The Hurricane Week!

---

Hello everyone!

Well, this last week we had a hurricane come through here: Omar. We thought were just going to have a tropical storm, but on Monday we saw it developing on the radar saying it was going to be a category 1. Tuesday it developed more than expected and was supposed to be a category 3 straight over St. Croix for Wednesday night. So all Tuesday and Wednesday we prepared everything to take the blow: taking down the roof and solar panels at one of the sleeping places, taking down the greenhouse and putting the plants in the potting shed, moving the animals, harvesting what we can, bringing in all loose things, etc. Since all the buildings are open air here, and because this is a farm, there was a lot to do. But you know...we also cooked a feast for the hurricane party (4 loaves of bread, mango rum cake, soup, roast pig...)!

The curfew was for 6pm-6am (and it's still in effect because a lot of the light posts blew over), but we were still cooking a pig until 8pm. The goats we just acquired got out of the orchard about then and were crying somewhere in the bush; we all went out to search for them but we couldn't find them so went back inside. We felt the gusts start to pick up so we headed downstairs to the bunker, poking our heads outside once in awhile but the wind didn't really pick up until about 10pm, and the really big winds only lasted about an hour. We wanted to go out in the middle of the eye, but it turned out that Omar decided to change course and went between St. Croix and Antigua in the open ocean, fortunately for everyone. The east end of St. Croix and Antigua got hit the hardest. We're on the west end and probably got category 1 winds, but we probably have the most work of anyone because we have a lot of land. All the buildings were okay, no one died, but we had so much tree damage that parts of the farm were unrecognizable. The past 3 days we've been working like crazy to get the community center back up and running (we had to put EVERYTHING inside and then board up the windows and doors). And then the tree work: staking and salvaging trees, chainsawing, and hauling trees aside takes a bit. However, it's an excuse to do some cleaning like wiping the dust and cockroach shit off the shelves before putting the books back, etc.

Overall it was really exciting for me, being my first hurricane. As the gusts started to pick up it was a little scary experiencing the power of mother nature. There are some benefits too, that it definitely cleared the valley and canopy cover out a bit, making the visibility better (work that would have taken us weeks). And it feels like a time of renewal, to pick up where you left off but not before thinking about whether you want to do something the same way again (an example is tree placement for future hurricanes). But there are the setbacks too: like postponing all the work we had planned to do this week, not being able to go to the beach because of the oil spills (Hovensa is one of the 10 biggest refineries in the world, located here on the south shore...where the largest mangrove forest in the caribbean used to be...), having all the crazy ants back because the hurricane blew the pesticides away, etc.


Notas
-Our main meal of the day is lunch, which is great! I love eating like I did in Mexico where the digestion is stronger in the middle of the day
-There are no snakes here because there are so many mongooses
-I finally saw what scares people the most here: the centipede. The centipede can be the thickness of your thumb and up to like 8 inches long, and bites the mofo out of you. Whenever anyone sees one, you kill it before it gets you because they're so fast. And then you save it because there's a contest to catch the biggest one on island.
-I don't have a cat in my cabana anymore because he wanted to sleep with me at night instead of catching rats (he ripped down my screen to come back in when I threw him outside to hunt). He definitely wasn't a farm cat.
-Cats and dogs get high from eating the lizards here. It's like catnip times 20
-I've had to clean the rabbit ears for mites a few times (getting out ear boogers and scabs the size of almonds) and then put salve to suffocate the mites. It's kind of satisfying to get the earwax out...although really disgusting at the same time.
-Doing the above is one of the reasons why I've only flossed my teeth twice here...my hands touch things every day that I definitely do not want in my mouth.
-I finally have a fan in my cabana! It keeps the mosquitos off at night.
-I'm getting tanner and stronger from working...no objections there

Some of the people here are going to the Slow Food conference in Italy that happens every 2 years so it will mostly be us interns and apprentices working here for the next 2 weeks (party at the farm! just kidding...). I guess that's all the exciting news for now, except that I just hooked up a laundry machine so we won't have to go to town anymore to wash clothes woohoo! Catch y'all later,

Mon

---

Photos

Emancipation Day
I think this was October 1st, and everyone gathered in town to watch a reenactment of town life back then outside of U.C.A.'s, the best food outside of the farm.
Photo: Manda Pendleton

Emancipation Day Parade
After the play everyone lit torches and we went in a huge parade around the town shouting "More Fire! Fire Fire!" because on emancipation day back then, the freed slaves burned down the towns and sugar fields they were enslaved to (we didn't burn down the town that night...just paraded around yelling with torches...)
Photo: Manda Pendleton

People watching the play
Photo: Manda Pendleton

me watching the play
Photo: Manda Pendleton

Gomez and Wayne!
the community center cats.
Photo: Manda Pendleton

tekka!
the cat that was supposed to control the cabanas. he was a big baby more than a rodent-catcher.
Photo: Manda Pendleton

food eating time
always a good meal
Photo: Manda Pendleton