Surviving a Hurricane

It's Sunday, August 29th and it's my first whole day in St. Kitts.  I decided to start this blog to keep all my family and friends up to date with what's going on in my life, as well as what it's like to live on an island like this.  Yesterday composed mostly of flying and it seemed like it went on forever.  I had about a half hour layover in Miami before I had to load the next plane. The plane to St. Kitts was completely full and incredibly hot.  Because I got a sinus infection the day before I left, my ears wouldn't adjust to the pressure changes so I was in pain the entire time.  Eventually, my left ear drum popped, which was actually a relief but resulted in a worse hearing loss than I already have. As we flew in, I immediately recognized the island, as well as it's sister island, Nevis.  We had to make a giant turn to get around the volcano and came in pretty fast, crossing over the highway before landing.  We then realized that there's no such thing as "airport gates" here and we enjoyed exiting the plane on rollaway stairs.  I made my way through customs without a problem and then I had my first experience with "island time".  The airport had no air conditioning and only had one person pulling luggage off the plane.  I waited about forty-five minutes for my luggage, which made it safely and without exploding. I found out how much the island appreciates the American students that come in because we went through customs, without anyone opening our bags or even questioning what we had.  My awesome orientation leader greeted me outside, drove me to my apartment, where I saw our building's pet chickens and stray cats.  After we got to the apartment, I unpacked my suitcases, which basically means I laid on my bed, trying to stay awake.  My apartment is a decent apartment, with just enough amenities that I need but the best part is the view.

After I unpacked, my orientation group went to the grocery store to pick up food items, which went over better than I expected.  They basically have everything, including Lucky Charms, Life, and Eggos.  We had dinner that night with about fifteen people at the Shiggity Shack.  This was the moment that I realized my life had changed.  We sat there, for about an hour, had to re-order our meal a few times, before I finally got my bottle of water and a cheeseburger.  Most people in America would have walked out of the restaurant at this point but we had to learn to relax and roll with the punches.  The cheeseburger ended up being fantastic.  When you order your meal here, they don't make separate checks.  So you have two options when eating with a big group: 1. You split the check up yourself or 2. You go up to the cashier, tell them what you ordered, and then pay.  It's all very much based on trust.  I went back to the apartment, found an internet connection, talked to Mom and Dad on Skype, ate a fruit or vegetables that my classmate gave me (I'm still not sure what it is but it wasn't very good), learned how to climb the tree at the end of our driveway to get the coconuts, and played with the stray cat.  I went to bed and woke up early this morning and headed to the beach!  We played with the 1,000 pound pig that lays there and the monkeys.  I don't think I'll ever get used to the monkeys, or the goats/cows/pigs that roam the streets.  Hitting pigs here is like hitting deer at home.  The beach was incredible, exactly what you think a beach should be in St. Kitts.  It wasn't very busy and all the Ross students bring their dogs, which makes all of us Vet Students very happy.  We enjoyed the warm ocean water, swam out to the random raft, drank some Carib beer, and laid out in the sun.

  We all had lunch on the beach which for me included a mudslide and chicken fingers. They were more like chicken fries, with some french fries, kidney beans, and some kind of salad, cabbage mixture?  It was really good though!  We then went back to my orientation leaders house.  She lives right next door to the St. Kitts Olympic Gold Metal Track runner, who is basically the most important person on the island.  The country gave him a house and an escalade, which has the steering wheel on the wrong side so he can't drive it.  She has a total of five roommates and eight dogs, three of which are puppies.  Everyone here usually has more dogs than roommates.  PAWS works through the Vet School so the students foster young puppies and raise them, usually adopting them out in the United States as they get older.  We then went to Best Buy (It's not what you think).  It's a grocery store on the island but because we were expecting a hurricane, every person on the island was there, buying water and flashlights.  Everyone's getting used to paying $15.00 for water, then realizing that everything here is in Eastern Caribbean Dollars, which is 2.7 times the USD.  My roommate's family is staying at the Marriott so she decided to stay there for the night and I bunkered down with a classmate of mine in her apartment.  We filled the bathtub with water, just in case, hit the TV a few times and managed to get cable television.  We thought that we were going to be letdown by this "hurricane" talk and then the storm actually hit.  I have pictures and videos of this and will upload it as soon as the storm passes.  Orientation is cancelled tomorrow, everything is closed, and we are forced to stay in our apartments until we receive the all clear.  We keep hoping that the power lasts and the apartment doesn't flood.  It's not as windy as I expected a hurricane to be but there's definitely rain and lightning.  We got a hurricane manual earlier in the day and the first two rules were 1. DON'T GO SURFING! in capital letters.  We assumed this was capitalized because someone did this before and 2. If your roof blows off your apartment or house, don't panic!  I'm not sure what else you would do if you had no roof in a hurricane but they never did tell us what we should actually do if this occurred.  So we're basically hoping for the best, riding out the storm, and that's where I am now as I'm writing this.  Drinking rum, watching the Emmys like most of you are in America, and hoping to get some sleep tonight, even through a hurricane.  I love you all.  And I'll upload video when I have my camera cord and I'm not bunkering down hiding from Hurricane Earl.  Love you!