The Kings are Konquering Grenada: Ask Me About...Toxoplasmosis

When Jade and I returned to Grenada this semester, we could hardly believe it was our third trip to the island. That means we've been here for a year, minus the breaks. We had a wonderful summer, but we were grateful to get back to our house and life here. This summer Jade was able to work back at the hospital in surgery. Having some medical school under his belt gave him a different experience and understanding when back on the job. Doing surgeries really helped to solidify what he'd learned over the last year. He also went to Port-au-Prince, Haiti for a week to volunteer his scrub tech skills. As you can imagine, it was a life changing experience. He learned to treat people with limited resources and learned a great deal about himself in the process. He hopes to go again and I couldn't be happier with his interest in this area of medicine.

I drove to Nevada with my dad for the birth of my nephew, Landon. We met my mom there and stayed a couple weeks, visiting family, old friends and former stomping grounds. It was nice to visit my original home and be nostalgic for a while. I got to eat at the places I crave while in Arkansas (or anywhere else for that matter), see my beautiful Lake Tahoe and even go to my first major rodeo. I visited the neighbors I grew up with, coworkers of my parents who watched me grow up, high school friends and even a new friend who I met in Grenada (small world, huh?). I'm thankful for the trip because it was great to revisit all those old experiences, but it also reminded me that change is good and that I'm thankful for the way my life has turned out.

My newborn nephew, Landon

Zephyr Cove, Lake Tahoe

Once new parents and baby were adjusted to their new life, my parents and I drove north. We drove to Oregon to see an old family friend and had a nice time catching up. From Oregon we drove to Idaho to surprise my good friend Kyle, who had just started his first tour when we headed to Nevada. See, Landon came early and threw off my plans to see Kyle in Nevada. He of course couldn't change the tour dates so I had to go see him. It was great to walk into the venue where he was setting up for his show and watch his confused face put the pieces together. My parents and I stayed for his show and were able to see him perform the song he wrote for my wedding. It was a great, but entirely too short surprise. From Idaho we drove to Yellowstone National Park, which I had never been to. We spent a full day driving from the north entrance to the south and stopped at multiple points of interest. The park is incredibly beautiful and has such varying landscapes. My favorite part was seeing wild buffalo. They're just so massive! I wanted so badly to see a moose, but we did get to see a bear on our way out of the park. In total, my parents and I covered twelve states on our road trip.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Old Faithful

Jade and I had our first anniversary this summer, so we took a little trip by ourselves. We spent two days in Branson, Missouri eating good food, visiting a winery and amusement park, racing go-karts (which I won, by the way) and exploring shops. From Branson we drove back down to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where we stayed at a big cat refuge. Turpentine Creek rescues exotic cats, and some other wildlife, that have been neglected or abandoned. They have a few types of lodging where people can come and stay, with the added benefit of seeing the animals after park hours. At dusk the cats become more active and vocal and it's truly an incredible experience to feel the reverberations of their deafening calls to one another. When not checking out the animals, we checked out the historic town, ate tasty food and even got massages. It was wonderful.

"So like I was saying..."

This is what I hope Benny grows into.

The ligers were so huge!

Our final trip of the summer took us to Kentucky, where Jade, his mom, sister and myself went to visit Jade's great aunt and uncle. It was much too short of a trip, but we had a great time visiting with them and being shown around Louisville. His aunt and uncle have lead fascinating lives and have so much wisdom to share. Kentucky, and a quick drive over the river into Indiana, lead to me visiting sixteen states this summer, not counting Arkansas. But hey, Jade added another country to his passport, and that's hard to beat!

And so our summer quickly came to an end. We arrived in Grenada without luggage, but received it a few days later. We weren't sure how long it would take to get our luggage because we arrived in the midst of Carnival, which is essentially three days of country-wide celebrations. Everything closes for Carnival.

Dating back to the 1700s, the French would have masquerade balls the slaves were prohibited from participating in. The slaves were said to have organized their own parties with costumes they made out of whatever they could get. After slavery, when former slaves began participating in the activities, the masquerades became more influenced by African cultural dances and musical forms. The elite Europeans eventually abandoned these practices and the activities evolved into costumed street parades with dancing and pounding music. Groups from different villages would participate and thus created rivalries. Many of these aspects can be seen in today's Carnival in the costumes, competitions and dancing. Modern day Carnival has a pageant for a Carnival queen and a king, steelband contests, an event depicting the former slaves scaring off the masqueraders, a competition for soca and calypso singers, and much more. The events are judged and a group (called a band) is declared band of the year. "The feeling of emancipation brings together peoples of all statuses, celebrating to the intoxicating sound of music, dance and food into a pageantry of colourful costumes, talent shows and parades that takes the breath away," said a Grenada tourism site. I couldn't have said it better myself.

It's something I'd been looking forward to all year. We could have attended some of the events in our first couple days on the island in 2011, but we were still trying to figure things out and honestly didn't know what Carnival was, besides a crazy party. Jade and I went with another couple to see some of Monday Night Mas. The different bands, made up of a truck blaring music followed by an organized group dancing to the music, were aglow with different lighted objects. It was electrifying, even for an onlooker who wasn't participating. We also went to Pageant Mas, which is the iconic parade of colorful costumes. Despite the intense heat, it was fun to watch and be a part of in a small way. Next year I want to go to J'ouvert to see people covered in paint!

Monday Night Mas

A beautiful day by Port Louis

Shortknee masqueraders

Spectators enjoying the sights and cuisine

For Jade, the term started with just two classes that were a couple weeks long. It was a nice, slow ease back into school after such a long break. After the first day of classes, Jade came back and told me about his interesting parasitology class and the great Dr. teaching it. I was really interested in what Jade was describing because the health issues they had talked about, and would be learning about, were primarily concentrated in developing countries. I started going to class with him and really enjoyed it! While some stuff was over my head, much of it Jade was learning for the first time as well. There are some crazy parasites out there that many people could be spared with fairly simple solutions. It gave me a lot of ideas for helping people and further fed my dream that in the future, Jade and I would be able to work together in complimentary ways. Also, I was serious about asking me about toxoplasmosis. I'm rather proud of the fact that I, the one without any science background, learned things in medical school.

I have to brag on Jade for a moment and let everyone know he got his first A of medical school in those first two weeks! An A in med school is a big deal!

Around that time I spent two days doing a full island tour with Terri and her husband, Oren. Jade and I obviously gave such a fantastic campus and area tour that Ryan decided to come to SGU. Terri and Oren moved Ryan down here for his first term, and the three of us did a little sightseeing while our students were in class. We had the greatest tour operator who made the days so informative and enjoyable! I really mean it. Allan picked us up each morning and safely took us all over the island. He was incredibly knowledgeable and kind. When he found out I'd been living here as an SO, he flattered me by saying there were two Grenadians giving the tour. On the first day we drove up the east coast road and hiked to Mt. Carmel Falls (the highest waterfall in Grenada), passed through Grenville, hiked to the first two of Seven Sisters Falls, and stopped at Grand Etang Lake where Allen caught a fish with just his hands and bread crumbs. And the best part... I finally got to hang out with a wild monkey in Grand Etang! I've been wanting to see and feed the monkeys up there for a year now! It was so neat, and so tame. Allan bought us bananas to lure the monkeys out (who come when you honk your car horn, oddly enough). After just a minute of standing outside and a few honks, one came wandering up behind us from across the road. We just handed it banana after banana and took photos while it nonchalantly ate. Allen had me back up to the monkey while he held a banana over my head so it would sit on my shoulder. So. cool. It didn't mind me petting it or anything. The whole experience was just really neat; I could have stayed there for a long time watching the monkey do his thing.

Mt. Carmel

Two of the seven sisters

Seven Sisters

Flora of Grenada

Seven Sisters is in that valley you see back there!

After some hesitation, I held the fish.

On the second day of touring we went up the west coast road. It's so beautiful to drive up that side of Grenada! The west side is where you get the picturesque clear Caribbean Sea and beautiful beaches. It isn't that the east side isn't beautiful, but it's the Atlantic Ocean side, which means it's much choppier and harder to see in the water. We drove past Halifax Harbor, which is a small bay with a shipwreck in it. The boat did not totally sink, but there is talk of it being taken further out and sunk for a dive site and a place for coral to grow. Next we went to Concord Falls, which I had never been to. It's a narrow drive to reach the falls, but requires no hiking to see the first waterfall. There are three waterfalls that make up the Concord Falls. It was very pretty and someplace I plan to return to. We continued north to Dougaldston Estate, a 1700s plantation. There we learned about many local spices and fruits, including the cocoa process from tree to edible chocolate. After the estate we drove through the town of Gouyave, known for Fish Friday, where we stopped at the Nutmeg Processing Station. I knew a little about nutmeg at the time, but not the whole process of picking it from the tree to getting it ready for exportation. We went on a short tour to see each stage of the process. Now, the whole island is still abuzz from Kirani James' gold medal win, which was the first Olympic medal for Grenada, but it was even more so back when we did this tour. Kirani is from Gouyave. Well wouldn't you know, I met his mother while on the tour! She works at the station and was so kind as to stop and take a photo with us (since I'm kind of Grenadian myself). She told us how proud she was of him and that she was looking forward to his homecoming. I sort of felt like I met a celebrity, or at least the mother of one. After we finished the tour, we drove to the northern tip of the island.

We first stopped at Carib's Leap in Sauteurs, where you can see the islands north of Grenada in the distance. Leaper's Hill is where the Caribs jumped several hundred feet to their deaths rather than surrender to the French. There is a beautiful church, school and cemetery that overlook the ocean there. Next, we drove to Bathway and Lavera Beaches to see Sugar Loaf Island. Bathway and Lavera are where most leatherback sea turtles lay their eggs in our area. We continued on to River Antoine Rum Distillery, which is still operated by a water wheel. It is also said to be the oldest operating rum distillery in the Caribbean. It was my second time to tour this distillery, but the original process is really neat to see. We didn't stay there too long because we were all quite hungry. We went to Belmont Estate for a lunch buffet. The food was really good and you can't beat the setting. All around the lush vegetation covers the mountains as far as you can see. Allen had already showed us the cocoa process so we didn't take Belmont's tour, but we did walk around to see the animals after lunch. I'd had high hopes of purchasing local goat cheese while at Belmont, but they were already sold out for the day. My advice to fellow SOs: stock up on goat cheese from Belmont when you can. It's delicious and the cheapest place to buy it on the island. When we left Belmont, we drove by Pearls Airport, which is not really an airport at all. It is a 5,000 foot airstrip that opened in 1943. The current airport replaced it in 1984, but the most interesting thing about Pearls is that it is the home of two damaged aircraft that remain beside the runway. One plane was a gift from the Soviet Union while the other is a damaged Cuban plane that didn't make it back after the 1983 intervention. We took the scenic route home through Grand Etang, around the national stadium, the prime minister's residence, the forts of St. George's, past Woburn Bay and Hog Island. It was such a great couple days that made me look forward to when my own family is here to do some of the same things. I can't wait!