days seven and eight

Class on Monday was a change from the routine; after the weekend, it wasn’t exactly easy to wake up at 7am. In FREC we went over GDP, and in GEOG we learned about different types of precipitation. For lunch, Kristen and I went to the “juice man,” a street stand just down the road from the hotel. I had a papaya and mango smoothie, it was the best smoothie I’ve ever had (although I’m sure the warm weather had something to do with that). We then went to the Dominica Museum and learned a bit more about the history of the island and its people. For example, before bananas and sugar ruled the agriculture of the island, coffee was the main crop the French grew here. After heading back to the hotel, we got some scary news: on their trip to Trafalgar, Felicity, Lauren, Alex, and Seth had been robbed by two teenagers with a machete. Luckily no one was hurt and they were able to get back safely, after reporting the incident to the police. For the rest of the afternoon we stayed in the hotel, wary of travelling without a large group. After a quick nap, we had a safety meeting and went to dinner at The Garage. The night ended with some trashy TV, a new ritual.

On Tuesday classes switched up a bit: Dr. Seraphin went to the bank with those whose belongings had been stolen, leaving us with only Dr. Hastings’s class that morning. After a lesson about stocks and bonds, most of the group went to the market for some touristy shopping. A smoothie stop (papaya and pineapple – yum!) and a refrigerator magnet later, we all left for Soufriere, a southern town where Dr. Seraphin grew up. We saw the scenery from Pirates of the Caribbean 2, which was a huge rock face on the side of the island. No Jack Sparrow, though. As a group, we hiked part of the national trail: we saw the natural sulfur springs, which they had converted to hot tubs on the hill. We also saw some sulfur, and smelled it for minutes afterwards – a mix of deviled eggs and some b.o., lovely. We then hopped back in the vans and travelled a few minutes to Scott’s Head, the southernmost point on Dominica. We were able to climb up the mini-mountain that gives a gorgeous view of the island, shows the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and overlooks Martinique to the south. Skell (our taxi driver) then took us back to Soufriere, where we saw a local church and explored a cave before dinner. We had been told we were going to eat fish and plantains. No one, myself included, expected this to mean an entire fish, eyeballs included, and a whole plantain. Appearances can certainly be deceiving – it was actually really good (and I ate an eyeball, just for kicks. Why not?)! We hopped back in the taxi for the ride to La Flamboyant Hotel. I am pretty sure Dominica only has 5 songs they play on the radio, and now the group knows all of them. Skell let us borrow his CD so now we can take the reggae back to the States. After a quick snack food run to the mini mart, I was all set for trashy TV. Toy Story 3 was on instead, a fine way to end a fun day.