Friday = Free.

I have made it to Friday of Hell Week, and as a gift to myself I will be attending the Digicel Caribbean Cup football (= soccer) games tonight. Tonight's game is between the British Virgin Islands and Barbados. Sunday night is St. Kitts vs. Barbados...but that's the night before my Anat Lecture exam so I may not make that.

This will be my first completely local St. Kitts event, not tied to the school in any way. I'm super excited! See the news article below:

http://www.digicelfootball.com/en/news.php?id=269

Also in the news, the new SEVEN theatre movie plaza has officially opened! I have yet to experience a movie there, but plan on visiting sometime next week. Follow the link below for a few shots of the "before" theatre (which was in town, nestled among the other buildings) and the "after" theatre (which is a free-standing building located just down the road from campus/my apartment). Rather than reinvent the wheel (or 'blog'?), I just figured I'd have you check out Julia's blog about the theatre...

http://lifeonstkitts.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-movie-theater-on-st-kitts.html

As a side note, ran into the new 'gang' of Peace Corps volunteers Tuesday at the coffee shop. They are in their 3rd/4th week of training, and seem to be fitting in well (i.e. they haven't gotten back on the plane yet, a good sign). From what I understand, they will be living with a host family for the training period (about 6 weeks) and then moving into apartments for the duration of the 2 years. All of them seem to be teachers of some kind; one girl is in Special Education which I think is fantastic.

From what they've seen, the education system here is terrible. One of our professors was telling us that she attended a meeting with the British Head Minister (?) and one of the topics of discussion was education. It seems literacy is a very serious issue here (sadly as it is everywhere). A local woman who was on the panel approached our professor after the meeting and explained that it will be very hard to change the local view of literacy. Seems they are told from a very young age that when they read/learn, they take up room in their brain that can't ever be used again. They are encouraged to 'save' that space for more important parts of life. I haven't really confirmed this story, but it is very sad to consider. Guess it is a method of control over the population; discourage reading/learning and you discourage free-thinking people.

As to the P.C. vols, I passed along my contact numbers for the better taxi drivers, filled them in on the cheap/yummy food areas, and gave them my contact info in case they ever need anything. I hope they have as wonderful of an experience as I have had. This island never ceases to amaze me.