Not too much going on as of late. We finished up the teaching thing, did a few odd-jobs for the ministry. I obtained Harry Potter 7, which I’m reading now. Nothing new though.

With the end of this internship in view, a thought that I’ve had many times keeps coming to mind: I’m in a place that people dream of coming to, that people spend huge amounts of money to come to. People see places like this in their calendars and on their computer desktops, and they burn to go there and experience it, and here I am, and here I’ve been for two months. I am immensely fortunate and grateful.

Last night was pretty killer. After work, our driver Josh took us to Boca, his village inland of the eastern side of Grenada.  It was kind of funny, this was not a tourist destination, and everybody knew it from the beginning. Boca was throwing sort of a block-party: there was cricket in the streets, SoCa music, the local shop stayed open late, and then there was the Oildown. Oildown, as I’m sure you haven’t been able to guess, is Grenada’s national dish. It’s sort of a crazy stew, the base of which is coconut milk. Add in some chicken (sometimes the feet too), pork, breadfruit, dumplings, provisions (they’re a fruit that looks like a banana, tastes like a potato), sometimes calalloo leaves,  and cook it in an enormous pot over a wood-fire. It’s really… and I mean really tasty depending on where you get it. Boca’s party was the real deal, we have had some from caterers before, but nothing like this.

The other great thing about being in Boca that night were the dominoes games. Dominoes is huge here in Grenada, you can always here the loud bang of them hitting tables (part of the game is to slam them, to be intimidating). I played with a few locals, actually won a few games, talked a little trash, it was great. As the night went on, I just floated around to different groups of people chatting.

The ride home was also.. interesting. Half of it was spent yelling “I’m GOOD! You GOOD?!” to the other people in the back of the van. Got home at midnight and crashed. Pretty good stuff.

That’s all for today, kiddos.

Well, someone at some point said that it can’t be perfect all the time. I don’t know who they were but they were certainly right. Even here in the beautiful tropics, there’s stuff to worry about when it comes to your personal wellbeing. So, for your future trips here, I’d recommend looking out for these top five toxins found in my travels:

5: Mango

Risk of Exposure: 10 – The only time you don’t see mango in Grenada is when you’re blinking.
Pain: 0, unless you’re allergic or you try to eat the pit.
Psychological Detriment: 10 – it’ll ruin fruit for you for the rest of your life.

Now, mango isn’t a toxin. And to be truthful, I just needed to round out my list of four to a nice straight five. But they do have an effect on you. You’ll be spoiled when you come back to the US. Mangoes here are infinitely better than the pathetic excuses of fruit that they try to say are mangoes in the grocery store. You can pick them off anywhere, they get ripe, they taste amazing, they fill you up, and they’re very untouched by harsh chemicals and growth agents. So yeah, you’re going to get back form the Caribbean and just complain for awhile, I bet.

4: Mosquito/Sandfly Bites

Risk of Exposure: 10 – Everywhere… crawling on my skin…
Pain: 4 – Scratching enough can break them open, and trust me, you’ll do plenty of scratching.
Psychological Detriment: 5 – If you live in my room, it’s more like 7. When you start to feel bugs land on your skin, but look and see nothing, you’ve gone into the deep end. Also, if you look at one sucking your blood, and just sit there to let it fill up so you get a nice bloody splat in a second, you’re a sadist / easily amused / both.

I can’t escape them. As I type this, each of my limbs has about 20-40 bites on them. My room is the worst, I think, of all the interns, for mosquitoes. I call my bathroom “The Warzone” because showering is not only a battle to wash myself off, but a battle to slay any incoming insects with my bare hands. I’ve seen and felt enough bites, watched blood splatter from them as i squished them mid-bite, ugh it’s just gross. I hate to kill bugs, I really do, but it’s either them or me, and I’m sick of being lunchmeat for insects whose only natural purpose (as far as I can surmise) is to spread disease and make me die faster.

3: Grenadian Rum

Risk of Exposure: 10 – Everyone’s house has a roadside bar/massage parlor/internet cafe/tattoo parlor/tire factory. They all have rum.
Pain: Variable, depending on your threshold. Most normal people with common sense won’t go beyond smelling it though.
Psychological Detriment: Like all alcohol, the number is proportional to how much of it you have.

Plain and simple — the rum down here is ridiculous. If the movie Pirates of the Caribbean were accurate, and they were drinking real Caribbean rum, Johnny Depp’s face would have contorted horribly with every swig he took. And after Kiera Knightly used it all to start a fire, he wouldn’t be upset that it was gone. Jack Iron rum, extremely popular in Carriacou, is estimated at 160 proof, but is likely to fluctuate, meaning that certain batches are even higher. I won’t even bother going into a description of what this would do to your internals. It’s not for the weak of heart.

2: Manchineel Fruit

Risk of Exposure: 3 – They’re pretty scarce, I think people cut them down. Those that aren’t are marked with red Xs. However, if you’re an idiot, like me, your chances are quite high, since you’ll eat anything.
Pain: 7 - After one tiny, eensy little bite, I felt like I just chugged a bottle of pepper sauce, without the taste of pepper, but with the burn.
Psychological Detriment: 10 – That stuff’s scary, not knowing how badly you were poisoned.
Remember how when you were a little kid, everybody told you not to eat random things that you just find? Remember the cliche for camping-types that stresses the importance of knowing something before you eat it? Hm? Well I guess that makes one of us…

Walking along the beautiful beaches of Carriacou, Two associates and I stumbled upon a small, greenish fruit growing on a few trees near the beach. Seeing as how everything (read: EVERYTHING) on this island was edible (you can peel the bark from trees and eat it. A typical backyard has like at least 10 types of edible plants growing, etc.), we decided to take a little taste. To the fruit’s credit, it was delicious. It tasted like a cross between a mango and an apple. We had a little and moved on. About a hundred yards up the beach, I ask Jimmy, “Is your throat burning?”
“No” he replies. Minutes later though, I get a look and Jimmy says, “okay, my throat is definitely on fire.” Uh oh. We turn to Auggie, who looks at us strangely, but also confirms the burn. Panic. Turning back, it only gets worse, and when we ask a local boy, he doesn’t really get what we’re talking about. “Are you hot in the mouth?!” he finally said, and as we nodded, he yelled out “Go and wash out your mouth!” Naturally, we were a little anxious.

Turns out that we ate the Manchineel fruit. Locally it’s known as Mangini. It’s the fruit of the worlds most poisonous tree, famous for being used by natives to poison enemy water supplies. A typical method of torture was to leave a victim tied underneath of it’s branches, exposed to the elements. The poor soul would develop all sorts of blisters. If it rained, they’d die. Well, the fruit can also be fatal in certain cases, but thankfully it wasn’t us.

I think we’ve learned a lesson.

1: Tibili Old Grog

Risk of Exposure: 1 – Only if you’re dumb enough to try it.
Pain: 6 – It doesn’t hurt much else beyond your psyche.
Psychological Detriment: 10 – You’ll never forget the taste. or the horror.

Ah, Old Grog. Just the name sound appetizing enough. There are many brands of it, each, I’m sure, with it’s own unique blend of what makes Grog so special. See, Grog is, as far as we have been able to figure out, a pretty simple recipe. First, start off with a collection of old hospital bedding and equipment. The 1930s is a good decade to keep an eye out for. Then, mix it with pure rubbing alcohol, and a pinch of spices for “taste”. Viola! You’ve made old grog. Seriously though, this stuff got the top spot for a reason. It is by far, the worst thing you can consume in Grenada. It’s just fire and ground-up syringes / labotomy equipment. The “real” Under-the-Counter Old Grog is actually stored in an enormous jug at this place in Gouyave. At the bottom, it’s full of millipedes, centipedes, bugs of all sorts. The locals say that it’s good for you, in the same way that your older siblings might tell you that Windex and Blue Kool-aid are the same thing. Also, the bottles boast that it’s chock full of Bois Bandes (French: “bwah-ban-day”), a naturally occurring aphrodisiac. I’d rather eat a scoop of Mangini Sorbet.

So Carriacou was pretty cool, in all it’s 12-square mile glory. It’s definitely more laid back then Grenada, which I found hard to believe. People there somehow manage to take it easier than the people here in Grenada. The boat ride is really neat too — I’d never been on a catamaran before, and I got to see a bunch of small islands, an underwater volcano, etc.

The accommodations for us in Carriacou were, “Unique”. Not only because it was named “John’s Unique”, but also because our room had the unique smell and moisture that one normally associates with swamps or dungeons, not hotel rooms. It also was unique in the very progressive notion that light fixtures were merely for show, not function. In fact, there’s a lot of really new ideas going around that place that involve taking running water away at random intervals, just to keep the guests on their toes. But yeah, I kid. I don’t care where we stay, it’s beautiful here and I can’t complain at all about the place, since I only sleep in it. The other rooms, as it may be, were perfectly fine. The place was very cool still, it even had a turtle sanctuary in the front of it!

After waking up and getting out of the dungeon, we would head to the Sandy Isle Cafe, to eat eggs and cheese sandwiches on the patio. Every breakfast was excellent, and the scenery was beautiful. This, however, can sometimes be interrupted by little blackbirds, who puff up and chirp, sneak into the kitchen to steal food, and land nearby (in my case, on me) to stare at your bread menacingly.

Then came the classes, which were a little more difficult this week. Teaching teachers is a little different, especially since we’re younger than them. There was also this crazy split in skill levels — some students were really skilled in what we were teaching, the others were beginners. We had planned for a class of just beginners, but when half of the class got upset at the pace and material we chose, we had to switch it up, which pissed off the beginners. It was rough, and it’s hard to carry respect when you’re a complete foreigner with no real title. If I’m ever going to become a teacher, I’ll make sure to find a way to remedy this..

After work came, what else, the beach!! It was absolutely gorgeous there. Carriacou’s beaches are just like Grenadas, except they have a very pronounced reef. I took some goggles and got to swim around and see all sorts of exotic fish, urchins (scary), coral, etc. This beach was also special because there is a dog, whom we affectionately named “Semicolon” who would come and stay with us on the beach. She practically owned the place, climbing up onto high walls that overlooked the sea, barking at waves, and being enormously friendly to us.

On the way home from the beach, we might see Mr. Snagg in passing, and let him know that we’d stop by later to hang out in his establishment. Mr. Snagg is a guy who does a bit of boating, but runs a small bar on the side. It’s right on the beach, hand-made by Snagg himself, with very cute ambient lighting and just an atmosphere that I can’t easily describe. It’s the perfect place to spend a night on the beach. We all got to be good friends after we had stopped for some refreshments, only to see the multiple pots of food that he had cooked for a small group of vacationers. He offered us the leftovers, free of charge.

Snagg’s a cool guy. After that incident, he was talking to the people who came out to eat there (he sits down and eats and chats with you, how cool is that?) and they had mentioned that he seemed very happy to have fed “the hungry students”. He told me this later, and he was saying how good he felt about it and how he’s glad that he made some friends, and I couldn’t help but smile at one of the few people in the world who can have such a good soul. We went back once more for a game of cards (which Snagg of course played with us) and then we took our supervisor out for dinner there. We had also managed to bring a big crowd of Archeology students from the US, which Snagg was pleased to see his place so full. We saw him once more, right before leaving, and hopefully we might see him again if we travel back to Carriacou for the Regatta holiday.

So, Carriacou’s definitely different. After hanging out with Mr. Snagg, watching cooks half-heartedly shoo birds from the kitchen, and pet Semicolon after swimming through the reefs, I can honestly say that it seems like the perfect place to return to. I plan on seeing a lot of the world, and it seems silly to make such a fuss over such a small place, but I think I’d like to return, hopefully soon. Maybe I could even retire there someday..