It Takes a Village - Project Updates - April 2013

Latest News

The May Health brigade -

The health brigade for Djati has been cancelled. Also, from my understanding, Connie from Lifelink is not going to Guinea Bissau as she had planned. The recent turn of events and political  instability has made it unsafe to travel to the region.

The brigade has been moved to the village of Meio. Most of the people from Djati are working in the cashew orchards. Last time Fredy was in Djati for a brigade, few showed up.  The villagers leave early in the morning and return late in the afternoon.

In Meio, which is one hour from Djati, on the main road, more villages are nearby and so more people will attend the brigade.

The team will consist of Juan, Raquel, Dr Umaro (a Guinean doctor), Maritza and Flavia along with some of Raquel's medical assistants from Quebo.

Medical Clinic - Djati

The location has been chosen. The clinic will be located directly across from the school. I think that is a good ideas as it will also be situated near the restrooms that we built. This could be the beginning of a little Djati community/commercial center.

The building of the clinic is running behind schedule. 
The villagers of Djati have been working to get 4,000 bricks ready for Fredy. When he arrived to start the job, the bricks were not finished. They also had a problem getting all the sand they needed from the bush. They gather the sand on foot.

Another reason they are behind is because its cashew season. Cashew season is a BIG deal (and big business) in Guinea Bissau. And as Maritza says, "Well now that it is CASHEW SEASON, no one wants to run in and out of the bush carrying sand when the truck drivers have the cashew business and are BEGGING the truck drivers to haul cashews"

I can understand that! So we, will just wait until things have settled down and we will get our update and photos. As we all know, construction projects are rarely on time!

Shelly's Birthday Donation site - 

Another update is regarding Shelly's birthday donation site.  Shelly donated her April birthday to the cause to help us raise our final $1,000. To date she has raised $1,550!!! Congrats!! Good job and thank you Shelly! With that money I think we have successfully made our goal of $8,000 for the medical clinic, solar lighting and medical supplies. I await the final tally and will post it here.

Guiledge School update -

It Takes a Village has 4 villages that we will provide these essential services for. Simultaneously while we are working on Djati, the village of Guiledge is working on building a new school.

 

The situation in Guiledge is a little different. They aren't as remote as Djati and since it is located at the crossroads, there are several tribes that have decided to work together to get their school built.

 X marks the spot for the new school

So, the villagers have been quietly building their school, while we have been concentrating on completing the project in Djati.

More stories and photos to follow once Djati is complete

Come back to read more about my 14-day Caribbean Travel Blog tomorrow

Cruzin the Caribbean - My 14 Day Travel Blog - Day 1

Sunday April 7, 2013 - Day One & Formal Night (1 of 3)

On Saturday all of our luggage arrived in our stateroom.  We got all settled in and put away our clothes.  The closet was a little tight and I wish it had been bigger, but there was some extra space over the bed which came in handy for us over packers!

Sunday we woke up relaxed and ready to get out there and have some fun!

Bring on the day's activities!!!

 

Here we are in the Ensemble Lounge and the band isn't there, 

so why not have a little fun?

The first event on our calendar was the meet and greet for the people of the Cruise Critic forum. I signed up for the forum online in July, right away I booked the cruise. We had been chatting away since then our meeting was at 10:15 on Sunday at the Cellar Masters - Is is a 24-hour wine bar—unattended in the morning hours—where about 64 wines are available by the glass, using Enomatic Wine Preservation machines that dispense wines directly from the sealed bottle (inert gas preservation minimizes the oxygen which would otherwise change the wine’s character). This allows relatively high-end wines to be dispensed days after opening without substantial alteration. - Many in the group already knew each other from traveling on previous cruises but this would be our first time meeting the group.

They turned out to be a really fun group! We are very happy to have met them. Everyone was helpful to us on the forum and also when we met them in person.  We had an opportunity to share some time together with many from the group. We are even planning another cruise with one of the couples we met. I have already signed up on the new Cruise Critic forum. I hope we connect with another fun group that we can look forward to meeting on our next cruise!

After the meet and greet we moved on to the cabin crawl. We had a chance to go from cabin to cabin checking out the different floor plans, It was very insightful (although I don't see us moving up to a suite stateroom anytime soon!)

We ended the cabin crawl in the beautiful, penthouse suite and the group posed for some group photos.

the living room in the penthouse suite

 

 Tony (one half of our hosts) takes a photo of the group

After the forum events, we went out exploring on our own. We took photos all over the ship and tried to see what was on every deck. The ship also had a lot of activities scheduled, so there was never a time when something was not going on somewhere.

(more on the ship to come)

Later that day we met some of the entertainers on the ship. We love jazz and just so happens, Ray Brown Jr was one of the featured entertainers. (Ray Brown, Jr. was born in New York City and is an American jazz and blues pianist and singer. He is the adopted son of Ray Brown and Ella Fitzgerald) We enjoyed him so much that we followed his shows around the ship like little groupies and usually ended up in the first row. He turned out to be a really nice, friendly guy.  We had some conversations with him and he even let us tape some of the shows (I'll talk more about Ray in a later post)  

The evening ended with dinner at our specialty restaurant, Blu (on the 1st of 3 formal nights) We booked this cruise as Aqua Class, so were assigned to a specialty restaurant called Blu, instead of the main dining room. The food in Blu is a little more health conscious and we felt it would be better for Lavanson's vegetarian diet. It turned out to be a very, very nice restaurant and we are looking forward to dining there again on our next cruise. We had a special waiter named Roberto (loved him!!) who would help Lavason select his menu for his dinner the night before (this way we could make sure the dinner would be right and avoid any ingredients that could cause complications) He had meals that he loved and they were beautifully presented as well!!

Lavanson rented a tux before hand and it was delivered to our stateroom. It included a black jacket and a white jacket, along with 2 bow ties, a vest, and a couple of shirts (plus the other little necessities needed). They picked the tux up on our final day. Very easy, economical and I would highly recommend it. (Plus every man looks GREAT in a tux, right?)

See you tomorrow for Day 2

Cruzin the Caribbean - My 14-day Travel Blog (intro)

While we wait for photos and updates on the medical clinic (coming in May) I thought this would be an opportune time to post about my recent trip to the Caribbean.

Prior to sail-a-way. at the dock in FT Lauderdale shortly after arrival to our stateroom. Champagne chilled and waiting

Why the Southern Caribbean?

The answer: Why not?

I love to plan events. Each year I plan a trip to one of the many geographic locations on my 'bucket list'. Every other year I try to return to Paris (which remains my most FAVORITE city!), however, after plans for a 2013 Paris girls trip didn't work out, I decided to forgo the city of light and visit some of the islands of the Caribbean instead.

We decided the best way to sample the islands would be to take a cruise. We chose to cruise on Celebrity (my FAVORITE cruise line) aboard one of their Solstice class ships, the Eclipse (built in 2010, the Eclipse can carry close to 2,900 passengers and a crew of 1,250).  We selected a 14 day Southern Caribbean cruise making stops at 8 ports, St Thomas, St Maarten, Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia, Aruba and Curacao. Our hope was to find an island (or islands ) that we would like to return to, for a longer visit.  (I posted about our cruise plans in some earlier posts and did a few stories on some of the islands on the itinerary as well, however, I know that was way back in the summer and some of you have forgotten by now or maybe you were not following this blog at that time)

So I will start from the beginning -

On April 5th, with cruise booked and tickets in hand, we boarded an early morning, non stop flight from SFO to FLL (Ft Lauderdale) on my favorite airline, Virgin America to begin our journey to the islands.  Our ship sailed on 4/6/13. It was the last cruise to the Southern Caribbean for the season.

No matter where we went on any island, we were never far from the ship!

In the Caribbean....

Most travelers think that the Caribbean is all about the sun, the sea and the sand! The majority of visitors go there to experience the natural beauty of the land, to snorkel, to inhale the clean, fresh air while relaxing and sunning on one of the many, many gorgeous beaches. Many others go to visit the native flora and fauna. Our reasons included all of the above and in addtition, we wanted to experience the distinct culture of the people on each island.

beer on the beach in St Maarten

The Caribbean is a melting pot of races. Most residents of the islands are descendants of African slaves. They were brought to the islands to work in sugar plantations. When slavery ended, they remained. The culture, religions and languages of each country are unique, due to the different monarchies that ruled during the time of slavery.

Since I have been researching the history of African Americans and the effects of slavery on African people, I was very interested in learning about slavery from the perspective of the islanders.

I spoke with several of the locals on several different islands about their Afro-Caribbean heritage. It was very interesting to me that none of the people I spoke with really considered themselves as African. They acknowledged that their ancestry was African but classified and identified themselves as descendants of the Arawak (The Arawak people are one of the tribes of indigenous peoples of the West Indies). When I spoke to them about the country of origin of their African ancestors - none could tell me. A few mentioned that the origin was probably in South Africa and none of them were familiar with the countries of Senegal or Guinea Bissau in West Africa.  Now mind you, I did not talk to a lot of people but I did speak with people associated with the tours we took as I felt that they would know the most about their history and reflect the beliefs of the islanders.

One of the biggest highlights of this trip for us, was our visit to the Kura Hulanda Museum in Curacao. The Kura Hulanda Museum is located in the Otrobanda area of Willemstad, the capital of Curacao. This is a museum that is dedicated to telling the story of slavery. I will go into more detail and post lots of pictures and a short video we shot once I get to our Curacao port of call.

an original one room slave house in Antigua (no kitchen or bathroom) - still in use - During slavery up to 10 people or more would occupy this house

@ the Grand Etang Forest Reserve

There are only two seasons in the West Indies: dry and rainy. The dry season lasts from roughly December to May and it is very hot, breezy and dusty. I can testify to that! It was definitely hot and really breezy (as illustrated by all the pictures of me holding on to my hat). If you are going to visit during the dry season be sure to pack a hat that the wind can't blow off. Many hats now reside in the waters of the Caribbean. 

From June to November it is the rainy or hurricane season. During the rainy season, storms and hurricanes develop near the West African coast and make their way across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean.  We visited some islands however that were classified as 'outside of the hurricane belt'.

I took this photo in Antigua and I swear it did not look like it was real. It was the most beautiful thing

Come back soon

In the coming days I will be posting a 14-day travel blog of our journey (along with photos of the islands, the ship and some of our new friends, (along with my personal commentary - which I am sure you don't want to miss!!)

Even if you've been to the Caribbean before I hope you'll stop back by and read about my adventures in the Caribbean. We took over 3,000 photos so it would a shame not to share them.

You know my motto: A photo is a terrible thing to waste! 

**Don't miss**

Aruba Highlights and Cultural Tour - Day 11 Outtake

(might as well post them)

The long and winding road - Final tally Medical Supplies Fundraiser

The current Indiegogo donation site for medical supplies for Djati closed at the end of March.

Once again we met our goal, or I should I say, we more than met our goal. In fact we doubled our goal by raising a whopping $3,000!!

That is amazing! Thank you to Mala and to Willie for heading up this leg of the project

Willie shows some local children their photos (on the ride to Djati 2012)

Our thanks to everyone who contributed. The donation site raised $2,000 and Mala's birthday contribution raised another $1,000.

Fredy on the job, clip board in hand

We have raised a grand total of SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS so far! We are now only $1,000 shy of our project goal of $8,000.

Soon the rains will be upon the tiny village of Djati once again. I don't have any pictures yet showing the progress of the medical clinic but I hear that Raquel and Juan are leading a BIG medical brigade in Djati on May 4th and 5th. So, hopefully I will have photos to share then. Stay tuned. 

No medical bldg so tarp goes up for medical brigade in Djati 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're almost there

Thank you to all of our contributors!!

Randii and I had head wraps done by one of the village ladies in Quebo- what an honor (journey to Djati 2012)