Easter on the Island

Easter is pretty cool here! We've been having a surprising run of windy days and cool windy nights, good kite flying weather. The Nevisians fly kites for Easter. There used to be some master kite-makers on the island, but their skills aren't being passed dow n fast enough to the next generations. But still, everybody buys or makes a kite (the kids make theirs in school in all grades) and hits the beach to launch them on Easter (thinking all the while, I am sure, about Jesus rising from the dead and ascending to the heavens while trying to keep their strings from getting tangled)...spectacular! Higher on the mountain there was a kite flying contest and I heard there was a four-man kite--I wish we had been able to see that!

The only kite I know how to make is the kind where you tie a string through the handles of a plastic grocery bag. Failproof but kinda trashy, so I just let Ava fly hers in the back yard.

We were invited to a party on Crishi beach by a couple that bought the hotel located there. They closed it for renovations after buying it, but never re-opened anything but the beach bar. They just live in the rest...gorgeous beach, pool, a low trampoline and a painted wooden sailboat sunk in the sand on the beach for the kids to play in. Nice! They are Norwegian and have a little girl Ava's age (I'm guessing that's how we got invited, because we didn't know anybody else there)...they had rented a bouncy house (NOT the Dora the Explorer one. How many choices can there be??) and hidden eggs in the palms along the beach. They hadn't dyed them, but I figured that's a Norwegian thing. The brown and white eggs looked kinda pretty in the beachy setting. Oh, and they didn't BOIL the eggs either, which we found out the hard way when Olympia dropped her egg on my foot. The kids were supposed to 1) Find an Egg 2) Gently transport it to the nearest participating adult and 3) TRADE it in for a Peep. Well, Ava did the math on that pretty quick and decided she'd MUCH rather have a WHOLE RAW EGG! Hers did not survive the day, either, but at least it didn't happen inside the bouncy house. Fun was had but we left before the partying started since we had another stop to make. Also, it was starting to rain again...

The school hosted an egg hunt for the children. I thought it would be moved indoors because the ground was wet, but no. The students in charge of the hunt figured out how many eggs each kid could get for it to come out even and the number was four. It took Ava about 10 seconds to find hers and the whole thing was over pretty quick (the eggs were just sitting on the grass) so the rest of the afternoon was spent with the kids playing tag. Oh and there were cupcakes. Ava's friend, Nyla, who is also home schooled, came late and missed the hunt so Ava split her haul with her. So Ava comes home Saturday night after two egg hunts covered in mud and with only two eggs. But she had a super great day.

Sunday we drove up to Rick Ishmael's house on the mountain (mad scientist, big house, huge fenced in garden) and Bob hid eggs out there. I had stuffed over 70 eggs and there was only one other child hunting with Ava so she was able to get her fill of the hunt. The other boy's granddad was out there "helping him" find the eggs. He would find one and point and shout until John could scramble over and bag it. John is five, and didn't need any help, but granddad (who teaches at the school with Rick and Bob) is a cardio-thoracic surgeon and very, uh, Driven. Bob says that's not uncommon with heart surgeons. Thank goodness there were plenty of eggs!
The rest of us sat up on the porch (from which you can see all the way to Montserrat) and laughed. And drank Ting (a soda made with local grapefruit juice) and ate cucumber sandwiches.
We had to save our appetites for dinner, because our neighbor, Pat, invited us for a meal, along with a few other folks from the school. And she doesn't fool around! It was like Thanksgiving (Ava's observation) but no dishes to wash. Yes, I offered! We left as they were breaking out the game called Pass the Pig (not the drinking game, as it turned out) so Ava could get cleaned up and tucked in. Hope you all had a fun Easter!