It's that time again. My air conditioning isn't particularly cold tonight, so I'm very hot and can't sleep. It's time to blog. Not too much has happened over the last week. Last Tuesday was Grenadian Independence Day so we had that day off. They've only been independent for 38 years, so the patriotism in this country is amazing. Since we didn't have school on Tuesday, we decided to go to a big event around here that goes on on Monday nights; crab races. They take place at one of the bars on the beach called Owls and we had heard about them but didn't know what to expect. What happens is they put the chairs in a big circle with probably a 30 foot diameter. Then they have a bowl a crabs which have numbers in chalk written on their backs. Bets are taken beforehand on the crabs and then the bowl is turned over in the sand. After the bowl is lifted the crabs begin to crawl. Don't turn your head or you might miss the movement! They are extremely slow. There are different races. The first race was between five crabs and the first one to make it out of the circle won. Then everyone who bet on that crab won. I saw people win up to 15 dollars depending on the odds. Not too shabby. The second race the winning crab was the last one in the circle. The third race was the one I bet on. There were 43 crabs and everyone got their own. The first crab out of the circle won. You can imagine that when the bowl was turned over it was a huge pile of crabs just heaped on top of each other. They slowly sorted themselves out while a huge group of crazy people stood on the sidelines yelling at the top of their lungs, "Number twenty-four!!! Crawl faster!!! I bet five dollars on you! C'mon! No, number seventeen you need to crawl the other way! Twenty-four!" Since these crabs are not the speediest, this yelling goes on for quite a while. It was very entertaining, I don't know how often I'll go back. I could just stand and watch the paint dry at school and probably more will be accomplished in a shorter amount of time. Side note: There is always something being painted at school because the weather conditions here are not conducive to keeping paint on the side of a building.
Since we didn't have class on Tuesday I headed to the beach for a little bit of tanning and swimming. There was a horrible rip tide which is very strange for my side of the island, which is very protected and usually calm. In the town it was like a ghost town. Absolutely everything was closed and as I walked across the street I didn't feel like I was going to get run over because there were hardly any cars out. On the beach people lounged all over the place. However, that also brought all of the beach sales people. People walk up and down the beach all day long trying to sell things to the tourists. There is one lady who I see every time I go who offers to braid hair. There is another guy who is constantly trying to sell these beaded necklaces. But on independence day, there were men walking the beach selling sacks of potatoes, bunches of carrots, Grenadian flags, you name it, they were selling it.
Most rental places in Grenada have a cleaning service that comes once or twice a week and does a general cleaning of your place. It's nice because then students don't have to buy cleaning supplies and brooms and mops. My room gets cleaned on Fridays. Since there are so many rooms in my building the lady is here every day and she also maintains the hallways and staircase. I leave my apartment at 8:30AM to get on the bus and every single Friday she's knocking on my door at 8:00. I always inform her, while still in my pajamas, that I will still not be leaving until 8:30, as I did last Friday. Then, without fail, she knocks on my door at 8:25. I answer the door and tell her that I'm packing my bag and I will be out in a few minutes. Whenever I leave she's standing there with her broom right outside my door and walks in as soon as I leave. She's really nice, but you can't tell me that there aren't other rooms in the entire building that need cleaning at that time. There are plenty of people who have class at 8:00 and leave at 7:30 or earlier. It's rather annoying to say the least. I enjoy coming home to a clean place, but I dread Fridays because I know she's going to be in my hair in the morning!
While I have enjoyed having an apartment of my own without a roommate, it does sometimes get a little lonely. There are good things about it, such as I never have to wait for the bathroom, but there are down sides like if no one reminds you to get toilet paper, you're not going to have any! That is the day you will be thankful you live across the street from the grocery store. I have also come to appreciate the dishwasher at home. Washing dishes by hand is very tedious and boring, but if you only have four plates and you don't keep up with the dish washing, pretty soon you either don't have a plate to eat on your you're forced to do the dishes. But it's sometimes a good thing not to have a roommate so that they don't see your embarrassing rookie mistakes, such as hard boiling eggs, only to crack them open and find the density to be a medium hardness. I can't think of a much less appetizing substance as a half-hard boiled egg. I guess I will try again tomorrow.
PS. Here are more pictures. They include the crab races. :) http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150690344978275.501272.781648274&type=3&l=4ceb579a9e
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