A Walk in the Rain

Quaint as it sounds, the walk in the rain really wasn't by choice today! I'm glad we had plans to go to town, because it would have been a miserable beach day! And by miserable, I mean it pretty much rained the entire day in Grenada. Can you believe it's supposedly the dry season? Yeah neither can I! I'm pretty sure I've seen more rain this semester than last semester when it was the rainy season. Either that or I just don't remember last semester very well!

I'll start with the dorm's water problems. Thursday night at about 1:30am, to the dismay of myself and my roommates, we discovered we had no water. None. Nothing sputtered out of the faucets, the toilet wouldn't flush (not enough water to drain the bowl even!). Not what I really wanted to add to the stress of having a pharmacology midterm the next day, but security assured us that the problem was being attended to and water would be back by 5:30-6:00am. They held true to their word and I had water the next morning. Yay! What wasn't so yay was the email we received later about laundry being closed until 5p on Saturday, but what can ya do? So I was very surprised to then to wake up this morning, turn on the shower water, and receive no more than a hard trickle. Vet roomie was just as pleased as we stared trying to figure out how we were going to make showers happen for both of us. Luckily she still has half a brain after this week and suggested turning the water off when not immediately using it to rinse. Smart cookie! Exams really are a terrible thing! When we left for town an hour or so later, the water was still absent (it was completely gone at that point), however it seems to be in good working order this evening.

We wandered into town this afternoon via the usual bus route (True Blue to Grand Anse, reggae to St. George) and had to dodge the rain along the way. Luckily the "mall" is indoors, and once you make it to the spice market, it is pretty well covered by vender umbrellas so we weren't stuck in the rain for too long. My roommate did some fun shopping for herself while we browsed, and then we headed to the spice market for some goodies. I bought some more spice necklaces (they're neat looking and they of course smell awesome) and a small bottle of black wine as a gift for my mother. It tasted awesome when I tried it last term, and the painting on the bottle was absolutely stunning. My roommate bought a pretty spice basket for her mother, some guava candy (yummy!), a small sample of nutmeg syrup, a bottle of black wine for herself (have I mentioned that the wine is homemade and the bottles are hand painted?), and a bottle of nutmeg banana ketchup. Yes, you read that correctly, nutmeg banana ketchup. And yes, it literally contains nutmeg, bananas, and ketchup! If anyone will like it, it is going to be her because she loves putting sauces (BBQ, honey, tomato ketchup) on foods. Props to her for being brave enough to try it! She thinks it smells like A1 sauce and said it had an interesting taste but was pretty good. I am sort of skeptical and wasn't up for being adventurous when we got home. I'll let you know at a later date. We made it back to the bus terminal only a little damp as we dodged down pours and got back to campus in one piece. Today's excitement only included my roommate having to pretend to be engaged, and us having to smile and nod at the men who called out compliments. No threats of arrest this time! We didn't take any pictures because of the rain, so no fun memos to share from the trip-but I do have a couple of our souvenirs and a neat lizard we passed on campus.

I spent the rest of the day lounging around my room and then watching movies with my roommate. It continued to rain and was a perfect day to be lazy (or to study if you're a med student with midterm exams this week).