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 :)