Moby Dick (mosquito version)

So my friend Jackson so graciously gave me one of the greatest birthday gifts I've ever recieved,

a bug zapper.  Maybe it's a bad gift though, because I now spend far too much time 'skeeter hunting. (By 'skeeter hunting I mean walking intently concentrated around my room searching for Mosquitos and flailing the racket around like a crazy person everytime I see movement out of the corner of my eye) One mosquito in particular, Moby Mosquito Dick. It's a big mosquito, that has not only been taking my blood to nourish and grow, but this morning, I caught the monster spitting out my blood. I'm not kidding, it was on the white "wall" shown in the picture above and when it flew away it left a spot of blood, my blood. Wasting my blood. It taunts me now and then but quickly disappears far too fast for me to get my weapon.

Carnival+

Caenival in Le Moule last Sunday

Whistles, monkeys and whips; apparently the history behind this is that they do all these things to mock their former slave owners

A nice looking group

Lots of feathers and bright colors

Backside of the blue feathers

The drummers of a group

My morning commute behind a bull in a truck

Plage de Bois Jolan

Palm trees at Bois Jolan.

So this weekend was full of Basse-Terre activities, including hiking the Soufriére again, and snorkeling with a sea turtle at a beautiful black sand beach in Bouillante.  I will upload more pictures after classes today.

Scolopendre

So, if you refer back to the "uninvited guests" post, you remember I talked about that nasty monster I thought was a centipede, well actually it's the infamous scolopendre of Guadeloupe. I've heard about these beasts since the first day I got here but assumed it was something else. Come to find out last night, on the contrary, that is what was in my room. Apparently, the only way to kill them is chop there head off with a machete (it has to be the head. If you chop it in half, it rejuvinates. I'm not kidding you, it rejuvinates). So, you can remember I said it crawled under my fridge and died, well, that was before I knew all the intricacies of the beast, and upon inspection under my fridge this morning, it's gone. Gone. Gone. I have no idea where to, most likely lurking in the shadows, plotting against me. Needless to say, I'm scared.

On a lighter note, I went to Dominica. It's the "nature" island. Formerly a British colony, but now independent. It was a two hour ferry ride from here, and apart from being refused back to guadeloupe on our original departure time, it was quite nice. We went on the Boiling Lake hike. By far, the most intense, craziest hikes I've ever been (and probably ever will go) on. It took us about 6 or 7 hours, 14 miles.

Our tour guide, Michael, leading us out of the Valley of Desolation

The Valley of Desolation, a huge area full of boiling sulphur and baren land.

The boiling lake

The sulphur baths we swam in and climbed to the top of.

One of the delicious meals we had at "Le petite paradis", the little place we stayed at, run by momma Joan and her husband. So sweet.

Remnants of a bus crushed by a tree in 1979 when hurricane David hit, and destroyed most of Dominica.

Champagne beach, had some really nice snorkeling. They call it champagne beach because when your under the water you can see the bubbles coming up from under the sand and coral, really cool.

Beautiful view of Les Saintes on our way home.

Goats in the yard

Little froggie hanging out in my bathroom

Uninvited guests

I've had many uninvited guests in my little place; birds, lizards, frogs, Mosquitos (by the millions), but this past weekend, I had a certain problematic one that wanted to kill me, and one that's just getting too comfortable with my kindness...

The first, the problematic, a giant millipede. This thing was huge, and also I should note, the millipede is the only poisonous bug/insect/monster of Guadeloupe. I was minding my own business, practicing my mandolin when I noticed the beast. But instead if trying to kill it right away I tried to take a pic, and lost the creature in my room, mind you my room is a small place. I searched, in vein to find him, but about a half hour later, it emerged from the shadows again. 

It took 5, I'm not kidding you, 5 smashes with my shoe, as hard as I possibly could, before it finally squirmed under my fridge and died. Honestly, it might be rejuvenating under there as I write this, plotting my death. Needless to say, my nights have been a bit squirmish.

The second guest was a sweet one yet uninvited nonetheless. She snuck up on me while eating breakfast the other morning. 

I heard a noise, looked over and the chicken was on my couch so I shoo'ed it out. About five minutes later I heard something in my bathroom and walked in to see the chicken trying to use my toothbrush.

A nice photograph

A nice rainbow in traffic

A nice breakfast baguette

A nice day for the beach

A nice blue horizon

Les Saintes

Tuesday was the big dinner at Lycée d'Hotelier for the assistants and wowzuhs, it was incredible.

Beginner: Chicken pie

Then the best shrimp I've ever eaten ontop a salad

Main coarse: Lion Fish with a passion fruit sauce and Elisabeth potatos stuffed with spinach. So tasty

Plage de Caravelle in Sainte Anne

This past weekend 6 other assistants and I went to Les Saintes, a little island of Guadeloupe. The ferry is about 20 minutes long, but the way there it was a rockin and a rollin.  The island is very beautiful, it's actually composed of 9 small islands, only two are inhabited though. It is rumored Pirates of the Carribean did a little filming there for the movie.

Les Saintes bay

A ship coming to the harbor. Les Saintes is supposed to have the second most beautiful Bay in the world. It was very nice, the ice cream and Tourment d'amour (a special pastry/cake of the island) made it even more beautiful to me.

At sunset

Our "camp" site, more of a sleep site. Everyone slept outside except the two in the tent. Apart from being a bit unconfortable and windy, it was actually very nice to fall asleep looking up at the stars and palm trees. Fortunetly it didn't rain, and nobody died of a falling coconut (apparently more people die each year by getting hit in the head by a falling coconut than being killed from a shark attack).

Sunrise

All the islands of Les Saintes from the view of Terre de Bas

One of the MLK posters I help put up at the High school today. They made me read an announcement over the loud speaker in French about it, that was not so good.

Lastly, I saw my first fight today. It was a bunch of the kids from the class I just got done teaching, right outside the room. That was a bit intense.

For Mima

I've officially been back for an entire week now. Besides getting back to "work" I haven't done very much, apart from practicing my mandolin and painting.  Wednesday night, my former French professor, who is here visiting with her husband, took me to a very delicious dinner. That was very enjoyable, a really nice time. This coming week will be a busy one. Tuesday there's a big fancy dinner for the assistants, Wednesday we have supposed "training", next weekend all the assistants are getting together on Friday, then Saturday some of us are going to Les Saintes, a small Guadeloupe island about a 30 min ferry ride away. 

I've been taking a lot of pictures, but, they've been on my camera, so when I get some internet connection someday, I'll post all those. They are pretty cool, if I may say so myself. I'm thinking of making an entire album of the cows/bulls.

Some pictures that I have taken:

Cool airport art at the DFW airport

My bed the DFW airport

A picture of a picture on my camera; a little frog outside my door. Those little boogers are responsible for the night noises.

You can't really see it here, but when I was running along the boulevard there was a gaggle of shrimp wading in the water below.

The nice sunset at plage de malendure last night.

The moon

A Gallette du Roi cake, for "Epiphany". Whoever gets the charm is the King or Queen.