Hashurday

One Saturday in November (yes, I do realize it's January now, sorry about that), I got together with some other SOs to do what's called a Hash.  Basically, a Hash is a big running/walking event that takes place somewhere on the island every Saturday.  The trail is scouted out and marked beforehand, and everyone just gets together to either walk or run (there are two trails) through some cool, secluded areas.  This was my first Hash, and I walked it--if you know me, you know that running is not my idea of a good time--with Mallory and her husband Garrett. 

Mallory and I had been promising each other for weeks that we'd go together since all our other friends like running and we....don't.  So we finally did, and we completely regretted it during the first part.  So.  Many.  Hills.

Here's one of the hills from halfway up.  Note that you cannot see the bottom.

And here is the rest of that hill facing the other way (I totally used picture-taking as an excuse to rest here!)  The hill continues up and to the left there, past that house and up behind it to the right.  And this was just one of the 4 or 5 hills.  Mallory and I were definitely cursing our former vigor for Hashing.

But eventually, we got to the top of all the hills and it was pretty much all downhill from there, and we were out of the little town and in the jungle/forest-y area, which was much prettier.

Here's Mallory with the donkey we found randomly tied to a tree in the middle of the forest.  There were many inappropriate jokes about Mallory and her cute little...well, you know.

We were some of the last people back because we kept not paying attention to trail markers and missed a turn not once, not twice, but three times and had to turn around, go back, and figure out where we had gone wrong.  But finally, we made it back.  And here's where things took an exciting turn.

 

They were selling some cheap local food at the end for those of us who actually made it.  (Please ignore the sweat stains.  It's really hot and humid here.)  My food was great, but poor Mallory made an unpleasant discovery in hers.



 

I made the picture extra large so you'd be sure to notice it.  That is a piece of pork.  Mallory said, "Ew, there's hair on it!"  One of the other SOs said, "...so pick it off."  Mallory replied, "NO!  There's HAIR on it!!!"  Yup, that's pig hair, my friends.  I had to talk her into not throwing it away immediately so I could take this picture.  That is genuinely what her face looked like during this ordeal.  No more pork for Mallory.

 

 

Here is my, admittedly too cheerful, attempt to explain to everyone else that it was pig hair and not human hair.  Mallory was too traumatized to express herself clearly.

 

 

After we had all eaten, they asked all first-time Hashers to come forward.  I had heard some rumors and was pretty sure about what came next, but all our friends were adamant that we go up, so I played along.  Here we are all listening to the man giving the speech about Hashing.  Notice the people with bottles behind us.

 

We got sprayed with beer.  The picture on the left was taken the second they started spraying.  The picture on the right is me apologizing to Mallory because between these two pictures, I jumped in between her and her husband and crouched down to avoid getting too wet.  Notice how soaked the two of them are compared to me. :) Mallory may or may not have aimed some expletives at me during the beer shower.

 



 

But here we are, friends again, with our certificates saying we survived a Hash!  The best part was getting home to Bryant, who immediately asked, "Why do you smell like beer?  And why are you all sticky?"  I followed that up with a real hot-water-and-soap shower and went to bed.

Thankful

Sometimes I get so caught up in what I don't have here that I forget to be thankful for what I do.  I still love it here in Grenada, but on a daily basis I catch myself sighing wistfully and thinking, "If only there was [a Target, a Wal-Mart, well-paved roads, garbage cans with lids to keep out the cats,  etc.]!" So here's my post of all the things I'm grateful for here.  Some of them are more sarcastic than others, but it's all meant from a place of love.

• An apartment with 12 foot ceilings and lots of windows (it's always so bright in here!)
• A great landlord
• Getting to smile every time a local says anything with a "th" in it

This menu was obviously printed by a Grenadian who decided that since no one in Grenada pronounces the "th" correctly, they might as well get rid of that silly "h"

• Warm weather every day
• Fruits that always keep you guessing

Which ones are the lemons and which ones are the limes?  Yes, those yellow ones are the limes.  Well done.

• Books
• Internet

So much online TV watching...

• A government that is willing to lend us hundreds of thousands of dollars so that Bryant can pursue his dream while I hang out in the sun
• The beach

• The pool

One day a palm tree branch fell on the pool.  Luckily, Mallory was there to heave it out and pose for me.  So, I'm also thankful that no one has been injured in the pool (seriously, that thing was HEAVY)

• SOs who are always around to have a good time with

• Friends (this includes most of those SOs)
• Fences that keep the big scary dogs in their yards
• The critters that get in my house are cute (sometimes)

 Yes, that is a tiny little lizard on my wall!  We chilled together while I did dishes the other day.

• Even when they're not, I have a husband or a can of Baygon to deal with them

 

This is the slat that our mattress rests on.  Forgive the blurry picture, I was freaking out about the COCKROACH ON MY BED!  Don't worry, Bryant got it.  Hence, the thanks.

• Our families
• Airplanes to go visit our families
• Buses

I am so thankful for the buses, but there is a mystery I am trying to solve.  This is an illustration that is pasted to the inside of every one of the school bus doors.  The first one I saw was more beat up and I assumed some words were just scratched out.  But no.  Can anyone figure out what this is saying?

• Curly hair (at least on this island)
• The fact that I didn't have to eat this (story soon to come)

• A marriage that, as of today, has been exactly 3 1/2 years of happy

Day Tripping with the SOs

Almost a month ago now (oops) I went on a day trip with a bunch of other SOs.  We loaded up on two buses, headed off at 8 in the morning, and didn't get back until 4.  There were two big jugs of rum punch on my bus and despite the fact that Mallory and I didn't drink, the other 10 people polished them off easily.  Needless to say, our bus was a bit rowdier than the other one!  We had a blast and it was a nice change of pace to actually have something that took up my whole day.

We started off by going to the nutmeg factory.  Factory is used in the loosest sense here.  There were only about 10-15 workers in the whole place and none of them were working very quickly.  The tour was fairly boring, but the place itself was interesting--albeit rather old and outdated-looking.

This sign was one of my favorite parts.  Apparently their workers aren't supposed to talk to each other while they work?

 

This was the part of the factory where they just let the nutmeg dry.  It was basically an entire floor of these wooden bunk-bed looking things full of nutmeg:

They label the end of the trough with the date the nutmeg was placed and they take it back down to the main floor for processing after three months.  And unfortunately I got distracted having a quiet conversation at the back of the group (boring tour, remember?), so I didn't get any more pictures.  I still think those nutmeg beds were the most interesting part.

After the nutmeg factory, we headed up to the Seven Sisters waterfalls.  Yes, the same waterfalls I jumped off (and failed to jump off) only a few weeks earlier.  I didn't get any pictures here, but the waterfall was thick and brown with mud, as was the pond, thanks to the copious amounts of rain we had.  No one hiked up to jump and we only stayed at the pool long enough to eat our lunches before we hiked back out.  I swam in the pond with some other SOs and thanks to the wind and the spray from the waterfall, we actually got cold!  There were goosebumps and everything!

Here are some of the girls after we hiked back out from the waterfalls.  They are the real housewives of Grenada (more on that later)

When we got back on the bus, someone asked me to fishtail braid their hair.  I then proceeded to braid the hair of pretty much every girl on the bus.  Luckily I didn't get seasick, but I did (apparently) make a weird braiding face.

Here's some of my handiwork:

After the waterfalls we stopped t the rum factory and were treated to yet another tour.  This one was more interesting, but I still don't really remember any specifics.

We all got to wear hard hats, though, and that was fun!

Here are some of the giant tools they used to use as well as some of the old machinery.  Who knew rum distilling used such big equipment?

 

I've got to say that visiting the rum distillery definitely did NOT make me want to drink any rum. 

 

 

Doesn't that look appetizing?  The smell was pretty gross, too, but most of the SOs did sample a lot of the rums afterward and said they were good.  I'm ok with not finding out, though.  After the distillery we all loaded back up on the buses and returned to campus.  On our ride back a group of us decided we should start a TV show called The Real Housewives of Grenada.  There is a definite lack of drama in our group, but we brainstormed quite a few ways we could ignite the drama.  I'll let you know if we ever get our idea picked up by a TV studio, because I know you would all be dying to watch!

Snorkeling and lots of standing on waterfalls

This is very belated because I've somehow become very busy here with SO responsibilities, grocery shopping, cleaning, volunteering, and hanging out with friends!  This post encompasses the last of the Family Weekend fun we had with Bryant's parents.

First up: snorkeling.  Believe it or not, I have all of 2 pictures of our snorkeling trip due to the fact that my camera does not take underwater pictures.  It was beautiful, though!  We went to an underwater sculpture park that is pretty famous around here and had some incredible sculptures, like a bicyclist, a sculpture of the Savior, and a whole field of some dead women....ok, the last was creepy instead of awesome, but it was still very fun!  I saw more variety in fish, plants, coral, etc. than I have ever seen in my life.

I only got pictures of the coastline and Bryant and his mom on the boat, but it was a great morning!

 

The day after the snorkeling trip, Al, Alison, 2 of my friends (Mallory and Krysta), and I went up to Grand Etang Rainforest to see some waterfalls.  We stopped at Annandale Falls first--you may recognize it from the island tour Bryant and I did back in August.

 





Afterward, we went to the Seven Sisters Waterfalls.  This was the highlight of the day due to our awesome tour guide.  His name was Clifton, but he said, and I quote, "Everybody calls me Super Butterfly." (Imagine that in a Caribbean accent and you'll find more humor, I promise!)  He showed us nutmeg, which is the pride of Grenada.

It actually grows that way!  When it's ripe, it splits open like that.  I never knew how cool nutmeg looked on the tree.

See that red part?  It's mace!  And yes, that is the stuff they put in pepper spray.  It is slightly rubbery and grows like that around the dark seed (which is the actual nutmeg) and Super Butterfly informed us that if we had no pepper spray we could just crush the mace up and use that instead.

Here's Super Butterfly, with my friend Krysta in the background.  He had jelly shoes on.  You know, the old school jellies?  His were dyed red, green, and yellow for Grenada and looked distinctly girly.  Super Butterfly also told us great things like, "When you slip and fall in the mud, you need to just embrace and love the moment!" and "This here is your free pedicure" as we hiked down a trail that was nothing but mud.  He also pointed out the local wildlife, like the millipedes (another picture for my favorite little sister here!):

And yes, that millipede was over 6 inches long.  I didn't get close enough to really measure him, but he was a big fella.  Super Butterfly also found a giant termite nest (think about 3 feet tall) and started whacking it with his machete to see if there were termites in it.  Luckily for us, there were not.  I had a very dignified moment when a completely red cricket jumped from the bush behind me, grazed my leg and landed right by my foot.  It was big and there was some squealing.  Then, not a second later, a gigantic lizard ran over my foot, grabbed the cricket in its mouth, and darted off.  Cue more squealing.  Of course, no one else saw the red cricket so they thought I was freaking out about a lizard.  The cricket was real.  I promise.

Then we made it to the bottom two falls.  Beautiful.

Here I am with Krysta, Super Butterfly, and Mallory.  It's hard to get a handle on the size of that waterfall, but it was about 30 feet.  The one below it in the bottom left there was about 6 feet tall.  Krysta and I decided to go jump the falls with a group of other hikers and Super Butterfly.  We couldn't take our cameras so there are no pictures, but it was awesome!  The falls above this gigantic one were between 6 and about 15 feet high and I had a blast jumping them.  Unfortunately, there were also swarms and swarms of mosquitos up there.  So many that I would kill 3 or 4 with one slap on my leg or arm.  I ended up with so many mosquito bites that, at a later date, I counted them.  Between my two legs (knees down only, apparently my thighs don't taste good) I had 78 bites.  I was embarrassed whenever I went out in public because it looked like I was suffering from the plague.

Anyway, we finally got to THE waterfall, the huge one (you can see the size better in this photo) and guess what?  I couldn't jump.  I tried for about half an hour (while other people jumped and I occasionally stepped up and tried to make myself do it) but could not convince myself that it was a good idea.  So here's a video of Krysta making the jump:

 

And here's a much longer video of me standing on top of a waterfall (I have no pictures of it):

You don't have to watch the whole video, because it's a minute and 50 seconds of me standing on a waterfall looking scared.  If you watch the first 5 seconds, you've seen the whole thing.  The best part is I have 6 videos (between 1:50 long and 4:02 long) of me standing on the waterfall.  A lifelong reminder of how wimpy I am, but seriously, I don't regret not jumping.  I'm still convinced I would have died. 

Family Weekend Wrap-Up

After the fun we had with our island tour and tetanus shot adventure (refer to the last post if you missed it!) we did a few more Family Weekend activities.  First was Fish Friday.  Fish Friday is held in a town called Gouyave, which is the French word for Guava and pronounced like Guava without the last "a."  Despite the fact that by water Gouyave is only about 15 minutes away, it took over an hour to get there by bus.  There are no highways here, so the road goes through every little town, weaving back and forth and with lots of speed bumps.

Fish Friday is an activity that happens every week (on Friday...in case you missed that) where locals sell fish to visitors and other locals.  Basically it was a bunch of alleyways full of these little booths where locals were preparing and selling fish.  There were some floodlights and speakers blasting really loud music, basically it was just a big party.

Here we are in front of one of the smaller booths.  There were so many types of fish for sale here, whole fried fish (eyes and all), fish and chips, fish balls, fish spring rolls, crab, lobster, lambie (conch), and lots of other things I didn't recognize.



 

I got some fish and chips and Bryant tried half a grilled lobster.

 



 It was swimming in garlic butter, and he obviously liked it!  And it was only about 7:30 in these pictures, but the sun sets at about 6:20 here so that's why it looks like it's the middle of the night.

The next morning, we went to a brunch that served lots of local food as well as traditional brunch foods, but my favorite part was the inappropriate mints.

 It says, "I want you in my arms," and they all had similar messages on them.  It was almost like those little conversation hearts people eat on Valentine's Day.

They also had this top chef guy who showed us how to make some desserts.  He spent most of the time complaining about how the humidity ruined his desserts (he was from the less-humid Great Britain).

After brunch, Bryant studied the rest of the day until the evening's Sunset Barbecue.  It was held at the University Club, which is where I go swimming twice a week at SO Pool Day.

This is the view from a little wooden pier looking back at the Club.  Pretty, right?

And there's cute Bryant in front of the remnants of our sunset.



 

Last but not least, the set-up on the beach where we ate.  We got a great meal, saw some great dancing and drumming and Bryant and I even limbo-ed.  It was a great night and I'm sorry I didn't take more pictures!