Change is never easy, but always healthy

where i live..i live in the downstairs of the green/blue house
Goldha: amateur roaster.
neighborhood kids
BUNS!
finally allowed to drive since i'm officially no longer a volunteer!!
uhh..we made a fire out of all my old paper. reduce, reuse, recycle?
roasting hot dogs..gotta love that smoky magazine, printer paper flavor
are we doing this right?
mi familia
farewell fiesta
awkward hug picture
i believe i missed
jay, being inferior to bunny
yeeea, not gonna happen buddy
get off me!
literally tickling him. best. defense. ever.
my boys
gabbing.
Grade 6
high on water balloon festivities

i too enjoy partaking in a good water balloon toss
De Strip..just your run of the mill gorgeous sunset
my neighbor's son tryin to hang with the big kids
my bed chamber
mi gyals

So right now I am sitting in a café that is completely flooded from the tropical storms. For over three days now the­­­­ entire island has been under the wrath of these relentless rainstorms. I think the dreariness of the weather has been taking its toll on my already somber mood, and I have been finding it more and more difficult to get out of bed and start my day with these heavy, grey skies looming outside. I guess I am just feeling ra­­­­ther confused and bewildered as to how exactly I feel regarding the end of my service. Of course, I am excited to get home and see my family and friends; of that I am sure. But beneath that excitement lurks anxiety over the unknown. My trips home over the past 2 years has been safeguarded by the reassuring knowledge of my eventual return back to my island. The happiness of being home was always amplified because I knew I only had a limited amount of time to be home. As much as I reveled in the joys of forgotten foods, friendships, and luxuries, I was always cognizant of the fact that soon the novelty over these pleasures, as well as the novelty of my presence, would soon wear away with the tarnishing of time.

I am not feeling as anxious over the next month as I am over years from now when I will have to feel the cementing of my detachment from this beautiful island. What relationships will remain intact? What is the gang violence going to be like years from now? Will the students that I worked with graduate high school? Will they remember me?

Surely my time here has caused irrevocable changes in my mind, heart, and soul. But while this island has managed to create a shift in my very being, I have, at the end of it all, not even caused a ripple in the fabric of St. Kitts. Peace Corps Volunteers are told a thousand times, “your service will bring more benefit to you than to those whom you are working for.” While this is a sad and frustrating reality for those of us who idealistically wanted to make a big difference during our short service, I think the personal rewards we gain from our service can still benefit the world in an even grander, more transcendental way. The lessons I have learned here, the failures I have persisted through, and the knowledge I have gained will be tools that I can use, and will never forget about, as I continue to try and make this world a better place. I learned more about how the world works during my two years here than I have ever learned in school, and as long as I am living, those lessons will be woven into the essence of every challenge with which I am faced.

One the most exciting accomplishments of my service was serving as the editor of our Peace Corps publication for the Eastern Caribbean, Serious Ting. The editor’s note that I inserted sums up quite well the conclusions I have drawn from my experience here. I have copied the letter below.

Thank you all for reading this blog and providing your support both directly and indirectly during my journey in St. Kitts. I wouldn’t have been able to take on this experience without having known such beautiful and inspiring people throughout my life.

Jah Bless!

Editor's Note

We’ve all heard it before. Maybe we’ve even been guilty of saying it ourselves: “I want to save the world.” I would be lying if I said I have never responded to the question of what I want to do with my life with such overzealous idealism and naive arrogance. But what does it mean to “save the world”, and why are these words, loaded as they are with presumption and self-righteousness, thrown around with such ease?

As Peace Corps volunteers, we enter our experience with varying pre-conceived notions of what kind of people we are, what we are capable of, and what we can expect from our service. Gradually, however, the calcified exterior that we have developed in our lives, the one that defines who we are, is chipped away by our experiences and challenges, and we find ourselves bare and vulnerable, exposing that soft, malleable core that lies quietly within us all. Those days when the heat is unbearable, nobody shows up to a meeting you have spent weeks meticulously planning, and a child stops you on the street for what you hope will be a cute and endearing exchange but ends up to be nothing but, “please fuh a dolla”, you are actually at the cusp of transformation, the brink of renewal. The anger, frustration, and exhaustion we feel are the hardening elements that catalyze your growth and ease you into your newly fortified armor. When we are at our weakest points we are unaware of the strength that is growing within us, and while it is difficult to see or feel the transformation while it is happening, it is quite possibly the only real and guaranteed byproduct of those challenges we face in the Peace Corps.

I think we can all agree that we have been humbled and maybe even shell-shocked by our experiences, especially in regards to the daunting and enigmatic task of “development”, whether it be community, youth, or NGO. When looking at the three goals of Peace Corps, sometimes we tend to see them as three separate entities rather than supplemental parts that build a stronger and more efficient entity. What I have learned from my experience is that you cannot achieve capacity building without giving a part of yourself and receiving something in return. The heart of Peace Corps is community engagement and integration because it is the lifeline behind our projects. We must become one with the people with whom we are working, as equally invested in the goals and desires as any other member. It is imperative to know our limits and recognize when we are being too much of an assertive force that will create a dependency on our presence, thus extinguishing any chances for sustainability when we leave. One of my dearest friends from EC 77 once told me during one of my lowest of lows, “You are not an agent of change, but a facilitator.” I feel that is something we may forget when we are struggling to find projects to include in our trimester reports or MST anecdotes. If change isn’t ready to happen, it’s best not to force it.

So, fellow PCV’s, remember you are not here to “save the world”, and when you humble yourself and expect nothing, fun and enjoyment will abound. And after all, does our whole world really need saving? Wherever our lives takes us we will see the good and the bad, but hopefully we can maintain an understanding that we are all inhabitants of the same Earth, and until we can work together as equals, we can never really get very far. To my fellow EC 78 volunteers, I wish nothing but the best for you as you step out of the life you have known for the past two years with a renewed understanding of who you are and what you are capable of. Best of luck to the current and incoming volunteers, and never forget to go slow, live in the moment, and laugh it off when it all gets to be too much.

badness outta STYLE

intense discussion
The whole group
Lenroy...a sweet kid
kids at the top

There's a rope swing...limitless entertainment for them
STYLE kids on our hike
Cayon High Sports Day..quite possibly the biggest event of the school year
Violet Petty Sports Day
A pumpkin growing in my front yard from when i threw out food scraps...amazing soil here!
My fifth graders made these Lost Dog signs and posted them all around the neighborhood...my heart literally melted

Hi everyone!
I'm providing another more detailed blog than the last one. i tend to ramble off on emotional, introspective topics rather than updating you all on my life here.

At this time last year I was noticing that work-related life was picking up some speed and actually becoming something real and noticeable. And just like last year, after the lull of the holidays and Carnival, things have now revitalized and resuscitated from their November-February dormancy. This is quite a change for me because now I have replaced sitting at home and being destitute and wishing I had something to do with stressing over the frustrating unpredictability of projects. The grass is always greener...

Earth Minute is the project I'm most excited about and focused on right now. I guess I haven't mentioned it yet because I was unsure whether or not it would happen, and I'm getting quite tired of reporting on projects that eventually end in failure. While there is no guarantee that that is not the shared fate of this project, I'm still trying to think positively, so i guess I will disclose some of the early details.

Earth Minute is a project I am working on with the Ministry of Sustainable Development. The last project that fell through with this Department was the recycling feasibility study, yet I still retained contact with Jay Farier from that project attempt, so we are now working together yet again. I proposed the idea of Earth Minute to him and he was immediately on board, and has added the Public Relations Officer from the Department to work with us. The idea is to have thirty one-minute infomercials once a week that will give advice on different ways to live a more environmentally conscientious lifestyle. The tips will encourage people to make small lifestyle changes, like don't run the water while brushing your teeth, how to reuse materials, try using re-usable water bottles, etc. will be the We are going to have local faces, both famous and ordinary, to deliver each segment and air them before the local news one day a week. I think it would be great to use local people because they will then indirectly become invested in the fight for environmental protection and preservation just by their participation. I already wrote up the list of tips and tried to pair pertinent people with each one, for example, one of the suggestions is to eat local, so we will have someone who sells fruits and vegetables at the market deliver that segment. This will provide greater incentive for them to work with us because it will give them a chance to promote their business or industry.

We have proposals written out and have approached various media houses as well as independent, private producers to figure out a price range. Considering we have zero dollars right now we are going to have to find some source of money for this project since nobody is willing to film and edit for free. This means either shmoozing with various government persons or writing a grant. We are really short on time since I'm leaving in October, and the goal is to have the first segment ready to air on Earth Day, so a grant does not really seem feasible right now. This does make me secretly relieved since I despise grant-writing, especially writing them within the pressure cooker of time restrictions. So onto making better acquaintances with those government people with the big dollars.

STYLE, the boys and girls group I tried starting at the high school almost a year ago, is just now becoming active and engaged. Last Friday I paid a guide to take us on a hike up the crater as a way to kick start these kids' enthusiasm for our group. It was much more effective than approaching them and asking them if they wanted to be a part of a community-service project. The way this whole hiking event transpired makes me wish I could comfort the Alisa from 6 months ago who was pulling her hair out because nobody was showing up or showing any interest at all in STYLE. Now that there a is real, tangible event that these kids had a chance to participate in, and even better, skip school for, everyone wants to be a part of STYLE. I have kids coming up to me saying "why wasn't i picked to go on the hike? It's not fair that you only took those kids." It makes me want to both laugh and cry that they have the audacity to say that to me after I've spent the entirety of the past 8 months going to Cayon High School and literally begging kids to join my group. Eventually we just had the guidance counselor hand-pick kids that she thinks are experiencing behavior issues and need some added guidance, which I think works out better anyways. This select group is now extremely excited and has taken ownership over STYLE and personalized it. They identify themselves as members of STYLE and already have a lot of great ideas running through their minds. The only issue is that my grant money for this project must be spent by July and I have barely even touched it, and school basically shuts down at the end of May for testing, so I have two months to spend a grant I had written for a years' worth of projects. Shopping spree? Maybe.

Thinking about STYLE and the amount of time, patience, and effort I have put in order to not quit completely and abandon the project only reminds me of how naive I was last year. I put so much energy into romanticizing what the group would be like, the projects we would do, and how wonderful and joyous we would all be. I meticulously mapped out each project and idea in the grant and somehow convinced a board of people from USAID that my project was ready and worthy for a grant. They approved it; they believed me as much as i believed myself. Then I had a launch and invited students and parents before I had even been to the high school or met the principal and told them all about this wonderful, groundbreaking idea I had thought up from behind the glow of my computer screen. I was such a sappy, ignorant, idealist, post-college sociology major nutcase to think that after a launch I would be able to miraculously convince high school kids to join me, whom they have never met before, in a community service-based after school program. In a way I deserved the 11 months of frustration, helplessness, and stress. Shame on me for being arrogant enough to think that I had the ability to just walk into a high school and tell people what's a good idea, what's best for them, or how an after-school program should be. Now that STYLE has seen some success in a much more natural fashion, with guidance counselors and teacher from the actual school being committed and invested, I can truly understand what it means to start a project like this and have it actually take off. Before I was giving myself gratification before I had even faced the turmoil. Now that I've pulled my head out of the clouds and dealt with the grimy part, I have been able to internalize the valuable lessons that inevitably sprout up from the rubble. Because that's all I can really hope to walk away from this experience with; some lessons on how to not be a pompous foreigner trying to do "community development" in a place that is not my home or community.

As many of you know, my dog Shaggy ran away last month. It was really hard getting over the fact that I might not ever see him again. There are so many dangers to dogs here-cars, other dogs, people poisoning dogs, etc.-yet at the same time I'm almost certain someone picked him up because people love small dogs here and he's too smart to fall for any evil antics. I just hope he's off somewhere getting fed and receiving daily belly rubs.

Hope everyone is happy and healthy!! Miss and love you all

Alisa

ty

Life Thoughts

Nalzie, one of my favorite people here
The back view...our shirts say "only the strong survive." because it's true.
Kind of relieved they left my booth..
stampede of kids on a mission
a better view of my booth
our "silly" shot. HOW CRAZY.
The EC 78 group <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NFYE6wjnxo92H0jE0ro0d82U23M77ckdULaG4Qun0e0xunDZ13o7Xv5mAVE3j7QTWKZviW1bEQ5tPpzCP-Kwj5NriIazukSxTndZQbJsWNcXGM7s5JWHeMKkj_Nc74Gas3_MO6NaP2o/s1600-h/IMG_0700.jpg"> My mommy taught me how to utilize resources..Hence going to stores and asking for old cardboard boxes
me and my Kelsey

Today was the 49^th anniversary of the Peace Corps. We celebrated by putting on a “Peace Corps Day” that has been in conception since November. We pulled it off quite successfully if I do say so myself. We had a committee of volunteers that prepared an expose on what exactly Peace Corps is and what we are doing or trying to do in St. Kitts. Peace Corps' success is dependent on a proper understanding by locals of why volunteers are here and what it means to be a PCV, otherwise our efforts, time, and talents could be potentially wasted for two years. We held Peace Corps day in Independence Square which is the heart of downtown Basseterre. The committee members in charge of media did a terrific job of spreading the news about PC Day and ensuring that enough people came out to see us. We had schools bus students into town which created a half hour of absolute chaos as each booth was bombarded with excited children who probably barely internalized what we were feeding to them. After the overwhelming influx of students and early morning crowds things slowed down and we were able to relax at our booths and enjoy the afternoon. Each booth was set up to demonstrate the three goals of Peace Corps which are:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

My goal was #1, so I worked with another volunteer on teaching people about the kids of projects and work sites volunteers are involved with in St. Kitts. I bet you can only imagine how boring and uninteresting this was for young school children. The only game we could think of that was permissible with our generous budget of nothing was a trivia game. Some examples of our trivia questions: “How long is the training period for volunteers?” or “What is sustainability?” And if that doesn’t seem riveting enough for young kids, we were handing out Peace Corps bookmarks as their prizes. But the kids, in true Kittitians fashion, were excited regardless, and were able to exert some of their morning energy on the all-American sport of baseball. They even got to make postcards to send to pen pals from the U.S at our crafts table. All in all, it was a successful event and I’m extremely proud of my fellow PCVs.

Lately I have been finding myself having mental snapshot moments. I will catch myself caught up in a quick minute or two of the most beautiful, iridescent, fusion of everything wonderful in life, and I can’t help but take a mental picture of it and store it away in the treasure chest of my memory. Today this feeling came from looking around at my fellow volunteers that I have grown to love and appreciate so much in the past year and half and just wanting so badly to pocket away the warmth of the moment and hold onto it for as long as I can. I try and step outside of my surroundings and capture the smiles, laughter, and human connections as an outsider, as if I’m watching someone else’s home movies. It makes me think I can somehow embalm the emotions and the happiness and hold onto them forever. This sense of desperation I have for grasping the joy of life I think comes from a 19 month long journey of overcoming discomfort and frustration. It is much more often now that I feel completely and utterly at peace with my life here, and that was a hard-fought, sweat-inducing, uphill battle. I am just now understanding the sweetness that comes with the fruits of my labor. The tragic part of this is that the fullest understanding of how lovely life is here will reach its culmination when I am on a plane going home, and I will be feeling the empty spaces left from nascent intangibles that I didn’t even realize were such an integral part of my existence.

The nights when I am walking home from the basketball court, eager to rummage through my refrigerator and creatively concoct a meal together, I sometimes turn around and look at the scarcely-lit road behind me and sketch it into my memory. Just when I have acquired a deep and rooted love for my life here I have come to the realization that it is slipping away quicker than I can even comprehend, until it’s gone and irreplacable. The momentum of time is an unsympathetic force, and right now I sometimes feel it tapping at my conscience, reminding me to cherish each and every moment, because nothing lasts forever.

Happy New Year!

My boys after we picked up trash from the field
Grade six with their nature art
My dad and Randolph
Nature art-ing

Jerome's artwork

A view from Ottleys. My kids shows me a trail that goes all the way up the mountain which I never knew about
Zach and I made a magnificent hole on the beach. Tourists actually asked to take pictures of it when we were finished.
Hiking up Ottley's trail
A couple of ladies at J'ouvert
My EC 78 crew!
you gotta get painted
Christmas breakfast at the church I attend
I had a week-long camp for my 5th graders during the break. They're watching the movie "Up". (thanks, mom!)
This is Jah Cure, a Jamaican artist who came to perform in St. Kitts. We tracked him down after the concert and hung out with him for a bit
Kim getting me situated at J'ouvert
J'ouvert Joy!
The volunteers. I'm not really sure why I couldn't turn and face the camera, but look at that sun coming up!
Morning time
Friends and volunteers at Thanksgiving. My dad is chatting with his new friend, David.
Playing games at Thanksgiving
Socializing at Thanksgiving

(As always, the pictures can be enlarged if you click on them. Sorry they are all weirdly ordered, I’m not really sure how to organize them)




Whew!

Hello to everybody and happy, happy New Year! I hope everyone’s holidays were full of warmth and togetherness. I miss my friends and family from home so very much and I can’t believe it’s only nine months until I’m home for good! I’m trying to live in the moment, but the anticipation of being surrounded by the truly familiar cannot help but occasionally bubble up to the surface and create tiny bursts of excitement.

As far as my life here, things have been quite well. I go through unpredictable bouts of loving it here and not being able to imagine myself anywhere else, or being induced into an agoraphobic state, unable to go outside and face the sweltering heat or the roller coaster traffic. Loneliness sometimes overcomes me and creates a self-perpetuating cycle of avoiding people because I’m sad, and being sad because I’m avoiding people. However, regardless of whatever listless state I’m in, leaving the house to go to the school almost always rewards itself. The kids effortlessly and unintentionally lift my spirits and remind me quickly why I endure the homesickness, heat, and island fever.

The after-school program is going quite well. My fifth graders have written a play that we intend to have ready to perform by May. I am so incredibly proud of them for what they have created. All I asked them to do was focus on issues that are creating negativity in St. Kitts and Nevis and they came up with four different topics that will be performed as short acts in the play. Their ideas were:

-A kid moves to St. Kitts (from Alaska, mind you) and gets bullied and feels very alone, so he decides to join a gang. The gang members pressure him to commit a crime and he decides to not do it, so the gang members come after him and make it very difficult for him to leave the gang.

-Two girls fight over a new boy at school and allow him to ruin their friendship. The teacher has to intervene and mend their friendship back together

-A woman who is HIV positive shows up for her first day at work and everyone is really rude to her. She hears a group of people talking about her in the next room and saying how scared they are of getting HIV and how they don’t want to touch her desk. She calls her brother and cries about how hard it is to be discriminated against and how ignorant they are to think they can contract the virus through casual contact. (In true, dramatic fashion) the woman dies and the co-workers are sad they never got to apologize so they go to her brother’s house and become friends.

-The fourth act is going to be on littering and the kids want to exhibit their artistic side, so we’re going to use materials that would otherwise be trash and create a visual lesson on how garbage and littering affects St. Kitts and Nevis.

I am pretty sure that writing the play is the easiest part, since it involves the kids sitting down and just verbally expunging their bounty of imaginative thoughts, and I tremble at the thought of organizing these kids and keeping them focused on memorizing lines, overcoming stage fright, building a set, making costumes, etc. Even just typing that made my palms sweaty. I’m really hoping I can get some of the other teachers to help me, but they usually rush home right after school to retrieve their own children and take care of their homes. We shall see..

Grade six has gravitated away from theater and I’m finding that hands-on activities keep them more occupied and pacified. Our projects are based on building things out of natural or recycled resources. I think I already briefly touched on this plan, but so far we have made nature art by going out and gathering only things found in nature like flowers, seeds, leaves, and sand, to paste on colored paper and make art. They loved it and were way more enthusiastic about this project than I ever expected. We are now working on making kites out of recycled materials. In the sugar cane fields there are these really tall grass-like rods that are perfect for drying and using as the frame for a kite. Last week we went walking and picked a ton of them and this week we plan to use those and cut up used plastic bags and make kites. Luckily I have one of the teachers helping me with this project because I honestly have never even flown a kite let alone made one from scratch.

For my high school program, STYLE, my persistence has yielded a slight success, yet I am still hesitant to feel completely re-assured. A guidance counselor from the school called me last week and explained that she understood I was having a lot of difficulty gaining momentum with STYLE and that she has been wanting to start a boys and girl club, so why don’t we just umbrella that project under STYLE and work together. GENIUS! This is the exact ingredient for a potentially sustainable project that I was hoping and waiting for. To have a guidance counselor approach me instead of the other way around is more important than I ever could have understood. She is now a willfully invested partner in this endeavor, instead of me begging her to become enthusiastic towards something that I alone conjured up. She also has the instant credibility of being a born and raised Kittitian, a guidance counselor, and she has already formed acquaintance with many of the parents we will be in communication with. Even things as simple as having a school printer, phone, and contacts lists make a world of a difference in the expediency of this project. Now, I have a group of two high school counselors and Charles who works for the Ministry of Education and was with me from the inception of STYLE. We met last week and outlined the projects we would like to complete by May which include: beautifying the school by adding flowers, classroom decorations (the walls are completely bare and covered in graffiti which creates a very uninspired learning environment), creating a new mural to paint on the main wall of the school, finishing painting the basketball court, and having a song-writing competition that focuses on non-violence. All of these projects will be completed by the selected students as community service and we will reward them with field trips, social gatherings, and beach trips.

As far as my non-work related life, I have been soaking up the last Carnival experience for my Peace Corps service. Carnival season is a time that people all over the island look forward to, even if they are steadfast Christians who refuse to partake in the jammin'. While some may not agree with they partying,nthe laid-back attitude and essence of celebration and relaxation seeps into the atmosphere making everyone a little less stressed. Work slows down to a crawl while the pulse in Basseterre is revved up and energized. Rarely is there a reason to be hanging around in town after dark, but during Carnival season everyone comes out dressed in their finest. Street corners are lined with people selling cook-up, barbecued chicken, and other local favorites, the music is blaring so loudly you can feel it pulsating in your chest, and the streets are too congested to even attempt to drive through because the party has the right of way during Carnival.

J’ouvert was another memorable success yet again. There was a jungle theme this year and although the turn out wasn’t what I remembered from last year, we made the best of it and jammed ‘til the sun came up. I know I explained the premise of J’ouvert last year, but I cannot say it enough that this is the most coveted, anticipated, and celebrated event for me and my fellow volunteers, and really, for most of St. Kitts. The pictures will explain the message that I cannot portray through words.


I hope everyone has a wonderful 2010. We are entering a new decade and I am humbled by the intrepidness of time. Let’s live every moment to its fullest and bask in the joy of the presence, because tomorrow is here before you know it.

Much love and paz,
Alisa