St. Kitts - First Visit

It definately is an interesting place! We spent the last week down there checking things out and scouting all over the island. Our biggest headache has been trying to secure housing. It isn't clear how housing is distributed to incoming students but it is very clear that it is more distributed by Ross U's housing people, than it is chosen by incoming students. Having a spouse and children seems not to matter, but rather irritates this mysterious housing assignment system.

One thing I've learned about myself is, I'm still not very good at making friends. I've began the process of irritating some of these people as I feel they have contributed to my stress. Probably not a good plan since the island is so small, everyone knows everyone, and I'd probably need these people's help or approval to work in any legal form.

But if we can figure these things out AND I can graduate, I figure I'll try to shoot for 2 masters degrees still. It'll keep my busy and be worth my time I figure. My hopes and dreams of internship with any local government or the EC Central Bank are rapidly fading away as I get a taste of how things operate over there. I may be too much of an outsider, and my usual slightly caustic methods are even less welcome down there.

The island is beautiful. There are some amazing beaches. It seems there is a lot of development (although it may be that these development projects just linger for an extended period of time and more half finished buildings pop up). The roads and infrastructure are in terrible pain compared to the U.S. City planning is an extremely recent concept it seems. They do have 1 new road above Bassatterre that has recently opened that is nice.

The island is a mix of tourists and locals. The local areas definately have some poverty stricken areas. The tourist areas are completely over priced. Many people figured we had money since we are white. Even so we've met some of the nicest people and did feel safe in most of the places we visited. I'm sure we do 'have money' if you compared us to some parts of the city. It's a little scary to me though. Even though St. Kitts is nothing like Afghanistan, I have to admit that some of the less well to do areas of the island did remind me of the type of poverty I've seen in Afghanistan. It's not nearly that bad if the island is considered as a whole. There are neighborhoods of super nice houses also. Some may be foreigners, and some may be local government officials.

The neighborhood we thought we would end up in is Bird Rock. Some officials live there, it's a nice place. It's up the hill from the central bank, port, shopping mart and downtown. If you look up a map of the island, it really is that small, which makes the contrast of the neighborhoods hard to understand. BUT, a few roads over, and it's a different neighborhood with a different name and a different feel to it (that we could observe in our brief week there).

We're reaching out to a few of the local people we have met in hopes of finding a place to live outside of the reach of 'Ross Housing Dept's' control. I don't have much faith or trust in their recommendations at this point and would prefer to stay as far away from anything they offer as possible. We hope to have a place to lay down and sleep when we show up with the kids in January, but at the rate we're going, it's a possibility we should prepare for.

We're holding on, committed to fulfill Jeanann's dream. I'm still excited, even with the stress and worry. I hope I can pull off this last semester which seems to be getting more and more difficult as the distractions get worse. I do hope this whole experience turns out to positive for all of us. There should be plenty of volunteer type opportunities. I think some locals have a hard time staying in school, learning to read, and that sort of thing. Maybe I can help do something good in that sense. Maybe I can motivate some U.S. people to donate to some schools down here. I've already told Jeanann I'm probably going to want to adopt some kids from one of the orphanages. We haven't seen them yet, but we will, and we're probably going to want to adopt, at least I will.

That's that for now. Stay tuned for pics and videos. It may be awhile, I have so much school work built up. I'm in the process of blowing off certain things and preparing for the next round of homework, tests and projects in an effort to graduate and make it into grad school.