We came back to Prickly Bay from Clarke's Court a week ago; we THINK the solar panels were on the boat from Miami that arrived last Friday and will clear Customs today or tomorrow. Our installer THINKS that he can have the project done by the end of next week (though when we reminded him that Grenada Independence Day is next Tuesday, his confidence fell a bit).
On Thursday last week, we did a double excursion, first to the north again, to see the nutmeg production in Gouyave and the cocoa production at Belmont Estates; in the evening, after a quick stop back at the boat to turn on the anchor light, we headed up to St. Paul's parish for a concert of the steel pan band Lime Comancheros and a little barbecue, Grenada style. The sub-set of the band that night were the young folks (under 20, mostly under 18); they are so talented. It was a rainy evening, so we were dodging raindrops between sets, but no one wanted to leave early. There was a bit of cooking (of "mannish water" - goat parts with seasonings, vegetables and handmade dumplings)going on for the band and we poked our heads in to get a little local cooking advice. We wound up inviting a couple of the guys who recruit and train young people for the band to come on the boat. Stephen and Sean are both in the late 20's (we think); Stephen has a number of family members in Canada and the US and has traveled there and to other Caribbean islands; we had a great evening liming and consuming copious quantities of that favored local product. I even cooked for them, with some trepidation (Bahamian style Mac and Cheese; a doctored version of the lambi and seacat chowder that I had made the week before; and a Beth-style Chinese cabbage with a bacon/vinegar/sugar/egg dressing).
We went back for a second time to the Mt. Airy Young Readers program on Saturday; it's not really clear to me how effective we are, but it's a way to try to give back just a little bit of what we get from being so welcomed here in Grenada. I know our dollars are very welcome (the unemployment rate is probably 30% here) but if you stay for more than a few days you start to want to feel some other kinds of connections.
We are scheduled to fly to Nice from Fort de France in Martinique on the 15th of March (returning on the 5th of April) so we figure if we leave here by the end of February we can still make it...it's about 170 nautical miles.
I'm going to be a great-Auntie! Cass called on the 23rd to tell us that she and Adam are expecting "Baby L"; her due date is the 2nd of September, one day before their first wedding anniversary. Everyone is over the moon, me included (after the initial shock wore off).
Here is a slideshow of our pictures since we came back from Almost Paradise on the 8th.
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