Amazing and Grateful

The stories below create a framework to describe why the title of this post is “Amazing and Grateful”?

“You are joking!” I respond, “No really, I have no hot water”. “But I thought you just didn’t have hot water for a day.” As if I still must convince her, I say, “No, really…I have no hot water at all…EVER.” She asks more questions: “Do you heat water to take a shower?“ “No, I take cold showers.” ”How do you wash your hair?” “In cold water.” And so the conversation continued. This is the recent reaction of one friend, but a reaction I hear from many.

Yesterday, I called my son. I asked him about a Merlot I bought in the supermarket in Vieux Fort. He said, “Why didn’t you buy the kind we had when we were there. That was a really good bottle.” I said, “Yes, but we bought the only three bottles they had.” Then he said, “Haven’t they re-stocked?” I was silent and he knew why. It’s been eight years since he returned from Peace Corps Honduras. His memories have somewhat faded in those eight years. The reality is that I will probably never see that bottle of wine again in the supermarket. And seconds after he asked the question, he knew the answer.

Nothing is reliable. During the Christmas holiday season, the entire island ran out of sugar. A few weeks ago I went to the market in my village looking for eggs. They didn’t have any. The woman behind the cash register said, “Wait here for a minute.” I did as she said and ten minutes later she came back with a plastic bag with one egg in it. She handed it to me. It was warm. She said, “That will be fifty cents”.

We are a group of 60-something women with the exception of Yoko who just celebrated her 30^th birthday. My friends from the north, Peace Corps Volunteers Elaine and Lois are coming down with Yoko, a Japanese Volunteer to spend the night. Tomorrow we will go to Dennery for a 10K walk to raise money for their fishing village. I hear them walking up my steps. I am happy they are here. We call ourselves, “The Amazing Women”. Humble, aren’t we? But you might agree at the end of this post that one of us does deserve this title.

Yoko brought gifts for each of us; beautiful fans and cloth pouches used to store paper to clean our face. After pouring large glasses of cold water and putting their things in the spare bedroom, we set out to view the beauty of Viege Point. My village has three bays with two points, each of which is equal and unsurpassed in unique beauty.

When we got back I did something truly amazing. Those that know me will not believe it, but I assure you it is true and there are pictures to prove it. I cooked! And even more remarkable, they ate and lived through the experience. After dinner we ate a cheesecake Yoko made for the occasion.

I read the first part of this post to my amazing friends. We decided there were many reasons to be grateful and this was a good time to come up with a list. It didn’t take much to start the conversation.

¨ We are grateful for local food. The chicken who gave up the warm egg; eating fresh mango, avocado and grapefruit, each having a taste that can’t be described and must be experienced.

¨ We are grateful for water. Waking in the morning to water in the pipes and creating new techniques for taking bucket baths with hot and cold buckets of water.

¨ We are grateful for buses. We ride in nice buses vs. the old school buses found in many countries. This is an entire story in itself and one that may end up in a future post. Finding a bus on a Sunday while standing in the scorching hot sun or the pouring rain is always a relief. We are grateful for the support bus drivers give us when we don’t know where we are going.

¨ We are grateful to experience another way of living. Sleeping after the village parties stop which is usually well into the morning hours is so welcome. Listening to local music; Reggae and Steel Pan reminds us where we are. We are even grateful to hear the ever-present Karaoke. I was especially grateful to share my living experience in the Flat Erika project, supporting Peace Corps Third Goal.

¨ We are grateful for things that help us keep our balance. Working in gardens and composting or enjoying Caribbean sea views and ocean breezes; all of which enable us to de-stress and find peace.

¨ We are grateful for our friends. Meeting new friends; Peace Corps Volunteers and JOVCs (Japanese volunteers) and Saint Lucian’s. Friends who visit, both local and volunteers give us the social systems that sustain us in a new country. Having the good fortune to rent from good landlords who are supportive, helpful and caring people.

¨ We are grateful for a new way to work. Working in flexible environments where we can be creative and add value. Celebrating small successes that may lead to sustainable change. Working with strong Saint Lucian women in leadership positions.

Life is slow and can be frustrating. Change we suggest is many times viewed as unnecessary. Ideas are easily lost and meetings are long. Sometimes it’s difficult to think we are doing anything useful. And just when that happens we achieve a small success. It’s helpful to us to take a moment and reflect on what we have done or learned. This is the reason why the story title includes the word “Grateful”.

It was late and we exhausted our list. The next morning we woke, made a fresh pot of coffee and ate a wonderful assortment of muffins Elaine brought. It’s been raining and we are tempted to ditch the walk and stay here for more good conversation, but we don’t. We walked to the gap to pick up a bus. We told the driver we needed to be stop at a specific restaurant along side the road. This is where the race would start. Unaware of the 10K walk, he reminded us the restaurant would be closed since it was a Sunday; yet another example of a bus driver taking care of us.

We arrived just in time; the race was on, except we really don’t race. We keep a leisurely pace. In the end, we come in last, but we enjoyed the journey admiring the scenery, the birds, a centipede in the road. Lois and I even found a good conversational story about the inevitable dead frog on the roadside. Years ago she found a dead dried up frog carcass in the road and framed it. Obviously, she is an amazing artist!

A few minutes into the “race” we dropped off our backpacks at a volunteer friend’s home. We walked past the winding rivers, admiring the bamboo, the meadows, copious amounts of banana trees and past a man making coal. It was a humid day. The conversation and beauty made the 10K seem like a short walk. At the end of the “race” we reached our goal; the path to the waterfall. Elaine said people are consistently surprised at her age and her capability. She is an amazing sixty-seven years old.

On the way back, as if nature needed to remind us that we are living in a tropical climate and visiting a beautiful rain forest, it poured rain. We took shelter in one of the banana sheds along the roadside. I was the only one who had not left my umbrella behind so I was only “slightly” dry when we reached the shed. This was a good thing as I was the only one who didn’t bring a change of clothes.

We stopped to pick up the backpacks left behind. The couple who lived there was gracious allowing Elaine, Yoko and Lois to change clothes. They were an elderly couple. It was Sunday and they were enjoying a religious service broadcast on the local Saint Lucian station. The man was listening intently to the service while holding a picture of his aunt who had died just days before. The woman poured glasses of freshly made tamarind juice. Yoko magically brought a cake out of her backpack and sliced it to share with everyone. This is why she is now one of us – a totally amazing woman!

So we finish the weekend, grateful and at least one of us proved to be truly amazing.