So right now I'm sitting in our little living room space, listening to "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan, enjoying the gorgeous view that is Oualie Beach, while drinking Donrika's Mango Drink...tough life right? Donrika's drinks are I'm assuming homemade juices brought to the local grocery store...I make it my habit of picking up a few mango drinks when I visit, it's the best juice here (besides passion fruit..a new favorite of mine as well). The bungalows are incredible, but Mom, Dad, you were right. I do miss AC on occasion...it's incredibly hot from about 9am to dinner time...at night it cools off significantly but we've grown accustomed to sitting around in our sweat and filth all day...everyone looks gross but it's okay because we're not alone =) We have a few visitors that enjoy our bungalow as well-there are two birds that visit us on occasion, they either flirt on our hanging light or try to build a nest on it...I have decided to name them Bob and Betty (don't ask, it's just fitting!). We also have a little cat that likes to roam around the bungalows, we archaeologists decided to name him "Chert"...how nerdy and wonderful all the same time! He's actually sitting with me now as I write this, it's a very friendly cat...of whom we're trying to igure out how to smuggle him through the airport on the way back...hee..
I could do without the monsterous cockroaches (as you will see in my pictures), beetles, spiders, and bees, but other than that this place is perfect. We have everything naturally wonderful around us-there is Oualie beach, a popular place to go during the day or for a little late night swim. It also has a bar and some really nice locals so it's a good place to grab a drink on the weekends. This morning one of the guys found a few stairs that took us down the steep side of our hill-area and down onto this rocky beach...by 11am this morning I had already come back from an awesome adventure! We walked along the rocks for a while and discovered our little unknown area, I think some of the people went swimming and snorkeling-I hear it's a good place to go swimming, so knowing my luck I'll check it out and see just as much as we did when we paid for a snorkeling tour!
Most other things you have to take a taxi or a bus to get to on the island-there is Charelstown, the capital of Nevis, where most of the shops, banks, icecream parlors, etc. are. Besides that this is a pretty chill island. Definitely not as much to do as St. Maarten or Puerto Rico but we make our own fun ;) I don't even know what to say about the group here...we've been here for about a week now? And already I love every single person here. I couldn't imagine having a better group-everyone is really outgoing and sociable, if anyone decides to go somewhere they go to all the bungalows and ask who wants to join. It's nice to have a close group of people to explore the island with, we've already had some hilariously entertaining moments together, I can't imagine what's in store for us. At the orientation meeting back at State, everyone appeared quiet and shy, so I think many of us were a little worried about this group, but there is a perfect blend of "work hard, play harder". This weekend has been one adventure after another-Friday night, let's just say there were large quantities of rum invovled. British accents, island accents, people dancing, hammock swinging, all the above...and so, so much more. Then last night we opted to go into the city for a little music festival; at the end of July/early August, Nevis (and maybe St. Kitts) has their own carnival event called "Culturama"...so every Saturday until carnival starts they have this crazy music/food fest on the streets of Charelstown. It was AWESOME-I tried this incredible dish called "goat water"..yea I was insanely hesitant to try it but it has been one of the best authentic meals I've had on the island-it tastes like a gravy, or KFC melted into liquid form. So there was about 15 of us that decided to enjoy the live music and we started our own dance party in the street-it was a sweaty/gross/fabulous good time. I'm pretty sure the locals thought of us as "those crazy white people" but we didn't care, we had our own fun! I'm so impressed with this group I'm speechless-everyone's personalities blend together so well and I'm so glad everyone's down to try whatever-food, music, dancing, adventures, etc.
...So I began writing this yesterday and then had to interrupt my writing process to go out to a wonderful 4th of July lunch/island tour with our professor and the gang! We went to a restaurant called Nisbet's, I've been there previously with Rachel, Lindsey, Kristen, and Johnathan so I knew exactly what I was getting...They have the best fish sandwhich topped with a fruit chutney and a side of this spicy coleslaw-amazing meal. We enjoyed the beach near the restaurant for a few minutes and then visited the Nisbet plantation in front of the restaurant. Afterwards we went over to this local pottery shop called Newcastle Pottery-it's a little shop where this family has carried on the tradition of handcrafting clay into some pretty incredible stuff. They gave us the tour and explained step by step how they accomplish their pieces; they had a variety of handmade things like animal figurines, bowls, candle holders (guess what I'm bringing home!), firepits (used to hold and cook pots, one of the older ways of cooking as she explained to us), etc. Afterwards, we stopped by Fort Charles and learned the history behind the area. They still had some cannons and ruins left out for us to roam around and enjoy. Later on we visited an area with a few natural hot springs, since the island is a volcano afterall-the water was VERY hot, I don't know how people bathe in that! After our wonderful day adventure we went back and swam at our Breezy Beach hide out and watched the sunset-the water was a little rough but the sunset behind St. Kitts was gorgeous! Last night, instead of being productive, I decided to go down to the bar with a couple people and celebrate 4th of July (since I couldn't be at the lake! sniff!)-no fireworks but I did have a great mango/rum smoothie if that counts? We met some guys from the area and some of their family members, we now have connections to what's going on during the weekends!
Oh yea...we're here to work aren't we? Darn! Today was the first full day we've experienced so far, and needless to say it was brutal. Okay I know, we're studying abroad in the Caribbean, boohoo, but it's hard work bending over and digging in the sun all day! Our schedule goes as follows: board the bus at 6:30am sharp, get to the site and begin by 7am, work until 12:30, get back to the bungalows around 1pm, two hour lunch/shower break until 3pm, at which point we go to the graduate students' house for lab, where we wash off our findings for the next three hours. I know we'll eventually get use to the schedule but for the meantime I know our backs are killing all of us! So we have two sites, one 5X5m site which is divided into twentyfive 1m squares, and another which is 5X5m divided into four quadrants. I personally enjoy working in the quadrants because we're specifically looking for features like burials, waste sites, postholes, etc.-it hurts the body more because there is more physical labor involved in shoveling away the layers but I feel like I'm accomplishing more...plus there are generally more interesting things to find! Today I found a grouping of seashells which may have been the waste after someone's meal...it's not like I'm finding some famous burial but I find it really interesting to think these shells could have been the result of a meal-only now we're reconstructing it years upon years later! The other site focuses more on finding smaller objects so far, although it's getting more interesting as we're progressively digging deeper. The rest of the time on site should be pretty interesting...grueling, but interesting!
So I'm done writing my book now, but just as a sidebar, I have officially updated my pictures but you have to click on the actual picture for it to take you to my gallery...if you click "view my gallery" it'll come up as an error, I don't understand technology so don't ask me why that is! I miss you all very much, I hope everyone's doing well back home and would love for you guys to email me!
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