9/9/02

Let’s see what I’ve done lately. I’ll try not to make it a grocery list, but I’m going from my written journal.

During most of last week I was back at the monastery for our LAST training session. Most of it wasn’t actually training, though. Abu, our trainer, left last Monday to start a grad program at a University in the US. Instead, we spent a lot of time preparing for our swearing-in ceremony. The volunteers are expected to do a little act as part of the ceremony. I had horrible flashbacks to the Babonneau talent show, so I stayed far away from the creative process. In the end, we decided to read Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken" and sing a calypso. Also, I was nominated to give an address of thanks in Kwéyòl. It had become a big joke at the first training session in Babonneau about giving addresses of thanks. We had many distinguished guest speakers, and, without fail, at the end, someone would get up and say "on behalf of the group, I’d like to thank you for coming today, blah blah blah". It was really cheesy and insincere sometimes, especially if the speaker had been boring. Anyways, I was feeling pretty good because I had never been asked to get up and say thanks. But then I got the mother of all thanks, and in Kwéyòl. Also, it’s important to note the required formality of something like this. It almost is funny. It is very important to appropriately recognize everyone who is in attendance and every accomplishment of theirs since they were three. It doesn’t matter how routine the meeting is. For example, this is how it went at our swearing-in:

There were no more than 30 people there, including nine of us and the 5 other volunteers. This is what someone would say:

"I’d like to welcome you and thank you for coming this morning. I’d especially like to recognize the presence of Mrs. Anthony-Husbands, {ex wife of the Prime Minister} permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education; Mr. Guy Mayers, President of the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce and our keynote speaker today; Mr. Earl Phillips, Country Director of the Peace Corps Eastern Caribbean; Mr. Andrew Tonks, Programming and Training Officer of the Peace Corps Eastern Caribbean; other staff of the Peace Corps: Mr. Aubertin, Ms. Franklin, Ms. Clarke and other staff; current volunteers; host family members; host agency representatives; community members; friends; guests….."

Notice that nothing has really been said yet.

So to make a long story extra long, I had to do this formality thing on top of the Kwéyòl. It went well though. I wrote what I wanted to say in English, and then Michael translated it into Kwéyòl. I practiced it a few times with him and with the nuns at the monastery. I was a little nervous, but it was good. Everyone congratulated me in the end. There were no congratulations after the "Survivor" fiasco.

Our calypso went well too. We wrote about some of the encounters we’ve had and about being Peace Corps Volunteers. Michael helped us a lot with that, and Jason "Batchelor", the Calypso King 1998 came back to visit as well. As if that wasn’t enough singing for me, we also sang the Lucian and US national anthems.

Today was my first day at work. It went pretty well. In the morning, I went to an orientation session for people who were new to the center. Later, I went to another session on self-awareness and self-esteem. As part of my own getting-to-know my job, I’m writing non-objective observational pieces about what goes on. I may post those in their own section on the website to give people an idea of what I’m doing here. In the self-esteem workshop, I was more like a participant than an observer. I was glad that the people regarded me as someone they want to be involved with, rather than a spy or something. At several points the teacher even would turn to me and say "Caroline, what do you think?" Meow! Quite a change from being a peon at Citizens’ Bank.

Later in the week, I’m scheduled to take a round-the-island tour of our affiliate sites. I think later I may spend full days at the other sites, just to see what’s going on. I also am on the apartment hunt now. Monique took me to a few places, but my details so far are sketchy.

I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who’s sent email. I’ve been so happy with all the email I get. It really means a lot. I may be slow in getting back to people, but I do have a list of who I need to write to.