Submitted by Rachel King on the 2019 winter session program in Dominica sponsored by the Department of Geography…
Sunday January 6th, 2019
Two car rides. Three flights. Eighteen and a half hours. We finally made it to our hotel in Dominica. First day consisted of traveling from southern Delaware Friday evening up to Newark, Delaware, waking up at 2:00 am on Sunday to drive the 45 minutes to Philadelphia International Airport. From there, we had three flights from Philly to Toronto (why we went so far north before heading south is a mystery to me), from Toronto to Antigua and finally in Antigua we took a little jumper plane to the North Eastern airport in Dominica. Upon arrival, the views from the plane were breathtaking. The blue waters sparkled with reflected sunset rays, and the plane skimmed a mere hundred yards from the sea below to the landing strip that borders the ocean. On our drive south through the island (90 minutes) it went from dusk to nighttime, thus the stars came out in force and splattered the sky like graffiti. The music our driver played in the van was different, but surprisingly sounded a little bit like American music mixed with Spanish hip hop. Something that shocked me was how the drivers honked and flashed their high beams seemingly at random. Later on, I thought it was to warn the drivers ahead of them that they were coming around a sharp turn or to tell people walking on the side of the road to watch out, although sometimes they seemed to honk their horn to say “hey, what’s up”. Once we checked into the hotel, we all slowly found our room, worn out from our day of traveling and got ready to go to dinner at Exotica, a small restaurant 20 minutes drive from the hotel, where we got to meet one of Dr. Seraphin’s friends, Alfie. Dinner consisted of either vegetarian, fish, or chicken as the main course, salad, rice, corn bread of sorts, some other vegetables, and purple kush kush (kinda like mashed potatoes), served with a guava juice and a passion fruit moose for dessert. Compliments to the chef (Mrs. Fey, Alfie’s wife) because if you ever find yourself on this, tiny little island of nature, that’s a place you should try. Once back to the hotel, everyone went to their respective rooms and most likely took a shower and passed out, because I for one sure did.
Monday January 7th, 2019
At nine o’clock breakfast in the hotel to start the day, everyone looks tired but sitting with excitement. With the time difference being an hour earlier than home, we’re still adjusting to waking up earlier. Today was more of a relaxed day, Dr. Seraphin showed us around the city a little, hitting the bank for currency exchange, finding local restaurants and cafes, and locating the local vendor markets, grocery stores, and pharmacies. We ate lunch at a small restaurant a block away from the hotel and most people got chicken roti, a burrito like item filled with chicken, potatoes, and a yellow sauce. After a satisfying lunch, we headed back to the hotel and rested and prepared for our big dinner that night with Mrs. Irene John, Mayor of Roseau, Mr. Petter St. Jean, Minister of Education, and Mrs. Alice Jacobs, Bishop, along with her husband Mr. Jacobs. Throughout dinner, we learned about their professions and what they’ve been focusing on after Hurricane Maria came through and brought havoc and destruction. They’re all very proud of how far they’ve come in fifteen months, but are still striving for better. Mr. St. Jean educated us on the inner working facets of their government, how the parliament was selected and the senators got their seats along with the two main parties. They also briefly discussed their resources and how they have 365 rivers, one for every day of the year; although they considered any body of water that empties into the ocean a river, even if it is really only a small stream. Overall, it was a fairly quiet dinner with a lot of food and many questions answered by our honorable quests.
Tuesday January 8th, 2019
Beach day! Oh, and our first day of class. Class started a little after 9:00am once everyone had finished breakfast and headed down to the conference room which also doubles as our classroom. First class consisted of history of the island and what Dr. Seraphin expects of us when we go out on excursions, what we should be looking for, to remember to make observations, to ask questions, and to enjoy ourselves. Farther into the class, everyone started asking questions about different aspects of the land, ranging from agriculture, insects, flora and fauna, to culture. Class ends and we all go back upstairs to get ready for our beach day. Someone sends a text about meeting downstairs and ten minutes later, we’re all gathering in the restaurant seating area on the main level in the hotel. Dr. Seraphin finds us and heads out to seek a person to drive us to and from Mero Beach which is about a 20-25 minute drive north of Roseau. While Dr. Seraphin hailed down a van, we walked down the block to a grocery store where we picked up snacks and water bottles. Fast forward 25 minutes as we made our way to the small, but gorgeous gray sand Mero beach. The drive there was corner after corner of amazing views, vibrant colors from the rainbow colored buildings, to the lush greens of the mountain foliage, and the glistening Caribbean Sea that the road dipped and curved around. We arrived around noon and asked the driver if he could come back at 4:00pm to pick us back up, he agreed after showing us where the wash rooms and beach front restaurant was. The next four hours involved a lot of sunscreen, laughs, and pictures. Sam spent the majority of the time diving down and finding little treasures or picking up trash from the ocean bottom. I noticed while we were there that there weren’t any locals on the beach; when we first arrived there was only one other small family. As the day went on, six other people joined us, but it was by far on the opposite side of being crowded. I did talk to one local man who was down by the rocks and he showed me some of the small fish he had caught and what tools he used to catch the fish. He was going to go farther down the beach and use his catches as bait. Four o’clock rolled around and our driver chauffeured us back, taking a slightly different route allowing us to see more of Roseau, but from a new angle. On the drive, I noticed that on some of the roofs on the flat buildings there was metal sticking out, looked like rebar, and they had placed glass bottles on top of them. I’m not sure if it was for decoration or symbolic, but it was interesting. Once back, showers took place, and some aloe was readily applied. We made a plan to go watch the sunset by the cruise ship port and grab dinner afterwards. We found a small shop out by the water and got pizza, fries, and chicken shawarma. On our walk to and from sunset and dinner, we befriended a dog and named him/her Jeff. Later on, we played Uno on the balcony of the hotel and then migrated into Sara and Emily’s room for some more cards.
Wednesday January 9th, 2019
Today was structured a little bit differently. Instead of having class in the conference room, where our guest lecturer was suppose to come, we went to his house instead because the evening before he was in the hospital. Alfie opened his home to us and we all sat together on his porch and he told us about the local institutions and how they’ve changed for the worse and for the better. We ranged from topics regarding police, governmental positions, post Hurricane Maria issues, agriculture, and the mountainous terrain obstacles and solutions. After we had talked for a while, Alfie offered to show us his property and it was stunning. Being that high in the mountains, he had a gorgeous view of the town and ocean below as well as all the flora and plants he cultivates. He had bananas, almonds, guava, two cows, avocado, and many others that I cannot recall. As we walked through his property, he explained the growing season and when most of the plants bear fruit (typically twice a year), what vegetation was edible and how to know when to eat it, as well as showing us his favorite spot. Upon leaving, we headed back to the hotel where we also got lunch; lunch consisted of potatoes, rice, salad, and chicken. Post lunch, we did some errands together, picking up snacks, finding some goodies to bring back home, as well as visiting the vendors down by the port. What I noticed as we were walking around is that most places start to close around 3-5pm, so it makes it harder to find meals for dinner since we’re not used to that schedule yet. But we ate again at Alex’s cuisine down by the port and got it to go. We ate back at the hotel balcony and as we were eating, we wrapped presents for our guests from the dinner on Monday and put candy in bags for the children we were visiting the next day. Later on, we went to JR’s for karaoke night and met the Arcadia students who are also in Dominica for a short study abroad (only one week).
Thursday January 10th, 2019
Breakfast at 8:30, and at 9:00am we left to walk to the Alpha Center, a school for students with disabilities, and 20-25 minutes later we arrived. We had to walk up a small hill; reflecting upon this, none of us are prepared for these upcoming hikes if walking up pavement for a few minutes made us tired. At the Alpha Center, we dropped off gifts we brought from home for the students, ranging from coloring books, pencils, crayons, notebooks, to Uno and Twister. We then got a tour of the school and I was surprised to find that they only go to school in the morning, they get out at 12:30 pm. After the tour, we split into small groups and chose a room and either helped the teacher am or sat and watched the lessons and the interactions with the students and what they were working on that day. My first group was upstairs with the older students and I watched as they were sewing. It was amazing to see some of the items they had already created, such as bed sheets and pot holders. A few people actually bought some and are going to take them home for gifts. The two boys that were there were making pairs of pants, and it was really neat to watch them work. At 10:30 am, they had break and we all grouped back up and passed out a little bag of candy to all the students, 40 students are enrolled, but not everyone was there, so some little ones got extra sugar. After break, I went downstairs and chose the room that was learning math. Here, we each got a student and after the teacher gave her instructions, we helped our respective students try to learn the number 6, how to spell it, how to draw it, how to count up and down from it. It was eye-opening to see how the students were learning the longer we worked with them. My student didn’t really know how to write too well so I would put little dots in the paper for him to follow. It was a wonderful experience and we plan to go back again on a slow day to help out more. We left around noon and headed back down to the city for a quick lunch, which we grabbed at a local supermarket and then ate back at the hotel. It was a slow evening. Tired from the previous days, most of us took naps and got reinvigorated for dinner. Dinner took place at a Chinese place a few buildings down, and let’s just say, we will not be going back. Ever. We also grabbed ice cream and then walked back to the hotel for a quick round of cards on the balcony.
Friday January 11th, 2019
Routine morning; breakfast first, lecture following regarding mostly content about our trip on Saturday to the Kalinago Territory, and then some errands around town before we left to go to Scott’s Head. We ran to the bank to exchange more money, got sandwich makings for the beach, and bought a soccer ball. Around noon, Colombo, our driver came and picked us up and drove us to Scott’s Head which is south of Roseau. When we arrived, it was cloudy and slightly raining, but that didn’t stop us from setting up camp on the small sliver of sandy beach that was there. I was surprised to see how much damage the hurricane two years ago had caused while we driving, there were a lot of buildings that were under construction. But to say we enjoyed ourselves at Scott’s Head is an understatement. For an hour and a half or so, Samantha, Andrew, and I were swimming around with goggles checking out all the life under the sea. The views were phenomenal and words cannot describe the beauty or how it felt to see the vast ocean just spread out before you. It was a humbling moment, yet I wouldn’t of not wanted to experience it. While there, a few of us hiked up the small hill to the top of Scott’s Head to get a panoramic view of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea clashing together. Back down below, some beach volleyball was going on, where we were trying to keep the ball in the air for as long as possible. Soon 4:00pm arrived and Colombo was waiting to take us back to the hotel. But instead of taking us directly back to the hotel, he took a slight detour and showed us some sulfur springs, which was really cool. The water was hot, it felt like a hot tub. At the hotel, showers first and then we all got ready to head over to Fort Young for dinner, we even got Dr. Seraphin to come out and stay for a while. After we all ordered dinner and got seated, Dr. Seraphin told us stories about previous study abroad groups and what they did, and he told us about his childhood. I couldn’t even imagine growing up here and from what our professor told us, it was something he thoroughly enjoyed and now cherishes. While at dinner, the amount of jokes and stories that were exchanged made everyone laugh and bond even more, even Dr. Seraphin got in on the jokes and made everyone chuckle a few times. We were all having such a great time we didn’t end up leaving until ten o’clock at night.
Saturday January 12th, 2019
Today we visited the native people of the island, the Kaliango’s. We drove about an hour and a half up and down the mountains through winding roads. By the time we got there, we were all so happy to be out of the car and on the ground. When on the drive, I noticed that most of the rivers that run downhill have a pipe system that they used. I think that maybe they used this method so that erosion isn’t as bad and it’s a way to control where the water hits the ground beneath it. While there, we got a tour by one of the natives, and he explained the history and how things used to work and how they work now while still preserving the culture. The views of the Atlantic side of the ocean was something out of a movie, which isn’t surprising because two of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed in Dominica. What I thought was interesting about the people was how much they’ve incorporated new technologies into their daily lives. Our tour guide was really neat showing how they used old techniques combined with new methods to make cooking or making tools more efficient. While at the territory, we all sat underneath a patio and ate our packed lunches, most of us got peanut butter sandwiches or cheese sandwiches; the peanut butter were far more superior than the cheese ones. On the drive back to Roseau, our driver (Colombo) stopped and went down a narrow path and we found ourselves at a hiking trail. We were going to the Kalinago Nature Trail down to the Snake Steps, a myth that the snake came out of the sea and was a monstrous creature that they used to “worship” as a god. The hike downhill was a little slippery because it was raining beforehand, but the view made it worth it. The hike on the other hand had us all winded and dying from the heat and the uphill climb. Back at the van, we all took a water break and then prepared for the ride back to the city. At the hotel, we took showers and retreated to our respective rooms and took naps or worked on homework or something of that nature. Samantha and I went and sat on the balcony and I worked on my blog posts while she wrote in her journal. As the sun was setting I called it quits and headed back in to get ready for dinner downstairs in the hotel restaurant. We got stir fry, salad, plantains, baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and for dessert we got ice cream! It was a long day so a few of us went to bed early while the others watched some YouTube/movies together. By 11:00pm everyone was back in their own rooms and getting ready for bed.
