There's Nothing Like An Early Morning Swim

Every year at the end of March for the last nine years there has been a race taking place in St Kitts and Nevis. It's called the StarMile 2.5 and involves swimming from Nevis across the 2.5 mile channel to Cockleshell beach on St Kitts.

I first heard about this race when I arrived on island and was reading a magazine. It sounded like a lot of fun, but as often happens with things like this I talked to a couple people about it and promptly forgot until last week when I suddenly realized that the end of March was upon us and that meant the race was coming up!

Natalie, one of the PCVs, had agreed to sign up with me and I soon found out that another volunteer, Maggie, would be swimming as well. Everything was going without a hitch until this morning when Natalie and I had to figure out how we were going to get to Cockleshell.

Let me tell you a little about St Kitts...

The island looks like a cricket bat with the thicker body of the island and a peninsula. The main area is where most native Kittitians live. It's very easy to get around with bus services running anywhere you would want to go. The peninsula is primarily made up of ex-pats and vacation areas. The buses don't go there, making it very hard for those of us who either don't have cars or, per Peace Corps policy, are not allowed to drive. Cockleshell Beach is essentially at the tip of the peninsula.

In order to get over to Nevis where the race began, we had to get to the ferry at Cockleshell at 6:30am. I'll give you a play by play of how the morning went:

4am: My alarm goes off. I'm very confused as to why there is a jarring noise in my bedroom. I finally figure out why I'm awake in the dark and pull myself out of bed.

4:10am: I sit down on my couch to check my e-mail to see if anyone who I e-mailed had gotten back to me about lifts to the beach. They hadn't.

4:15am: There is a horrible pain in my hip. I look down and see a centipede biting me and jump screaming from the couch. Centipedes are horrible and look like aliens. See below-


4:16am: The centipede has disappeared. I cannot find it. I begin walking everywhere with a heavy shoe.

4:20am: I walk into the living room and see the centipede squirming along the floor. I smash it with a sneaker. It seems to be in the process of succumbing to its injuries, so I leave it and continue going about my business.

4:25am: I walk back into the living room to see that the centipede has recovered and is wandering about. I smash it 7 more times to make sure it's dead. I don't want to touch it. I leave it for the ants.

4:30am: I call Natalie and tell her that I'm going to head over to her house so we can come up with our game plan.

4:45am: I get a lift to Natalie's house when Adams, a police officer who does the Peace Corps police presentations during training, sees me waiting for the bus.

5:15am: Natalie and I start walking and hoping for a bus. There are none in sight.

5:45am: We have walked all the way to Ross University. There are still no buses. I start to panic. We stop to ask the security guard at the entrance if he might be able to call us a taxi. Before he can, luck finally finds us and we catch a bus.

5:55am: The bus drops us off in town. We start searching for taxis. Naturally, we can't find one because we need one. If we hadn't, 15 of them would have passed by already.

6:05am: I'm about to cry. I want to race and there doesn't seem any way we're going to get there.

6:07am: FINALLY! A TAXI! It's going the wrong way, however. I flag it down and he says he'll come back for us after he drops his passengers off.

6:13am: The taxi's back. We explain what we're doing and where we're going and that we have to be there in 17 minutes. I tell him to drive as fast as possible. He essentially tells me he'll drive as fast as is safe. Who ever heard of responsible driving? psh.

6:30am: We arrived at the beach! Right on time! Success! There is, however, no sign of the boat. Plenty of other people are waiting.

7:00am: The boat finally shows up to take us all across.

8:00am: RACE TIME!!

So yes. That was the morning leading up to the goal. The race started a little late, 8:20 or so, and we barreled into the Caribbean Sea with over 100 other swimmers all in yellow or orange swim caps (a good way to keep track of everyone). I wore yellow, which means I was registered as an open, or unassisted, swimmer. Orange meant assisted swimmers, aka those using fins.

The current was incredibly strong. It pulled us all far to the right and added a significant distance to the swim.

The swim itself was fairly uneventful. There were some white caps in the center of the channel, but nothing that was insurmountable. The kayakers did a great job watching out for everyone and providing assistance and water to those who wanted it, and it was pretty easy to follow other swimmers so as not to get lost.

When I was within about 45 minutes of the shore, I started to see some interesting things on the bottom. there were brightly colored fish, starfish, coral, and, most exciting, a 3 foot ray!

The hardest part of the entire swim was the end. I could clearly see the beach and everyone on it about half an hour before I was there. The current was so strong that it was very hard to make any headway against it, and you had to fight not to be pulled backward.

When my feet finally hit the ground, I almost couldn't stand up. I couldn't quite seem to remember how to walk, but I had to make it to the arch that signified the end to check in my time. Unfortunately for my legs, as soon as everyone got to the arch, cameras and a microphone were shoved in your face and you had to tell everyone your name and such. I was not excited, but then a smiling 10 year old put a medal over my head, so I decided that it was alright.

We were given t-shirts, fed, and then there was a "beach bash" where the winners were announced. Natalie and I didn't stay for the entire thing opting, instead, to catch a lift with a group of 3 Ross students who had been kayaking. After the morning's fiasco, we certainly couldn't pass up a driver's generosity!

So, I survived a 2.5 mile ocean swim, a centipede attack, and am only minimally physically exhausted at this point.

I can't wait to do it all again next year!


PS. Easter is coming up. If anyone wants to send me Easter candy, I would love you forever. Specifically I would like Peeps. and chocolate.

My new address is to the left of the post!

The Adventure Continues with a Change in Venue

Hello to you all!

I know it's been an inexcusable length of time since I last wrote here but, to be perfectly honest, I was having to work through a lot of things that simply permeated my mind and I didn't think they were appropriate to write about for the whole internet to see.

Many of you already know about what's been going on in relation to my Peace Corps experience, but I know many of you don't, so before I explain where I am and why I'm where I am now, I figure I should at least give a brief explanation.

At the end of December, I had a pretty terrible safety incident in my apartment on St Vincent. I won't go into detail here, but please feel free to e-mail me or whatnot if you want to know specifics.

Due to the traumatic nature of the event, I simply no longer felt safe on the island that I have called home for the last six months and a couple weeks ago, I finally made the decision that I needed to move to another country for my own peace of mind and in the interest of preserving my mental health.

That's the very short story of how I've now ended up on the island of St Kitts. The full name of the country is St Christopher and Nevis, but it's rare to see "Christopher" written out as "Kitts" has become the standard abbreviation. It's a country made up of two islands, and they look remarkably like a baseball and bat.

The trip here wasn't without some delay and drama in and of itself. Liat (it's jokingly said that the letters stand for "Leave Island Any time") is notorious for having things go wrong and is, unfortunately, a necessary evil when traveling in the Eastern Caribbean.

My journey began on Monday, the 7 of March, with a 5am taxi ride to the airport. I boarded my plane on time at 7am and, according to my itinerary, should have landed on St Kitts at 10:45am after stopovers in St Lucia and Antigua (you also can never get a direct flight within the Caribbean).

After landing on St Lucia, we were forced to go through security again, but fortunately most of my plane from St Vincent was slated to travel together on the same plane to continue on to their destinations so, although this caused a slight delay, the flight was held for us.

Once everyone was through security, we were told we could go out to prepare to board the plane. We were all standing waiting outside, when we were told that we would have to go back into the waiting area due to "technical difficulties." We weren't told what these were, just that they existed, so with a lot of grumbling, we all headed back into the lounge. Within 20 minutes, we were told that things had been taken care of and we were once again outside waiting to board the prop plane that would take us to our various destinations.

We boarded without a hitch. I stuffed my large carry on items into the overhead compartments and sat with my "single serving friend" who was on his way to Puerto Rico to board the cruise ship that he works on. The plane began to taxi to the runway and the engines were being revved for takeoff when the flight attendant suddenly went running up the aisle to talk to the pilot. The right engine was leaking copious amounts of fuel and had somehow gone undetected until people looked out the window...

Needless to say, they didn't take off and kill us but instead we were sent back, once again, to the lounge. By this time it was obvious that we were all missing our connections in Antigua and would have to be rerouted and rescheduled. I ended up not getting to Antigua until after 1pm and there wasn't a flight to St Kitts from there until 7:45 pm...so my 3.5 hour day of travel was increased by 10 hours and I missed my own welcome party that the volunteers had planned.

On the plus side, I have an utterly wonderful apartment here. I even have amenities such as hot water, a microwave, a blender, cable, internet, water, and electricity included in the rent, and a/c (although I don't use it because I'd have to pay extra if I wanted to). I have a spare bedroom as well, so if you're thinking about visiting the Caribbean...

And I suppose that you're all wondering what I'll be doing in relation to work. Or maybe you aren't in which case you can just stop reading now. I'll be working in at least two locations. One will be the Sandy Point Primary School where I'll be in charge of the library and the other is the Special Education School where I'll be working with the classroom of autistic students! I'm especially exited about the latter.

I haven't yet visited the Special Education School, but I've been to Sandy Point a few times now and it's really a nice school. They have a wonderful faculty who all seem very knowledgeable and they even have a full time reading specialist on staff who works with students one on one who are falling behind in reading. The library has a/c and the school also has a computer room (although the computers aren't all set up). The school day is longer here: 8:30-3:30 as opposed to 9-3 on St Vincent. I'll make sure to take some pictures in the next couple days to show you all!

Anyway...That's where I am and what I'm up to. I'm feeling safe and secure here and will hopefully be able to finish out the next year and a half of my Peace Corps service without a hitch.
I hope you're all well at home as Spring approaches!