After two months of cerebrum breaking calistetics and endurance training I was blessed with a 4 day vacation in...well...paradise. The midterm week came and went and although I did not walk away with the A's I had hoped for, I am the proud owner of several B's. A couple of those even come with pluses. The holiday started with an unseasonal Caribbean storm and powerful surge, which is extremely uncommon for our sugar white Grand Anse beach. The pounding surf had us all biting our fingers as SANDBLAST, the annual "thank god we passed/oh crap we didn't pass" school hosted party on the beach was taking place the next day. The morning dawned beautiful (as is the norm) and we all set off to our beach that was just a little worse for wear. The ocean took about 15 feet of sand along the whole stretch...I'm told she'll give it back in a few weeks. $13 US dollars got you an all day pass to the beach, your friends, your professors and an open bar. I slathered myself up with 70 spf, had my anatomy TA make me a drink, and hit the sand. Even the med students loosened up a bit. It was nice to forget for the day that we were all would be doctors...and instead were just vacationers.
The weekend continued with beaches, sunshine and rum punch playing a major theme. On Monday we decided to venture up into the jungle for a river tubing expedition down the Balthazar river. To my surprise we were supplied with helmets and life jackets. Granted all the life jackets were size XXL and wouldn't have kept even the largest of our guys from slipping out, but still I was shocked to be given them. Five young men guided us down the river singing Soca songs and gospel music to us as we went. There were rapids and near misses and a lot of laughs. The scenery was incredible. I kept expecting to see a velociraptor jump through the palm fronds. In some ways the Grenadian foliage reminds me of Alaska. The fierceness of it all. It's very primal looking and always poised on the outskirts of the town...just waiting to take it all back. Now and then you'll pass the remnants of a house that the vines and fronds have covered. I doubt they've been deserted much more than a year. Our river trip ended with us all in good spirits and one piece. In true Grenadian fashion the day took longer then planned and the unexpected arose. Our faithful cab driver did not come pick us up. When we called to check on him he told us that he had just gotten some of our friends and that we were in the van with him...hmmmm...no. So we found ourselves stranded an hour from our school or a town. Our river guides drove us back to our start point and then sent us across the street to Phillip's. They told us Phillip's was a bar and was closed due to the holiday but Phillip would be there and most likely open for us. So the lot of us wandered across the road, past the goats and cows to the shed that was Phillip's. Inside we found Phillip with a machete across his lap and his two friends. Gospel music played in the back ground. Phillip quickly stowed his machete and hustled us over to an assortment of broken chairs and stools. A couple lattice panels came down off the wall and a homemade bar appeared. We ordered rum and coke. He handed us the bottle and told us to make our drinks and make ourselves comfortable. The following two hours were spent in deep discussion of how to capture and kill armadillo (whose body parts we were brought back to see). It wasn't thawed much to Phillip's disappointment as he really wanted to feed us some. I was falling quickly into the depths of hypoglycemia and and thought it looked pretty good raw. A fierce game of checkers began between CeCe and Phillip's friends on a slanting table with pieces that ranged from black rubber gaskets to pieces of ivory. Much cheering and wagering ensued on both sides. When our cab driving rescuer appeared we found ourselves staying for another half hour, enjoying the time with our spontaneous hosts. Just another day in Grenada.
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