Have I mentioned that I never get out of bed when my alarm goes off, the first or the second time? One of those days. Getting to breakfast before 8 is always a struggle, and Tuesday was no exception. I spent a quick meal trying to wake up by picking seeds out of my grapes and watermelon (no genetically modified foods here) in preparation for 4 hours of class ahead. In GEOG, we split into groups and worked on the class paper. We finished in much less time than given, so I spent most of the class on Web Sudoku. No complaints. In FREC we did some more economics. Kristen wasn’t feeling well, so she opted out of the day’s activities. Another lunch at Cocorico (brie sandwich with ketchup is my go-to order) where we ran into some Semester at Sea students. We talked just long enough to be jealous of their trip before heading back to the hotel. We were scheduled for community service up the road (more like straight up a mountain) at a local garden, so we jumped in the van and were off. Giraudel Garden was gorgeous – so many flowers and trees. But, as I’ve learned to expect, things were not as planned. They didn’t have any work for us to do, so instead we got a brief history of the place and pulled a few vines out of bushes. Fine by me! Ferns here are a big weed problem, so we had some fun pulling those out. The vines overtaking the bushes are used by local children as jump rope, as one of the older volunteers demonstrated. Alex, Felicity, and I tried some double Dutch, but it didn’t work out too well. We then took a trip to Mr. Martin’s garden estate, named Exotica (just as awkward to say in person). His property is amazing – he grows seemingly every fruit that grows on the island, from mangoes to strawberries, sorrel to sour oranges. Fun fact: pineapples grow out of the ground, they look so strange! He has eight guest houses on the property, each named after a fruit grown in the front yard. They look like mini beach houses, and the view of the Caribbean made me ache for Dewey a little bit. Mr. Martin treated us with some freshly squeezed orange juice and sorrel juice – it’s the best I’ve had since being here! Another not-such-a-surprise, dinner was not provided as we’d been told. That left a very limited selection back in Roseau – I opted for Chinese. Some chicken lo mein hit the spot, and going to bed early made it even better.
Another guest lecture by Mr. Shillingford started the day, this time focused on Dominica’s geography. I learned that Dominica is on the western part of an underwater mountain ridge, which creates the enormous, 2,000 feet drop off just a few hundred feet off the coast on the Caribbean side. Our day after that was completely booked – we set off for the Dominican State College (the Del Tech of the island) after class. Just a few minutes away from our hotel is the most colorful school I have ever seen. Decorated in bright green and yellow paint, the school can be seen from down the road. A smaller school, with just over 1000 students, requires uniforms to be worn dependent upon majors. The tourism and hospitality students we met were in green and yellow tops, and everyone wore black bottoms. Dr. Seraphin had no trouble joking around with him – they thought he was hilarious, and our group just sat there confused (I suppose we don’t get Dominican humor!). But we all found Dr. Hastings’s comment about getting a weave to be hysterical (he’s mostly bald). The students took us on a tour of campus, showed us the greenhouses, the livestock, the fruit trees, and the classrooms. We came back together in the hospitality building for a group lunch, rice and chicken with some carrots and cabbage. I learned that a favorite topping on seasoned rice is ketchup – not too bad! We ate some cool pops before heading out back, where we hand printed the wall. Each student from UD and the tourism and hospitality students made a teal hand print on the back wall, writing our names underneath to commemorate the day. Guess I left my mark on Dominica! After some homemade cherry and raisin cake, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the cultural show. We dressed up to go to the old mill, which is now a museum for the cultural history of the island. We took a tour of the museum, saw some native costumes, ate local food (plantains wrapped in bacon = delicious), and were treated to the coolest show I’ve ever seen. We saw stilt walker, local dances, heard jing ping (Creole music), listened to native songs, saw Kalinago dancers (the indigenous island people), and had a great time. The music was awesome, and so were the costumes. The show finished with some men running onstage in giant costumes, made of potato sacks and Viking hats – so funny to see them dancing! We were able to dance with the performers afterwards and talk with them about their culture. It was definitely my favorite night in Dominica so far. We hung out at JRs for a bit afterwards, played stupid ninja, and headed to bed early. The sky was alight with stars and a crescent moon, you can see so much here because there aren’t many streetlights. A wonderful day!
Sidenote: the resemblance between the Kalinago people and the Lakota of South Dakota was uncanny.
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