreed.  She took down our information and said she’d send us any pictures they used and make sure we get a copy of the article.  It should be out next month.  Needless to say we’re really looking forward to hearing from them around Christmas time!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Pothounds, Lizards and Goats...Oh My!

Ay yi yi I’m bad at this whole blog thing.  I didn’t even post in the month of October, and October is a long month!  I apologize for letting down the loyal readers out there.  Please don’t give up on me.  The longer I have been here the more established I have become in my own routine and I put blogging on the back burner.  I also don’t want to post without pictures; what is a good travel post without pictures?  I’m not using my camera here because it eats through a set of batteries a day (which aren’t cheap) and I don’t have the expensive transformer to charge my rechargeable AA batteries.  Unfortunately my solution is to not take pictures.  It kills me a little to not have photos of our first term, but I will bring my other camera back with me in January and unleash all my suppressed photography desires then.  Before I begin today’s topic, let me quickly catch you up on the things that have been recently filling my time here in Grenada. 

I’ve started doing enough stuff that I actually have to schedule things now.  That is fantastic for me and more than I ever hoped for.  I have this inherent need to stay busy.  If you recall an early post in which I talked about adjusting to my new domestic duties of cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and volunteering, use that as a base.  Now let me add some additional things I’m doing.  For starters, I am going to be on the Significant Others Organization board as treasurer next term.  I’m really looking forward to that and it means I will have even more to work on next term.  I’m also working on a project for the university.  SGU is trying to boost enrollment in a USMLE Step: 1 prep course and I am working with the Department of Educational Services to figure out how to get more students interested in taking the course.  I’m attending workshops hosted by the Photography Club on campus because one of my goals is to become a decent photographer while I’m here.  I’m attending SO support group sessions hosted by the Department of Psychological Services and occasionally joining a group for board games on Wednesday mornings.  Jade and I went to a Halloween party where we won ‘scariest costume’ by dressing as Bella and Edward from Twilight.  I went on an all day island tour planned by the SO group and had a great time.  We pretty much drove all the way around the country.  I attended a self defense class last week that proved to be really good.  I went to Prickly Bay’s bingo night a few weeks ago and won $50EC.  Jade and I are trying to work out together three mornings a week, which has been really good for us.  I renewed my visa so I can stay in the country legally until we leave for break.  (You may have wondered why I mentioned that, but it’s a whole morning process in and of itself.)  Jade and I went with a lovely group of people one weekend to hike to Seven Sisters Falls recently.  What a beautiful place that was, but again, no pictures.  We went to a talent show on campus hosted by the Indian culture group where I was once again reminded how bad I wish I was Indian.  It was an awesome, awesome show.  I’ve coordinated and am hosting our first Thanksgiving next week that includes a small group of our neighbors.  I’m pretty excited about that!  Oh, and I finished the book The Host and am about 80% through with the first Harry Potter.  I’m ridiculously giddy about getting HP jokes now and being able to make HP references.  I FINALLY joined the club!  The Help will be the next book before I continue the HP series because the next book club discussion will be over The Help.  And don’t forget the social things; I’m still going to the pool and/or beach about once a week and hanging with friends.  So I know it’s not like I’m working full time and having to take care of kids, but in my own way I am keeping busy. 

I’ve realized that I haven’t yet given much general information about our newly adopted home.  I know this will come in bits and pieces throughout the next two years as I learn more about this country and its culture.  Observing those around me and listening to conversations exchanged helps me immensely in figuring out what it means to be Grenadian.  I don’t want to get into any deep topics yet though.  I’ve come to my own conclusions and made some generalizations that summarize what I think I’ve learned so far, but I don’t assume they’re correct and I certainly won’t publish them on the internet in this stage.  I’m still just a naïve observer at this point, making assumptions that may or may not be false.

As for surface topics, here is what I can tell you.  It’s HOT.  Have I mentioned that yet?  It is hot as heck here.  For this I was not prepared.  “How,” you say?  Not because I didn’t check the weather before packing (I’m a compulsive weather checker)!  Depending how you check the weather, internet or cell phone, you see information displayed differently.  My iPhone said it was a pleasant 84°F every day with the percentage chance of rain varying by day.  It sounded heavenly to me!  I even checked weather.com’s monthly average temperatures to find out what “winter” was like here.  Winter doesn’t exist here by the way.  Well, you know that fine print that says ‘feels like__’ when the daily forecast factors in the wind chill or heat index?  I didn’t see that.  At all.  We’re in the rainy season right now and when you factor in the humidity, every day ‘feels like’ 100°F, sometimes more.  I’ve seen it ‘feel like’ 107°F many times!  Since I thought it was going to be a lovely 84°F every day with the occasional rain shower I brought some pants, a sweatshirt and a cardigan.  I also packed layer-able items.  I have worn pants twice, and once was for a costume.  I don’t wear layers unless all my other options are dirty.  In fact, every day I strive to wear as little as possible (that sounds risqué, but isn’t at all).  Shorts and tanks are my daily attire.  And my hair goes up… everyday.  It’s hot here.  And I already know what clothes are going back with me in December and what will replace them in January.

That being said, December in Arkansas is going to be excruciating for me.  Besides seeing my friends and family, being home for the holidays and eating my parents’ food, I am not looking forward to the cold and barren land that is Arkansas in the winter.  Getting used to this heat and then going to that is going to be tough on me. 

It’s HOT here.  Is my point coming across?  The only other places where I experienced heat like this and worse was Egypt and India.  Grenada has redeeming qualities though.  The breathtakingly beautiful ocean, the tropical breezes and rainfall and the rainforest climate on the inner part of the island definitely make up for it.  It may seem like I’m complaining about the heat (and let’s be honest, sometimes I do complain about the heat when I have to carry groceries up the ginormous hill in our neighborhood in the middle of the day), but I would still take this over moving to Alaska or something for medical school.  I just really want you to know that it’s pretty warm here.

We are adjusting though.  In the beginning I don’t think either one of us thought we would see the day, but our bodies are getting used to it.  The heat makes us less tired than it originally did and just recently I made coffee and drank it hot rather than making it into an iced coffee.  That says a lot.

While on the topic of weather, my other obvious thought was the rain.  I don’t think I need to tell you any more about the rain though, as it has been a common topic of my blog posts.  I believe somewhere on the island gets rain every day, even if we don’t see it.  The storms come on suddenly and it is very difficult to predict.  Sometimes they appear to be coming right at you, but soak a different part of town.  I’m sure you’ll hear more about the rain later, or lack thereof in the dry season. 

Here is a particularly fun fact about St. George’s (and I assume the rest of Grenada): there are hardly any street names and even fewer physical addresses.  Jade likes to remind me that Leslie, Arkansas was like that not too long ago.  While the town of Leslie may have been that way, we’re talking an entire country of no addresses.  It really boggles my mind.  I know when we first moved here my parents wanted to know the address of where we were living, you know, just “in case”.  Ha!  I’ve seen envelopes like our electricity bill and it literally has our landlord’s name and the general area we live in printed on it.  Apparently everyone knows where everyone else lives.  Having no street names is pretty funny, too.  We were warned during welcome week that in Grenada you use landmarks for everything, and I’ve found that to be absolutely true.  On the bus we’ve had to ask the driver to drop us off by the goat.  And yes, there are a lot of goats in our neighborhood.  And stray dogs.  And crowing roosters.

Animals are actually another good topic to help paint the scene of where we live.  This part is actually sad, but there are an outrageous number of dogs here.  Stray dogs are known as pothounds.  I have a theory that they’re all inbred because they mostly all look the same.  These dogs aren’t really pets, they’re just strays or pseudo guard dogs.  I don’t know if they get fed or if they scavenge.  They’re all really itchy and mangy looking and they’re EVERYWHERE, especially in our neighborhood.  The SGU vet school has a program where they spay and neuter pothounds to help control the population, but I can’t even fathom what it would look like if they weren’t doing that.  I don’t even think most Grenadians like dogs.  The dogs here are smart though, and smarter than American dogs for sure.  As in many countries I have visited, people drive crazier here than in the States.  You would think more aggressive driving would mean more road kill, but quite the opposite actually.  These dogs could probably dodge a speeding bullet.  Ugh that’s horrible imagery, but what I mean is that they are really good at not staying out of the road, but running out of the way when a vehicle is coming through.  American dogs just stand there and watch it coming.  I think it truly shows something interesting about learned animal behavior.

Another animal we have in abundance here is lizards.  It’s a good thing I like lizards.  There are even some huge, bright green iguanas.  I’ve seen three so far: two wild and one pet.  Jade and I even have our very own “pet” lizard that I named Reptar.  S/he hangs out in our front gated area and sometimes on our hanging laundry.  A few times s/he has been clinging to our screen door.  Reptar is about six inches nose to tail.  It’s only a matter of time before Reptar or another one of the abundant lizards or geckos finds its way into our house.  We’ve already had several frogs in our house.

The frogs are my favorite!  Call me crazy, but I absolutely love them.  Let me clarify… there are two main types of frogs that I know about here.  There are the tiny sonar frogs, as I like to call them, and then there are the giant frogs as big as your foot that are rarely seen alive, but more often seen in flat patties in the street.  My theory is that they are so large and slow they can’t hop out of the way fast enough.  This is a frog so big that you’d have to hold it with two hands if you picked it up.  Cool, but not my favorite.  I also heard that these are the kind of frogs you can lick to hallucinate, but I’m not positive about that and you’ll never see my face close enough to one to try.  My favorite is the little tiny sonar frogs that you can practically see through.  They come out the second it gets dark outside and they sing all night long.  Together they are a chorus as loud as the summer bugs in Arkansas, but if you hear one individually because of its close proximity, you’ll hear that it lets out this sonar beep.  Meep…meep…meep… all night long.  Because there are so many it just sounds like constant chirping, but individually I think it sounds like submarine sonar audio from a movie.  And how can you not love anything that tiny?  They’re just so stinkin’ cute!  They seem to dehydrate really easily.  A few have come in from under the door, but we saw them and saved them.  Two others made it in, but we didn’t find them until they were a dehydrated frame.  One had to have just been overnight, too.  I think they must be very fragile. 




Ready for the not so awesome creatures that inhabit our area?  Ninja mosquitoes.  That’s right.  Ninja.  Mosquitoes.  The mosquitoes here are stealthy I tell ya!  They’re stealthy because they often gnaw your legs up and down without you ever noticing.  They’re also stealthy because they seem to come into our house in groves.  Now Jade and I are fairly smart people; we should be able to figure out how it’s possible to have 60 mosquitoes in our house all at once, but no.  We can’t.  We’ve brainstormed every possible explanation and solution imaginable with no luck.  They’re ninjas.  The best part is that some of the mosquitoes here carry dengue fever.  I’ve been told the ones that carry dengue are the ones that are out during the day.  So there are basically rabid ninja mosquitoes here.  I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I’ll probably contract dengue at some point over the next two years.  At least the bats are plentiful and I like to think they’re keeping the mosquito population down and putting off my illness a little longer. 

There are also cockroaches.  Ugh my skin crawls just typing about them!  In the first week of living here the mother of all cockroaches came running from under our bed while Jade and I were in our room.  Jade practically wrestled it to the ground and used his hand to smack it so hard against the wall that it stopped moving.  I know the only way to kill them is with an atomic bomb and I actually don’t remember what Jade did with it after that.  I guess I blocked it from my memory.  The second one we never caught but I sprinkled poison powder around and haven’t seen it since.  The third was a very small one that went flying through our living room one evening last weekend.  Jade kicked it out of the air and then burned it for good measure.  I don’t know what I would do without him.

Grenada is also one giant ant hill with one queen ant deep in the center of the island.  I’ve never seen so many varieties of ants in one place before.  I hate the ones that bite me outside and the ones that scavenge for food in my kitchen.  But that’s life.  Everyone gets bit by ants outside and everyone has ants in their kitchen.

The last bugs I’m going to complain about are the millipedes and centipedes.  The millipedes are basically harmless and found fairly frequently around.  The centipedes are terrifying and I dread the day I come across one.  They’re long and fast and aggressive and they have about a billion legs and apparently they really, really hurt!  Ehh I don’t want to think about them anymore.  I’ll just let you know if I come across one and not talk about it again until then. 

Alright, well I’m going to quit rambling on and on.  I won’t promise, but I will try to not wait so long before I blog again.  Until then… enjoy.  And thanks for being patient.