Snorkel Club:

On Mondays I’ve started working with Snorkel Club. I love it because it gives me time away from the garden and in the water. It’s a way for the children around Statia to learn to snorkel and sometimes even swim. Most of the time they say they know how to swim, but need to hold on to you when they do their 200-M swim test. Only three showed up last week, but this week there should be at least 5 more of them. Once they learn how to snorkel we take them to different snorkel spots so they can see the different diversity of corals and fish and then identify them when we’re done.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m involved with the Junior Rangers. Junior Rangers is a program for the children that have graduated from snorkel club and want to continue on. Junior Rangers is a much wider program, they come and learn up in the garden about how plants grow, renewable energies, and edible plants. Later, they hike the Quill and possibly even the Boven to learn about trail maintenance. They will also do more advanced snorkeling.

Beach Cleanup:

Last Saturday we were involved in the worldwide largest beach cleanup. I love being involved in cleanups back home. However, here they are not my most favorite thing to do. Unfortunately, the village landfill overlooks the beach. STENAPA has been lobbying for them to move the landfill to a different spot or even just close the hole up so that it doesn’t wash onto the beach. Apparently, next year Statia becomes part of the Dutch government, which has much stricter rules about trash and how you should get rid of it. There isn’t even recycling on the island. It’s an environmentalist’s nightmare! Anyway, back to the cleanup. There were about 20 of us cleaning up the beach, and we were able to get a whole truckload of trash off the beach. Cleaning the beach is still important (whether or not I like to do it) because the baby turtle hatchlings get caught in the trash and can’t make it out to sea.

(Bradley and Brook at the beach cleanup)

Demographics of Statia:

Statia has a year-round population of approximately 3,000 people. The majority of the locals are descendants of the African slave trade that was a huge part of Statia’s early history. Also, because Statia is a Netherland Antilles island, many of the locals are also Dutch. In addition, there are approximately 300 medical students that live here for most of the year. There is also a very large Chinese population on the island.

With all these diverse groups of people, there are many different religions. The most prominent on Statia is the Seventh-Day Adventists. I don’t know much about this particular religion, but I know they don’t believe in evolution and they don’t work from sundown on Saturday till Sunday night. It makes it hard to buy groceries because they have the largest grocery stores on the island. However, some of them are open for a couple hours in the morning on Sunday because people come over from St. Kitts to buy groceries for the week. It’s very expensive to come over from St. Kitts, but since their taxes are so high they each pay the $100 round-trip ferry ride and come over here to buy groceries. Apparently, even with the ferry charge, it’s still cheaper to get their groceries on Statia.

In addition to Seventh-Day Adventists, there are Catholics, Methodists, Protestants, Buddhists, and Muslims. A co-worker of mine told me that in total there are about 12 different practicing religions on the island.

Me and my scooter: What do you think? Just kidding. I don't have one yet. Wishful thinking :)

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!

Living on the wrong side of the mountain has many perks, but easy access to water is not one of them! The pavillion and the house itself have two cisterns underneath them that collect rainwater. The water is fine to use for the dishes, etc but not to drink. We get our drinking water in town. STENAPA actually imports the fresh water. And contrary to what I originally thought, I actually have had plenty of freshwater showers. It's the rainy season right now and there is plenty of rainwater to take showers with. It may not be warm, but hey, you get hot just from stepping out of the shower!

Our water pipes were broken yesterday and we were out of cistern water at the house. Fortunately though, there was still a ton of water underneath the pavillion, we just couldn't pump it into the house. So, we just filled up jugs of water and carried it to the house and all was well for the night. And thankfully we fixed the problem this morning.

Driving on Statia:
Statia is a very small island with very narrow roads. Most of the roads are one way streets. I almost have my way around figured out, but sometimes you know exactly where you want to go but just can't get there because of all the one-ways. Statia isn't exactly set up like New York City. The planning makes no sense!

The best part about driving here is the use of the STENAPA truck, which is awesome! When I drive it I feel like a tiny person that is driving a huge truck. In reality, it is the size of a regular pickup truck, but the truck usually has a ton of people in it. The trucks seem like a necessity here because the road to the botanical gardens is mostly dirt and rocks and very steep at times. The trucks have all taken a beating just from so much use especially on this really horrible road that we drive up and down about 8 times a day! When I got here, one of the trucks was out of service because someone had hit a huge rock with and dented the front fender and then later in the week someone else had an accident and took the door off. The truck is undergoing some repairs and will be operational on Monday. I am in the process of sanding the back benches and railing in order to help get it all ready to go.

Turtles and life on Statia

Airport: I was put on standby in St. Martin and I was booked on the 6:30 flight out to Statia. (Island speak for St. Eustatius). I basically planted myself in front of the desk so I could get on the next flight. I figured that the flight would be small, but I was not prepared for how small it was! It was about a 15 passenger plane. The flight was booked with mostly med students, back for their next term. I sat next to a med student, Jafar, who scared me by talking about how they almost died the last time he was on this really small flight. But we got in ok, and flying into Statia was pretty awesome because you could just about see the whole island at once. The best part was after landing in Statia, there was the baggage claim, which they told me was a hole in the wall. Now I didn't believe them, I was thinking conveyer belt, but no really it was a hole in the wall! I got in alright and I collected the rest of my bags the next day when they could bring in the next load of luggage. I was picked up by RJ and taken to the place that he's housesitting at for dinner. The rest of the interns and volunteers joined us there.

Turtles: That night the interns and volunteers had just decided to go back home to the Botan, or Botanical garden where we live and we got "The Turtle Call" which means that we all went running to the truck to go look at the turtle. Turtle call means you have license to drive as fast as possible down the rickety road to get to Zeelandia Beach where the turtles are nesting. Usually there are 2 people on turtle patrol at night and they call up to the Botan in case you want to see the turtles. In this case, however they needed to put a tagging device on the turtle, which meant everyone had to be there. It took hours! We got there at 11PM and finished at 3AM. Needless to say, the turtle was not a happy camper.

Life on Statia: Life on the island is very slow. Everyone is very friendly but there are a couple of rulse: The first is; do not walk around town without a shirt on. You must be clothed, and have your shoulders covered when in a government building. The second rule is; You must say "good morning," or "good afternoon" when going into shops around town. They think you are rude if you say just "hello." Also, the most interesting thing culturally here is the gossip. It's amazing, someone saw us out on Zeelandia beach, which is apparently very dangerous to swim on. We didn't know and instead of telling us that we shouldn't swim, they reported it to STENAPA that we were swimming on the beach. I also never saw anyone while I was there, so it gives it kind of a creepy element. The gossip goes all the way around the island first and then you'll hear about it. Although considering that the island is pretty small, it doesn't take long.