The long Journey Part 2

Lights out at the Airport in Grenada

After entering the airport and answering some tricky questions about the length of our stay we moved into the baggage pick up area. This is easily done with the lights on. Half way through picking up our bags the lights went out and as their are no windows in this part of the airport it got very dark. A quick game of Marco Polo may have been fun, but wasn't in the cards as the lights came back on after a couple of minutes.

 

We were the last to leave so finding the last of our bags was easy and they were all accounted for. We had 8 checked bags, 4 carry on bags and 4 personal bags. The max you could take. This lead to our next problem as we had rented a van for the four of us to go to Pearson in Toronto, but now the CUSO rep was picking us up in his own vehicle. Sam made a valiant effort loading his small SUV and getting everyone in, but then I showed him my kite boarding bag and it was all over. I hired a taxi to follow Sam, and we all had an exciting ride to our new home away from home. I asked my taxi driver, Prince everything I could about how traffic works in Grenada. This is because all cars here are right hand drive and they drive on the left side of the road. I involuntarily put my foot on an imaginary brake on my side of his van many times as we approached oncoming traffic. I felt like the baby at the start of The Simpsons credits driving with Marge except I didn't have my own fake steering wheel.

The Public Library - Not open since 2004

As we left the airport and hotels behind us, I knew our daily life was going to be very interesting. Many of the homes here were damaged beyond the safety of repair when they were struck by Hurricane Ivan 10 years ago to the day as I right this. They were hit again in 2006 and that wrecked the rest of anything that was left unstable from Ivan 2 years before. Economically, Grenada is still struggling and this is seen by many building projects that have been started and not completed. Many people are still living in cinder block walled buildings with tin roofs and outhouses. The Public library has yet to be repaired as well, but the week we arrived a temporary library finally opened in St George.

We pulled up to our gated home in Belmont which looked like it had a new coat of paint. I started helping Sam unload the vehicles and brought our bags inside. Sara then worked with Sam to fill out some last minute paperwork while I explored our new place. The first thing I did was open the doors to our back deck and wow, what a view. We overlook the harbour of St George. Back into our apartment and I found that the master bedroom had an en-suite with a tub. We thought we had an apartment with only 1 bathroom and shower from the video they sent us. This was going to be pretty good. Bags were stored, keys exchanged and we were off to downtown St George. After finding a parking space, which would not be considered parking in Canada as when the passenger stepped out it was onto a 10 inch wide retaining wall that overlooked a 50 foot drop. We headed for our first place of business, the Bank.

The Royal Bank of Canada has many Franchise banks in the Caribbean, The RBTT as they are currently known. Opening an account took almost 2 hrs. But they got everything done we needed. Preparing ahead for this is very important as all the banks have different rules for foreigners opening accounts, this was made easier for us by utilizing the same bank as we do at home and having a letter of introduction from our home branch. As we left the bank, the wonderful smells of spices and lunch wafted past us. As we had yet to have breakfast and had not really eaten since 6 pm the evening before we were quite hungry. We told Sam, food was on the agenda and he took us around the corner for something to eat. A couple of Roti and some spicy noodles filled our belly’s quickly.

I should mention that the boys were trooping along very well having not eaten in 18 hours and only had about 3 hours sleep in the last 30.

The next stop across the street was local SIM cards for our phones. I still am not sure what package I bought but it seems to be working out fine so far.

Beacon School - Its way bigger than it looks.
 

Now we had a little tour on the way back to our neighbourhood to see the kids school. It is an open air concept as none of the rooms have windows or doors. We met the Principal and a couple of the teachers whom all seem very nice. We paid our fees and got a couple of school uniform shirts for Owen. One yellow and one Blue. Red and green were also available. As the school was sold out of pants for both boys and shirts and tie for Aiden we headed back to town.

At the first store we were able to get 2 shirts and a tie for Aiden. No pants fit either boy. As we were about to leave we got our first taste of rain in Grenada. It is the rainy season, and apparently this means it will rain many times a day for 10 min to half an hour or so. This rainfall was torrential, but as we needed to keep going we decided to brave it when it let up a little. St George is built on a hill, and we had to climb to get to the next store. The gutters which line the roads are deep and about a foot wide. They were raging with water at this point. We made it to the other store and did not feel much wetter than when we had started out; this was probably due to the humidity and sweat. Success, sort of, pants that fit the boys at the waste but not in the leg. Grenadian boys must be built slightly different than our boys. Some tailoring was needed and this could be done on site. After another hour we were on our way home.

It was soon time to think about supper, so I checked the stove and the oven to see how it worked. I realized we were out of gas. Gas for stoves in Grenada come in a tank. Luckily the gas reseller is across the street. They also sell beer. So I bought a tank of gas $45 EC and 4 beer $15 EC ( $5 Cdn) I was on my way home. After connecting the new tank. I could smell gas. I called out the window to the landlord, and he shouted to the gas guy across the street to come look. They couldn't figure out where the leak was so they called the local maintenance guy. It turns out the stove had been repaired between the last tenants and us and when it was returned the gas line had not been connected to the stove. Problem solved and I was now cooking with gas... or so I thought. We checked the stove elements and they worked pretty good. Then it was time for the oven. No love there and the maintenance guy was stuck. So they called in an appliance expert, luckily he was drinking at the bar/shop/gas resellers place. He came over and after fiddling realized the pilot light needed electricity to operate the oven. Now all we needed was electricity for 110 at a 220 junction. A convertor was found and we could now go for the groceries. The landlord took pity on me as we had been over an hour with the stove and he gave me a ride to the grocery store. When I came out, much to my surprise he was waiting for me to take me home.

Supper was had and much like you are from reading all this, we were tired. The only problem was, it is noisy here... goats, crickets, frogs, traffic, music playing at the bar across the street and friendly neighbours chatting is not quite the same as quiet Brighton. Ear plugs were packed, so we all put them in and were off to sleep.

 

Good night...