Misc.

Hello everyone!
Welcome to a new edition of the Chronicles of Justin & Ashley. Coming to you from the nature island of the Carribean, the following sketches highlight the activities and happenings in our world that somehow slipped under the radar.
~~~
Let's start with the time I went to the post office. Mama sent me a package of miscellaneous items at the beginning of March and it finally arrived last week. So I picked up the package slip from the mail office on campus and walked into town (about a 2 mile walk, but hey, I was excited!).
This is the post office building. You can't see it, but someone spray painted "Woo-Tang" on the yellow wall on the left. It looks intimidating, right? So you walk up the staircase to the second floor and enter the actual post office.I didn't take pictures inside because I didn't want the hard working government employees to add some customs taxes to the "touristy white girl." But I'm sure you can imagine what it is like, linoleum floor peeling up on the sides and a counter with 8 or 9 people "working." Actually when I came in the power was out and everyone was eating frozen coconut milk from clear plastic bags.



I handed them my package slip and showed them my marriage certificate since the package was in Justin's name. Apparently that is not proof that he has given me permission to pick up the package. I was turned away and told that I needed written permission from Justin.



I didn't walk home, I caught a transport because I was so disappointed. Justin came home for lunch and wrote a note on his notepad for me. I went back to the same worker who looked at the note and laughed. He said 1.) it wasn't on an 8 1/2 x 11 paper 2.)there was no date 3.) there wasn't an address I think he would have continued if another lady behind the counter told him to be nice to me and reminded him he didn't tell me that when I came in that morning. He was like, "okay, but you need to buy a 10 cent stamp". I'm not sure why I had to buy it, but 10 cents in EC dollars is almost 4 cents in US dollars. No biggie. I bought the stamp and he put it on my note and I got my package. The nice lady didn't even let him charge me customs! Hooray!



A few days later another package came so I went to the post office, but this time I was ready. I had a note on a real piece of paper with all the bells and whistles. I still had to pay for my 10 cent stamp, but if that's the price to pay, I think I can put up with it. I'm not sure how customs tax works here, but the worker made it look very difficult adding all kinds of numbers into her calculator. Honestly, she made me sweat it out for several minutes while she rummaged through the box and calculated. Not that I wasn't already sweating. I was. I think I'm sweaty at least 75% of the day. The grand total came out to almost 10 EC dollars (not quite 4 USD) which seemed reasonable after all the totals I was imagining as she was entering into her calculator.


~~~

At the beginning of the month, a cute little puppy followed our neighbor, Nima, home. He decided to keep her even though pets are not allowed on the premised according to our lease. Lauren fell in love with her and named her Nica (as in Dominica) and "stole" her from Nima.

Nima retaliated by finding another puppy that he named Machete. They are very cute and sleep on the porch and run free during the day. Somehow our landlord found out about them. She lives in Roseau and we've only seen her once when we signed the lease. Justin was on the phone with her about getting an electrician to look at our ceiling fan because it caught on fire the other day, and she mentioned the dogs to Justin pretty much telling him that he should tell everyone that they had to go. Justin was very diplomatic and told her it would be better coming from her and that she should take care of it. So when she contacted Lauren and Nima, they replied telling her that they are just "island dogs" that hang out in the yard and that there isn't anything they can do about it. We'll see what happens.

~~~

When we first got to the island, we were warned about the killer red centipedes. Apparently if you are bitten, you will be bed ridden for at least a week and the pain is incredibly intense. So now anytime I see a catapillar, centipede, millipede, regardless of color I go ahead and kill it. Just to be safe. We've been really fortunate not to have a bug problem in comparison to some of our friends. Actually, I wasn't even sure exactly what the red centipedes looked like. That is, until the unfortunate encounter our neighbor Lauren had.

So just to give you an idea of how close we were to disaster, Lauren's apartment shares an inside connecting door with ours. One night she was trying to go to sleep when she heard a russling noise under her bed. She got down on her hands and knees to check it out thinking it might be a lizard (it happens, occasionally). She looked at her hand right in time to pull it away from the huge red thing racing towards her. Lauren quickly jumped back up onto her bed, contemplated calling Justin over to help her, but decided she could do it. She grabbed a pair of socks and put them on her hands just in case she came in contact with it and tried to hammer it with her shoe. Little did she know the centipedes are exceptionally fast. Eventually she prevailed, and the centipede was cast out onto the sidewalk for the night. Its actual size is about six inches and is the width of your index finger. Yikes!

So here we are at the end of our first semester. This is Justin's last week of class. His third test is next Wednesday, and then the final is the following Thursday. We'll keep you posted!