Fun Statian Lingo & stuff

Fun Statian lingo!

Slippers – Sandles
Pass by – Come by my house
E-Twee - pencil case
Sweet Biscuit - Cookie
Twinkies - the hair that sticks up on the back of your head
Plats - braids

Todd is doing really well in school. I his average in all of his classes right now a High Pass (HP) or Honours (H). I’m very proud of how well he’s doing, he is really a very smart guy and he works extremely hard. The other night he pulled an all nighter which caught me off guard in the morning – I slept right through him being gone. And oddly enough I had an awesome sleep – hehe. But he did really good on the exam that he was studying for 91.7% – a subject he was a little worried about. It was the organic chemistry.

Todd school had a mini basketball tournament for the students a while back and we all went to watch him and cheer him on. It was entertaining to watch and the kids had fun running around. Unfortunately it got a little too competitive in one of Todds games – I actually ran home and missed that one. Todd said it was a good thing because this one guy just got way out of control. Worse than your worst Southern Albertan b-ball player! Hehe That’s bad!





The kids shooting around with Daddy at a break time.



The kids are doing good in school, every time the girls come home from school they say it was AWESOME! Which is wonderful to hear compared to their first reactions when we first go to the island, it just took some adjustments and they are having a wonderful time. I am a little worried as to whether they are at the same level of curriculum at home, I think I’m going to have to look at that a little closer. Jase is doing well, his Calvert curriculum is very demanding and we spend hours doing homework after school, as late as 9 or 10 some nights. Sometimes his concentration level isn’t quite constant but it is a lot of work and I am looking forward to the end, I guess that’s grade 5 for you.

Every month the girls school has a theme they follow and the theme for February was Black History Month. They had an activity where the went on excursions to various backyards gardens and learned about gardening on the Island. But the fun part was the closing activity at the end of the month. It was called ‘Remembering Food of the Past.” They had on display various ways in which they prepared the local dishes back in the aweful days of slavery. And they had them on for a small fee to try them. They had:

Parching peanuts in a pot with sand
Baked Johnny cake on a plate
Potato John
Baked potato in cow dung
Pumpkin fritters cooked on coal pot
Yam and salt fish
Lemon and lime fish
Potato pudding

We tried pretty much everything we missed the Pumpkin fritters, and the lemon lime fish but we tried it all. It was all really good.

Uncle Ishmeal welcoming everyone out to the celebration.



This is how they would parch their peanuts, in hot sand and mix it around to keep them from burning. The kids got a chance to stir the peanuts. They can grow peanuts on the island and you can buy lots of raw peanuts in the shell at the local grocery stores.



Making Johnny cake on a hot skillet over hot coals. The cast iron cookery in these pictures are antiques used from Uncle Ishmaels museum he has – from his parents.



I love this picture of Courtney! This is a sample of some of the food we bought to try.


The leaf has a story also. Court and I came to pick Katie up from afternoon school to find out that she went home on the bus. Uncle Ismael was trying to set everything up so we helped with getting the cast iron cookery, hulled dung, and potatoes helped with little odds and ends. And then Uncle Ishmael wanted to have plates like they did in the olds days. So we went to his Sea Grape tree and picked leaves, washed and dried them for the gathering. It turned out that no one really wanted to use them – just the regular store bought plates, so in some of the pictures you can see a dish drying rack with a cloth over the leaves we washed. But I wanted to get a picture of food on the plate – hence the pic of Court!

Last Uncle Ishmael stirring the dung coals and baked potatoes.


The potatoes were actually a kind of sweet potatoes or Yam. They were actually really very good! When would you ever get to experience something like that in your life! And the kids really liked them too, I even told them what it was cooked in and they didn’t even flinch – it was just yummy. Amazing what people were able to do to make the best of their circumstances. It was a really nice afternoon.

There is always family coming to visit a student on the island and not long ago the husband of a friend we made here came to visit with their super cute little girl. Marlin, Hansel and Molly. They are a really sweet family from NY and have been so kind to the kids and us. We had them over a couple of times and had their little girl, Molly, over to play. There have been a few time when Courtney has asked to have Molly over or “I miss Molly” so we know they had a lot of fun together. Until next time!
Hansel was so kind enough to bring the kids some kites from NY to fly, he even brought Todd and I each a pair of sandals!








Well we have found ballet on the island – or well Ballet has been brought to us! A friend of mine named Jacintha works as a teacher in the schools and works with the youth has brought a gentleman from St. Maarten to work with the students in movement and Ballet. His name is Jerry. He was living, dancing and teaching in Chicago for 18 years before he came back so St. Maarten to try and help the local communities of the islands. Well there has been some success with the students and she asked him to do a ballet class for kids and have an adult class as well. To make a long story short it all worked out and the girls and I are taking classes from Jerry. I think the dance company he works for is called Motion Dance or something like that in St. Maarten. I was concerned about the consistency of the program in getting the girls to be accurate in their movements and body position, I felt dumb asking him but he was completely on the same page and said he totally understood where I was coming from and anyway I am quite happy with him and his ability to teach the girls proper. Its fun to watch the girls dance and then right after I enjoy having my butt kicked during my workout/dance exercise class. I have never been sorer after a workout in years – I love it! And I love the price too! Only $60 per month for all three of us and our hour long classes once a week. Its a great deal because the teacher has to fly in every week for the class. I can say all us girls look forward to our Thursday late afternoons with Jerry! (Looks like I need to get a picture of Jerry! I only have a cut off part of him!)





The kids had a week off for spring break in March with Todd in school I decided to take them on a hike up the Quill. We had our snacks and water and made it up there having lots of fun, and the kids decided that they wanted to keep going down into the crater of the volcano. So off we went down. It was a little tricky at first I had to put Courtney on my back for a while until she was comfortable. They really wanted to go down so we kept on going. It was definitely harder going down then coming back up with all the big boulders you bad to climb down, and wholes you needed to dodge but it was really worth it. (I took these pictures with our little camera so they are not as good).




On the way down we ran into one of Jase and Katies Junior Ranger leaders and she was down there counting different butterfly species.



It is like a rain forest, I think it is technically call a rainforest down in there. You could hear all the birds chirping, the trees were amazingly beautiful and huge, it was so green and lush. I loved it in there and I think the kids loved it too.





For the picture above if you can see these huge trees weren’t sitting on the ground, it looked like the trees were suspended by their roots going into the ground, it was something else.

Todd and I went snorkeling together the other day, and we went to this one area where a couple of turtles have made it their area to live for a while. We were trying to move slow as to not scare them, one wasn’t interested in us but the other one was. It was circling and going back and forth around us checking us out just like we were to him/her. It was getting really close so close that Todd reached out and rubbed her back, and she let him, and she kept swimming around us. It was my turn and I touched her back. It was so neat and the turtle just kept swimming around checking us out. So the next day Todd decided to go and see her again and she was still there doing the same thing checking Todd out and he touched her and got some really nice pictures of her. I’m not saying it a good idea to be touching wild turtles because they could bite your finger off, but it was an awesome experience!





Katie and her friends, Emily and Salwa made a little shop on the beach. They had collected a bunch of Conch, sea glass and different little shells to try and have a beach version of a Lemonade Stand. Thanks to some very kind people who bought some of the girls’ beach items, where they could have found their own for free on the beach themselves, the girls were very happy with their hard work and $3.00 of proceeds! It was pretty cute to watch how excited they were to show their inventory to prospective shoppers.





Just a note – the brick building in this picture is over 300 years old like a lot of the buildings around!


Katie and Courtney went to a birthday party the other day for a little girl turning ten from their school. We actually use to live right across the street from them and every once and a while we see them when we pass by and visit for a minute. So this was Jasharia’s birthday party and pretty much every kids in the neighborhood was invited! The girls said they had an awesome time with the loud music and all the rambunctious play! They sang happy birthday but it is a little different than at home. While singing – the same tune – they don’t put a name in they just keep singing happy birthday to you, then the next verse is ‘how old are you?’ with the same tune, and the next verse is, depending on how old you are Jasharia turned 10 so it ’10 candles for you’ with the same tune, and I thought there was one more verse but I’m not sure what it was. The girls had a lot of fun!





We took the kids and the dogs for a walk on Zeelandia beach the other Sunday. It was really nice to get out as a family to just enjoy some time together with all the business of Todd’s school and just life. We were writing in the hardened sand on the side of the cliff, it’s not a big deal to carve in it because the hard sand will erode away in not long, depending on how deep you carve in the sand I suppose. Jase was climbing and jumping into the soft sand, we took some nice pictures, and just enjoyed being together!









On the walk back to the car we ran into a local fisherman who I think he said was getting bate for a big fishing trip on Monday. I asked if I could take his picture then had Katie go in the picture with him, and he had her hold the net with him! It was cute, then he said to check out his catch so far with a 5 gallon pail half full of little fish.



Some random shots

Young came over for a hair cut!




Half banana half plantains that our sweet neighbours gave to us. They were really good. They didn’t get old tasting like bananas do when they seam to be over ripe.



Cleaning up the yard – One massive coconut palm! Add another 2 feet for the broken part at the tip that is dangling at the top!



Last story of the post. We were helping Tony and Leontein take down the chain-link fence hugely overgrown with coralina because they are building a new one, and umunst the cockroaches climbing up my legs while raking I saw this funny colored rock. I cleared the leaves and there was this huge land crab lying there. He did his funny but slow sideways claws ready walk toward the holes in the side of the now dirt wall. I had the kids run and get your dad to try and get it out. To no avail Tony and Charlie – a local man helping Tony - came back from the dump and Charlie said “smoke’em out!” So here were are trying to smoke him out, and can’t get him to come and so Tony said use the water to drown him out and so we did, and out he came! He was fairly large guy, could have eaten him size, and that was our original plan – to eat him. So we put him in the big storage box ready to cook that night. Well he was pretty cool looking, and could grow a little more. Jase never wanted to eat him Katie didn’t want to eat him after all, but Courtney was smacking her lips for land crab. Jase fed him a piece of lunchmeat and he was eating it with his claw! Funny hey! And they have really weird looking poops. They are the shape of long thin Hickory Sticks (you know the kind of potato chip things) but really dark, almost black, and a whole bunch of then in a pile.





Well Todd let him go without telling anyone and mixed emotions of not being able to keep the pet, say goodbye, and eating him arose but perhaps we shall see him again in our many more island adventures yet to come!

Well we’ve been Residents of the Caribbean for 6 months now as of February 15, 2011. Its unreal to think that that much time has gone by. It’s feeling more like home more often than it use to. – If that makes sense. We are still loving the warm weather with the occasional longing for snow – at least for one day ;). A relief from the mosquitoes would be nice though they are still alive and kicking. They’ve been worse this year because of extra rain we’ve been getting, and our indoor water mosquito feature doesn’t help much. We live with bug spray and citronella candles. Kind of annoying but I guess you get use to it. They are a lot more potent down here though, super itchy and fast! You’ve got to be really quick to get them.

Our neighbors/land lords are so nice. They’ve helped us out in so many ways. My favorite is the fact that I am able to again love my Jari Love!! If any of you know her she does workout videos, and our neighbor’s let me use their workout room with weights and all! She doesn’t have a step though but that doesn’t matter, it’s just so nice to be active again. It was almost 5 months before I was able to work out again – it feels so good, and my butt doesn’t feel as jiggly any more, hehe! I tried running before but that just wasn’t working out for me.

Todd is doing really good in school. He’s quite burdened with his 7 classes this semester but he’s handling it like a trooper. No one ever does 7 classes! He’s been gone every night and all day studying or going to classes and preparing for mid terms. He got a 95% on his histology midterm and is currently studying hard for his Chemistry midterm coming up. He is doing so well, he’s definitely known as one of the smart ones! So right now we don’t see him very often, almost single parenting but thank goodness I don’t have to work. Its amazing to think that he will be done 3 years of premed courses in 1 crazy accelerated year! He’s handling it really well!

Check out this picture



It looks like Honey has been resurrected! Sadly she hasn’t but we have had not one but two rascally puppies to add to the family. There is a little bit of a story behind all of this. Not long after Honey died we got a call from STANAPA telling us that they found two abandoned puppies on Zeelandia beach, which is quite deserted. They figure someone had dumped them there, so they asked if we would like to have them. Todd talked with them initially and told them he would have to talk with me. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to have any other dogs again and so we just never followed through with any plans.- and we never told the kids about it even though they had been asking to get another dog. Then one Sunday afternoon a lady comes to the house looking for our Land Lady and she has these two little puppies following behind her. The kids fell in love with the puppies (Todd and I looked at each other – reading into each others eyes!) and It turned out that she was fostering them until the animal shelter – who she volunteers for - could find them a home. Again we looked into each other’s crazy eyes and then we said we’d take them. The lady said that they wanted to find a home that would take them both. And also that they were going to be put down on the Thursday if they didn’t find them a home. So a long story short Kay (the animal volunteer lady) left the house without the puppies. They are pretty good little things. The kids named them – the one that looks like Honey is named Coco, and the one with the brown and white is Patches. Patches was really skittish at first like she wasn’t sure of us and was really skittish when we went to pet her – she acted as if we were going to whack her. We are still working on the potty training but they seam really happy. They love the kids and you can tell they like us humans as lot more. Before we were just kind of ignored now they can’t get enough of us – It’s kind of fun – except for the 6:00 morning call. I have to be up anyway to get the kids to school, but on the weekends it’s not so great!





Courtney loves to pick up the palm leaves and brag them on the grass because the puppies love to tug on them! I don’t know if you can see the expression on Courtneys face, but I love it – it is pure joy!



I love being able to go on field trips with Jase and his school! This trip we went on a hike to Cora Cora Bay. It was fun walking with Jase and just in joying the fantastic view the whole way along. It got pretty hot though even though we started at about 8:00 in the morning, and we missed the actual ‘turn off’ to get down to the bay, but it was still fun to be with Jase. I think he had a fun time. We walked back to the Botanical garden – where we started from – and hid teachers put on a BBQ for everyone. Jase really enjoyed going in the hammock with his friends and playing checkers. We played a game together too. And he really wants to learn how to play chess. So we had a fun morning together on his field trip!

Some cute donkeys we saw on the walk. Look at the furry one – cute!




You can see a cannon there in the hill.



It was Courtney’s day for assembly. He class went up on Valentines day and expressed the importance of Christ Like love. The school has not been allowed to acknowledge valentines day as part of there system for years because of the issues they have been having with kids not knowing or confusing the difference between loving a friend and an inappropriate love for the age they are at. So with prodding the school board by the Principle and Uncle Ismael the day was celebrated in hopes to educate the kids and open their eyes that they can love their neighbor without having to be romantic about it. They shared a really good message and I think its so important to talk with the kids about the different ways to love because apparently, for some, it is being misunderstood.
Here are some pics of Courtney doing her assembly.



Check out our tree with Pink and Orange blossoms. I just thought it was really pretty with the bees cross pollenating.



This little gecko I found in my kitchen. He was so cute I was trying to take a good picture of him forever and then he perched on my finger just perfect to snap this shot. He’s not the tiniest one I’ve seen but for sure the smallest one I’ve held and got a photo – then I couldn’t get him to get off!



One fun thing about living in the summer sun all year round it that the kids have swimming lessons all year round! The University has lessons for anyone living on the island of Statia every Saturday at noon, when the University is not on semester break. It really a great opportunity and it is totally FREE! What an awesome service. Its mainly set for the local population where a lot of them don’t know how to swim or have never set foot in the ocean before. They have kids class and then adult class right after. There has been a fairly good turn out sometimes, but it seam to be getting bigger and bigger which is fantastic. The kids are becoming really good swimmers and Courtney can now swim the width of the pool. It pretty fun. And Jase and Katie are working on all sorts of strokes including the breast stroke, back stroke and treading water for a long time. Close to 5 minutes! Oh I almost forgot to say that Todd was teaching our friend Pallov to swim at one point, and he also helps every once and a while to teach the older group of kids – including Jase and Katie- to swim!

I have this group picture but unfortunately the day they took one most everyone was late and then I missed the retake shortly after this was taken, but what can you do! The kids with Jeremy – the main swim coach and a little girl from the Netherlands named Abbie.





Well we have had a lot happen church wise within the last month. The Mission Presidents Counselor and his wife – the McIntoshes. (They have counselors in these missions with a lot of little Islands because there are so many little group everywhere that need organizing and support from a mission president that they have counselors) were here on the 23rd of January to set us up as a little group here on Statia. We now have about 19 members here and needed some organization. They came and called a group leader – Randal Cooper – and set us on our way. Three of us are continuing our little primary for the kids - now teaching every 3rd week instead of every other week - which seem to be going pretty good. We take turns playing the ‘piano’ in primary too – Rebecca and I. People are asked to do a Sacrament talk or teach the Sunday school class – I’ve taught once so far, Todd taught a few times – and then I play the ‘piano/organ for sacrament. It really is a nice little Sunday we’ve got going. Some Sunday mornings are a little crazier than I would like because we do have church at our house every week and it always seems like a panic scramble to get everything ready. I probably just need to get myself a little more organized. Sometimes its just hard however I’m a firm believer that it will always turn out just fine in the end when I thank my Heavenly Father for all he has blessed us with (which is more than I feel I deserve sometimes) and try to help others along the way.

Here are a couple of pictures for the get together with the McIntoshes. I had Katie’s take some pictures and tried to pick the best – lots unfortunately were blurry.

Pico Degio – I know that’s not how its spelt but that’s how I will spell it. We make this quite often because the ingredience (?) are usually easy to get here – except the cilantro.



Our sweet Station Bar-B-Q we had made when we first got here!




Jase’s Birthday! I can’t believe my oldest baby is now 10! Double digits! This happened back on February 20th. He finally got a 'summer' time birthday to play outside! He had a really wonderful party, I think he and all of his friends had a lot of fun. It started out on the Friday before the big day at school. His school had a party for him, and Teacher Victoria made a cake for him and Teacher Hilda brought some snacks for everyone to share. I came with the girls to share in some of the fun. I had the girls and Jase’s Teacher take some pictures for us. I know it made him feel really special.





This is Jase and Teacher Hilda – Jase’s classroom teacher.



The party then went on to the house on Saturday. Todd busted a coconut open for them, then they played a game called 4 square, the played hide and go seek, soccor, eggs on spoon, and what Jase wanted most was to have a wiener roast. We weren’t sure at first because people don’t have them very often around here. No roasting sticks on the island so we made some out of coat hangers but it came together way better than I thought and the kids had fun!










The boys all then settled down, if you can call it that, and watched a movie and ate popcorn to finish off the party. I think Jase had a lot of fun!

Jase’s actual birthDAY day was pretty busy but we had his favorite breakfast, waffles with whipped cream and fruit. He opted for the picture of him with whipped cream on his face. He had some nice cuddles with dad and that night his b-day buddy came over! It was Pallovs B-day the same day so we had a little cake together with him and Jase an visited for a little










Just some fun picts.

The girls with the dogs welcoming them home.




Jase is Flying the kite he got for his birthday.


This is Katie and we are showing off the start of some of our mangos – mmmmmm can’t wait!!



One more experience I had back in January that was pretty neat for me. I met a lady named Cecelia through my friend, Laura Packard who has since left the island, and Cecelia teaches voice lessons to kids on the island and was having her big final recital/ adjudication day for the kids. Laura had told her long ago that I play the piano and Cecelia was looking for someone to ‘judge’ her students along with another lady named Jacintha (whom I know and has her bachelor in music) on their Preformance. This included if they were on key, presentation, conviction, breathing, posture, and I thought there was one other thing but I’ve forgotten. Anyway I said yes I would help her out – feeling completely unqualified – but it turned out really wonderful. I think doing all of that music with the Young Women before I came here really helped prepare me for this. It was so fun watching these kids sing their hearts out – some nervous and some not so nervous. They sang quite difficult songs actually, kind of like Whitney Houston but gospel songs. Too hard for young vocalist I think but it was a neat experience both in learning a little bit about adjudication, but also seeing another part of the amazing cultural I have been so privileged to be a part of.