Mkay. So apparently I've had so much to say about this week I'm going to turn it into two different posts to break it up a bit =)
So the beginning of this next week, whatever week we're on, was awesome. Tropical depressions = awesome, because they get you out of lab work and push back the assignment you've been neglecting to work on because you haven't finished the readings needed to work on said assignment. So Monday we had the pleasure of experiencing tropical depression Bonnie, before she became all big and famous. Locals say that besides actual hurricanes, that was the worst storm they've seen in a while. We didn't lose power because we were running on a backup generator (much to my dismay, we had an assignment due Tuesday and I didn't want to be on the computer with a crazy storm around so I figured at least if the power went out I could have a legit excuse to not finish it...it got pushed back anyways though, lucky me!) but a good majority of the island lost all forms of technology...internet signals were down, the power was out, and we lost cell phone reception for a couple days after that night. It was actually interesting to be in a place where technology is so much more unstable than what we're use to-in the States our power goes out for a couple hours, maybe a day tops but here it was about a 48 hr period, longer for some, where people were lacking power. I don't know how to describe it but it was nice being in a place where technology wasn't so readily available after a bad storm.
Needless to say, we only went to the field Monday and Thursday that week, the rain continued Tuesday so we got out of field work for a couple days-it felt absolutely wonderful to get out of the sun and wear no sunscreen for a couple days, my pores have learned to hate me after 7 weeks of this...if I'm not wearing sunscreen I'm soaked in bug spray, I can't wait to get back and now have to worry about either one =) Although the excitement, there is always a consequence to pay for supposedly good things...we had lab days Tuesday and Wednesday, which equate to nerrite syndrome...I don't know if I've mentioned these devil shells before, but nerrites are the tiny shells that have little snails in them...well apparently they were a big source of food back in the days of the Amerindians and we have the lovely pleasure of cleaning them out-they're tedious suckers to clean out so having to do this for 8-9 hrs a day for two days in a row is excruciating-ie, nerrite syndrome. It's real.
Thursday night we had the chance to experience the first official night of Culturama, somehow fourteen of us managed to cram into a van with a woman and the four kids she was looking after-I felt bad for the family but they didn't seem to mind-the kids found it hilarious 14 drunk students were taking pictures and cutting up and apparently one kid thought my hair was pretty cool...he would try touching it and then the little kids would laugh, I told him that it felt really soft and smelled like coconut and encouraged him to play with it but he got really shy after that haha So this first night was pretty cool, it was like a huge block party with live music by the port. They had a kids talent show and a few bands playing, Green House was there I know, I'm not sure who else played. Apparently the real fun was suppose to begin at midnight but we got there pretty early and I got tiered out quickly (that's happened more often than I thought it would here...the sun sets so early and after a day of being in the sun I get tiered around 10pm now) so a few of us went back early and just hung out by the bungalows. It was still cool to be able to say I was there the first night of Culturama!
Friday was incredibly fun, the group took a ferry over to St. Kitts to explore the island for the day with our program directors. Alot of the tour consisted of driving around the island and stopping at different sites but even the drive was relaxing and definitely a nice change from field work/lab. First stop was by the "first place of Amerindian contact with the Europeans"-there was a giant rock with a couple of petroglyphs, one of a monkey and the other of a dog maybe? There was also a guy that had a monkey in a diaper so we all had a chance to hold the adorable little thing. Next we stopped by the Romney Manor which contained the Caribelle Batik factory, this place was my favorite stop of the day. So this batik is a style of art that involved taking a completely white canvas and dipping it in colors repeatedly until one completes the desired look. They dip the canvas in different single colors and add oil designs and repeat this process until the look is finished, I was told it takes an average of nine days to complete because they have to dip the canvas and let it dry, and then do it all over again. The end results are really unique and interesting, I'd like to find a piece for myself one day!
The next stop was another favorite of mine; we went to the Brimestone Hill Fort which is now a World Heritage Site on the island. It has been said it is one of the "finest works of military engineering carried out by the British in the West Indies." It was creating just before 1690 in efforts to protect the island against the French. The site was incredibly large and contained different rooms used for barracks, workshops, bastions, a dough shop, first aid, etc. I'm a nerd and actually enjoy visiting places like this and wondering what happened exactly where I was standing some couple hundred years ago. Afterwards we stopped by the "Black Rocks" on the East side of the island, these rocks were formed by a massive lava flow millions of years ago and look incredibly unique. We took some pictures of the great scenery and then went to the Belmont Estate rum factory...I think we all found a little slice of Heaven that afternoon. Rum bottles everywhere. Need I say more? The taste-tester explained to us the process of creating the right mixture, I never knew alcohol involved so much science! The rest of the day was spent in Port Zante where we relaxed and shopped for a couple hours before heading back to Nevis.
Friday night was spent enjoying the bar and Enrique's again, except it was more fun to go out in a smaller group and not worry about trying to make everyone in the large group happy. It's always hard traveling in large numbers, especially trying to go out at night when people have different preferences of when to go home and what they want to do, so me and a couple of my closest girlfriends ended up being the best way to travel. That is why we frequented Oualie's as much as we did throughout the trip-it was a place everyone could go to and people could leave as they pleased-if some wanted to continue the night a small group would go out and if not, they could go home and continue drinking in the bungalows or go to bed!
Anywhoo, Saturday was another awesome day touring around the island. Rachel, Alyson, and I decided to take a roomie's day out and discovered a few interesting bee-hives with the "Bee-man."...That's really what they call him on the island. His name is Quintin and he's some British guy that casually decided to live in Nevis and has been here for about 23 years now. His job is to take care of the bees on the island, in many ways including conservation and extermination...although the latter doesn't excite him quite as much but you gotta do what you gotta do I suppose. He showed us a solar beeswax melter at his house, a couple of boxes of hives (we got close enough where they were just swarming around us-I think I've gotten over my fear of bees to a small degree! As long as I don't sit on them anymore...although I have been informed you don't know if you're allergic to bees until you've been stung the second time so I tried to stay far enough away where I wouldn't find out), and an incredibly huge natural hive created in an abandoned house behind an incredibly rich couple's property.
After conquering my fear of yet one more bug (I can be in the same room as cockroaches now, yippee!) we drove over to the Jamaican Bakery for some hydration and croissants and then walked over to the Alexander Hamilton Museum for our archaeology presentation! First noteworthy comment, Alexander Hamilton was in fact born on the island, right around where the current museum stands...I didn't know that until this trip! Secondly, this presentation was a way for the island to stop by the museum and look at our finds and learn more about what we're doing on the site-honestly, looking at all of our finds in the cases and the information placed around it made me feel like the past couple weeks of hard work had a) paid off and b) was quite legit. I guess I never really felt like I was doing anything incredibly important because who would want a group of students excavating a site when only half of them are considering doing this as a real job in the future? Apparently it's alot more important than I thought and I was very glad to feel like I had made a contribution to preserving and interpreting the archaeological history of the island...Nevis hasn't had nearly the archaeological attention as many other islands have had in the past, so I do feel like our efforts have been extremely important.
No comments:
Post a Comment