Roseau, Dominica

Wow! What an incredible journey I am on! The other day, the Dean reminded us that we have only been on this ship for 8 days (excluding our training time a few days before students boarded). In that time, we have literally built a university on a ship…with talent shows, workshops, classes, meetings…loooots of meetings and so much more!

Sorry for the delay in posting this entry but it's been quite a busy few weeks on ship.We arrived into Roseau, Dominica on the 16th. It started off as a rainy morning but within an hour of pulling into port it got beautiful! We were greeted by a double rainbow and a charming little town. Roseau is the capital of this Island country that was settled by the French & English. The national language is English and the major religion is Catholic. The two major ethnic communities are the Afro-Caribbean and the indigenous Carib tribes. Roseau is on the western side of the island and has some great architecture. I took about a million pictures from the ship (my cabin is on starboard side (if you don't know what that means, it's the maritime term for the right side of the ship) and we disembark the ship on this side as well so I woke up to this beautiful town in my window!)). Once we were on land (which felt weird after being on water for several days), I did my water ceremony where I collected the local water to be used in a ceremony at the end of the voyage and along with Alissa & Anne (two for my friends and members for the student life team) went to cathedral in town since it was Sunday and I wanted to check out the service.

It's a beautiful building and though we just caught the end of mass, it was beautiful. We also met this woman on our way to church that gave us a recipe for what she called "broth"…which consists of cooking onions, garlic, veggies and fish together to create what sounded like a delicious meal (sans the fish of course!). After church, one of the coolest things we did was walk through the botanical garden, see the Sisserou Parrot s(the official national bird) and take a hike up Jake's Trail which took us up one of the hills north of the town. From here we saw an incredible 180 degree view of the town, the MV Explorer and the sea. It was just fantastic! This is when I really put the fancy "panoramic" setting to use on my new camera! We walked through town which was pretty uneventfuldue to it being Sunday afternoon. But it was fun to see some of the local shipping container buildings (made of …you guessed it old shipping containers, leftovers of colonialism, that have now been refitted to be homes, stores and other nifty spaces).

Probably the most fun on the first day was taking a bus tour into the mountains of Dominica to visit Touna Aute, a Carib village trying to promote eco-tourism and community empowerment. But on our way, we stopped at the Emerald Pool (look at the picture and you'll know why it's so named). The hike was beautiful and water was just refreshing and cool. More fun with my panaromic setting but you'll have to wait to see those pictures until I come back b/c they are big files. After a quite stop here, we headed up the mountain as Florence, our tourguide, told us about the different flora, fauna, political climate and native Carib communities. She lived in Tauna Aute, the smallest community on the island of about 80 people. When we got there, one of the village leaders welcomed us and we went off in three groupsto learn about Cassava Bread making, traditional basket-weaving & crafts and how to make sugar cane juice. All super fun events. It was nice to meet different people of the village and learn about their family, their traditions and also how they are creating this new ecotourism venture to help preserve the culture and educate their young folks.

For those pirates out there, several parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (the scenes w/ Calypso) were filmed right here in Dominica and several of the folks we met were extras in the scene and have met Johnny Depp. :) We actually got to see several of the huts that were used in the film which will be used as part of a project that the town is working on as well.

I got to smella cinnamon tree, bay leaf tree, pineapple plant and lots of other beautiful tropical flowers vegetation.Cassava is a big part of this community (similar to the Garifuna community in Belize that I visited in 2007). In fact, the village leader we met has actually been to Dangriga which is where I was for a few days doing a home stay! Small little world. Anyways, the similarities were incredible. So back to Cassava, it's a very starchy root vegetable which is peeled, shredded and pressed to get out all the moisture. You let is air dry for a day and it becomes this cream of wheat like consistency.

Here's the coolest part: to make the cassava bread….all you need is this cassava powder! You heat up a pan on the open wood fire outside of most houses in Dominica, and just spread out several scoops of the power and spread it out…..let it cook for about 5 minutes and then you can flip it for a few minutes….and voila….you got cassava bread!!!!It doesn't have much flavor but It's delicious and in this community, they put guava jam on it which just makes it more delicious! This bread was thicker than the ones the Garifuna folks make in Belize but sill a yummy food!

At the end of this trip, several of the village folks had spent several days preparing a scrumptious meal for us. We had baked and fried taro root, Bakes (a flour-based bread that is fried, cut open and filled with yummy fillings like cheese, fruit, etc.), Coconut Candy (one of my new favorite dishes; made with coconut, pure cane sugar and grated ginger), and a smorgasbord of local fruit (bananas, oranges, coconut…oh so good!). clearly…I was in heaven!

On the 1 hr trip back to the ship we learned about traditional rituals, Carnaval celebrations and local history. …and this was just day 1!!!!!

Day 2

One of the must-see things in Dominica is the Champagne Reef. It's an area on the South West side of the island that has natural gas escaping in fissures (since this island was/is volcanic)….they bubbles make it feel like we are swimming in champagne…hence the name! So I've never been snorkeling (some of my high school friends will remember some traumatic events w/ water..lol) and wanted to give it a try! Several of the other Living Learning Coordinators (LLC's …aka my colleagues & family on ship) decided to go on our own and check it out!

It was POURING rain and cloudy…but still beautiful and warm. I think the cloudy-ness actually helped bring out the subtle shades of green on the island. So we got to the snorkeling place, got some gear and took turns watching our stuff and swimming. I was excited but also a bit anxious…and at first didn't want to leave the shallow area…which had some cool fish, coral and bubbles. But thanks to my friend Amy who offered to hold my hand and take me out to the reef , I went and it was INCREDIBLE! There's this moment where you go over this bend and the sea floor drops about 20 ft and it was a different world! So many little yellow/clear fish, beautiful purple fish, incredible coral, pencil fish and even some sea urchins!I got so comfortable that I let go of Amy's hand and started to explore for myself. Just such an incredible feeling to be among the fish and floating around….until Amy got bit with something and I apparently just swam like it was second nature to me to get back to shore. Lol. But nonetheless it was incredible. I was going to go in again but the rain kept getting worse and it got colder so we made our way back to town in Charles' cab, a guy that knew lots of local history and was a great guide!We went to this hotel right across the pier b/c Lisa, the academic dean had mentioned to me that they had really good vegetarian food. She was so right! I got Trinidadian style Roti with potato filling and this delicious chutney, Kubuli (the national beer) and rum cake…which disappeared fast! Then I bought some postcards and got back on ship to help with embarkation duty and getting ready for 5 days at sea!

So yeah…that was my short version of our time in Roseau! That evening and the following day at sea was really really rocky and it's the only time I've felt sick so far. We had some intense rain, winds and the Atlantic water which made it difficult for many people.But we have had some really fun programs and events which has been awesome. I got to serve on a Sexperts panel (organized by Alissa and attended by over 130ship board members) where we had honest conversation about sex, safety and other fun info to know! J In honor of MLK jr day, I co-hosted (along w/ Faith & Bianca) a Spirituali-TEA discussion on the role of spirituality in his life and his service. Ohwe also had an open mic that was a huuuuge success with over 250 people in the union (the largest room on the ship).

Another fun thing that the Living Learning Coordinators (me and my colleagues) put on was a skit for our Pre-port briefings. Our last briefing (before Dominica) was super long and full of people talking about what not to do….so we the LLCs wanted to something that would really get people's interest …so we worked together and came up with a skit of what not to do at a port. I can't tell you how many people have told us we need to get into acting b/c it was sooo good! And the icing was when the US Consular General for Brazil, Marie, (who was on ship for a few days doing debriefs and getting to know our community) said she wants a copy of our skit to put on her website to help educate people about what not to do when being visitors in another country! Yeah, we're that good!

Over all the days are long (often 9am -11pm) but the community we are building is incredible. I'm currently in Brazil and will write up my trip in Manaus & Rio de Janiero on my 9 day trip across the Atlantic to Ghana! J

I love you all and hope you are well.

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