Let's Catch Up

It's been a while since my last post, but I have been busy for quite some time now. Finally took the time to sit down and reflect on everything I've done in the past 3 months.

Let's start with the end of the school year. My co-teacher and I did an assessment for our first grade classroom. We got 11 out of 12 of my students to read. The 12th one can read, but is too shy to read in front of teachers. Last day of school was July 4th and the following week was CARNIVAL!

Carnival was a vibe that I can't describe in words. It was amazing and I can't wait to enjoy it next year. This year, I joined the Ahdrenaline Band for their theme "Road to Valkyrie." My Valkyrie was named Kara. I'd post the videos on here, but it doesn't come out as clear, so feel free to go to my instagram page The Brooke Moment to see all the pictures and videos I posted.

After carnival was over, I went back to the states to visit family and I FINALLY got to meet my beautiful nephew. This little boy makes my heart smile in ways it hasn't before. The first day I got back, I took him shopping with me to give my sister a break for a few hours.

I spent time a lot of time with family.  Got to catch a Sox game and it was decent.

 

Got to catch up with friends as well!

I looked forward to eating all of the food I had missed only to realize that my stomach was now accustomed to the island food. I eat a lot of produce and forgot how over processed food can be in the US. So, I got some not so great tummy aches.

When I came back to Vincy, it was the week before my birthday. I got a manicure (the first in a year) and my eyebrows done. My boyfriend and I rented a car and went to a waterfall called Dark View Falls and a nice restaurant/lounge called Flow Wine Bar. I had a good birthday!

 

I got to board the Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan ship that docked in Vincy for a few days last month.

I went to a Grenadine island called Bequia last Friday with a few of the volunteers for a day trip. We spent the day at a hotel with great drinks, good food and enjoyed swimming in the pool.  I'm definitely going back soon.

Tomorrow is my first day back to school and I'm ready for it. However, it's also the first day of my last year with Peace Corps. I'm going to enjoy every last bit of it. I just need to remember to post more on my blog and instagram! 

Jellyfish!!!

I went back to the Owia Salt Ponds with a few friends at the end of May. I blogged about my first time going back in March. While swimming, a friend of mine wanted me to join him on a rock. As I began to climb it, something stung my leg and it started burning really bad. I was in the water for 30 minutes before this happened. Someone had to help me back to shore.

When I was finally out of the water, I saw this:

It felt like I got stung by 5 bees, it hurt so bad. Two of the men from the Owia community approached me when they saw I got pulled out of the water. They saw the welt on my leg and said that I wasn't supposed to go near that particular rock. One man said that the yellow seaweed on the rock is alive and can sting you. The other man said that something on the rock comes out to sting you.

I waited 20 minutes for the pain to go away and ate lunch before getting back in the water. I stayed away from the rock for the remainder of the time that I was there and walked back home. Although it happened, I still had a good time!

When I got home, I googled "seaweed that stings you." This article came up with photos of the same seaweed that's on the rock. However, it has something attached to it.

According to the article, this is a Hydroid. Hydroids are colonies of tiny inverted jellyfish that attach themselves to seaweed. I don't know how many stung me, but it was definitely more than one.

Here is a photo of the sting that I took the next day.

One week later.

One month later. It took a month, but it's basically gone now. 

A fellow volunteer had a friend visit her from the U.S. and I made sure to tell them both to stay away from the rock! When you get in the water and it starts to get deep, it's on the left side. You'll know because it's half up out of the water and on the right are huge rocks that people dive off of. Either way, it's still a beautiful place to go to and swim. The scenery alone will calm and relax you. 

Rainforest with a side of Petroglyphs

It's been a while since my last blog post because I have been busy. The students have finals this week and school is almost over, so I have time now to post.

Two things that I did in April were going to see a petroglyph and walking through a rainforest with some friends. The petroglyph I went to see is called Rutland Vale which is located in a community called Layou. First we went to a room with pictures of petroglyphs in Barraouallie, Petit Bordel, Buccament and other communities here in St. Vincent. They're beautiful and I'm hoping to see the other ones before leaving the island.

 

The scenery around the petroglyph is breathtaking. You have to cross a stream to get to it by walking over rocks.

Here is the Rutland Vale petroglyph. If you look closely at the picture, the drawing is at the top of the rock, on the left and in the middle.

The next stop was the rainforest. Vermont Nature Trail is a tourist site here in St. Vincent. I haven't gone to a nature trail since my camping days as a kid.

 

It took us 2 hours to get through the trail, but probably would have been less if 1) it hadn't rained that morning and made the path muddy and 2) we didn't stop to take a lot of pictures and videos. 

  

 

One of the times we stopped, I channeled my inner Tarzan. 

The first half of the rainforest has planted trees and the second half is just the rainforest itself. I was hoping to see the Amazona Guildingii which is the national bird of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. However, I could only hear the sound they made. The trail isn't hard to walk and has a few resting spots. Surprisingly, I didn't get bit by any mosquitoes.  

Overall, it was a great day. I had never seen a petroglyph or a rainforest in person. Now that I have, I plan on going again some day. If you ever come to Vincy, you have to visit both!

Arts & Crafts with the Brownies

Each week, I spend 2 hours with the Brownies at my school. The Brownies are a part of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGS). The students age from 8-11, 3rd to 6th grade.

My host mom is the girl guide for the group and asked me to be in charge of arts and crafts.  The first meeting I attended was in November. We made a picture out of color sand, beans and glue. Guess what I made?

The next meeting, I showed them how to make dream catchers using circles cut from cardboard, yarn, and feathers made out of paper. I forgot to buy beads, but the girls had fun making them.

I am trying to increase the girls creativity level. You don't have to use scissors and construction paper all of the time. So we painted pods from the shak shak tree behind the school.

There was a Brownies Camp during the spring break, so I taught the girls how to crochet bracelets. I started when I was 19 or 20 and absolutely love it. Only 3 of the girls learned how to do it, while the others just braided their bracelets. One of the girls made a headband with some left over yarn that a few girls weren't using. 

For the next 3-4 meetings, I will be teaching them how to draw. Some of them have told me that they don't know how to draw, so I want to fulfill that need for them. I know how to doodle (mainly when I'm bored), so I'm learning how to draw by watching Youtube videos. I will blog about how it goes next month. 

Owia Salt Ponds

I went to the Owia Salt Ponds with two other volunteers a few weeks ago. Owia is located far north on the windward side (east side) of the island. It's an hour and a half walk from where I live. The salt ponds were created during the 1979 volcano eruption here in St. Vincent. When the lava cooled down from the ocean water, it formed big rocks that surrounded a small area for water to wash in and deep enough to swim in.

I hadn't gone swimming since December, so I was excited to go to the Salt Ponds. You have to bring shoes that you can get wet because the rocks are very slippery. We put our stuff down by two big rocks and then walked into the water until we got to the pool. There wasn't much sun when we arrived, but it was really hot nonetheless. It rained for a 10 minutes and then afterward, the sun came out.

Some of the locals came and started diving off of the rocks. I wasn't brave enough to do it, but it was fun seeing them go one after the other.

The waves hitting the rocks was an amazing sight to see. I borrowed swimming goggles from a friend and they definitely come in handy because under the sea is so beautiful. If you stay still, you can see all of the fish moving and they're not afraid to swim close to you. I'm really looking forward to going back within the next few months and I'll be sure to buy some goggles before I go. 

Performing Arts May Never Die

"Your students can learn the arts as well as learn through the arts." 

~ Andrew Miller

Each March, there is a performing arts competition called Primary School Performing Arts Festival (PRISPAF) that takes place in each primary school around the island. The festival is sponsored by St. Vincent's own Ju-C, a non-alcoholic beverage company. All of the students in the school participate and show off their talents. Only three acts are chosen to move on to the next level which takes place in two weeks. Monday was our PRISPAF at Tourama Government School and the students did such a good job!

Below is the performance from my first grade class, doing a folk song called "Carry Me Breadfruit."

Here is a dancing performance from two sisters.

I was so happy to see that the students partake in performing arts and I learned that the school has won the competition two years in a row. I'm hoping we win again as we go into the second round. Even if we don't, like the students said (video at the top) performing arts may never die!

Working on the Library

My service with Peace Corps in the Eastern Caribbean is based on English Literacy. I'm working with a 1st grade class at Tourama Government School to enhance reading and writing skills. However, I have been tasked with a secondary project: fixing up the school's library. It needs to be cleaned out and redecorated.

The students have a say in what their library should look like, so I asked all the students at the school what their favorite cartoon characters were. I would like to paint them on the outside and the inside of the library. I'm now trying to learn how to draw Spiderman and Paw Patrol, so I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Books are being donated to the library from Hands Across the Sea once I get the library cleaned out. All the books that were in the library were put in boxes to be sorted. Some have been given to teachers for useful material in the classroom and others will be sold in a book sale to bring more money into the school. I will post updates on the work being done in the library. However, I am just getting started.

When I Grow Up

"Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us."

~Susan L. Taylor

Normally, I teach Language Arts, but I taught the Social Studies lesson for today. In light of Black History Month, I wanted to teach the students in my class about some of the African American heroes that have gone done in history for great things. We went to the computer lab to watch a video on Youtube.

The video was on Mae Jemison, George Washington Carver, Madam C.J. Walker, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and Garret A. Morgan. I paused the video a lot to explain things about each person and what they did to contribute to society. When we got to Madam C.J. Walker and the hot comb, I explained to kids how it worked and how my grandma used to always straighten my hair in the morning before going to church. The video ended with Mae Jemison's quote: "I always knew I'd go to space."

Afterward, I talked to the students about the power of the tongue and how you can speak things into existence. I asked each one of them what they wanted to be when they grew up and that if they spoke it out loud and believed in themselves, that they could do it. When we went back into the classroom, I had them write down what they wanted to be. One of the girls in my class said she wanted to be a doctor, but changed it to a nurse and I told her that there are doctors who are women as well. After they wrote what they wanted to be, they had to write "I can do it!"

 

This lesson was important to me because I was able to share a part of my culture with my class and co-teacher. Also, I wanted them to know that just like these historical African American men and women, they could accomplish anything they wanted. It warmed my heart to hear them chant "I can do it!"

Nice Radio Station

Last Wednesday, I was invited to do an interview on Nice Radio Station, where 30 minutes is allotted to Peace Corps. The program was started by a volunteer named Tom over 20 years ago. 

The current hosts are fellow volunteers, Myranda and Ford. We talked about my life before Peace Corps and how my service has been so far while in St. Vincent. Down below is a recording of the 

radio show. I hope I'm able to go back by end of year to give an update about my service. You can listen to the radio show by clicking on the link below. 

https://soundcloud.com/brooklyn-dun/radio-interview 

Valentines Day

"All you need is love. But chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." ~Charles M. Schulz

On Valentine's Day, everyone came to school in red, pink and white. In my class, we did a chocolate exchange where the students came to school with chocolate bars and candy (spending up to $5) to give to a classmate. I wrapped some of them in construction paper and my co-teacher wrote their names on them. 

At break time, they did the exchange and we had them find who it was for. We had to help some of them though because they got the names confused if they started with the same letter. 

They were happy to receive the sweet treats and ate them during break time. One of my students received a big chocolate bar with fruit and nuts in it. She ate half and gave the other half to me accompanied by a hug, which put a huge smile on my face. I had never tried it before and it was really good. 

My co-teacher even got me a gift. A wine glass decorated with hearts on it and chocolate in the inside. 

Valentine's Day isn't the only day we should show love to each other, but it is nice to give something to someone and receive something from someone. The smiles on their faces was worth it. 

I hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine's Day!