Good bye Team Two, plus contest answers

It has taken me a while to write this post.  I guess I’m having a hard time acknowledging that the Team Two St. Lucia experience is officially over.

But on to the important stuff–the contest answers.  The following statements are all true.  Global Volunteers:

1. Serve only where they are invited.
2. Work under the direction of local leaders.
3. Help local people do what they have already decided they want done.
4. Send teams of volunteers to each community several times a year, serving on five continents and the Pacific area.  For the St. Lucia project, the hope is that there will be a team on site every month starting in 2013.
5. The fee Global Volunteers pay covers food, water, lodging, local transportation, program related and administrative expenses.  The volunteers also pay for their flight/transportation to the country.  Yes, the volunteers pay their own way.  For those that want to fund raise, Global Volunteers will provide assistance.
6. Anse La Raye, St. Lucia is the newest Global Volunteers site. Yes, we were only the second team to serve in St. Lucia.
7. The St. Lucia project is one of the largest to date, in terms of the number of volunteers on site. Yes, normally there are fewer than 20 people on site.
8. Although the volunteers work hard during the week, they are free on the weekends to explore the island.  And we did!
9. Many Global Volunteers get “hooked” and serve on additional programs. Out of the 27 of us, only 4 were serving for the first time.  Everyone else had been on at least one other project.  Norina held the record, having working on more than 25 projects!

Drum roll, please:  The contest winners are (in order):  Lindy, Sue, Sandy, Lissy,  Kristy, Mike and Jim.  Congratulations to all!

As a farewell to team two, I’m including photos of other volunteers.  With 27 volunteers working on 9 different teams over the two-week period, I wasn’t able to get to know as many of the group as I would have liked.  What an interesting group it was!  Coming from different areas of the USA, and from various occupations, the group had collectively traveled to all 7 continents and well over 100 countries.  If you had a question about a particular country, it was quite likely that one of the other volunteers would have the answer, having been there and done just about everything!

Here we are in the bar, just before the farewell dinner: Jeanne, from New York (who I met on the plane), Norina, from Pennsylvania, Laurie from Colorado and me.

Moving over to Kid Step for week two gave me a chance to get to know Edith.   I enjoyed every minute I spent with this fascinating, kind woman.  I won’t reveal her age–I’ll just say that the calendar fibs–her varied interests (Tai Chi, ballroom dancing, foreign languages, travel), activity level and stamina convinced me that she is easily two decades younger than her driver’s license would indicate.

The kids made themselves comfortable.  Like children everywhere, they loved physical contact.  (And so did we!)

Jan, the baby of the group, is a teacher from Ct. who used the grant given by her school to come to St. Lucia during school vacation.  She and Kathy, the Earth Box team, worked really hard, out in the sun all day, visiting the different sites, teaching teachers and kids about planting and watering.  They never complained about the heat or humidity, and managed to keep smiling regardless of whatever challenges the day might bring.

Here are Tom and Jonah, demonstrating the partnership between local leader and Global Volunteer, as they finish repairs on the fence behind Kid Step.   Jonah’s three-year old daughter, Johanna, is one of the Kid Step students.

Bonnie, an attorney from Maine, has encyclopedic knowledge about plants, animals, insects, food, nutrition.  Her cabin was even higher up than mine.  I got this photo of her early one misty morning, when she was out watching the birds that stopped by for  breakfast.

Some people get the face they deserve. That is definitely the case with Jim–he is exactly the way he appears in this photo: kind, friendly, happy–an overall great guy, with a face to match.

Martha decided to join the “Globettes” (Jim’s name for Jeanne, Laurie and me) at JD’s restaurant on Marigot Bay.  This is where Lawrence, our night watchman,  performs a couple of nights a week until the late hour of 10 PM! Lindy wanted more photos of me. So here I am, in my room.  The mirror encouraged multitasking.  Hair combing was the ideal time to get in some squats!