Camp Lajwa

Following is a portion of an email I received a few days ago from a fellow volunteer, Scott Hill, calling for volunteers to help with a camp for special needs citizens of St. Lucia. I have been to a few of the planning sessions for this camp and was placed in charge of the camp's T-shirt design, shown below. The National Council of and for Persons with Disabilities motto is "The Ability to Overcome the Disability," so this is what I kept in mind when creating the logo.


(Scott's email - )
Sheldon is a 16 year old who has muscular dystrophy, which attacks the muscular system. Sheldon lives in an isolated area of St. Lucia. His family is poor and does not own a vehicle. Symptom free when he was born, his disease began to manifest itself when he was about 5 years old and has progressed to the point where he no longer has any use of his arms, hands or legs. He cannot comfortably sit in his wheelchair for more than 30 minutes at a stretch so he spends most of his days lying down. Although he is a bright and engaging teen, his days are spent watching TV or listening to music as he has not attended school for several years. As a consequence of all these factors, Sheldon has few friends and virtually no social or recreational outlets.

The National Council of and for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) is sponsoring Camp Lajwa (translation: Camp Joy) in mid-July for Sheldon and 99 other children with disabilities. The camp will be broken into two groups for the first day (Pigeon Island for the north, somewhere in or near Soufriere for the south); this day will mostly be taken up with arts and crafts, swimming, some athletics, and other activities. The two camps will come together in the southern part of the island for the second day for friendly competition (sack races, etc.) and other activities.

(Scott and his wife, Lois' blog can be found here.)

Some Kids and a Book and Me

My latest project is a biweekly reading group at the Soufriere Primary School. Last week I distributed announcements to the third and fourth grade classes inviting students to hear a story before school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Expecting only a few students to show, I was delighted to find a group of more than 40 kids waiting for Tuesday’s reading. Today gathered only a few less with 37. We are reading Roald Dahl’s The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me in segments and enjoying every page. I was impressed today to see how well the children remembered what we read last week and look forward to the coming weeks of morning stories!

Frame Work

CARE is an acronym for "Center for Adolescent Renewal and Education." The CARE School is a catchall for any students unable to continue attending regular secondary school for whatever reason (mental illness, developmental delays, behavioral problems, having a baby, etc.)

This is where, every Monday afternoon, I teach an art lesson to some or all of the 25 students at the Soufriere campus. The students’ motor skills cover a wide range of ability, so I always choose projects that anyone can do but that can also be improved upon and expanded.

I was lucky enough to have two extra helpers for this week’s craft, my mom and younger sister! Mom and Em were here this week for a quick Spring Break visit and made Monday’s craft session one of the best yet.

A few weeks ago I had the students join me on the beach to gather seaglass, pieces of broken bottles and dishes tumbled by the sand creating smooth and colorful little objects, perfect for art projects. With the glass the students collected we decorated photo frames to be sold at this year’s CARE School Nation Exhibition, a day for all the island’s five CARE Schools to display what they’ve been working on during the year. I have no doubt the frames will be a hit, especially due to expert instruction by Julia and Em! Thanks, ladies!

Bon Appetit

One great commonality among nearly every Peace Corps Volunteer’s experience is the daunting and often downright dangerous task of preparing three meals a day without the aid of microwaves, mothers or McDonald’s. For those of us fresh off cafeteria meal-plans and Wal-Mart brand frozen dinners, a diverse and healthy diet just isn’t in the cards.
In college my idea of a home-cooked meal was a frozen chicken breast turned from solid to succulent on a George Foreman Grill, a steam-in-the-microwave bag of broccoli and a Coors Light, chilled from scratch. These days I am lucky if my three daily meals turn out to be three different foods. I have little doubt that my efforts to teach myself to cook would be endearing and frankly adorable were anyone around to witness these daily debacles, help me laugh them off and promptly take me out to dinner. As it stands I frequently end up eating unrecognizable blobs of things which were supposed to have been quite different and very, well, recognizable blobs of things. And no one laughs.
I do continue to work on it and in that vein have just bought a big bag of fresh garlic cloves and stashed it in my refrigerator, the only place truly safe from ants. I hear garlic is good for the immune system, and I don’t want my ants to be any harder to kill. Now everything in my fridge, including cereal and peanut butter, tastes just a little bit like garlic. I don’t mind - just owning real garlic makes me feel like I can actually cook. I like this feeling because it helps to combat all the things that make me feel like I can’t cook, like when I try to cook.
The latest addition to my growing culinary repertoire is “Fancy Garlic Bread.” It is important to note that my dishes are always easier to name than to prepare and often easier to prepare than to eat. For this dish you just mash up some garlic, mash up some butter, mash the two together and mash it on some bread. As this recipe requires only three ingredients and a spoon, there is little room for error or injury, exactly the kind of recipe I prefer. Yesterday I had this dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For dinner, to spice things up a bit, I dipped the bread in a can of spaghetti sauce. This is not a joke.
Other menu items include “Fancy Grapefruit Squares,” which is a grapefruit cut into square-shaped pieces (that is where things get “fancy”) and “Fancy Ketcharoni and Cheese,” which is regular macaroni and cheese plus ketchup (the ketchup, as you may have guessed, is what lends the dish its “fanciness.”) I had formerly been referring to these foods as “Special Garlic Bread,” “Special Grapefruit Squares” and “Special Ketcharoni and Cheese,” but due to strict Peace Corps anti-drug policies I decided to make a few modifications to avoid confusion and/or being sent back to the U.S.

Visitors Welcome

I live in one of two downstairs apartments in a lovely home near Soufriere's center, a short walk from my workplace, the grocery store, the gym and the post office (the four places I most frequently go.) Above and behind me lives the Gilbert family which includes a cute little girl whose favorite hobby is peeking into my windows every chance she gets. This is something every Peace Corps Volunteer on the planet is told to expect.
The senior Gilberts are my friendly landlords (their daughter's family being the younger branch of the family tree, living to the back of my part of the house.) They are wonderful - they sweep the water from my porch after a rain and take my garbage to the street on Mondays and Thursdays. Sometimes Mrs. Gilbert (the "Miss Lucy" mentioned in a previous post. I call her both.) brings me pumpkin bread. I have more than once been grateful to have my home's proprietors living just a few steps away (specifically when I flooded the kitchen, broke the bathroom light, messed up the cable wire and locked myself out. Twice. Clearly I have never lived alone before.)
I have one of the nicest bathrooms of all St. Lucia volunteers (and we compare, trust me) but I only shower directly after exercising so the freezing water is bearable. A day without a workout means a day without a shower, with offensively few exceptions.
My favorite part of my house is the brand new entertainment center I made myself with a little help from a random guy with a saw (to cut the wood) and a random guy with a wheelbarrow (to tote the blocks.) This area is called the "Media Center" because it houses my television, books and guitar.
The "Media Center" is not to be confused with the "Technology Station," which is an upside-down toaster-oven box where I keep my cell phone, ipod and camera battery chargers.

My favorite part of the day is sitting by my window in the morning, sipping coffee and writing in my journal or penning letters to you fine folks.

I love my little apartment and it is starting to feel much more homey (read: cluttered) and comfortable. Special special special thanks to the darling people who sent me knicks and knacks to make the place brighter. Visitors welcome!

A Little Light Reading

During my long, slow summer in Tennessee this year I spent lots of time reading books with cover art that usually involved high heels, bearing titles with cleverly altered classic rock lyrics, slightly nauseating puns or a combination of the two with a fashion designer’s name thrown in. Now I’m reading books with names like “Looking Inside the Classroom: Reflecting on the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’ in effective reading and instruction,” and “Text Talk: Capturing the benefits of read-aloud experiences for young children.” I am disappointed to find that shockingly few of these works have anything to do with a juicy romance, an inspiring adventure or a wardrobe make-over and none of their covers are pink.

I’m reading these ultra-boring things in an attempt to devise a plan to improve the Language Arts program at the Soufriere Primary School. This, in even fewer words, has been my only job description for the next two years of my life. So, because I grew up with Jim Dyer as a dad, I just grabbed every single book I could find about reading and grammar and teaching and am desperately devouring them as if they were SAT prep books a week before the test. I have abandoned my vision of me (looking fabulous but not so fabulous as to scare people – certainly not sweating) gliding into a classroom full of happy, quiet children, sitting in a circle of bright and interested faces and singing the “Getting to Know You” song from The King and I. Closer to reality were my pre-Peace Corps fears of me (looking thrown-together at best – certainly sweating) stumbling into a raucous mess of screeching kids, begging the attention of distracted, apathetic faces and humming a funeral dirge. Real life falls somewhere in the middle but leans toward the latter.

On a happier note - only yesterday I was established as the CARE School (mentioned in an earlier post) Arts and Crafts Program Senior Coordinator (a title I made up and will definitely not tell anyone at the school about.) Now every Monday afternoon I will have craft hour with the 25 students at the school, starting with simple projects then working up to something they can sell at the national CARE School Craft Exhibition. It would be difficult to over-estimate how excited I am about getting started and have been furiously researching kids’ craft projects that can be done with little resources and recycled found objects (my specialty.) Any and all project suggestions are welcome, and thanks already to Robley Hood for the “Single Page Book” instructions, which I plan on using for our first session!

The Ant Trap

One Sunday morning in October I sat writing letters in the kitchen of my host mother’s house. I was waiting for an important phone call from the Peace Corps office about my future housing, so decided not to accompany Margaret Rose (host-mom) to mass. She was standing just a few feet away from me when a car horn honked and suddenly she shouted “COME, HALLIE. COME!” with such stern command that I wondered if she’d gotten a puppy, named it Hallie and forgotten to tell me about it. In confusion I just stood up and looked at her, waiting for a little clarification. She didn’t move and neither did I until she said “COME, HALLIE. PUT THE CAKE HERE!” and pointed to a set of bowls on the counter, a small one filled with water inside a larger, shallow one also holding water. I looked all around me and didn’t know where to come and didn’t see a cake but it was clear we were having an emergency, so I just calmly said “I’m sorry, Margaret Rose. I don’t know what’s going on.” At that she gave an exasperated huff and bolted out the door to the waiting car. I ran after her and was handed the mystery cake. Margaret Rose looked me square in the eye like she was about to tell me some seriously serious bad news, paused and said “Ants,” got in the car and rode away.

So here’s how the ant trap works – as with every morsel of unsecured food, the cake attracts the attention of all ants within a 12 mile radius. Because this is the Caribbean the ants would think of this distance in kilometers. The cake-hungry bugs crawl up the white bowl toward the prize and drown in the water. If the ants can swim (and some can) they make it to the second bowl but are usually pretty tuckered out and so cannot muster the strength to scale the cake-plate upside down. The few Lance Armstrong ants that do get to the cake are too exhausted to eat.