21632

Most places have house numbers, street names and zip codes; Bequia has trees.

























Not just any trees... oh no. Here nobody has house numbers and since there's only 3 roads on the island street names aren't really necessary either. So how do people know where things are? Well, they just know. If you wanna meet someone in town, its usually under the almond tree. Yup, THE almond tree.

And if you really need to give a number, the telephone poles have these little yellow and black numbers on them, so you just find the closest pole to your house and that's your number.

Hooray for fruit trees!

I learned 2 important things today:

1. How to cultivate almonds, and
2. That coconuts are porous

Next step is to dry, smash and caramelize the almonds. Mmmm. But its such a pain to peel the almonds! And apparently they take forever to dry, then you've gotta smash open the shells, and THEN you get this tiny nut that you eat in 3 seconds.

I still don't know what I'm gonna do with my coconut knowledge, but I'm sure one day it'll come in handy...

Revenge of the expiring office supplies

Ever wonder who lives inside your printer's ink cartridge?



Its Jim (pronounced Yim), the moderately-distressed spongeface!

In about a week or so I'll find out what's inside the color cartridges too!

Half of Everywhere

I love Bequia, its the perfect size for everything.



A few weeks ago I did an amazing hike around most of Bequia. Starting at 6am from Friendship Bay I walked to the harbor, then up to Spring, Industry, Park, up to Bequia Head and the first landing spot on the island, then back down along the beaches, up to Mt. Pleasant and down to Hope Beach (My favorite in Bequia, completely deserted beautiful beach) then around to Ravine bay to the blowhole and up back to Friendship.

9 hours, many liters of water and 95 photos later me and Donnaka were laying on my balcony resting our feet getting ready for the final walk over diamond to Lower Bay, then Princess Margaret beach where I watched the sunset, exhausted but content. Here's some photos from that walk.

About Politics

I went to my first political rally ever a few weeks ago, didn't really know what to expect.

The current government in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) who is seen as more socialist, have been trying to make the country a new constitution. But first a little history- SVG was handed its independence from the British just 30 years ago, and with it a constitution to govern by- but this constitution still ties them into the commonwealth, has the queen as their head of state and requires some high British something court to preside over its justice system. So understandably these guys want more autonomy.



Well here everyone has an opinion on the new constitution, and you'll get as many reasons why to vote yes or no as there are people on these islands. Bequia is traditionally against the current party in power, and this rally I went to was by the current party in power... so the turnout was small, and many of the people who stood in the shadows (of the almond tree, of course) were just there to yell naughty things at these guys. It was really interesting to hear the yes argument- they wanna give more power to the opposition and more autonomy to the country. But there's also some things that stood out, like making hanging legal again (great modern way to control violence and crowded prisons), outlawing gay couples, eating babies (KIDDING!)...



Many people say they aren't ready to get full autonomy, they're still too young of a country. I think they'll be ready when they remove the silliness from the proposed constitution.

The vote was yesterday. The No got the majority, and for now nothing is changing. For the better. I'm sure they'll have a few more attempts to pass it, and hopefully they'll realize their mistakes. And hopefully in not too long they'll have ironed out the crap and they'll pass themselves a good enough constitution to take off the training wheels. But it is admirable that they're trying to change things at least.

Dance the way I feel

The greatest band name on earth:

Ou est le swimming pool

Check them out: http://www.myspace.com/ouestleswimmingpool

About Sun

 

I saw the sunrise today! And now I’m in line with my ‘watch the sunrise at least once in every place you go’ motto. I saw the sunset too. It was nicer. Like fire floating on water.

Its Official - I live in Paradise

Guess where I'm headed after work todaaaay....

About Face

I’m learning so much here every day, not about the technical aspects of running a hotel- I still can’t mix a cocktail to save my life – but about how to deal with and manage people. Yes, it’s the most challenging thing about this job, but also the most rewarding. 

I’ve learned how to pick my battles and how to fight them. How you can never compliment too much. How to encourage people and how to solve problems. How to make people solve their own problems. How not to be bullshitted. How to stand your ground. How to take initiative and lead by example. How not to do things. How to be straightforward. How to try to be fair. How you can’t be all things. 

I’m learning so much and processing so much, and I feel so comfortable in this skin- even though I don’t always know what I’m doing or how to do things, I know how to find out what the right way is. I’ve found that if you think about it, there’s usually a relatively straightforward solution to anything. The rest is just putting the pieces together to get to it. And that can take time, but its not impossible.

And today- for the first time in a long time, everyone was doing, and everything was working properly… and I felt this satisfaction which is hard to describe.

And then the lawn mower broke and the new bar wasn’t cleaned and the beach chairs were left out at night and the wine orders weren’t done and the timesheets weren’t filled out properly and the iron stopped working… but that’s tomorrow’s problem. I’m just happy that today worked out well  :)

Beautiful

As I sit on my terrace at night and stare out into the darkness, occasionally being jabbed by a hungry mosquito I can hear the waves crashing on the beach. What a beautiful and natural sound. Its so rhythmic and soothing. I’ve always wanted to live on the beach exactly for this reason- to hear the ocean in its continuous stirring. There’s something comforting about its regularity, like a ticking clock. That smell of sea-salt churned up in the air, the freshness of a sea breeze. Beautiful.

Bequia is...

...my new home for a while.

I was lucky enough to get a job managing half of a small hotel on this Caribbean island. Yes, Bequia is an island, not an obscure tennis ball brand or a cocktail umbrella manufacturer. Its a pretty tiny island, in a pretty tiny (and very young) country called St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I think its amazing to be able to watch this place growing into its own and seeing how they deal with social issues having such little expertise and resources. But that's for another post.

This is mostly to keep in touch with friends and family and also a place to vent myself. Even though it's the reason I've come here I'm not gonna write much about my job on this blog. At least I'm gonna try not to. It does take up most of my time (and my brain), so a few posts might slip in but I wanna use this blog to explore other projects and parts of my life here.