Getting ready for school


This week was devoted to getting back to shopping and cooking for myself, a little getting the school ready for this week, and watching to see if an uninvited visitor, Irma, was going to crash the party.

Settling in and budgeting


 Like everyone else, Peace Corps volunteers need to learn to live on a budget – and we get to do that while adjusting to our new community.  Peace Corps want volunteers to live like an average, maybe upper middle class, villager: definitely not like the wealthy, but not poor either. 

Peace Corps gives you a “settling in” allowance to help set up the house.   A volunteer gets a monthly living allowance which should cover monthly expenses.  We also get a rent and utility adjustment.  There is also a travel allowance that is to be used to explore the country.

Settling in continues as I try to fill out my kitchen with things I can cook and things I need.  Ghana was easier – 2 burner stove top, no fridge, and limited food selection.  I didn’t have much selection but still had to budget my money to my living allowance.

Here I’ve have a stove / oven and a fridge.  I’m wondering if I should buy a microwave to make life easier with fridge leftovers.  The microwave would be about one third of my settling in allowance and I’m still deciding if I really need it.  I’m holding off on buying a lot of stuff that I can live without – which is making to settling in drawn out.  

So far I’ve bought a few things like 2 forks and 2 spoons, a grater, and a mosquito bat.  I’m also building up some food stocks.  I have some places plates and bowls that I might upgrade at some point.  I also brought kitchen stuff so I originally bought for Ghana.  I did buy some tree fertilizer for my fruit trees and some potting soil to start seedlings that I guess I could attribute to settling in.  Doesn’t seem like much.  Still, I seem to be going through my money this week – so I need to tighten up my tracking for a time.

On the food side I’m trying to avoid gluten to see if that changes the way I feel (which is not bad.)  My grandmother was diagnosed with gluten intolerance and as I’m in a new environment with breadfruit and other staples.

I’m not gluten free yet – but I’m mainly avoiding bread and pasta for now which is cramming my style of breakfast French toast and evening macaroni, tuna, cheese or spaghetti dinners. So far – I been having simple things like rice and potatoes, tuna, meats, oatmeal, fresh fruits, and such.  I'm going to try liver and onions and mashed potatoes tonight I think.  Oh, if I could find a cast iron skillet on the island, more settling in costs.

I’ve seen some Ghana yams in the market, along with plantains, breadfruit, green bananas, and dasheen – but so far I’ve not cooked any.  And yes they eat ripe bananas and cook green ones.  It will be some time before I get enough food prep stories for a post.  In the meantime – a picture of a recent breakfast – avocado season !!
Fresh avocado, oatmeal, and coffee for breakfast on a non-gluten morning - not the worse way to start the day. 

School


 Monday and Tuesday will be planning days for the teachers.  The kids start coming on Wednesday.  Fridays will be another Peace Corps training day – with my principal and counterpart.  I’m to mainly observe for the first few months.  I don’t know how long that will last – I’m not use to sitting around doing little.

I helped Elena, the volunteer that I’m replacing, brighten up the place by updating some of the painting around school on Thursday.  Next week’s post should have more school information and pictures.  For now some pictures of Elena’s expert painting and one of mine showing I need more practice.

 
New sign on the front wall of school.


Elena painting

One of the 5 words I painted.  The first one was so bad I had to repaint and do over. 

Irma


 Hurricane Irma was aiming at Dominica when it was just a tropical storm.  As it quickly gained strength over the warm Atlantic, thank you global warming, it was looking like we might get hit.

The projections from National Hurricane Center sent staff into contingency mode to see if we should stay on island or evacuate to St. Lucia.  I think leaving is rather drastic but two years ago tropical storm Erika dropped so much rain on the island that with landslides and bridge/roads washing out pretty much every community was impacted.  It was a surprise storm that isolated a number of new volunteers.

Staff spent several days working though contingency plans including plane flights out if warranted, but in the end the storm turned north so should miss the island.  Near the last minute before I would need to finish packing and travel to rendezvous points in prep for flights out the next day we were told that we could standby.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) updated forecast indicated a more northerly track avoiding the island. We might still have to consolidate on Tuesday, but that remains to be seen.  (I’ll likely have a post of the hurricane plan and evacuate, consolidate, ect. in the future.)

This is another example of Peace Corps going through considerable effort to assure the safety of volunteers.

Love Always,

John

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