St. Lucia Team Two!

After a night of very hard rain we rose for an 8 am breakfast.  We are a team of 27.  All of which were present with the exception of two.  One unfortunately will not arrive until today because of passport difficulties.  After eating a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon , cereal and fruit we all introduced ourselves with the name game. 

We were off to church at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Anse la Raye by 9:30am.  It was a nice service with beautiful singing.  At Warren's suggestion we spread out throughout the church as we sat down so all had different experiences.  Brenda and I sat amongst all children probably between 8 and 13, several pews of them all together.  They were very well behaved, if not a little squirmy after  2 1/2 hrs.   It seemed to be an old fashioned service by virtue of the fact that among other things, the priest  suggested to the congregation that the colors they were to wear for lent;  purple, cream, and black, perhaps one other. 

At the end of the service the Priest Fr Athanase invited us to stay and provided us with an interesting history on the Caribbean, St Lucia and more specifically Anse LaRaye.  All very informative and much of it previously unknown to us.  The principal of the primary school Mr. Reeves Lawrence also spoke in response to a question regarding the fishing industry in Anse LaRaye.  He is an Anse La Rayan and is very familiar with the government, the economy and such since he was born here, and has been actively involved in local government as a councilman and other offices.   We were heartily welcomed by everyone we talked to after the service including Mary Samuels the Principal of the Infant School. 

We went back to JJ's for lunch and a rest before our orientation about 4 pm.  Most people had an opportunity to tell something about themselves.  It was very interesting to hear the stories.  You couldn't help but notice the many similarities and the the major differences in backgrounds, interests and how they got here.  There appear to be four newbies on the team and the rest have anywhere from 1 to 25 GV experiences under their belt.  Time dictated that we break up into our respective team assignment groups to plan our strategy for meeting the stated objectives. 

We broke for dinner at 6:30 at JJ's, and were treated to a choice of spaghetti bolognese or Mahi mahi and a wonderful chocolate cake desert.  At dinner we got to meet our 27th teammate Martha Duran who arrived today.  Welcome aboard Martha, and we sang Happy Birthday to Bonnie and Dottie.  It was a wonderful day and we were all ready to say good night and get a good rest and be ready to take on the day tomorrow!!

- Sue