Before you read this you must understand a few things:
1. This was our first full day in Dominica, we arrived the night before and had no concept yet of where we were and how things operate here (we're on "island time, Mon")
2. We didn't make housing arrangements online because we wanted to actually see our options for ourselves.
3. It has taken me this long to write the story that happened a week ago becuase I want to give it justice. If you can read this much, and still have any energy in you (bathroom breaks are allowed), please let me know how I did.
We arrived in Dominica on Friday night and were bused from the airport to the University Housing Office. They gave us a room to stay in for the night and told us that breakfast was at 7:30 and the tour started at 8:00. So on Saturday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn (yes it was only seven but our bodies were still on Texas time where is was five) and went down to the lobby where we ate cereal with the incredibly-nasty-at-room-temp milk, canned fruit cocktail (yes that's right folks, on the island that advertises so many fresh fruits that they fall from the trees at your feet, our first fruit is canned!) and weak coffee. At about 8:15 the Housing woman “debriefed” us in the lounge. Through her thick accent the only important information that I could dicern was that most apartments have prepaid electricity so you can track how much you are spending. As far as I could tell, the logistics of the tour were not mentioned. She handed out a list of available housing, and we loaded into buses. Justin and I had plenty of time to comb through the list because we sat in the bus at the housing offic for at least 15 minutes with the drivers all in the office chatting it up and no one telling us the game plan. This is where we met our new friends, Greg from California and Kyle from Chicago as we bonded over the absurdity, unorganized program that is the Ross Housing. We still had no idea how the tour was actually going to work and were under the impression that it was every man for themselves. Little did we know that's exactly the was it was going to be. But being the innocent new arrivals we were, we picked apartments that we all (everyone on the bus) wanted to see. Needless to say, we were extremely confused when the bus actually started moving to find out that all 5 buses were going on the tour together and to just sit back and relax. You can probably imagine the scene: Justin sitting back in his seat on the bus heeding the words of the bus driver in his worry free island-perfect attitude and me with my back rigid trying to figure out where the hell we were going and how we were going to compete with 30 other students! So we drove to the first place and were told that this was a one bedroom apartment and to get out of the bus and check it out. So all thirty of us entered this apartment and politely tried to walk through it (tracking mud all on the tile, but hey, there was no doormat) while figuring out what apartment it was on the list, what was included (internet, cable, pots and pans, etc), and how much for rent. To us, it seemed nice but we weren’t ready to say yes to the first place on the list so someone else did. Actually two people did. BUT because they hadn't told us what to do when we found something we liked, they both talked to the landlord who was hanging around. Apparently we were all supposed to know that this was a big no-no (after all, why would you speak to the landlord when you're with the incredibly efficient Housing Office?) The landlord got confused about who asked for it first, they were both under the impression that they were going to live there, and the housing officers had no idea what was going on so we all piled back in the bus and continued. Random landlords that had room for rent came outside, waved us down and showed us their room. NO one told us what property we were seeing or anything. PLUS the housing officers didn't want to leave an apartment until someone had claimed it. They were very reluctant to leave a place without renting it and after we had seen four or five apartments we returned to the Housing Office. Justin and I had seen some possibilities, but by the time we could agree that it might work, someone else had claimed it. Back at the housing office, they dropped off the students who had already picked a place so they could get their bags and this is when they realized two people were under the impression that they were going to the same apartments. Again we waited in the bus for at least 15 minutes while the arguement and confusion ensued. Apparently you are supposed to tell the housing officers (not the landlord) when you are interested in the property. The girl who lost her bid on the first apartment we looked at got back in the bus and we resumed our "tour." Honestly it felt more like an auction with the apartment going to the first bidder to see the apartment and then run back to the bus to tell the housing officer. There wasn't anything wrong with the apartments we saw. A lot of them had a/c and most of them had a kitchen. The ones with twin beds were automatically out of the question. The big thing for me was they we're asking us to choose apartments without seeing all the options. How would you know if the next place was going to be better or worse? The auction continued. We went all up and down Banana Trail which is the collection of streets right across from the university. The bad thing about Banana Trail is that the roads are very muddy when it rains (we got to see that firsthand, of course) as well as steep. So by the end of the Banana Trail tour the guide was getting impatient (not that we were the only ones hesitant to pick an apartment so quickly, there were still about ten of us) and he pretty much told us that we better pick soon. We had to find an apartment before the next plane of students landed that afternoon. So the clock was ticking, the Housing Officer was impatient, and Justin and I were totally stressed out. The bus started moving and again, we had no idea where it was taking us. We figured out we were on Moo Cow Trail which is off the main road between the university and the annex (where first semester students have their classes). Immeadiately we decided we liked Moo Cow Trail because the trail is rocky (not muddy), it is close to the annex, and it isn't as crowded as Banana Trail. Our first stop was actually a place we had seen on the handout and liked because it had cable, internet, and dishes, not that the
housing officer told us. We had to figure it out on our own, of course! We walked down the driveway and through the patio gate with the other 10 desperate students. You could see the competition in their eyes, but I was ready. Before Justin had even made it inside I rushed over to the Housing Officer who was leaning against the porch rail, arms crossed, bored out of his mind and said "we'll take it!" Only then was I able to absorb the effects of my rash decision. The apartment was clean, with tile in the front room and wood in the bedroom. The "kitchen" corner of the front room has lots of cabinet space, with dishes, a microwave, table and two chairs. The rest of the fron room holds a television, love seat, and arm c
hair. The bedroom has a double bed with a matress (no box springs) and a wardrobe. I breathed a sigh of relief, but Justin wasn't convinced. We got back in the bus to take everyone else to the next apartment building and as they walked through the next apartment, Justin and I contemplated our new home. It wasn't a long conversation-there weren't many other choices from what the housing officer said and we needed a place to live before the next plane load of students came to pick through what was left of the housing options. We decided that it would work for at least the first semester and we could always move again later. So finally we made the trip back to the housing office where we were dropped off so that the tour could continue where we faced our next big dilemma. They couldn’t get intouch with the landlord. We sat in the office for a while with everyone ignoring us (after a week on the island, we've found that's pretty normal, you can wait at a counter for 15 minutes easily with the person behind it not giving you the time of day). Finally they asked us what we were doing. We explained again that we couldn't get in touch with the landlord of the apartment we wanted to rent. The guy looks at us and says "what do you want to do?" Justin replied, "well, we want to move in." To which the easy-going guy responded, "okay, we'll do that then." He handed us a key, put our bags in another bus and we got in and left. So here we were with a key to an apartment we didn't feel like we had permission to be in, our bags at our feet, and the driver of the bus backing up to return to the housing office. What else could we do? We put our bags inside and checked everything out. That's when we started to panic. The microwave didn't work. The 110 outlets didn't work. The internet needed an ethernet cord which we didn't bring because we had no idea we would need one. We felt like we'd been jipped. There was only one option and we didn't like it. We walked the 12 minutes back to the housing office where they pretty much told us to just stay the night there and maybe they could find the landlord the next day. We paid for a small amount of electricity to make it through the night and went to Picard grocery store where we bought 4 cans of black beans, some ramen noodles, peanut butter and crackers, frosted flakes and shelf milk. Of course, when we got home, we realized that while we had dishes, that didn't include pots and pans. So we did the only thing you could do if you were a new student on an unfamiliar island, with no pots to cook beans, a microwave that didn't work, and no appetite to eat cereal for dinner: we went out to eat Chinese food.
If you've made it this far in the story, you will be happy to know the next day, we decided to heat the beans up on the stove in their can and eat peanut butter crackers. It was a real feast. It wasn't until two days later we found out how to turn on the 110 power so we could use the microwave. Yesterday we went into town and bought a pot and a pan. We still haven't heard from our landlord. "No worries, Mon" is all we can get out of the housing office. After 6 days in the apartment, we've decided that we really like it and hope everything works out with the landlord.
Ashley
1. This was our first full day in Dominica, we arrived the night before and had no concept yet of where we were and how things operate here (we're on "island time, Mon")
2. We didn't make housing arrangements online because we wanted to actually see our options for ourselves.
3. It has taken me this long to write the story that happened a week ago becuase I want to give it justice. If you can read this much, and still have any energy in you (bathroom breaks are allowed), please let me know how I did.
We arrived in Dominica on Friday night and were bused from the airport to the University Housing Office. They gave us a room to stay in for the night and told us that breakfast was at 7:30 and the tour started at 8:00. So on Saturday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn (yes it was only seven but our bodies were still on Texas time where is was five) and went down to the lobby where we ate cereal with the incredibly-nasty-at-room-temp milk, canned fruit cocktail (yes that's right folks, on the island that advertises so many fresh fruits that they fall from the trees at your feet, our first fruit is canned!) and weak coffee. At about 8:15 the Housing woman “debriefed” us in the lounge. Through her thick accent the only important information that I could dicern was that most apartments have prepaid electricity so you can track how much you are spending. As far as I could tell, the logistics of the tour were not mentioned. She handed out a list of available housing, and we loaded into buses. Justin and I had plenty of time to comb through the list because we sat in the bus at the housing offic for at least 15 minutes with the drivers all in the office chatting it up and no one telling us the game plan. This is where we met our new friends, Greg from California and Kyle from Chicago as we bonded over the absurdity, unorganized program that is the Ross Housing. We still had no idea how the tour was actually going to work and were under the impression that it was every man for themselves. Little did we know that's exactly the was it was going to be. But being the innocent new arrivals we were, we picked apartments that we all (everyone on the bus) wanted to see. Needless to say, we were extremely confused when the bus actually started moving to find out that all 5 buses were going on the tour together and to just sit back and relax. You can probably imagine the scene: Justin sitting back in his seat on the bus heeding the words of the bus driver in his worry free island-perfect attitude and me with my back rigid trying to figure out where the hell we were going and how we were going to compete with 30 other students! So we drove to the first place and were told that this was a one bedroom apartment and to get out of the bus and check it out. So all thirty of us entered this apartment and politely tried to walk through it (tracking mud all on the tile, but hey, there was no doormat) while figuring out what apartment it was on the list, what was included (internet, cable, pots and pans, etc), and how much for rent. To us, it seemed nice but we weren’t ready to say yes to the first place on the list so someone else did. Actually two people did. BUT because they hadn't told us what to do when we found something we liked, they both talked to the landlord who was hanging around. Apparently we were all supposed to know that this was a big no-no (after all, why would you speak to the landlord when you're with the incredibly efficient Housing Office?) The landlord got confused about who asked for it first, they were both under the impression that they were going to live there, and the housing officers had no idea what was going on so we all piled back in the bus and continued. Random landlords that had room for rent came outside, waved us down and showed us their room. NO one told us what property we were seeing or anything. PLUS the housing officers didn't want to leave an apartment until someone had claimed it. They were very reluctant to leave a place without renting it and after we had seen four or five apartments we returned to the Housing Office. Justin and I had seen some possibilities, but by the time we could agree that it might work, someone else had claimed it. Back at the housing office, they dropped off the students who had already picked a place so they could get their bags and this is when they realized two people were under the impression that they were going to the same apartments. Again we waited in the bus for at least 15 minutes while the arguement and confusion ensued. Apparently you are supposed to tell the housing officers (not the landlord) when you are interested in the property. The girl who lost her bid on the first apartment we looked at got back in the bus and we resumed our "tour." Honestly it felt more like an auction with the apartment going to the first bidder to see the apartment and then run back to the bus to tell the housing officer. There wasn't anything wrong with the apartments we saw. A lot of them had a/c and most of them had a kitchen. The ones with twin beds were automatically out of the question. The big thing for me was they we're asking us to choose apartments without seeing all the options. How would you know if the next place was going to be better or worse? The auction continued. We went all up and down Banana Trail which is the collection of streets right across from the university. The bad thing about Banana Trail is that the roads are very muddy when it rains (we got to see that firsthand, of course) as well as steep. So by the end of the Banana Trail tour the guide was getting impatient (not that we were the only ones hesitant to pick an apartment so quickly, there were still about ten of us) and he pretty much told us that we better pick soon. We had to find an apartment before the next plane of students landed that afternoon. So the clock was ticking, the Housing Officer was impatient, and Justin and I were totally stressed out. The bus started moving and again, we had no idea where it was taking us. We figured out we were on Moo Cow Trail which is off the main road between the university and the annex (where first semester students have their classes). Immeadiately we decided we liked Moo Cow Trail because the trail is rocky (not muddy), it is close to the annex, and it isn't as crowded as Banana Trail. Our first stop was actually a place we had seen on the handout and liked because it had cable, internet, and dishes, not that the
housing officer told us. We had to figure it out on our own, of course! We walked down the driveway and through the patio gate with the other 10 desperate students. You could see the competition in their eyes, but I was ready. Before Justin had even made it inside I rushed over to the Housing Officer who was leaning against the porch rail, arms crossed, bored out of his mind and said "we'll take it!" Only then was I able to absorb the effects of my rash decision. The apartment was clean, with tile in the front room and wood in the bedroom. The "kitchen" corner of the front room has lots of cabinet space, with dishes, a microwave, table and two chairs. The rest of the fron room holds a television, love seat, and arm chair. The bedroom has a double bed with a matress (no box springs) and a wardrobe. I breathed a sigh of relief, but Justin wasn't convinced. We got back in the bus to take everyone else to the next apartment building and as they walked through the next apartment, Justin and I contemplated our new home. It wasn't a long conversation-there weren't many other choices from what the housing officer said and we needed a place to live before the next plane load of students came to pick through what was left of the housing options. We decided that it would work for at least the first semester and we could always move again later. So finally we made the trip back to the housing office where we were dropped off so that the tour could continue where we faced our next big dilemma. They couldn’t get intouch with the landlord. We sat in the office for a while with everyone ignoring us (after a week on the island, we've found that's pretty normal, you can wait at a counter for 15 minutes easily with the person behind it not giving you the time of day). Finally they asked us what we were doing. We explained again that we couldn't get in touch with the landlord of the apartment we wanted to rent. The guy looks at us and says "what do you want to do?" Justin replied, "well, we want to move in." To which the easy-going guy responded, "okay, we'll do that then." He handed us a key, put our bags in another bus and we got in and left. So here we were with a key to an apartment we didn't feel like we had permission to be in, our bags at our feet, and the driver of the bus backing up to return to the housing office. What else could we do? We put our bags inside and checked everything out. That's when we started to panic. The microwave didn't work. The 110 outlets didn't work. The internet needed an ethernet cord which we didn't bring because we had no idea we would need one. We felt like we'd been jipped. There was only one option and we didn't like it. We walked the 12 minutes back to the housing office where they pretty much told us to just stay the night there and maybe they could find the landlord the next day. We paid for a small amount of electricity to make it through the night and went to Picard grocery store where we bought 4 cans of black beans, some ramen noodles, peanut butter and crackers, frosted flakes and shelf milk. Of course, when we got home, we realized that while we had dishes, that didn't include pots and pans. So we did the only thing you could do if you were a new student on an unfamiliar island, with no pots to cook beans, a microwave that didn't work, and no appetite to eat cereal for dinner: we went out to eat Chinese food.If you've made it this far in the story, you will be happy to know the next day, we decided to heat the beans up on the stove in their can and eat peanut butter crackers. It was a real feast. It wasn't until two days later we found out how to turn on the 110 power so we could use the microwave. Yesterday we went into town and bought a pot and a pan. We still haven't heard from our landlord. "No worries, Mon" is all we can get out of the housing office. After 6 days in the apartment, we've decided that we really like it and hope everything works out with the landlord.
Ashley
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