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February 15th, 2016
Living the Caribbean dream...
February 15th, 2016 09:35 pmSo, since my last update, I have:
- Been to the Grenadan Independence celebration at the National Stadium. Lots of marching up and down, fun with the police marching band and a stirring address by the Prime Minister (to a lot more cheering than I can imagine any PM at home getting!). There were lots of songs about how lovely Grenada is and how the national characteristic is being friendly and welcoming (story checks out) and all in all, it was a rather fun, relaxing morning.
- Been snorkelling for the first time to look at the underwater sculpture garden. I didn't love the actual experience of snorklling - I could never quite get the mouthpiece to feel comfortable and I had to pause for breath quite a bit - but it was totally worth it to see the underwater sculptures, which are gradually turning into an artificial reef, as well as all the little fishes floating around in the clear water.
- Actually done some teaching in school! I taught them some maths, which was interesting. They're good on concepts but they are much more used to being led than my students so they really struggled when I was asking them to spot patterns or reason for themselves. They're very keen though, and were very excited to try out some of my times table games :)
- Been to Brownies, which was lovely! I am going back next week and I'm going to teach them a song and a game from our Brownies and hopefully video some of their Brownie things
- Spent more time floating in the Caribbean - rather necessary after a long hot day at school! The road down to our favourite beach has a drainage ditch next to it, which is lined with hundreds of crab holes - if you walk along in the evening between about 5 and 6 you can see them all out grazing and sunning themselves, which is rather lovely. I have discovered that I can't stop pointing them out even though there are probably literally hundreds there :)
- Been to a Golden Oldies, Caribbean style clubbing night! Not exactly my kind of thing, particularly as my body clock seems to have adjusted to early mornings, early nights while we're here (partly because it gets dark around 6/6:30, which makes it then feel really late!) but we did have quite a bit of fun.
- Visited Fish Friday in Gouyave, where local fishermen basically cook up their catch for the day on street food stalls and sell it to tourists. We saw some great drumming and ate some delicious fishy dishes.
- Hiked around the shore of Grand Etang (it's a big lake near the centre of the island)! All the locals we've told this to have said variants on "gosh, how adventurous!" I think most people just go to the bit of the lake shore by the bus stop but we went all the way around. The trail was pretty muddy in places and there were a few slots where there didn't seem to be much trail at all, but it was actually an amazing experience - we felt like jungle explorers! And we saw a monkey! A real live wild monkey, just eating fruit from a tree near the visitor centre!
- Visited the Palmtree Botanical Garden and the Laura Herb and Spice garden, both of which I highly recommend, especially the Palmtree garden. We got lovely guided walks of both places, saw some massive caterpillars, some more lizards and some really beautiful blooms.
( moar photos! )
- Been to the Grenadan Independence celebration at the National Stadium. Lots of marching up and down, fun with the police marching band and a stirring address by the Prime Minister (to a lot more cheering than I can imagine any PM at home getting!). There were lots of songs about how lovely Grenada is and how the national characteristic is being friendly and welcoming (story checks out) and all in all, it was a rather fun, relaxing morning.
- Been snorkelling for the first time to look at the underwater sculpture garden. I didn't love the actual experience of snorklling - I could never quite get the mouthpiece to feel comfortable and I had to pause for breath quite a bit - but it was totally worth it to see the underwater sculptures, which are gradually turning into an artificial reef, as well as all the little fishes floating around in the clear water.
- Actually done some teaching in school! I taught them some maths, which was interesting. They're good on concepts but they are much more used to being led than my students so they really struggled when I was asking them to spot patterns or reason for themselves. They're very keen though, and were very excited to try out some of my times table games :)
- Been to Brownies, which was lovely! I am going back next week and I'm going to teach them a song and a game from our Brownies and hopefully video some of their Brownie things
- Spent more time floating in the Caribbean - rather necessary after a long hot day at school! The road down to our favourite beach has a drainage ditch next to it, which is lined with hundreds of crab holes - if you walk along in the evening between about 5 and 6 you can see them all out grazing and sunning themselves, which is rather lovely. I have discovered that I can't stop pointing them out even though there are probably literally hundreds there :)
- Been to a Golden Oldies, Caribbean style clubbing night! Not exactly my kind of thing, particularly as my body clock seems to have adjusted to early mornings, early nights while we're here (partly because it gets dark around 6/6:30, which makes it then feel really late!) but we did have quite a bit of fun.
- Visited Fish Friday in Gouyave, where local fishermen basically cook up their catch for the day on street food stalls and sell it to tourists. We saw some great drumming and ate some delicious fishy dishes.
- Hiked around the shore of Grand Etang (it's a big lake near the centre of the island)! All the locals we've told this to have said variants on "gosh, how adventurous!" I think most people just go to the bit of the lake shore by the bus stop but we went all the way around. The trail was pretty muddy in places and there were a few slots where there didn't seem to be much trail at all, but it was actually an amazing experience - we felt like jungle explorers! And we saw a monkey! A real live wild monkey, just eating fruit from a tree near the visitor centre!
- Visited the Palmtree Botanical Garden and the Laura Herb and Spice garden, both of which I highly recommend, especially the Palmtree garden. We got lovely guided walks of both places, saw some massive caterpillars, some more lizards and some really beautiful blooms.
( moar photos! )