Three months tv free

This weekend marks the end of our first three months in Grenada. It also marks three months since I have had a tv in my home! While the internet is going to make tv irrelevant at some point, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what it is like not to take a daily dose of tv.

To be transparent we do have movie night every Friday, where we either stream from Netflixs or we brought a bunch of movies with us. We also ODed on Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D as a family. And for the past two Sundays we have found a stream to watch the CFL and tomorrow is Grey Cup so we will find a way to watch that! Everything is watched on my laptop screen, which is hysterical when I think about the size of tv at home. Just to be clear size does not matter, it is nice for sure, but watching Hamilton move onto the Grey Cup was just as satisfying on the laptop!

What we don't have is a tv, technically we do, but we are storing the one that was here in Aiden's bedroom. It is more of a coffee table right now. So unlike so many homes a tv does not dominate our living room or bedrooms. In fact I have seen tv only four times here. First CNN when Rob Ford withdrew from the Mayoral race, I let out a little cheer at my luck of being near a tv. The next three times was the day that Cpl Nathan Cirillo was murdered. We saw a tv as we were walking down to Port Louis at this tiny little store/bar which was playing CNN and then at the Port and then we watched Prime Minister Harper's address on CTV.

So apart from these, no tv. Do I miss it? Not at all. Having done my undergraduate degree in Communications, Culture & Information Technology I was keenly aware that the media you consume has a huge impact on how you see the world and the opinions you form about that world. It is one of the main reasons people (wrongly) believe that crime rates are going up. When you are fed a steady diet of shootings, stabbings, rapes, Jian Gomeshi and then add on ER, police, fire dramas your brain begins to think that the world is really dangerous.

I find my dreams are much more peaceful here. I never wake up here with bad dreams or sad dreams. Only once has one of the boys had a bad dream and Brent is actually dreaming here, something he never remembers doing in Canada. When your brain isn't constantly bombarded with images, it frees it up to create it's own stories.

Not only are my dreams more peaceful but my mind does not race in the evenings. At first I attributed this to a more "relaxed" atmosphere. But my work is more challenging (because it is new to me), my drive into work is not for the faint of heart and it seems I am busier here with both house work and shopping than I am in Canada. So it is not a slower pace of life or decreased responsibility because both of these are more than in Canada. The difference is how I consume media.

I do read the news everyday, both Canadian and Grenadian. However when you read you decide what you consume, it is active rather than passive. I also visit this site http://www.viralnova.com/ daily. It has interesting and quirky stories that are often about positive changes. Like this one about a Russian artist transforming urban decay into pieces of art that you would stumble across! So if do chose to read about Jian I can then pop over and read something uplifting.

We are also all reading a lot more, which expands your mind and your point of view. The Kobos make it easy to get books, and the addition of the Mt. Zion Library is creating a positive wave of literacy in our community. As an example at the boy's school the library was destroyed with hurricane Ivan (this is the same for almost every  school on the island). They are now rebuilding it and with donations from Hands Across the Sea they will have books to place in it. Hands Across the Sea has also helped the Mt. Zion Library as has our very own Friends of the Library from Quinte West! They have a barrel of books on route to support Mt. Zion library. As Margaret Mead said "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Part of me wonders if why the culture here has not moved forward they way it has in other places is because of the destruction of all the libraries. My colleague Mrs. Douglas spoke wistfully the other day about her father reading every book in the library where they lived. But it was destroyed and never rebuilt.

About one hour of sun before it goes behind the hills

And of course we are outside more. I am sitting out on my back deck writing and we go out to the beach (or try to) three times a week. Weekends we will often go on long walks with back packs and aqua packs to get provisions from the market.  Definitely nicer than siting in front of a tv! The other thing it does is pushes dinner back. The sun goes down at 5:30 so you want to be in the ocean until the last possible second so we often aren't home until 5:30 or 6:00 p.m. and thus find ourselves eating at 6:30 and sometimes even 7:00 p.m.

Our time is our own as well. I realize with PVRs most people now watch their shows when they want, but not feeling tied down to wanting/needing to watch a show like Amazing Race the night it airs, leaves your whole evening free. I now realize how Sunday nights were rushed as we made sure we had dinner done and kids ready for bed so we could watch Once Upon A Time or Mondays when we would watch the taped Amazing Race. There is nothing that anyone is missing and shows we used to love, aren't even a consideration.

So for those who have trouble sleeping or are feeling stressed out, I really encourage you to turn off the tvs and see if a month without a tv doesn't make you feel more relaxed and restful. I know it has for all of us.

The beauty in everything

Whether it is broken stained glass in a church or a red Ferrari, Grenada is full of beautiful things.

All souls night

Luxury resort on Grand Anse

rusting cargo ship

The Carenage

A wee flower trying to grow

Sandals

Inside the front door of an bandoned house in St David

Owen's solar system a thing of beauty

Nobody told the stray but sheep are OK

 

Transformations

Owen (10) recently wrote a blog post on learning to love to read. This was with many, many thanks to Goodwin Learning Centre.

But I wanted to point out what a remarkable transformation this has been.

Owen was definitely struggling in grade three and Brent and I had made a pact early on that if either child was struggling, grade four was when we would intervene. Not only did Owen have trouble with reading but he had an OT for writing and had trouble with the social aspect of school.

Goodwin lifted him up and gave him confidence and encouragement that he was special and that he could do whatever he set his mind to. At Goodwin Owen had 2 exceptional teachers who worked as a team with the 7 students they had. The environment was spacious outdoors (like the 100 acre woods in Winnie the Pooh) and cosy and welcoming indoors. There was a place for everything and everything in it's place. Routines were set and followed and Owen thrived!!

Now we move him to Grenada. We landed on a Monday morning, met with the principal at 2:00 p.m. only to find no uniforms for the boys and very little in the way of direction as to what he needed. So we ran around for the rest of the day getting school clothes and supplies only to collapse in a heap just as the 3 bars across the street started in earnest their loud tribute to the last day of freedom before school started. I believe the music stopped around 3 a.m.

Aiden's class but Owen's is the same colour!

So my boy who likes routine and structure is hurled into chaos and then expected to attend school the next day, and he did. His classroom is somewhere between lime and fluorescent green. There are twenty seven kids crammed into a classroom with one fan that might cool 5 kids if they were really lucky. The classroom is separated by a partial wall to the other grade 5 class, so everything that goes on in that room you hear in his room. The desks do not have anywhere to store personal items and how they get kids and backpacks in that room I have no idea.

Once Owen came home from school after being bullied and didn't want to go back- which is understandable. But the next morning he got his uniform on and headed out the door. Two years ago just the colour of the room would have caused countless complaints and arguments, let alone the noise, crowding, heat... So Goodwin has instilled in Owen skills to cope in a classroom, skills to succeed in a classroom. Not just their peaceful and idyllic classrooms but any classroom.

The two schools could not be more different and without Goodwin I am quite sure we would be heading home early from this placement. My boss, Sister Margaret had been praying for Owen because she knew the only reason I would leave is if the boys were unhappy. Well her prayers are answered Owen has shown a great deal of maturity in dealing with a new culture, a new home and a new school.

I couldn't be more proud of him.

Navigating St. George's by foot

When we first learned we were moving to Grenada we tried to figure out where we were going to live. Our contact here had said the house was near Aiden and Owen's school (it is the series of buildings above the Kobo icon) and we knew it had an orange roof. So being me, I googled it! Our house is the one with the big orange roof right at the bottom of the image where the two roads join.

What we couldn't figure out was what all the buildings were because there is only one road that comes up to Belmont Road. This is because it never dawned on me that you could have homes that didn't have a road attached to them. In Canada every home is on a road, has a street name and a 911 number! Not here that entire neighbourhood beneath my house only has a dirt path to get to it. Yet they will get mail delivered to them, just by having it addressed to Belmont, St. George's.

Roads are very expensive to build so it is very common that there are no roads between neighbourhoods, but there are always paths. If you look on the image above you will notice homes in a straight line very close to one another. These homes all feed off the path pictured below.

The path would be narrower than a side walk in Canada yet there are many, many homes off this path. It starts off as a nice concrete path but by the time you get to Kirani James Blvd it is just some stones that peeps out between two buildings which are very close together. You would never find the path if you didn't know it existed. In fact Brent only found it because he saw someone coming out of it and wondered where they came from. I am glad he did, it is a much easier walk to the Port and to Foodlands (the big white building).


Seemingly never ending stairs



The path near Kirani James Blvd

It is knowing these "hidden" paths and stairs that makes navigating the city a lot easier. If you had to take roads it would take a very long time to get from place to place but being able to cut through makes getting from one side of the city to another easier. You are still going to be climbing hills like crazy and dodging traffic but at least it is a bit shorter!

Practically wheelchair accessible!



Too close to home

Fellow volunteers Linda and Myriam were in Grenada before us, Linda arrived in July and Myriam August, so when we arrived they were settled into a two bedroom up at the top of the hill directly across from us. If we try really hard we can pick out their place in the distance.

Being at the top of a hill is a drag for a bunch of reasons. The first is there are no homes across the street and therefore it is harder to be part of your community when there is no one to greet on the street. It also means that you are pretty isolated. We have driven Myriam and Linda home on a number of occasions and even Brent didn't like how dark their road is. Lastly it is always uphill on the way home!

Yesterday we brought two colleagues into St. George's so they could then get a bus home. One of my colleagues let us know that where she lives an 84 year old woman was raped and murdered in her home. We were all stunned, that is just not the sort of thing you expect to hear about here. So I emailed Linda and Myriam to let them know to be extra cautious because clearly there is some really sick person out there.



Linda by the window they broke into

This afternoon we decided to head to La Sagesse a beach you can only get to by car, so I called to invite Linda. First thing she said was "Did you hear?" I thought she must mean about her accommodations, because she and Myriam have been advocating moving to a three bedroom with the newest Cuso volunteer coming in on December 1st. Yes they were moving December 1st, but last night their house was robbed. Someone cut the screen, used a broom handle to lift the keys off Linda's backpack and then walked in through the front door. They stole, Linda's backpack with the Cuso laptop, purse, keys, Myriam's backpack and her scooters keys, beer and coke from the fridge and a kitchen knife. Thank God Linda did not wake up!

Myriam came home at about 2:30 a.m. to find the front door unlocked and her bag gone. Thinking she had maybe put it in her room she went to check. Then she realized they had been robbed and woke up Linda. The neighbour downstairs had also been robbed. She had fallen asleep on the couch and the thieves had stolen her laptop off the coffee table beside her while she slept.

I am so thankful no one was hurt. We have, of course, offered them to stay over if they don't feel safe at their place. Linda seems OK but sometimes it takes a while to process how lucky you are as well as how venerable you are. Myriam is 25 years younger and may find it harder to deal with.

We have had a serious talk with the boys about the importance of keeping our house safe. I can't believe Linda and Myriam were only 10 days shy of moving somewhere safer when this happened.

Rain, you only think you don't shovel it

It is of course the rainy season here in Grenada and that means lots of heavy rain. Some nights I wake up freaking out because it is so loud on the metal roof you think it will come right through; but then I wake up enough to realize I am not in a hurricane it is just the rain and eventually go back to sleep.

I know many Canadians are dealing with another four letter word- snow. And while I think rain and

30 degrees is much preferable to minus any number and snow, we actually have shovelling to do after the rain!

Here the roads are carved out of the narrowest slivers of land. This means that when you are on the left side of the road you are in danger of dropping into the sea, but on the right is the danger of landslides. On our road (Belmont) we had a large tree come loose and slide across the road. While the neighbours were able to cut it up to clear part of the road, it still lies blocking one half of the road. This morning there were rocks and mud littering the roadway up to Palmiste and NEWLO. So people were out with shovels and home made brooms clearing the roads to make them passable.

We have had rain here everyday for about a week and a half. But it isn't the horrid November rains you get in Canada where you are chilled to the bone. The rain here drops the temperature a couple of degrees so you go from 30-33 to 28-31 degrees, really quite pleasant.

Almost everyone carries an umbrella regardless of what it looks like, because the rain poses another conundrum - weather forecasting. If I wanted to know what was happening in Brighton I could go to the weather network and get real time satellite imagery of snow, rain, lightening strikes. Here you get a general statement for the whole Caribbean or the whole island! The island is basically divided east/west and north/south. What is happening in the north is rarely happening in the south and it reminds my of the Newfoundland saying "If you don't like the weather wait 15 minutes and it will change". Plus the weather swirls! In Canada you can usually count on weather moving west to east. No such rules here. It will come from whatever direction it wants and go where ever it wants.

Happily it almost never rains for the whole day. Maybe twice there has been a day where it just keeps raining. Usually it comes and goes and with it are rainbows galore! Today I saw a full rainbow over the Caribbean sea! Most mornings we see them off our front balcony and two days ago there was one over the prison, I wondered if any inmates were admiring it.

The rain also dramatically lifts the sea level in the two lagoons. All the water from the surrounding mountains pours into them and I have seen boats lifted to where they are almost floating into the street. In
fact one tiny boat had to be pulled onto the sidewalk to keep it from ending up there anyway!

So I am looking forward to the end of rainy season where a good nights sleep can be found and I only have to worry about dropping into the ocean and not the mountain falling onto me.

Cooking Lessons

Linda giving a lesson on Rasta culture

We are very lucky that another Cuso volunteer here in Grenada has experience with Caribbean cooking, as her in-laws are Jamaican. So a couple of weeks ago we headed over to her house to learn how to cook, and boy did we cook. Linda had fresh fish, chicken and side dishes to teach us. Together we made Grenadian fish, Jamaican jerk chicken, curried chicken, a cabbage and carrot dish, rice and lentils and chocolate cake for dessert!



Myriam on dish duty!

It was so much fun and since Myriam and Linda live together it was the three Cuso amigos and the three tag-a-longs!

Tonight, with Linda's recipes I recreated the curried chicken dish with rave reviews from all but Owen, who once adding HP sauce, deemed it edible.

Turning 40

As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery.
We have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace.
The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as
anger and attachment, fear and suspicion,
while love and compassion, a sense of universal responsibility
are the sources of peace and happiness.

Dali Lama

I have been wanting to turn forty since I turned 25! So I had been waiting for a long time to get here.

Sign across the street- is has been there since we arrived but still fun!

For me I have always equated age with respect and knowledge. People don't take you seriously when you are in your 20s unless you are incredibly brilliant, and even then I think it is more a curiosity than respect. The darn Gen Ys have made thirty seem like twenty so forty is definitely where it is at.

I also knew I wanted to do some meaningful work before I turned forty. I have enjoyed all my jobs, but at the end of the day that is what they are. I always give anything I do my best, but I rarely feel that those I am working for or with particularly care. It is a small cog in a giant, slowly turning wheel syndrome. So working for Cuso with NEWLO has given me the opportunity to do something meaningful where the wheel is turning fast and I need to hustle to keep up.

Work however is only one component of your life, sadly for a great many it becomes the focus rather than the means to pursue fulfillment. For me my greatest contentment is my family. Loving a partner and learning to balance your needs and wants with someone else's teaches you patience, understanding and humility. The deepest love is really reserved for your children though, they are a part of you and your sense of responsibility to teach them well is both a gift and a burden.

I recently read a great article in a Catholic journal that reinterpreted "spare the rod- spoil the child". In the Bible those who used rods were shepherds. Their rods were not used for beating their flock but by gentling guiding and redirecting their flock when they went down the wrong path. So sparing the rod meant not providing guidance and direction, letting your children do as they wished. In the past I would never have applied this phrase to my parenting style but in this context I think it is exactly how the boys have been raised.

Looking at how well they are doing here in Grenada I know that our decision not to spank and to help guide and redirect them with words has produced young men who are able to adapt without needing threats of force to help them do the right thing. In contrast in the Caribbean "beating" (the word they use for spanking) is accepted and I find that children, teens and to some extent adults are constantly hitting each other- because it is what their parents have taught them. They learned that when you get hit you defer to what the person hitting wants. I see it everyday, both boys and girls. It isn't healthy for anyone as it breeds the fear and suspicion that the Dali Lama notes is an obstacle to inner peace.

My family extends out to my sister and my mom. We were the three amigos when my mom was

brave enough to leave an emotionally abusive husband when Ceilidh and I were three. We went through a lot together and while there were times when our triad didn't feel very stable we knew we could count on each other. Happily I think the competition and frustrations have been worked through to the point where we just accept each other as we are.

In my twenties and thirties friends were something that just seemed like so much work. But then I worked on Canada@150 and realized how great it was to have people in your life who were passionate and interesting and kind, and I have slowly been expanding my circle. Being an introvert is still is nothing like my moms or my sisters but it exists and I have made some friends for life in Grenada. I also got really lucky in having some amazing women in my workplace who, now that I am sooooo done with acting assignments, I can finally call friends.

So I spent my fortieth birthday at my awesome job; I got to talk to my mom, and text my sister (who was in Spain!) and then spent the evening at a lovely restaurant with a new friend Mr. Campbell. Yup life is good!


Mr Campbell and his daughter the chef at Le Phare Bleu

Do Nothing Day

Today I got to play "tourist" and just enjoy a day of doing nothing!

Me in front of the spa in a new dress my mom gave me

My sister bought me a massage at a beautiful hotel (The Spice Island Resort) on Grand Anse Beach. It was soooo relaxing.

The Chickungunya has moved from my shoulders and wrists to my knees and ankles so it was great to have someone work on my sore body.

Then I used the sauna which was just a titch warmer than the day. It is a private sauna so you can really relax. There was an outdoor shower with those giant shower heads. It was so lovely.

Brent got me at noon and I went home to have a ham and cheese sandwich.. This a huge treat as cheese is really hard to find and is always imported from New Zealand. Owen had made chocolate cupcakes for me which were just coming out of the oven when I got home.

Our neighbour Meena had invited us along for a sunset cruise on the big cat at 4:00 p.m. so I went to have a siesta before the cruise. I had a lovely nap with the rain pouring down on our metal roof, so I didn't think that we would be going but at 3:30 the skies cleared we raced down to Umbrellas to meet the ship.

The cruise was great, The Captain was a Seneca grad like me, and has a business diploma but wasn't able to find a job in his field because of his dreadlocks. He is such a lovely person, well spoken and very respectful, it is so unfortunate that some people can't see past his hair.

Below are some of my favourite photos of the sunset cruise.



Captain Aiden



Captain Owen