Late Bloomer

I may have mentioned before that here in Dominica I get bitten by a lot of mosquitoes.

"Would you say I have a plethora of mosquito bites?"
"Yes, Jefe, I would say you have a plethora of mosquito bites."

Smiles all around.

Except that no one smiles, because mosquito bites suck.

I often complain (in a very sweet and endearing manner, of course) that it isn't fair that Wonderman never gets bitten. Every once in a while he shows me a bite that itches for a few hours and tries to say that I'm not alone. I never buy it. My suffering is always worse. It's a given. Or so I thought. On Christmas Eve, we went to the beach for a bonfire with friends. It was delightful. Especially since as an added bonus, the waves were about 75 times bigger than normal, so it was excitingly violent as the sea crashed on the shore. I only wish I had pictures. The only downside to the trip to the beach was the horrible little bugs that looked suprisingly like mosquitoes, but seemed immune to the bug repellant I had, with great foresight, applied to my feet and legs. On coming home, I began to pity myself, as I had lumpy red itchiness all over my little (relatively speaking) feet. I even continued the pitying of me for a couple days. Somehow it either took a while to develop, or I am such a lame wife that somehow I didn't notice this on my lover's legs:
I'd like to think that they took a few days to develop, because it makes me look less lame. Either way, I've tried to curb my complaints. Poor Wonderman. The itching even woke him up in the night.

Conclusion: Bonfires on the beach are awesome, but full coverage may be necessary to combat the evils that accompany dusk.

Fry Twice, Add Bacon

Sounds healthily delicious, right? Tonight we made Mofongo. It's a dish we tried in Puerto Rico and both loved, so it seemed the natural choice when Owen gave us a lot (and I mean a lot) of plantains.

It was a little labor intensive and didn't turn out perfect, but we will definitely try again (please note our awesome use of the LED lantern; our fluorescent light is flickering to the point that I'm sure it will cause an epileptic seizure soon, and there's no chance of buying one until tomorrow, although we're moving in just a couple days [have I told you that? I'm so excited], and I'm not sure it's worth the expense).

To do better next time: 1 - yellow plantains are too sweet, use green; 2 - raw garlic in large quantities is too strong, use less and cook it first somehow; 3 - bacon is only necessary if the mofongo is going to be the main dish, when eaten with chicken it's a little too much; 4 - it's worth using 27 paper towels per plantain slice, if that's what it takes to drain the oil off them after frying.
Conclusion: Trying new things is always an adventure, but there is much to be said for experience, which only comes from trying again. And again. And again (ah, that New's Year's resolution list looks like it's going to have to include exercise).

Counting Blessings

It's not quite the same, but today I was really grateful for this eggnog flavored drink. It filled a need and made me feel a little closer to Christmas. Next year, I'm going ALL OUT on the eggnog. All out, I tell you.

He DID Listen

Merry Christmas to me!


I swear, underneath that stoney exterior is a man who really wanted a blender. Swear!

Wonderman Just Gets Better With Age

Having a birthday right before Christmas comes with its challenges, but we try to make Wonderman's day special. This year it was even more low-key than normal, though. Can you see how excited he is?



The first three are evidence of Wonderman being silly, but I think I may have caught a genuine smile in the fourth photo (a Christmas miracle in and of itself).

Happy Birthday to the most wonderful man I have ever met.

Conclusion: He's definitely the best. I'm pretty lucky.

'Tis the Season

Let's get this straight before we even begin: I am not a Scrooge. I love Christmas like you can't believe. I spent years counting down the days until Christmas, starting on December 26 (Ok, so part of that was probably because it became a cool trademark, like a party trick: my friends would always ask me how many days until Christmas and, no matter what day of the year it was, I KNEW. Still, it started because of the love.). It has always been a magical time of which I adored being a part (Did you catch the awkward and non-colloquial sentence construction? That's what I get for proof-reading my posts and for knowing that ending a sentence with a preposition is wrong. Ugh, so annoying. Ignorance really is bliss.).

However, the past couple of years have been a teensy bit less . . . magical. There are a number of factors that contribute, the most significant one being heat. Neither Arizona nor Dominica lends itself much to the fabled ideal of the white Christmas that I am accustomed to. Maybe it's also partially because they are Christmases with only Wonderman, whom I adore, but I am more used to parental units and siblings and shared understanding of tradition. It may also be connected to the lack of space in our living arrangements (ok, and this year it's also the lack of availability), which has lead to the significant absence of a Christmas tree in our home. Or maybe it's the gifts that we are not buying, for each other or anyone else (again with the money and available gift supply being minimal [not that there are none, just that they are few - do you think Wonderman realizes the significance of the huge hint I gave him yesterday as I showed him a hand bag that I would REALLY like to have and told him it would be a good present? If not, I sure hope it will still be there in a week]).

All explanations aside, I must say - I know Christmas is coming and I am excited, but it also sort of feels like just another day. Meh. I definitely wasn't feeling the furor of the holiday spirit. Until last night.

I work with a few other women in our church teaching an English class to mostly Haitian immigrants. It's been a good experience and I've learned stuff and usually only grumble a little bit when I have to leave Wonderman at home alone while I go off galavanting about and teaching English. Last night we had a Christmas party with pizza and cookies, definitely festive fare. Everyone was sitting around, munching quietly, and I felt a distinct lack of celebration. Then we decided to sing some Christmas carols. We got out the hymn books and all sang in English "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night." I tell you what, I have never heard "Silent Night" sung quite so boisterously in perhaps all my life, but the Christmas spirit that it brought swelled up around me so that I couldn't help but get a little vehclemt. I loved it. Now it feels like Christmas, despite all the setbacks.

Conclusion: All those heartwarming stories about people from different nations and cultures finding commonground at Christmas time, specifically while singing "Silent Night," must be true.

Exotic Fruits

This is what I had the other day for breakfast:


It was delicious. And it made me feel like I was living on a Caribbean island. I guess that counts as being very grounding, right, since I do, in fact live on a Caribbean island? The coolest part is, I gathered the starfruit and mango myself. The coconut was an entirely different challenge which led me to the conclusion that my life will simply be easier if I accept my own weaknesses and pay a man with a machete to help me access fresh coconut.

Back to the starfruit (Um how cool is it that there is a fruit that naturally grows in the shape of a star? I don't know that I would've ever believed it if I hadn't seen it and eaten it repeatedly. Not sure why the eating increases the believing, it just does.). I had tried it once before and found it tart to the point of being inedible. I had similar negative experiences with a few other of the native fruits here. I felt so sad, thinking that I was here in this incredible place, with no desire to take advantage of the deliciousness. Then Sharleen showed me where the starfruit tree was on campus and how to judge its ripeness. And then she showed me where the mango tree was on campus and how the ripe ones just drop off the tree and you can find them on the ground. I love mango season.

Conclusion: This place is beautiful. I think I could live here.

Visitor

Katie stayed at our house for three days. That's right, Katydid (Heh. I bet you miss my stellar sense of humor, right?). I finally got a good picture of her. Isn't she cute?

A Lovely Day to Live in Dominica

Sigh. Isn't it lovely? I hope you can feel (imagine?) the gentle Caribbean breeze riffling through your hair. It's delightful.

Old Stuff

One thing I've come to realize from reading everyone else's blogs is this: all of us in Dominica write the same things and take the same pictures. While I want to show everyone back home how amazingly different this all is, really these are just my versions of the same ole, same ole. Oh well, let's get to it.

Wonderman and I went to visit Fort Shirley, an old fort built by the British in the 1700s while they were in charge of occupying the island. Parts of the garrison (yes, a word that I would never use on my own, but I got it from my reading about the fort and it sounds cool, yet I couldn't define for you exactly what a "garrison" is) were restored and/or reconstructed. That was cool. Most of it was broken down by the jungle (ok, really just the lush woodlands; I clearly recognize now that it's not the jungle). That was much cooler. We hiked around a bit and climbed in and around stuff. We tried to figure out what things were. I wondered what it must have been like to be stationed there. The one thing that I found most interesting, I didn't take a picture of. It was the timeline. There was one entry marking when the island was first inhabited, which was about 3000 BC or something. Then there was one, maybe two, connected to a slave soldier (I know, slave soldiers? How does that work? It doesn't make sense to me, either. Guess it didn't to them, thus the uprising) uprising.

(See? Not jungle. Merely a nicely wooded path. Like upstate New York. Kind of. With crabs and lizards everywhere.)

The rest was pretty much just like this: "The French took over, then the British took over, then the French took over, then the British took over, then the French took over, then the British took over, then the British left." All true, I suppose, but it just seems like there is so much story that gets left out. I feel like I have so little understanding of the true history of this island. History is written by the conquerors though, right? Too bad.



This is some broken down stuff with restored stuff in the background. Artistic shot, right?



These are some cool cannons, aka "The Big Guns" for, you know, when you need to get out "The Big Guns." I think I read on someone else's blog that they were never fired, though. Apparently they have the capacity to fire over a mile and a half, so they could really protect the entire bay, and thus (in theory) the entire island. That's cool.




Um, Cactus? Never once imagined I'd see that in Dominica.











Wonderman checking out some ruins:


And Wonderman checking out the crazy vine-trees that helped cause the ruin (apparently Tarzan was based at least in the realm of possibility. These things are like serious rope).









And then here's me, sitting amongst the ruin, showing off my new haircut (I did it myself, just the day before. I was pretty impressed with myself and I'm telling you because I think you should be impressed with me, too).





It was a good Saturday trip. We both enjoyed it and Wonderman only got a little bit sunburned.





Do you see his untrained "I'm looking at the screen instead of the camera" look? Sigh. So much to teach him.

And then . . . and then . . . and then . . .

Also planned for part of the Coal Pot trip was a visit to nearby Dubique Falls. Heather, who planned the trip, had never been, but had read about it in a guide book. It was described as a short hike to see some waterfalls with pools we could swim in. After acknowledging that all of those things are, in fact, true, I must say that the trip was absolutely nothing like I imagined it.

When I think short hike, I think easy. I believe this was a common thought in the group of ten women. Apparently short is not defined by Webster as easy. Alas.

It started with a drive up a small and windy road, as do most things here since all the roads are small and windy (by this I mean that it wound around a lot, not that there was a lot of moving air. Is it spelled the same? Wonderman is dutifully studying, and I don't want to interrupt him to ask, especially since he'd probably laugh at me. Hmm, it just looks strange, doesn't it?), but this one was smaller than most. Our driver stopped and asked a few people for directions. The consensus seemed to be "just follow this road all the way up." That didn't take long. Then our driver got out and talked to some men that were there. Apparently one of them volunteered to take us to the falls, as he grabbed his machete and told us to follow him. The machete quickly proved necessary. Still, as we hiked, it crossed my mind more than once that perhaps hiking on unstable ground with a machete in one hand might not be the wisest choice, but no men were injured in the making of this hike. Phew.

Before continuing, I must say this: when I first got here, I read somewhere that we lived in the woodlands of Dominica, not the jungle. I laughed. It looked like the jungle to me. Now that I have seen the jungle, I see the vast difference. I really do live in the woodlands. It's all relative, I suppose.

I was toward the back of the train, so I didn't see how things went up front. I'm pretty sure there was no trail before Machete-man created one for us. There was dense foliage on all sides (our driver told me to be careful not to touch any leaves because then fire ants would get on me and bite me. I looked at him incredulously and walked on, touching every leaf because it was impossible not to. I only got two ant bites. Not bad). There were a lot of river crossings (small river - no big deal, mossy rocks - kind of a big deal). There were a lot of really steep spots where we were just climbing up mud, clinging to vines and bamboo stalks to pull ourselves up. Periodically there were deep holes we just had to point out to each other and carefully step around. There were steep and muddy inclines going under ginormous logs where I had to squat and contort myself into the strangest positions to get low enough to squiggle me and my little backpack under the log while at the same time push myself up the hill. The whole time going up I just kept thinking to myself, "Self, really? How are we all going to get down this? You are relatively experienced in the art of the hike and you are concerned. What about the girls who came in flip-flops? Or the girl who at the beginning of the hike said 'I'm not much of a hiker.' How is this going to go?" I didn't have a great answer, but nevertheless we kept pushing onward and upward. We were well rewarded by a gorgeous waterfall.

Machete-man told us there were actually three falls if we wanted to keep climbing. We laughed. We stayed put. Machete-man squatted down and lit a doobie, smoking calmly while we played in the water and ate our lunch amidst the uber-strong sweet smell of marijuana (this is definitely a different world). In addition to Machete-Man, there was a young-ish man who also helped guide us up (He was just wearing Crocs clogs, and he was fine. How can that be?). Instead of smoking, he slid down part of the waterfall into the pool below. I thought about trying it and showing the squealing girls that it really wasn't that big of a deal, because it did look fun. Then I remembered the last time I went down a waterslide and the broken hand that went with it. I decided to just eat my sandwich in peace avoiding crooked fingers as much as possible. Heather took care of the showboating though, and she went down for all of us. Here is the video I made of the guy on the waterslide (I do a little bit think that I should have done it and not been a sissy, but I guess that's just what I am. Alas):



The hike out was so much easier than I expected. I can say this because I had good shoes. I tried to help Angie all I could, but I think her hike down in wimpy Crocs sandals that BROKE was pretty miserable. She held up very well, and still smiled for me at the end of the hike. It was an incredible day, one that I'll not soon forget nor repeat.

The Coal Pot Factory

Unlike it's name would indicate, this is NOT where coal pots are made. In fact, in my visit there, I saw nothing that was made anywhere near a coal pot. There was not a coal pot in sight, just a bunch of fancy soaps and oils. I guess it's a sort of a shout-out to the historical use of coal pots, since that was how things were done here, back in the day. They're keepin' it real and stuff. Meh. Either way, I loved this place.

I generally enjoy Dominica and am happy here. I think I am more content with where we live than Wonderman is, sometimes. I like Dominica SOOOO MUCH more than Arizona. Still, sometimes it's easy to feel oppressed by all that is unfamiliar and strange (and there is plenty of that), which is what made this visit so amazing.

As I walked across the lawn to enter the Coal Pot Factory, a scent so familiar and so comforting and so delicious wafted out toward me. It smelled like Dave's Health and Food. Now, maybe you don't know this store, and if you're not my mom you probably won't, but it is a store that I have spent some quality time in. Really, it smelled like all hippie stores that sell you all kinds of natural stuff at high prices. It was delicious. And they sold me a lot of natural stuff (soaps and magical oils, all from things native to Dominica, which made it even cooler) at high (not super high, really only medium) prices. Sigh (of pure content). It was good to feel completely at home, if only for a short while.

No Regrets

So, there are many adventures of which to tell. Tonight perhaps I won't go into detail on the adventures, but I will say this: I love my new shoes. When I was in the states, spending monies upon monies on all the things I knew, believed, or hoped would be useful upon my return to Dominica, I purchased these shoes:

I couldn't decide if the purchase was really necessary (and with our budget, I try to stick to the really necessary [mostly]). I mean, I have two pairs of Chacos, which I love dearly, as mentioned briefly here. Was I longing to have these shoes, simply so I could look like all the other girls (even though mine are the much cheaper version, a.k.a. the Payless knock-off)? Perhaps. Was that so wrong? Perhaps not. Still, I decided that the toe protection would come in handy, and at the point which they came in handy I wouldn't be thinking about the money any longer.

I WAS RIGHT!!!!! Oh my goodness, I was right. Today I am grateful for my shoes. And my heart goes out to anyone who is forced to hike through a jungle, up muddy mountains, through raging rivers, and across mossy rocks in anything less (I'm so sorry).

Time Warp

Last night Wonderman and I were discussing Daylight Savings Time. Specifically, I was asking him if Dominica participated. We came to the basic conclusion that they probably don't, since it is a sort of silly and very American concept. However, we decided to verify by asking the waitress at the tiny little Chinese restaurant where we were eating dinner (To clarify - we don't eat out that much, really, last night was simply a necessity because we bought a new tank of gas and somehow seem incapable of getting propane to come out of it so that I can cook dinner. Also, when I say tiny, I mean really tiny. There was one table with six chairs. That's it. But it was pretty tasty.) if they had Daylight Savings Time here. She wrinkled her brow and asked "What?" I, being clever as always, thought I would clarify by asking if we needed to change our clocks that night. "Why would you do that?" Wonderman and I decided that we had our answer. Silly Daylight Savings Time, anyway.

Fireflies

Tonight the sunset was more beautiful than any I've seen in Dominica. Then, to top it all off, there were fireflies just to the side of the annex as Wonderman and I were leaving for dinner. I had some frustrations today, but things like that can always make up for it. It was beautiful.

Mile Marker

As long as I'm looking back. . . . we had a one-year anniversary a few months ago. It's strange looking back at how much has changed in just that one year. It's been quite an adventure, but that's what we signed up for, I guess. Anyway, here is Day One:



And Day Three Hundred Sixty Five:



Here's to a bazillion more!

The difference between boys and girls

Just like my trip of the past month, this summer we visited many families of nieces and nephews. The nieces just play differently than the nephews, but they all adore Uncle Wonderman.


I may be prejudiced, but I can see why they think he's great. Can't you?

In absentia

Well, on my trip from Dominica back to the states, I left my camera on the bed. So, my picture collection from the trip is scant, to say the least. However, I do have all kinds of pictures from family visits this summer that I never posted. Since I missed Wonderman like crazy, I'd like to share a series of photos I quite like. It's from a game called "Beat up Uncle Wonderman."



Let's be honest, it was a fun game to watch, but it sure made me glad that I'm not built like a jungle gym. The nieces and nephews sure seemed to enjoy it, though. Nothing quite like that happened on this trip when I was there by myself. Poor things. I enjoyed the family time anyway, though.