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.