Sunday, November 28, 2010

Thanksgiving St Kitts Style

Since I am not in the US, I had to go to school both Thursday and Friday, but to make up for it, my friends and I decided to make our own Thanksgiving on Saturday night. Luckily, the stores sold most of what we needed. They sold butterball turkeys, which I felt was meat I could trust. The 14 lb turkey cost about 110 EC which is about $40 plus the tax here, which is ridiculously high thanks to a new law, but we were willing to pay it. We split up all the food and decided to eat up the hill at the biggest house. The plan was to cook the turkey there so it did not need to be carried. We wanted to eat at 7, so at about 3, the turkey went into the oven as planned. I got a ride and was there around 4. The turkey smelled delicious. Since the turkey took up the whole oven, people who needed to cook other things went down the hill a ways to another house to use the ovens there. Everything was going as planned...until about 5. That's when we began to wonder if someone took the giblets out. As we prepared the tongs to go in, a phone call confirmed that the giblets had been taken out, but more on that later. We also realized that the turkey did not have the pop-up thermometer like we were counting on and we had no meat thermometer, so we were going to have to wing it. At 7, nearly everything was ready, so we went to get the turkey out of the oven and found that at some point, the oven had stopped heating. It was still slightly warm inside, but nowhere near the needed temperature. What to do? We took the turkey out and were going to drive it down the hill to further cook it. Unfortunately, we were up a dirt road that had been partially washed out in the recent rain storms and we decided the rough road would make all the juices spill out of the pan, so the turkey was carried down the hill. Did I mention that by this time it was dark? Because it was and street lights are not excessively common there. We got down the hill and put the turkey in. We figured give it about an hour and then cut into it to check. Unfortunately, the power went out about 15 minutes into that hour. The oven was gas so we were able to continue cooking the turkey, but we got to sit in the dark for awhile. Sitting in the dark is a common thing around the island, although not so much at my house. The island has rolling power outages all the time and if there is a big storm the power will frequently go out. I live closer to the capital than the rest of my friends and have only lost power once for an hour. An hour later, we took the turkey out and it looked down. We carried everything back up the hill and prepared to eat. We toasted new families and dug into our meal. We way overestimated how much food we needed and decided that from our island diets, stomachs had shrunk, so we had a lot of excess food, which meant leftovers. But the turkey was fully cooked and tasted delicious and the food was almost as good as at home. Now it is about three days to my birthday and then 17 days after that until I fly home, which I am looking forward to a lot. I am looking forward to seeing everybody and everything at home. Since it is still over 80 degrees here everyday, the fact that it is fall doesn't really hit me, but I'm sure stepping off the plane into the winter air will make it a reality.
I was holding the meat while the turkey was cut and thought I should just start eating now
Our thanksgiving dinner, I made the pie next to the turkey

St Kitts family photo

Monday, November 8, 2010

Photos from Past Few Weeks

Getting off the car ferry from Nevis. I got seasick so I watched the car get off the boat while standing on dry land.

While in Nevis we checked out some of the historical sites. Dean and Morgan are helping Katie with her moral dilemma outside one of the historic church.

Nevis on the way over on the ferry, about a 20 minute ride.

My new car, hasn't moved since I took this picture, but hopefully soon I will figure out the secret to jumping a car.

Rory being naughty. She has gotten to be quite a handful lately, but I still love coming home to someone that's excited to see me.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Supposed to be Studying

Since I'm supposed to be studying for a nutrition exam, I decided that this is the perfect time to update my blog. Lots has been occuring. First semester is more than half over already. After next Wednesday, my second round of midterms will be finished and I can hopefully say that I am still a passing vet student. Up to this point, I am happy to say that I am. The exam on Wednesday does not worry me much since about half of it is about forages, grains, and swine. We spent one class period learning the differences between barrows, boars, sows, and gilts. There was even a point where we learned that "piglet" is the proper name for a baby pig, so as I said, not too concerned. We also learned about raking hay and I realized that is definately one thing I will not miss from home, even though I haven't had to do it in years now.

Two weeks ago we had our mid semester break, so we had a three day weekend. Some friends and I decided to take a trip to the other half of St. Kitts and Nevis and stay in a hotel in Nevis. We did a bunch of touristy things: checked out some ruins, saw the botanical gardens, got lost, normal things. Definately planning a return trip there because it was a lot of fun. I also had my first experience with seasickness on the ferry ride over. Luckily, it's only a 20-ish minute ride from one island to the other.

Last weekend was Halloween, but since we had two big midterms last week, the going out here was limited. The 80 degree weather on the holiday was very nice though and there were some creative costumes. When I got home on Saturday night, Rory didn't come to meet me at the door and I discovered her stuck on top of the curtains for the second time. She has been getting very naughty lately, but I guess that's the kitten in her. My favorite part of Halloween was when the students from the on campus prep school came trick-or-treating to our nutrition class. It reminded me a lot of the costume parades we used to have when I was in grade school at North Cape. The kids were so excited and it made me wish that I could have gone to grade school here.

I bought a car on Monday and unfortunately, it stopped running on Tuesday. After finding some jumper cables and attempting to jump it, I figured out that we were doing it wrong. One of my missions in the next few days is to play mechanic and get it started. It's a light blue 94 Nissan Bluebird. It has its quirks, which is one reason the battery is now dead. You also can't get out the driver's side without opening the window because the handle is missing. I realized I'm becoming very laid back here on the island and learning to deal with things much better. Hopefully this continues when I get home.

Yesterday, we went shopping at the port which is where the cruise ships come in. I went from never seeing a cruise ship in my life to seeing one everyday, sometimes two. I did manage to get all my Christmas shopping done, which is really exciting. It's weird to think that it is November and I am still in shorts while it will be snowing soon at home. Going back is going to be really weird because of the weather and the general pace of life. Everything is so slow here that when we go out to dinner, I tend to "pre-eat" just so I don't get hungry waiting for dinner after ordering.

I'm at school now, so I will update with photos when I get home later tonight.