Youth Camp

I am helping with Youth Camp at VOJN/Cumbermere School. The first day I supervised the boys crafts and we worked on yarn poodles. The girls worked on coasters. I took advantage of the situation to ask the boys what grade they were in and how they felt about school. The resounding response was "I like to learn. I like all subjects. As long as I feel challenged." I can understand that sentiment. I like to feel challenged too. Another craft the girls like to work on is "beauty parlor" on Sheri's hair. If you've ever met a little Caribbean girl you will soon find out they like to plait hair. If you hold still long enough they will begin to make you a hairstyle and soon there will be 4 or 5 little girls swarming your head each grasping a section while the nearby boys look on blankly or complain about the flyaways. I understand that it's not every day an adult, especially a "white lady" comes through allowing her hair to be experimented on so I try to hold still and keep from complaining as they tug this way and that. They ask me why my hair feels so weird or what I did to it to make it so fine, straight and silky. My hair is pretty far from silky at this point after a year of intense sun, salt water and no trim. "I guess I was just born with funny hair." I say.

Fruit Festival

I help Marie Mason, the Director of the Craft House, sell some of her soaps and crafts at the Fruit Festival in Charlestown. There were a lot of interesting agriculture booths and different varieties of fruits (especially mangoes as they are in season) to look at. One man had a mountain of bananas, the Taiwanese farmers had a beautiful display of corn, cherry tomatoes, pineapples and mangoes and many people were selling delicious homemade fruit drinks and foods. I finally got to try "Conkie" which is a sort of dense sweet potato and coconut pudding steamed in a banana leaf (sort of like a tamale) that is traditionally served on Easter Sunday and some conch soup ("Conks water" as it is known here). Next to us a few tables down was one of our teacher "students" (from the craft seminars) that was selling her jewelry and her student's sewn projects. It was a fun day with lots of new and familiar faces.

Also a big thank you to Greg for the photos!