9/11/02

Today was about the bleakest day I’ve seen here so far. We must be in a tropical wave again. Normally the sun is coming in my window in the morning, but today it was gray. I don’t think there have been other days when it was cloudy and rainy all day either. Most times it will be cloudy for awhile, but then the sun will come back out. The only good thing is that when it’s cloudy, it’s not so hot. I even wore a sweatshirt for a little bit.

Today I was out of the office, but on official business. Selma St. Prix is a director/career counselor at the Center and she oversees a lot of the operations elsewhere on the island. I work closely with her. She took me along for the day to pay visits to some of the trainees and some of the other sites. We took the company truck, which is something like a cross between a hummer and a tank. Really, it’s some kind of off-roading, jungle Land Rover. Off-roading is kind of a misnomer here because the roads are pretty much a joke in some places. Anyways, we got a bit of a late start, but went first to the Choiseul Arts & Crafts Center. Selma conducted an orientation there with about 40-50 people who are entering training programs. I went to an orientation session earlier in the week with just a few people, and this one was a lot more interesting. There were some pretty serious people and a number of wise guys. Selma dealt with them amazingly well. I can see that that kind of thing will be a challenge to getting through to people.

From Choiseul, we went to another town, Laborie, to visit some girls who were doing a job attachment (apprenticeship) in cosmetology. We got stuck there for awhile because of the rain and missed our lunch opportunity. Selma had an informal appointment to meet some of the trainees at their job attachment at the Hilton-Jalousie resort. There are people there in cooking, housekeeping and electrical. We were going to make the most of the all-you-can-eat lunch buffet but missed out. We also missed out on lunch at the hospital, where some other trainees were. We ended up getting lunch (chips) from the grocery store. Next time we think that we should have backup lunch plans.

It was a busier day than I’ve had so far. Selma was really cool too. People-wise, my job seems awesome. All of the employees are under 40 and seem really nice. One odd thing, though, is this formality stuff again. Most times you’re expected to call people Mr. or Mrs. Whatever, instead of their first name. It makes it hard because then I have to learn two names to go with each face. I’m getting there though…

It was kind of strange to be abroad for September 11. We get regular network and cable TV coverage here, but it’s not the same. Everyone I’ve bumped into has had really supportive attitudes too. A lot of them will say "When something happens in the US, it always affects us here. We feel almost like they bombed us." While I was driving with Selma, we passed Margaret, one of the volunteers, who was walking down the street. I saw that she was wearing all black today, just like me. Later, when I talked to Deb, she said she’d worn black too. What was almost more touching was seeing some of the women at the centers who wore New York shirts. Tonight I watched a Lucian TV call-in program where they were talking about what people thought about September 11. They really had nice things to say.