Lazy Sunday

This weekend has been nice because we finally got some down time. Yesterday morning we had a champion kaiso singer (known on the island as “Scholar”) come in to talk about his work in Grenada. He began the session by discussing how he became a singer, first starting by dancing with the Shortknees. From my understanding Shortknee is a masquerade group that dresses up during Carinavale. He brought the outfit for us to show how they dress up and dance during the festival, which was very bright and had long poofy sleeves which held weapons (for feuds). On Monday we are actually going to visit the Shortknees so I’m sure I’ll have a better understanding of who they are once I can actually see what they do. Then Scholar talked about some of the origins of kaiso music and the modern influences, etc. He was really insightful and very well-spoken, and he even agreed to let our group watch him record a song in the studio sometime in the next few weeks!

Shortly after Scholar’s presentation we were picked up and brought to river tubing. Almost everyone came and it was a lot different than any of us had expected but a ton of fun. I assumed it would just kind of be like a nice relaxing river ride where we would hit a few patches of rough current. We each got our own tube and were placed in the river. Immediately we were whisked away by the water and were brought through a few rapids. I was so shocked! It was like one of those river rafting rides you would go on at amusement parks but the real thing. The river wound through the rainforest and the trip lasted about an hour. We had a few guides helping us out when we would get stuck or making sure we got through the rough parts smoothly. It was also up to us to help one another get un-stuck off of rocks and river banks, so the trip served as kind of a team building experience as well. 

At one point they had us all get off the tubes and swim over to a large rock. We were allowed to climb up and jump off (15 feet) if we wanted. At first I was so scared to do it so I just watched. Then I realized that I might regret not jumping, so I got in line and made my way up the rocks. In order to get to the point where we jumped I had to walk on a skinny ledge of slippery rocks which was so terrifying. Then the guy told me to make sure not to hit the rock jutting out from the one I was jumping off of on my way down, which made me even more scared. But I just did it without thinking and it was so much fun! I’m so glad I decided to try it because it was worth the nerves.

After river tubing we had a few hours of downtime and then a few of us decided to go to this show we had heard of called Grenada’s Got Talent. I thought that it would be similar to the reggae concert that we went to the other night, but I couldn’t be more wrong. We made a huge effort to get a taxi van to take us all the way to St. Georges (45 minute drive), and we had to pay a bit of money to get in, only to find out that it was a sit down, high-school like competition. None of us could believe we drove all that way just to see a show that was pretty mediocre. I was trying to make the most of it but at some points I was just bored out of my mind. And, the stage production was terrible. At a few points they accidentally left someone’s computer screen up as the background to the singers, which was horrifying. There were a few really impressive acts, but overall I think we were disappointed that we got our hopes up so much.

Today we have NOTHING planned for once. I can’t even believe it. We’ve all just been so lazy, working on homework and blogs and things like that. It’s been a great day where not a single thing has been planned (and I don’t care in the least bit). Right now I’m sitting out on my porch watching cars go by, looking out at the mountains, and listening to some reggae coming from a nearby porch. Life is good.