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!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

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!

Halifax Harbor


Concord Falls






















Nutmeg and mace (the red stuff)













Kirani James' mom

Nutmeg


River Antoine Rum Distillery water wheel

Sugar cane on its way to have the liquid squeezed out

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Pollyanna the Super Wife


I've been flattered and really excited to have been featured on not one, but two blogs this summer!  And no, one of them isn’t mine.

In June I wrote for my sorority’s blog, Alpha Sigma Alpha.  It’s a neat blog for women of all ages and stages of life.  The topics vary from sorority related to just life related.  It's a single place for stories, perspectives and lessons from women across the country, and I think that's really unique.  I've had so many major life changes over the past year that I was compelled to write about how I’ve adapted to that.  If you want to read my guest post you can check it out here.

This month I was featured on a really great blog called Budget Blonde.  It’s run by my friend and fellow SO, Cat.  Cat’s blog is more professional than your typical SO blog and she is really going somewhere with it.  I’m often impressed by Cat’s wisdom and talents demonstrated in her blog, so I was thrilled and humbled when she asked me to write for her.  This post is about how I do my meal planning and grocery shopping in Grenada.  I hope you'll take the time to check both blogs out!

Monday, May 14, 2012

It's a Boy!


We can hardly believe our time on the island this term is coming to an end!  It doesn’t seem possible that we could be heading back to the US already, but we have to get in that mindset as we prepare to pack up again.  We’ll actually be home Thursday, but not before we go turtle watching one more time!  Time flies when you’re having fun!

As usual, I’m long overdue for a regular update on our life.  In a past post I talked about how I was gearing up for the Grensave International Food & Drink Festival, which took place in early March.  Several SO volunteers put in some good time preparing both the overall event and the American booth that would be there.  On the day of the event Marieke and I arrived pretty early to unload her car full of supplies and to help wherever we could.  A few countries were already there setting up and we jumped around between the American booth and general event setup.  A good portion of our time we spent at the gates collecting entrance fees from cars as they drove in.  Both of our husbands arrived at different times so we took breaks to enjoy the festival and go eat with them.  It was so awesome to see how many different countries are represented on this little island and be able to taste their culture.  I couldn’t possibly name all the booths there, but I especially enjoyed Brazil’s brigadeiros (little chocolate truffles rolled in coconut), China’s spring rolls, Venezuela’s little meat sandwiches and the smells coming from South Korea’s booth, even though I didn’t get to try any of their food before it sold out.  The SOs asked for donations of baked goods to sell and we received some really amazing treats.  Everything sold and we were able to give Grensave a donation of EC$664.25.  There were performances in addition to the food, activities for kids and other goods and crafts for purchase.  It was really a neat thing to be a part of.  We were worn out by the day’s end.

Though I had my camera with me, I was too busy to take any photos so all of these are courtesy of Emily Vacek.

Our awesome table decorations by the talented Becca


Marieke and I in front of the boards and video we made for Grensave

The Americans selling baked goods


















Since then, Marieke and I have been into the Grensave office on numerous occasions helping with other projects.  I’ve written an article on behalf of Grensave that is supposed to get published any week now.  I actually sent two versions to the director, so I’ll share whichever version gets printed in a later post.  Last time we went in we sorted donations for a large sale they were having.

Jade’s birthday was just a couple days after the festival.  It was their midterm week so we weren’t able to do much to celebrate on the actual day, but we did eat a nice dinner.  I got him an obscure gift, but something I knew he would absolutely love.  Wait for it…



















Yes, a machete.  That face says it all, doesn’t it?

Jade’s on his way to becoming a doctor with the instruments mom and dad got him.  Here’s another happy face.


Came in the form of an email; he'll get them soon though

That will be Dr. J King in a few years!
















































My friend Becca and I threw a joint birthday party for Jade and her husband Dean on the weekend following midterms.  Becca is a brilliant designer and awesome chef, so their party was really cool!  We made all sorts of treats and a lot of our friends joined us to celebrate the halfway point of the term and the boys’ birthdays. 





















The day after the party Jade and I went hashing.  It was Jade’s first hash and we brought along another couple who hadn’t gone before.  It ended up being a fairly intense hash, but it was a lot of fun.  Right on cue the rain began to pour as the first runners hit the trail.  And I mean it when I say it poured.  We had no choice but to make a run for it in order to not sink into the earth.  I could only partially see because the water just kept running into my eyes and flooding my contacts.  What could you do but laugh?  We all looked like drowned rats.  At one point we had to use a rope to climb up a big hill because it was too steep to climb without one.  The views were well worth it and photos could never capture the breathtaking views you get on a hash in Grenada.

Us with David and Holly BEFORE the rain

We ended up at the top of that hill at one point!











































The hash party afterwards was a typical hash party and I got to watch Jade earn his certificate like I did mine.  The photos of him getting sprayed with beer didn’t come out well because it was dark, but you can see the aftermath here.

The national dish, oil down, is usually served at the hash parties.






















And here is a good example of just how dirty we got!  That definitely isn’t a tan line.

















A few weeks later was the photography auction benefiting Grensave.  It was held by the SOO and planned by my friend, Emily.  Many SOs donated their photos from the island and a couple others donated their skills in the form of photo session packages.  There were even a couple photos of mine that made it into the auction.  We also sold brownie and ice cream sundaes, which were a big hit.  The auction raised almost $2,000!  It was an event I’d really been looking forward to and one I’m really proud to have been a part of.

The next week a group of SOs went to Annandale Falls and JessamineEden Botanical Gardens.  The falls and gardens are near the rain forest in the middle of the island.  There are so many different types of trees and flowers that grow here.  It’s really neat to just be able to walk through and photograph them.  While I’d been to the waterfall before, I’d never been to the gardens.  They were well kept and expansive.  The owners even have an apiary and sell different stages of raw honey.  While we were there a nice man explained the different types of honey and gave us a taste test of each.  We also tried honeybee pollen, which was kind of neat.  It was a really gorgeous place that I’d recommend everyone here go to at least once.





















Over the long Easter weekend a small group of us went to Carriacou, another Grenadian island.  It was an incredible trip that deserves its own blog post, complete with pictures.  More on that later!

Since being more involved this term, it has flown by even faster than the last.  I’ve been spending a lot of time wrapping up everything for my treasurer position and getting ready to pass all financial information along to the next treasurer.  I’ll be serving on the board again next term, but this time as the fundraising coordinator.  I’m really looking forward to it!

We’re finally able to say my parents and Jade’s little sister are planning to come visit us in February!  We’re so excited about it we can hardly wait!  I’ve already been thinking about all the things we’re going to take them to do.  It’s one thing to tell your loved ones about your awesome experiences, but another thing to actually share it with them.

Jade and I unexpectedly became parents to a kitten recently.  He was found by some friends in the bush behind their apartment complex.  They kept him while trying to find a home for him, but had to move him faster than expected when Emily started having allergies because of him.  We took him in and there was no going back.  Benny is our new baby and yes, even Jade loves him (Jade called him ‘son’ the other day).  I’m really excited to have Benny and take him back to Arkansas with us this summer!

Benny snoozing against Jade's hand

He also likes to cuddle with the mop

Benny is very playful, but he's so fast that we can't take good pictures of him awake!






















































See everyone soon!