An afternoon well spent

Four exams down, all finals left to go. After my exam today I went to a tick seminar. I am happy to announce that I will officially be working with Heartwater in Bont ticks over the break. I will be paid the salary of a TA, however much that is. I’m just so excited to have something to do. I also requested access to U of Florida’s online journal database, which would exceed Ross’s by leaps and bounds. There was also talk that Ross might not get the RT thermocycler. We need a thermocycler for research, so I’ll just have to convince them of it.

I’ve become adept at using the public bus system since I am lacking in vehicular movement. It’s $2EC to town, $2EC back, and so amazingly efficient. They drive like zoom-zoom and there are so many drivers. They can be distinguished from taxis by their green license plates. At night the buses turn on under-van lighting to differentiate between routes. Red goes around the loop of the island while green goes as far as Sandy Point (half way). So far, I’ve been the only… non-local… to get on a bus that I’ve seen, other than one ancient prof who can’t drive anymore.

Despite my love for the buses, they have one fatal flaw: they don’t go to the beaches. I have found a car for sale at $1500US, and I’m tempted. Owner is in 9th semester (off island) and car is worth $3000-4000US easy. BUT $1500 is a lot of money, so I schemed to have a friend buy half of the car for $750. THEN (today) I was talking with a classmate who got a car for free, but had to put in ~$1000 of stuff in it. She doesn’t really like it and now drives an adorable ATV. I offered her $500 for part of it and so I think I’m going to have a set of squares to get myself to Gong Beach. It lacks A/C, radio, one window, half of a door, and a few other major things, but I’m sure I can manage. I intend to get paint and a roller and turn it into a lady bug or put a big Texas flag with goat horns on the hood. Something exceedingly tacky that I would not be able to get away with in the states. I would, of course, have to write a ‘name’ on it too. Here the streets have no names, but all the cars do. Doesn’t matter anyway, bills aren’t mailed and the mail you did get would have to be picked up at the post office anyway, so really, is there a point to naming the streets?

After a long hard battle, my carrots finally decided to give up on life. I found them sleeping behind my dresser. I had wondered where thay had gone, and now I know. That’s ok; I have more seeds to torment, including 4 avocados not sprouting in my kitchen. Still, I have amassed a collection of starfruit, sugarapple, tangerine, orange, passion fruit, guava, mango, avocado, and Texas bluebonnet seeds. They decided that I have a black thumb and need to devote a little more time to them before they will even consider emerging from their catatonic state.

After finals, I plan on setting up a pond in my apartment. I will use the huge cattle lick buckets at school so I don’t have to waste money on a glass tank that was $265EC. I traveled by bus to the “Hardware, Paint, & Pet Supplies” store in downtown Basseterre. The owner is the sweetest guy. He gave me a guava yesterday, and when I came back today with a friend, he gave us each 2 guava and a sugarapple. He has baby koi and lots of fish mixed in with paint and hardware. Quite an interesting store, and the fish actually looked really good. I’ll pick them up in a week or two when I get the tub set up. I’m waiting to get approval to put the koi in the campus ponds when I leave island, or find out if I’d be able to get them off island. I’m not sure how I could since you can’t fly with liquid anymore. I’m excited since I really miss feeding those silly fish. When I left in April, my koi were 10”, 7”, and 6” so I can’t imagine how much bigger they are now. I miss my frog too. He was a whopping 7” and quite formidable even if he is missing an arm and an eye. The pleco was 8” and I hope he’s still getting his beloved weekly zucchini.

So after being thoroughly distracted at the fish store, Jossie and I went to replace the battery in my watch. Then I found out they cleaned chains, so I asked them to clean my Heart of Texas necklace that my old roommate Natalie gave me. It looks so pretty again and everyone comments on it- clean or dirty.

As we left one store to find another that could possibly fix Jossie’s cell, the sky gave way and fell on us in millions of water droplets. We were unable to fix her phone, but we continued shopping at the various stores. I forgot how expensive things cost. Everything here is so cheap, I mean, my entire dinner tonight including tip was $10EC ($3.70US). I’m in awe that most people here are able to live successfully on such limited means. In sharp contrast, a Ross student has the ability to take $71,000/yr in student loans. Of course $40K of that goes to Ross, but that’s still $30K for one person to live on in comparison to the average Kittitian family making $8,200/yr. I also find that many Kittitians are well educated in England or Canada. I'm really impressed by this little island in the Caribbean. Anyway, my money is hard earned, so I’m going to continue to hang on to my meager amount as well as I can.