Third World Worries

Let's start by talking about how dang frustrating the grocery stores are here. I originally decided to make a weekly meal plan so that I could avoid going to IGA (the grocery store) multiple times a week. So, I made this cute list with lots of options, because I knew IGA probably wouldn't have some ingredients that I needed. Turns out they didn't have like anything. No hamburger meet, no taco seasoning, no spiral noodles, no cheddar cheese, no onions, no lettuce. What the heck. Luckily I made a chicken dish, even without two essential ingredients, and it still tasted edible and we have left overs, but still. Anyways, I've been back to IGA, and other grocery stores, everyday and still no hamburger meet. Oh, ALSO, I'm supposed to feed four sister missionaries on Thursday (tomorrow), and I was planning on making taco salad... so we will probably be having spaghetti. I should also mention that our oven is broken so my mad cooking skills are restricted to the stove. Geez.

Since I'm already cramping y'alls style (Grenadian talk) with the tone of this blog post, now would be a good time to let you all know that I probably have Chikungunya. Yeah. It's a mosquito disease that causes fever and joint pain and headaches and other serious stuff. Which I've had all the above (Besides the joint pain, but its coming, I can feel it)! Its either that or a cold, but probably Chikungunya. I know its ridiculous, but its a real fear. If I had to go to the hospital here, man, I would probably get like five diseases just walking into the place. Lets not think about it.

Anyways, on a more fun note I have decided to live with my disease and not let it stop me from doing super cool things (kidding). Monday I went to the pool, always a good time. I have to admit though I mostly went for the chicken strips and fries. On Tuesday I went to Grand Anse Beach. It is so pretty! It wold probably be my favorite beach if there weren't a bazillion people and locals trying to sell me crap. And today (Wednesday) I went hiking to a waterfall in the rainforest. The hike is called Seven Sisters because there are seven waterfalls, but we only hiked to the first two. It was so cool being in the middle of the rainforest and hearing the wind shuffle all the leaves. There are so many weird sounds in the rainforest, the bugs are so loud and the bamboo is kind of creepy when it sways.

Austin started school this week and has been a very diligent student thus far. Heres his schedule: He wakes up at 7 AM and does scripture study. Then he goes to the gym at 8. I would usually go with him, but like I said, I'm currently suffering from Chikungunya. JK. But really, I haven't been feeling good lately. So then I pick him up at like 10 and he studies at home. And at 12:30 I take him to school where he goes to classes, Biochemistry, Anatomy, and Histology, from 1 to 5. Then I stop making dinner half way through and go pick him up. When we get home I usually yell at all the mosquitoes on our dinner and then hurry to finish and eat so we can get Ausboss back to school by like 6/6:30. And then he comes home at like 9 or 10. He also takes out an hour in the evening so that I can school him in cards. He studies a lot because he says there is just so much information that its like drinking from a firehose. I don't usually get bored..yet. I either find something to do or pass the time by furiously scratching all my hundreds of mosquito bites.

We still love it here! Everyone is so friendly and fun to hang out with. Come visit me!

First Day of  Medical School

Hanging our laundry. I have mini panic attacks whenever it rains because of this.

I just like this pic because this is what a lot of the locals' houses look like.

Bamboo in the forest

The trail to 7 sisters

This is for Johnny! they are making a ropes course/zip line. Hopefully it's done before we leave the island.

The two lower falls

Cherish and little Bridget. 

The picture doesn't do this view any justice.

La Sagesse

We got a car! Technically I already told y'all about our car, but I thought I'd let you know that Phil didn't steal our money and we now have the car in our possession. Its pretty great. Driving on the Island is so fun, its like a rush of adrenaline. If you didn't already know, in Grenada they drive on the left side of the road and the driver is on the right side of the car. So any ways we got a super bad A, 1994 (we think) Toyota Carolla. It takes a few tries to get the key into the hole, the doors only lock if you shut them a super tricky way, the windows screech when you role them down, and the car beeps inside when you put it in reverse. And this is a nice car in Grenada. We were told not to put a heavy load in the car but we've loaded it with 3 or 4 grown men plus me like at least 5 times now. Its super fun when it bottoms out when we drive over pot holes..usually you can feel the bumps on the road hit your feet. haha

Yesterday we loaded our car up with Austin's new boyfriends, Eli and Brock, and went to La Sagesse, which may be my favorite beach yet. Our friends, Jenny and Talmage, road their scooter behind us, so don't worry, I didn't have to hang out with a bunch of boys all day. La Sagesse is not as clear and turquoise as the other beaches and there are waves, but I didn't mind because it reminded me of the beaches back home. Actually, the waves were the best part! We body surfed for about four hours, I only got eaten by a few waves and Austin only almost threw up due to super salty water and motion sickness like twice. So overall, pretty successful. Also, that night I road home from a church activity on the back of Jenny's scooter and at the time I was totally prepared to trade in our car for a scooter of our own. Such a thrill.

PS EVERYBODY COME VISIT US!

Our car, Babe or Fran, we haven't agreed on the name yet.

The only picture of the group and this random dog. There are dogs everywhere...even in restaurants 

So Much Grenada in so Little Time

Okay guys, I just have to post a lot because we are having so much fun before Austin starts classes! Once I'm a medschool widow I'll probably post like never. And there are so many pictures to share. So, since my last post we had a bonfire with all our tons of friends. Annnnd we bought a car! The golden junker turns out to be a 1994 White Toyota Carolla that was actually our mechanic's wife's car that he sold with or without her knowledge. So the bad news is that we already have a mechanic, haha you just have to with all these crappy, Grenadian cars. But, the good news is we got a pretty decent car for a good price. We don't have pictures yet because we don't actually have the car yet haha. Yes mom, I gave away $3500 with out any official documentation. Phill is totally trust worthy though and he signed my notebook saying I gave him money!

Even more exciting, Grenada's carnival (said with an emphasis on val for some reason) has been going on this weekend and we went to the parade today. Oh man, I'm going to start by saying that when we got home we wished to erase the last three hours of our memories! So many half naked, hip grinding, sweaty Grenadians. And sooo many people. Randy would have just loved this. Somehow I snuck my way right onto the street in front of the judges balcony so I got to see all the action. Lucky me..! Austin mostly stayed back where he didn't have to witness all the iniquity. There were so many groups of dancers and each group represented like an alcohol or a Grenadian brand, but mostly alcohol. They would run out do a little dance formation and then just grind on each other for like two minutes...it was disturbing. Not to mention that they were wearing like bikinis and very few of them were very fit. I tried to avert my eyes like 90% of the time. We stayed for like two hours of the carnival and didn't even get through half of it, aye aye ayyyye.

So here are some pictures. I tried to take pretty modest pictures of the carnival, but the last couple are raw material so you can feel our pain.

Bonfire at Secret Beach

We got caught in a down pour on our way to the gym

Parade Dancers

This girl is supposed to be a piña colada. She had my favorite costume in the parade.

All the head dresses were so eccentric

King of Sugar Cane

"Water"

"Water"

Colors of the Carnival

Authentic Grenada

Mardi Gras

Representing Jab Jab (representing freedom from slavery)

Jab King

Our Group

Judges

My favorite picture

Austin in all of his embarrassment

This guy had some serious booty shaking action going on

HA! i took this by accident but here is what the parade really looked like. (2 centimeters in front of my face)

It's been a long carnival weekend. Don't worry we made sure he was breathing.

ya

Fruits and Beaches, Beaches and Fruits

This week we've had a lot of fun with all our new BFF's from church and school. On Mondays and Thursdays the wives (or husbands) of SGU students are allowed to use the pool at the University Club, its the place where visiting faculty stay when they come to teach on the island. So we went on Thursday and hung out with some of our peeps. On Saturday we went to breakfast with the students and their families that we know from church. We also have these two friends, Geoffrey and Amy, who aren't members of the church but Geoff is a first termer and they do everything with us even when we are with church friends so I'll just group them with the mormon friends. Anyways, we went for breakfast at a pastry shop called Sweetly's. Its owned by an Italian family and they have awesome pastries and one of the best views on the island. After breakfast we all went down to the beach and hung out all afternoon. The water is so clear and warm, I love it. I got a pretty solid base burn, gotta love that Caribbean sun. For dinner we went to a place called Rick's, its basically the closest thing to fast food in Grenada (besides KFC), and their pizza is like so good! The sauce is so much sweeter than American pizza sauce.

The fruit! The fruits and veggies are just so good, they don't even taste like the ones at home. I eat at least one mango a day. Leo is our fruit man because his stand is right down the road from us. He's so cool. He had us try this fruit called skin ups, the look like large, hard grapes and you crack the outer skin off and then suck up the slimy fruit inside and spit out the pit when your done. Its super fun.

Today was our first time attending church on the island. It was quite humbling. So so different, but still very cool. Its like the first time I've ever been like super grateful that the LDS teachings are the same no matter what church building you're in across the world. I guess i just never had to think about that in the states. The children are wild. Our friend, Tim, is the young mens president and he just took the boys on a camp out which he had to break up multiple fist fights haha. That's just the way Grenadian kids are, they have good hearts but that doesn't stop them from throwing it down when they feel the need.

On a more boring note, Austin registered and got all his books- an entire carry-on suitcase full- and he also got his white coat.  Also, we still don't have a car (suck). But considering that all the cars here are made in the mid 90's, and are literally falling apart both under the hood and everywhere else, and cost $5000, we kind of want to wait it out until we find the best junker that is going to cost the least amount of money to fix. NO JOKE! You should also know that, and I'm not even kidding, half the cars here are Suzuki Escudos (same thing as a Suzuki Sidekick). So after Carnival is over this week we are hopefully going to rent a scooter for like a month until we find the golden junker.

We are adapting to our new island life better than we expected. Probably because we've met so many kind and helpful friends.

University Club Pool

BBC Beach

The water is so pretty!

Sweetly's is at the top of that hill. It overlooks BBC and Grand Anse on the other side.

Leo!

Austin and Brandon. Brandon served in the same mission as Austin, Ecuador-Guayaquil South, but he left the mission field right before Austin entered.

Home Sweet Grenadian Home

      Humidity to the max! My very first words of grenadian exposure were, “holy humid.” I’ve been sweating the whole 48 hours we’ve been here...and I usually don’t sweat. Other than that life is good. Just kidding, I have no clothes. Out of all the bags to loose the airline lost MY bag with all My clothes in it. But then they found it in Miami, so we should be reunited any day now. Besides, I expected all of our bags to get lost and the majority made it perfectly fine, and I packed a few clothes in my carry on, so don’t feel bad for me. After arriving in Grenada we were the first to get through customs even though we sat at the back of the plane (Score)! Then, after getting our baggage, we didn’t have to pay duty on any of our items (another score). Then I repented for not telling them I hid a laptop, a camera, and an iPhone in my duffel. Our landlady and her husband took us home to our apartment where their son explained to Austin where the best bars are while they showed us around. A local member, Jemma, from church made us dinner. Cheers to Jemma for having no mercy when it comes to easing me into the island. She made a very Grenadian meal complete with fried plantains.

We went to bed with the AC on full blast partly because its so dang hot and partly to drown out the outdoor noises. yeah, at night the crickets and frogs are on full blast, and they make the weirdest noise, it sounds like a fire alarm. I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about how different this place is. Aus kept saying, “I can’t believe how much this reminds me of my mission.” Which is kind of intimidating because he went to Ecuador where they don’t even have indoor plumbing sometimes and people get shot on the streets, and that just seems so hard. I think Grenada scares everyone a little until they get used to it though. 

The next day, our first real day on the island, our friend from church, Tory, took us to get groceries and gave us a little tour of the island. Groceries are so expensive here! I thought that since I had read so many blogs about girls complaining how expensive things are that I had prepared my self. But then I spent $4 US on a can of black beans. We probably spent half our monthly budget in just one trip to the grocery store. We haven’t been to the beach to hang out yet but we stopped by real quick and felt the water. It was amazing, that’s where ill be the next two years.

We haven't done anything super fun yet but here are some pictures of our home!

View from our porch

Road just past our gate

Road coming up to our house