Bookshelves Arriving

Bookshelves arriving

Ralmone, the carpenter who built the bookshelves for the school delivered them today. It was really exciting to see them come down the street towards the school in the bed of the pickup truck. After all, the last time I had seen the carpenter, he took $1,000 EC (about $400 US dollars) and said he would deliver the finished product by March 12. Since he had done work for several people here in the village of Mero and came highly recommended as trustworthy and one of the best carpenters in the area, I was pretty confident that he wasn't going to skip town with my money, but on the eve of Carnival and without much in the way of a receipt, it was pretty easy to imagine this cash disappearing.

Bookshelves in their new home

I did speak with him several times over the past couple weeks, partly for my own sense of security that he was actually doing the work and partly to set expectations for others at the school. True to his word, the shelves were finished on schedule (a complete surprise for work around here).

Ralmone attached the heavy duty locking wheels I brought with me for the purpose so the shelving can be moved around the room to accommodate multiple uses for the room, and he did an amazing job re-using boards salvaged from a long-defunct bookshelf. These extra boards he fit into place this morning when he delivered the bookcase.

Ralmone, posing with his work

 

Ms. Pendanque, the Principal, was very pleased and talked about how well this shelf would work, giving her energy and enthusiasm for having more shelves build (with funding she hopes will come from the Minister of Education in Dominica).

Alison and I left the school and both felt elated that we were able to be here for the full process of receiving the barrels, unloading the books and delivery of the bookshelves. Ms. Pendanque talked about her plans to open the library to the community for 2 hours after school each day because there are many books that adults in the town will enjoy. We loved hearing that this library would be useful not just to the students but to their families and others in the community.

To all of you who have helped this project go from dream to possibility to reality, we are truly grateful for all your support.  Thank you very much!

A Coral Reef - By Willow

Spiky
Colorful
Beautiful
Fish Swimming About
Wavy
Straight
An underwater city
A Coral Reef

Fun Facts about Dominica

• Dominica’s original name is Wai’tukubuli which means tall is her body
• Dominica is 29 miles long and 16 miles wide
• Dominica’s coat of arms states “after God it is the land”
• The majority of Dominicans are slave descendants brought here from west Africa
• Everywhere you go you see people walking with machetes, also called cutlasses
• There are more active volcanoes here than anywhere in the world
• 80% of the people here are Roman Catholic
• English here sounds like African languages mixed with French creole. For example, “I love Dominica” translates to “Mwen enme Domnik”
• We see lots of African traditions here including Carnival which means Masquerade
• There are 195 recorded species of fern, 75 kinds of orchids, 50 kinds of butterflies and 176 species of birds!
• Dominica’s landscape is very diverse: woodland, rainforest, microclimates, hot springs…
• Endangered giant leatherback turtles lay eggs here every year
• Dominica gets 60% of its power from water through a series of water carried down in pipes from high peaks.
• The tallest peak Morne Diablotin, is nearly 5,000 feet tall.

Willow's School reflections

Dear friends,

Things are very different here. The Dominica kids have to do praying before school starts. The first day they did their prayers it almost made me laugh because they say, “Good Lord, please make us be good children!” Kids get whipped with books when they are not being good. You are allowed to go into the streets at lunch to buy food at the stores.

I made four friends the first day of school. I call one of my friends “Carrot” because his hair looks like a carrot with braids. Kids are very nice. One lighter skin girl is teasing me for being white. She whispered to her friends and I could tell it was about me. I wish I could go back home but I also wish I could stay right here.

Hike to Boiling Lake

While the kids were off at school yesterday, we headed off for a hike we haven't done for 5 years. It's a beautiful route that took us 4.5 hours, starting at around 2,500 feet and topping out at nearly 5,000. Up and over the ridge, down into the Valley of Desolation, back up another ridge to the Boiling Lake and then all over again. Think "Stair Master" with mud, courtesy of the rain forest.

With only 70,000 residents on Dominica, more than half of them in the 2 cities on the west coast, there is lots of open land. Nearly 2/3 of the island is undeveloped land in the Morne Trois Piton National Park. This hike gives you a sense of that.

While the trail maintenance on this hike has improved dramatically, there were still several steep sections that were nearly impassable, with slick mud and not much to hold onto. The video clip here provides some additional info and perspective.

Today we rest and massage tired calves and quads.

I recommend watching this full screen because for some reason otherwise some of the frame gets cut off.

Unpacking the books

A few days ago, my parents went to go pick up the barrels with all of the books in them. Willow and I were at school while they went with the principal to Roseau, where the barrels were. We all wondered how long it would take them, although we had a pretty good feeling it would take all day. They left around nine o’clock.

At school, it was “come as you like”. That is a day where you have to dress like a character. Some kids came as pop stars, and some kids came as doctors. There were a lot of different varieties. I came as Katy Perry with my friend Kemely because she wanted to sing a song with me by Katy Perry. We sang “hot and cold”.

It was very different to our school’s “field day” or “expression session”. With this school, the kids just ran around until the teachers set up the chairs for us to sit in and watch each kid come up one by one and do their act. Some people were good, but most kids were really bad. At least they tried. When they called Kemely and my name, we went up and sang our song. While we were up there singing and dancing, we were looking at all of the school. It was then that I realized that this school is much smaller than Little Harbour. We could fit all of the kids in the school here on the stage at the same time. After we finished, people clapped.

The teachers kept on calling names. One kid was (I am guessing) about five years old and was dressed as a business man. When he got up on stage, he told us all about how he was a business man and if anybody did anything wrong, he would fire them. He said “see this tag on my shirt, this means I am a business man, so now you know how to spell business man.” We all laughed. He took it so seriously. After we had gone through all of the people, it was snack time. After snack, we had lunch, and after lunch, my parents came back.

They had a pickup truck with all six of the barrels in the back. I helped them unload it and sort the barrels out. We divided the books into different reading levels, beginning in K and running through 6th grade. After about a half an hour of unpacking the barrels, I was pooped. So was everybody who was helping. We had to keep going until we finished. Once we were done, each pile pretty much filled up a whole barrel. I will always remember the feeling that I got when I was helping with the barrels. It was a feeling that you know you’re helping, but it is such hard work.

It’s going to be really great when we see the new book shelves in the library. Hopefully they will be done by the end of the week.

"Snapshots" by Alden

I froze, and the pig looked at me for a minute. He stared me right in the eyes. He seemed to be saying “what are you?” Then, he started running as fast as he could, right towards me! I froze for a second, then realized,” this means you have to get away!” I ran all the way to the car. When my dad went over to see the pig, he told me it was tied up. All that for nothing!

Three, two, one, JUMP! I found my feet immediately leaving the rock. In one second, I was flying through the air. My hair flew up. My arms stretched over my head, and I screamed with joy. In five seconds, I felt my feet hit the water, then my legs, body, arms, and head. I dove under. I came up,the current pushing me towards the rocks. I found the edge of the cliff to hold onto, and finally found a way to hoist myself up. “Let’s do it again!”