Lucky Seven

For Ava's birthday we decided to spend the weekend on St. Kitts at the Marriott.  She could barely remember last time we were there but as soon as she saw the lobby with its fountains and sculptures it all came back.  We were teasing her on the way over that on her first trip to this hotel she draink out of the bidet in our room (imagine me flying across the room in slow motion yelling "nooooooooo" but too late) and she laughed it off--she's a worldly almost-7 and isn't going to drink out of the bidet, whatever that is.

 

So we got checked in and Ava and her buddy Neil changed into their swimsuits and hit the pool.  On the way out of the bathroom I noticed Ava drying her hands...but the sink is on the outside of the bathroom.  No prob! She had washed her hands ..in the bidet.  You have to be very specific with Ava. 

 

There's a pic of her in the pool.  The next day was her birthday, and she woke up in a bed filled with balloons, and was presented with a disgusting icing and sprinkled covered donut as big as her head.  It's gonna be a good day!

 

 

 

Hermit Crabs and Tadpoles

We have picked up a few pets--imagine me lying in the road with a spaghetti strainer taped to the broomstick, reaching through the cattle grate to catch tadpoles.  The cattle grate was FRICKING HOT having baked in the sun all morning so I got grill marks in addition to 18 new little lives to care for.  Ava was thrilled.  And then we got no rain for a while and the nasty water under the cattle grate dried up, so Ava knows we saved them from doom.  She dutifully fed them algae-covered weeds yanked from a very special part of our back yard until they started to sprout back legs.  And last week we got front legs, and then a FROG!  So predictable.  We had a special early morning release of the first frog and then she promptly lost interest in the whole venture, but it's not like I can just put them back.  Or flush them. 
(right?)

This weekend we had a wonderful sunset pitcher of beer at Oualie Beach, (see pic of Ava at Oualie) and as we were getting ready to leave, Ava and her buddy, Neal, found five tiny hermit crabs- which was perfect timing since Andy II had disappeared.  Now we have Andy III, IV, V etc.  They are so fun to watch in their crabitat as they LOVE trying on new shells.  It's like reality TV.  Even the cat is mesmerized.  (...maybe that is what happened to Andy II?) 

So I was hoping that all these little critters would distract Ava from the sad fact that we are goat-and sheepless right now.  A dog came in the yard and killed Gypsy and Pip (while we were in NC, thank goodness) so the yard is kind of empty.  And free of poop, which is nice.  We (Bob) may not be cut out to be goat/sheep owners; as they were full grown and still drinking milk from the bottle.  Bob never could figure out how to cut them off.  And he criticized me for taking too long to wean our DAUGHTER!!  Yeh, I am loving that.  Anyway, so today we had a riding lesson for Ava at the barn.  It's kind of a sad little barn that the owner doesn't want to own.  We find out that the owner of the horse Ava rode is leaving the island in December and wants to basically give the horse away.  Bob who is insane decides that the price is right!  And makes horse-buying sounds within hearing distance of Ava, like his brain just fell out of his head.  Oh, my fingers just locked up as I revisited his ...boyish enthusiasm, let's call it....locked up in the shape of his neck!

Erg, have to go and whisper into Ava's ear as she sleeps, "Why own a horse when you can just pay for the lessons?" over and over...

Jaws of Life Yoga

Well, we've been here a week!  Ava has resigned herself to the resumption of studies, and Bob is stepping up with recorder lessons, computer class and some pinch hitting on the maths.  Bob has also taken Ava snorkeling twice since our boat trip, and we are amazed at how she has just taken off with it.  She can even dive down to get shells.  Clearing her snorkel ain't pretty, but she gets it done.

Bugs: lots.  We've had lots of rain, and the mosquitoes are starting to work together in coordinated maneuvers --any day now I expect to see them airlift the cat right out of here.   We sleep under those billowy white mosquito nets you've seen on TV.  My bedtime routine involves some serious tucking in around the entire perimeter, and I have LEARNED that the TV remote, my book and reading light have to all be under the net before the perimeter is sealed.  Once in I feel like a cupcake under a cake dome.  But the nets WORK. 

I was talking to some fellas in the yard and stood right in a humongous ant nest.  So cool.  Looked down and my shoes (thank goodness I was wearing real shoes) were SWARMING with biting ants.  I did a great little dance while kicking my shoes off and wiping the ants off my legs.  One of the guys came over to have a look (after he was quite finished laughing) and asked me if I had any sevin.  I thought he was asking about my shoe size and it took awhile to sort that out.  The ant bites are UG-LY.  I won't describe them.  There is pus.

Enough about bugs--there's more, mind you, but tonight I took a yoga class!  One of the faculty women (and Bob's friend,) Stacy, picked me up and took me to the gym downtown for the class, which started at 5:30, cost a ridiculous $7.50 and is taught by a local woman who is a grandmother.  I was wearing new yoga pants and had the hot pink yoga mat Bob gave me for Christmas.  The class started off with eye rolling!  Really!  I can totally do that.  Obviously, I needed to be taken down a peg.  The instructor cut the air conditioning off while I was busy rolling my eyes, and proceeded to lead us through TWO HOURS of the most advanced class I have ever had.  No relaxing meditation.  Extreme positions I don't even know the names for!  Poses named after some pretty darn obscure animals and states of mind.  Shoulder Stand with Windmill Legs?   Disemboweled Crab Seeking Enlightenment?   Trying Not to Pee Pants While Waiting for Bus with Head on Backwards? I was gushing sweat and praying for it to END.  Finally it did end.  I pulled off my best corpse pose EVER.  Slunk out to parking lot and ate my emergency half a candy bar.  Somehow, I need to come up with a believable conflict for Monday evenings for the foreseeable future.  And an alternate use for my new hot pink yoga mat.  Help?








 

Photos

Yesterday we accompanied Bob on a boat tour run out of the scuba shop he works for as a dive flunky.  He doesn't get paid, but he is getting free instructor training and free dives. The boat is called Monkey Business...some of the tourists go on it for a scuba dive or class, some to snorkel, others just to cruise around and drink rum punch and listen to music.  Ava and I were glad to be onboard.  Ryan led the snorkel group, and gave Ava first class treatment, towing her around on a life ring so she could just fishgaze and relax.  She had a blast.  That girl loves a party.

So here are a few pictures of our first few days.  My view from the back of the plane into Nevis.
Bob on the boat on the way to the dive site with his first scuba students (looking all bow-flex buff)
and Ava with a fruit punch and her snorkel buddy, Ryan. 

Graduation and Goodbye

I can't believe it has been almost a year since we were last in Nevis.  That really is too long.  My first full day here was a whirlwind of unpacking and shopping and then graduation ceremonies and festivities at the med school. We stopped in the Chinese store for a broom.  That is a fun store to poke around in--everything you could want including shoes, groceries, office supplies, rice cookers and human hair.  Really: human hair.  It was market day downtown so we bought lots of fruits and veggies, and Bob and Ava got ice cream cones on the way out of downtown.  We stopped by the home improvement store for two toilet repair kits.  Despite the fact that, according to Bob, throwing a bucket of water down the toilet "works great!!!" Ava and I prefer to flush.  Bob has gone native, apparently, in our absence. 

Thanks to Mary Jo, who went shopping with me, I had a dress to wear to graduation this year, and I am so glad I didn't miss it. The studends had planned to hold the ceremony on the beach but we got an amazing amount of rain today (so of course we lost power and internet at the house) so we were relocated to one of the huge classrooms on campus.  I love watching the kids get their white coats and take the Oath of Maimonides. I always get a little misty-eyed!  Dinner afterwards was wonderful.  The graduating class does fundraising to pay for the reception after graduation, and this year they broke all records and threw a dinner on the beach at Nisbet Plantation with open bar and a band.  It was spectacular.  I was still tired from travel and unpacking and almost didn't go, but it was worth it.  A wonderful buffet by the pool with four chefs at the end grilling mahi mahi, snapper, shrimp, and on another grill, steak and chicken.  Lots of island salsa and local hot sauce...and a dessert buffet that Ava swooned over.  When it was time to go Ava was still dancing in front of the band under a tent. 

It was also a sad day because we learned that a friend of ours, Jim Johnson, had died the night before in a house fire on the island.  I had mentioned him before on the blog--he came over when we thought Ava had gotten mixed up with a poisonous frog, and he is the one who led the rainforest hike I blogged about.  Just unbelievable and we don't have the details, but he was such a treasure to the island.  We are thinking of his family.  I always pack a smoke detector in my suitcase because I am afraid of a housefire.  Huge tanks of propane outside the kitchen, the wiring is probably not up to US code, and it's not like we can just dial 9-1-1.  I don't know what the circumstances are with Jim's death, but we have stayed in two homes that have only one door, and the windows all have metal louvres that would prevent egress.  For the cost of a cheap plastic smoke detector, you buy yourselves a few extra minutes to get out.  Check your batteries, my friends!

I have to run--we are getting on a boat to go snorkeling while Bob gives a scuba "resort course" to three tourists!  These are his first victims...I'm taking my camera!

Bat Caves and Body Surfing

Yesterday I was happily thinking about what a perfect day it was while I was cooking dinner...a hike up to the bat caves with friends...lunch at home, then an afternoon on the windward beach swimming and body surfing.  While I was cooking I was thinking about all the animals we had seen that day and I counted 12, let me see if I can remember everything:

1. Bats
2. Whip Scorpions
3. Cattle
   
4. Horses
5. Donkeys
6. Goats
7. Sheep
8. Birds  (pelicans, doves, bananaquits, cattle egrets, frigatebirds)
9. Cats
10. Dogs
11. Mongooses
12. Monkeys
    

Ava says to add humans.  So make it 13.  That was my first trip up to the bat caves.  On the way, we stopped by some ruins and were dismayed to find that someone is stealing the old building stones, probably selling them to a hotel that is being renovated, passing them off as newly quarried rock.  The sad thing is that these buildings probably used to be an old leprosarium, so of even greater historical interest, one might argue, than the old plantations on the island.  The fact that none of the old maps have the buildings labeled adds to their mystery but ultimately leaves them unprotected from scavenging. 

I've seen plenty of bats before, so for me the coolest thing in the caves was the whip scorpions, a first for me.  Seeing them made me super duper careful not to brush up agains the walls, even made me wish I could levitate.  Other animal musings: due to a bounty on donkey carcasses, the island donkeys have adopted a nocturnal habit (how clever!) so sightings are more and more scarce.  I think an unforeseen consequence of this is we are often woken up by their bloodcurdling braying in the night.  Bob assures me they are...having fun...but you would NOT believe the racket.  They indirectly provide entertainment: yesterday morning (before light, thank God) one was SO loud and SO close to the house Bob felt obliged to stand on the front porch in his boxers and yell, "GIT!  GIT ON OUTTA HERE! SHOOO! SHOOOOOOOOO" in his best cowboy imitation, and the donkey just flipped him off and kept at it.  But later in the day on the way to the beach we saw a female donkey and two baby donkeys crossing the road, and NOTHING is cuter than a baby donkey, except possibly TWO baby donkeys.  Loooong fluffy ears, omg.

So I was musing about all these wonderful animals we got to see, smiling because I loved waking up to the sound of doves cooing, feeling refreshed by all the exercise of the day, hungry for dinner...and as we sat down to share our meal together, the lights go out.  No electricity. This happens about twice a week, but almost always during the day.  Earlier we had lost water, and now no juice.  I wasn't worried, because usually it comes on in under an hour.  But the hours inched by, nothing.  I missed my House rerun.  Finally we just got bored and went to bed.  And sweated.  No fans.  NO breeze.  A couple times the power blinked on, which let me know which lights we had accidentally left on, but nothing.  ALL night.  I think I was up all night, hot and miserable.  We still didn't have power this morning, and I was so cranky Bob took us out to breakfast at Oualie Beach.   That's when I decided to scrap my list of wonderful things about Nevis and give my top eight least favorite things:

1) Losing water and/or power is a weekly occurance.  And it is HOT here.
2) Ants. Lots and lots of ants. I have ant bites on my toes.
3) No bookstores, no sushi, no movie theaters and the library is crap.
4) Groceries are twice as expensive and the selection is small and inconsistent.  And you know I love me some groceries.
5) Litter.  Lots of litter in some places and nobody does anything about it.  No recycling.
6) Stray dogs and cats.  Nevisans can get FREE spay or neuter, but don't.
7) Dog fighting is a sport here.
8) People stop their cars in the middle of the street, to chat, to pick up or drop off riders, to run in and buy a loaf of bread...it's cute and weird unless you happen to be in a hurry. 

But then,  the power blinks on, the taps run hot and cold...another great swim in the ocean, a good laugh watching the goats frolic, a spectacular sunset...a shooting star, a double-rum punch...and all that other stuff doesn't seem to matter. 

The photos: This afternoon Ava and Ishita having ice cream and cookies one minute, then the next minute Ava has lost her tooth. 

Now for some tooth fairy magic!  Then bed.  And donkey serenade.

Hors d'oeuvres and Horse Bite

Great weekend!  Friday we had a faculty party at Mount Nevis Hotel...the last time I had been there it was dark so I didn't get to see the amazing view of the ocean in one direction, the volcano in the other.  Ava had fun getting dressed up and sampling all the fun cocktail food, and then racing around with her buddies...then the bats came out and gave quite a show over the pool before we headed home.  It was so cool--are they drinking the pool or eating insects when they divebomb the water?

We had a playdate at the house on Saturday, then took all the kids to the beach.  On the way, we decided to stop and pick tamarinds...all the easy ones are gone so Bob parked under the tree and climbed up on the van with the pruning shears to get them.  I noticed some curious horses watching us by a fence, so we went over to pat them.  They seemed very friendly, snuffling our palms for treats, but then in a flash one of them put his ears back, opened his mouth all the way and CHOMP right on Ava's face before I could even bat an eye!  She fell to the ground in shock--the skin barely broken on the bridge of her nose and on her cheek.  And to her credit, after getting up she wheels around on me and says, hands on hips, "This is WHY I need my OWN horse!"  oh...I am in so much trouble.  She drew a picture today of what her future horse will look like.  (She told me to nevermind the green crayon)  Oh, and horses love tamarinds--we took the high road and forgave Mr. Chompy and gave him some nice sticky fruit to chew on.

Today we took Ava and the goats to the beach with friends--and it was crowded!  Palm Sunday, spring break...and next week the Nevisians will do their tradition of flying kites on Easter morning, we love that.  So Ava got to swim her heart out, a little saltwater on the horsebite, and even got in a surfing lesson ...as did one of the goats.