Foreign Dignitaries on Statia

Botanical Garden Update:

Foreign dignitaries from Holland came to visit on Wednesday of last week. So all week, the volunteers and I were working longer hours in order to prepare the phase I gardens for the foreign ministers. On Wednesday, machete in hand, one of the volunteers comes up to me to inform me that the garden phone had been ringing. So I went to call back the office and found that the foreign dignitaries had canceled because their flight had been delayed, etc. Although it was a lot of hard work, the gardens look the best that they have since I've arrived, so it was really rewarding work. But needless to say, I didn't really have time to write in my blog.

I celebrated Halloween Statia style last week, which was a lot of fun. Statia style meaning there weren't any stores to get costumes at, so I had to make my own. I was a bag of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans, which was a lot of fun. I got a very interesting reaction- there was one local woman who was laughing her head off, and then the med students couldn't figure out what I was (and most of them are American). So I've decided that most of the med students can't read.

Anyway, the new group of volunteers is really awesome. Everyone gets along very well. They are all a bit older so they have a great work ethic and they work very hard. Needless to say, the garden looks great.

While I'm here I'm also in charge of helping to develop two new gardens; the Children's Garden and the Fruit Garden. Today the bulldozer finally came to level out the Children's Garden. I can't wait to see what it looks like at the end of the day. The Fruit Garden is also slowly being cleared of the dreaded Corallita, but it's slow going. We were in there on Thursday of last week and it's already growing back.

Friday night we were all worn out from the week and we all fell asleep in the hammocks. Friday night is the big going out night in Statia. So we were all working on getting enough energy to go out and have a few beers, but we couldn't quite get moving in time. So, we decided to stay in and listen to 90's music instead, which was awesome! Then we ended up telling ghost stories and scaring ourselves silly.

Saturday night we had a bonfire on the beach in honor of Emily's birthday. There is a long winding path down to the beach from the garden and we went all the way down to the beach and gathered drift wood for a fire. I built a campfire Camp Turner style, and needless to say it could have been a one match fire, but Skyler doused it in gasoline instead and by the time anyone got to the top of the hill to tell him that you could light it easily with a match, it was already a nice orange glow. After sitting at the campfire for a while, we went to the community dance. We'd been hearing a lot about it and thought it would be a nice time. We got there and it turned out to be a high school dance! It was really awkward to be there because a lot of the kids are actually snorkelers and junior rangers.

This weekend I'm going to a neighboring island, Nevis which is a little bit larger and possibly easier to find on a map. Apparently, it has a really nice botanical garden, so I can't wait to check it out. One of the staff members is going to take us, which should be really nice. It should only be a couple hours by boat and it's a lot cheaper than flying there. Nevis is a part of Holland, but they are heavily taxed on items, whereas Statia is not. Statia voted to be a Dutch protectorate as of next year, which may change the prices on goods here. The price of land is also very cheap, and that is also probably going to change.

I hope everyone is well and I'd love to hear about what's going on in your lives, so feel free to shoot me an email so I can catch up!