The exoticism of everyday life

They say of anthropologists that we have a tendency to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. However I'm sure anyone who has moved to another country can attest to how quickly the familiar becomes strange. Everyday choices, routines and actions become wrapped in a veil of mystery and generally take a lot longer!  Over the past few weeks, I've been adjusting to these shifts. To share a few-
How long does it take to wait for the minibus to fill up? Anywhere from 10-45 minutes depending on the time of day.
What type of laundry soap so I like to buy here? No idea, but my current selection smells like moth balls and hand lotion. 
How do I learn to cook new vegetables and adapt old recipes to the available produce or eat exotic fruits? still working on this one, but I can tell you that "Golden Apples" have thorn-like protrusions from the pit and should be tackled with a knife, and cooking with cucumbers will never be a good substitute for zucchini. 
What is a good price for anything?!? Uhhh? A basic can opener costs $29.99 EC ($11.19 USD), so far I have been making do without one...
 
Grocery shopping is something that becomes immediately necessary to figure out, unless you want to live on peanut butter, crackers and bananas (my default travel foods) for very long. I can buy most, but not all fruits and veggies at the open air produce market in Castries, but this involves a 3 hour trip at minimum. Then the are the logistics of only buying as much as I would like to carry on the 1 mile walk after I get off the minibus. Finally there are the challenges of figuring out where and when to buy certain things. For example, there is a shortage of tomatoes on the island, they had a terrible drought earlier in the year, followed by an island-wide blight, so they are a rarity.

Chicken, is another story entirely. Chickens are everywhere here- everyone owns a few, there are roosters crowing at all hours of the night, I overheard a farmer ordering 5,000 for his farm last week, and I have yet to go anywhere with out my every move being documented by the Wary Chicken Brigade of St. Lucia. All this being noted, finding chicken to buy for cooking that isn't imported from the US or further, has been exceedingly difficult. My landlord's assistant passed on some insider knowledge, assuring me that I simply have to go to a specific grocery store by 7:30am on a Friday morning and I'll find some... that is so not happening, I'm just not that into chicken.
Luckily, while out for a run, I stumbled onto a solution- my friendly neighborhood Meat Palace!

The arrow is actually pointing in the exact opposite direction of the "Palace"... I love this place!

This is the official Meat Palace dog, "Black Boy" he's very friendly!

The owners are sweet, and they sell everything from eggs and limes to all sorts of fresh, frozen and dried meats and fish.

Even doing laundry requires new habits, such as washing everything early enough in the morning to give clothes time to dry, learning to shake any centipedes that have crawled into them out *before* bring back in the house, and avoiding the ant nest of biting/stinging ants that is strategically located under prime laundry line!

The stick in the upper right hand of this photo is instrumental to supporting the intricate laundry line strung up under my apartment

So no matter where you are, learning how to perform the everyday things in life just generally take up a lot of time at first and things seems novel and exciting and can be exhausting. I'm experiencing challenges and fun discoveries almost daily at this point, but sometimes the most important thing is knowing when to call it quits for the day and enjoy a beer on the balcony under the moon and clouds...

goodnight!

Leaping Lizards!

Introducing the lizards, anoles and geckos in my life...  

Trying to run in the front door lizard!

Lizard in my top dresser drawer...

again b/c he's so funny and was actually kinda stuck.

For anyone who missed him the first time around, the kitchen sink anole!

Can you find the lizard among the limes, green mangos and a giant avacado?

Kitchen anole on patrol of the counter top!

Kitchen anole walks the tightrope

Front door gecko, he likes to sit there and catch ants as they steam by :)

Anole in the shower!

Teeny, tiny, baby gecko- I have to watch where ever I step in the hallway and bathroom because he likes to hang out on the floor!

Fieldwork begins in earnest for me this week, so hopefully I'll have some interesting updates in a few days!

Beausejour and the Bay Walk Mall

So now the Tropical Storm Otto has finally meandered his way up north and is no longer dumping buckets of rain on me, I've been spending a lot more time outside. I'm living on the north end of the island, in an area called Beausejour (pronounced Beau-Say-Jou), here is a Google Map Link to my general area, I live to the left of the horse shoe shaped lakes and the cricket stadium. 

First, I must disclose that I totally lucked out with my apartment, I am living in one of the nicest neighborhoods on the island. We have street lights (which is good because it is pretty much dark by 6pm year round), it is fairly quite, and has blend of homes, some of which are the nicest homes I've seen here. I've included a few of my neighbor's houses:

Further up the hillside from me

It is typical for houses here to be very colorful,

and to have concrete ornaments as decorations

 

 

more cement statues 

 

the detailing is even in fences, porch railings and the like 

My favorite house in the neighborhood!

Neighbor with the best  vegetable garden (more on that another day)

House with neat porch railings

House for sale in case anyone wants to come be my neighbor!

My house! That is its' red roof up on top of the hill :)

One thing that I really like about my neighborhood and much of St. Lucia is that there *seems* to be an active resistance to overt physical stratification within neighborhoods, beaches and yes, even the Bay Walk Mall! For example, the house that my apartment is attached to is very large and well cared for, while the house below, just across the street, is less so.

My next-door neighbor's have no color on their house, I'm excited to see if they paint!

Likewise, this enormous palace like home:

Huge house about half a mile from me, more orange that this photo suggests...

Is right next-door to this more modest and adorable one!

Next-door neighbor to the huge orange house- this house is not actually overgrown, it just has lots of plants that the owner grows in the front yard- I'm guessing it is to block the view of the Orange Monstrosity across the street ;)

St. Lucia is one of the few countries in the Caribbean that created laws to keep all beaches open to the public, which is a huge statement, because in many tropical vacation destinations, large internationally owned resort chains like Sandals privatize all the best beach spots in the country, leaving the citizens of that place to swim in the dangerous or crappy areas that don't appeal to tourists.

The brand new Bay Walk Mall of recent fame, is another example of this. The architect says he designed the Mall with Lucians in mind first, Tourists second, but that ultimately, it is supposed to be a dual use space, that keeps locals and tourists mixed. This results in the mall having really expensive diamond jewelery stores,  a few doors down from Church's Chicken, a favorite with locals, and open until 2am!

With all the promotion and commotion over the new mall, I decided to go see it yesterday. I was highly amused to find that it is not actually complete yet, these guys are painting the tiles in the center of the mall's open air courtyard. The mall itself is 3 stories high and will eventually hold about 70 stores, but only 20 are presently occupied and open for business. I wonder if there will be a second "Grand Opening" when the construction is completed and all the shops are open?

These painters were using a really neat template to create the very intricate tile design. I'll post an updated photo of their work once it is completed.

 

 

 

 

My new place!

My favorite anole- he lives by my kitchen sink and sometimes hangs out in the dish rack!

Kitchen

Kitchen from the dining area, lace and checked curtains are in traditional St. Lucian style

Dining area, I'm thinking of putting a small desk under the bulletin board...

Living room, the furniture again is very typical of St. Lucia

Balcony off the living room, my favorite part of the house!

This is where I like to read and have breakfast...

Here's why, the view is great!

more view...

Fruit trees in the backyard (this is a sour orange tree)

Another, I'm not sure what kind it is yet though...

Guest bedroom for anyone who comes to visit me ;)

Bathroom

My bedroom

Another view...

 So as you can see, I really lucked out with this place, it is totally sweet! My landlord is a St. Lucian man who is presently living in England, and he seems very nice. He even had some fresh fruit, bread and butted waiting for me when I arrived :) I'll give an update on the nighborhood and local plants in a few days!

01.10.10 A binary beginning?

Hello and welcome to "Tales from kay la Zandoli", which means the house of anoles/ or "Anole House" in St. Lucian Kwéyòl (in future I will always try to include a few Kwéyòl words for fun!). This is what I've decided to call my place because there are an unusually large number of anoles (Zandoli) and geckos (Mabouya) scampering about. They are really quite cute and make entertaining companions!

So I arrived two days ago on 01.10.10, which seems like a great date to start this whole adventure. For the next 15 months, I will be living and working here in St. Lucia (Sent Lisi):

For those of you who don't know, SL is located in the far east Caribbean just above Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, with the western half of the island sitting in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern side in the Atlantic Ocean.

I'm here to complete my dissertation fieldwork on Fairtrade banana farmers, of which St. Lucia has the most of any Caribbean country.  So from time to time, I'll probably share way too much information about banana farmers and farming as well as global agricultural trade policy, so feel free to skim/ skip over those parts, my feelings won't be hurt!

My arrival to SL this time was marked by the grand opening of the island's 3rd shopping mall. They have been building the mall since 2007, and apparently everyone is very excited about it. In fact, they are so excited, that the local radio station broadcast the grand opening events live for 2 whole days! The 2 hour drive from the airport to my new home was accompanied by a very excited radio announcer who was going from store to store and describing each's merchandise in great detail while accompanied by soft elevator music in the background. My taxi driver was very intent on the whole program and seemed highly annoyed any time I tried to ask a question that was unrelated to the magnanimity of the Bay Walk Mall opening! Lesson learned = Lucians love to shop!

So I've spent my time so far unpacking, grocery shopping and generally settling in. This afternoon I'm going to explore my neighborhood a little and take some pictures of Kay la Zandoli to share in my next post. Feel free to make suggestions/requests of things you would like to hear about or see and I'll try to accommodate :)