Sporting Challenges

For the last few weeks, I have been managing an after-school soccer program for high school kids. It is open to girls and boys, but ends up being only boys. The numbers fluctuate every day from 10 kids to 20 kids. The first few weeks, I was actually coaching, but now we are experimenting with a coaching development program in which we use young players, age 19-25, and slowly train and develop them into coaches. One of the major social challenges young people face here is unemployment. Most kids finish secondary school and even attend community college, but after that, it is extremely difficult to find employment so there is a huge section of young people who are just idle. We are trying to develop ways in which some of these young people can be trained in coaching and can somehow gain employment as a coach in youth programs. So the new coach I am working with is 20 and has played soccer for a long time, but these last two weeks have been his first times coaching.

I notice many cultural differences between the US and here. Many of the same differences I observed in Kenya. There is a sort of "don't speak unless spoken to" culture that exists and is fostered by the education system. Most schools do not encourage students to be outgoing or engaging, but instead promote attentive listening, discipline and intense academic standards. Many of these kids do not have outlets to display their emotion or to enjoy themselves as kids. A sports environment is one place in which this could possibly happen, but again, most coaches here also promote repetition and discipline. We are trying to provide an environment for these kids to learn, but to also have fun in a reliable and consistent setting, which is a rare scenario here. One example of the difference in coaching or teaching styles is the fact that the young coach I am helping to trained told me that sometimes when I coach I make the kids feel awkward because I am always saying "please." I thought this was so interesting because first of all, I don't even realize that I'm saying please, but if I'm asking a kid to go pick up the cones or to get in line or to listen, I would always preface the request with "please." While the culture here is to be very polite to teachers (the kids answer every single thing I say with "Yes, miss"), it is not often that the person in an authority position is nice back to them. So the coach was saying that when I say please, it makes it seem like I am putting myself below the players. Interesting cultural difference to me, since I would think it would be disrespectful to NOT say please and they see it as a sign of weakness.

Overall the program is going well and I am learning more and more every day about coaching, working with kids, how to tailor my approach to certain individuals, how to control my own anger when these kids are disrespectful and don't listen, which is basically every day! We are working on developing a curriculum for a coaching vocational training course, which would be a really great project here. This whole process gives me such a different perspective on coaches and really makes me appreciate all the good coaches out there. It is such a hard thing to understand if you are only a player, but once you are on the other side of the situation, it's a whole other world.

Living in St. Lucia

So it has not officially been two weeks that I have been in St. Lucia. Enough time for me to get the lay of the land, but also for me to wonder how people ever leave this place. St. Lucia is such a naturally beautiful island. There are rolling hills and mountains everywhere and lush green forests which is all surrounded by gorgeous white sand, blue/green water beaches. I am extremely lucky to be living in a place on the northern part of the island called Cap Estate, which happens to be the wealthiest neighborhood on the island with multiple mansions, estates, resorts, a golf course, etc. My apartment is a one bedroom place with a big living room and a small kitchen area. The best part is the porch on the front which has a great view of the hills and also has a small pool!




I live in a gated community which is good safety-wise, which is about a 10 minute walk to the beach and also a 20 minute walk to the nearest bus stop which can take me anywhere else I need to go on the island. The closest towns to me are Gros Islet and Rodney Bay. Rodney Bay is the major tourist area on the island. There are two large shopping malls, tons of restaurants, bars and cafes. You can eat any type of food there - Chinese, Indian, Italian, Mexican and of course lots of seafood. There is a marina in Rodney Bay which also has great restaurants along the water and there are so many huge boats/yachts that are coming in and out all day. Kinda fun to see!

The organization I am working with, Sacred Sports Foundation, is phenomenal. They are doing lots of projects around the island, including grassroots soccer programs, girls netball programs, a little bit of cricket and a little rugby. I have been involved with an after-school soccer program that they are running for high school aged boys of varying skill level. A lot of the kids are from tough neighborhoods and difficult family situations so it has been a struggle to organize training sessions for them. However, we have had some success as far as implementing a consistent program with a bit of discipline while still making it enjoyable and fun for them. I will most likely continue to work on this project, among others, for the remainder of my time here.

Last week in Barbados

This past week has been phenomenal. Last Friday night, we went to Oistens which is a small town on the South coast of Barbados very well known for its Friday night fish fry. The whole main street of the town is right next to the beach and is set up with many small food/drink stands all in front of a large stage with music playing. There are picnic tables set up everywhere so you can get food from any of the vendors and sit wherever. Every place is selling a combination of kingfish, marlin, dolphin, mahi mahi, tuna, mackerel, fish cakes, flying fish, barracuda and shrimp. Basically it is a huge outdoor party where everyone is eating fish and drinking beer or rum and dancing to reggae music. There were a lot of tourists there, but many locals as well, so it had a really fun vibe.

A few of us woke up really early Saturday morning and headed up to the north coast beach to go fishing with a guy we had met earlier in the week. He is a friend of our professor and had offered to take a few of us out on his boat for his weekly Saturday morning scuba diving harpoon fishing. Him and two other Bajan guys go almost every Saturday and Sunday morning to fish, mostly just to eat the fish themselves, but they do sell some of it as well. We were out on the water for about 5 hours and during that time they each dove twice, for about 45 minutes each time. They would surface with a wire of between 5 to 12 fish each that they had shot - an assortment of parrot fish, red belly chub, mackerel, ning ning (local name - not sure what the real name is) and barracudas. The fish literally looked like someone colored them with neon magic markers because they are all so brightly colorful. Between dives, we anchored closer to shore and went snorkeling near a jetty. The water is so salty that is so easy to swim and we just needed masks, not even life jackets or flippers or anything. Being out on the water was so great and gave us a good idea of real, non-touristy Bajan life.

Monday afternoon we had decided to again go out on a boat, but to do some more touristy activities - snorkeling and swimming with sea turtles! We were out on a glass bottom boat which also had an upper part which you could climb up to and soak up some sun. We weren't very far off shore to snorkel, but the water is so clear so you can basically see the bottom everywhere. We jumped in to snorkel and were immediately surrounded by schools of fish... some small striped ones as well as larger, shiny purplish ones. The local guys who took us out were throwing some bread in the water so they fish were jumping at us to get to the bread. It was a little weird at first, but then when there was no bread and I was actually trying to touch the fish, it was hard to. We relocated again and were able to swim around for about 45 minutes with approximately 12 sea turtles. Some were bigger than other, but none more than 3 feet long. We could touch them and try to hold on to them too. It was amazing! Their shells were kinda slimy and their fins (hands/feet?) were really rough.

Tuesday night was the beginning of the Twenty20 Caribbean cricket tournament which is being hosted here in Barbados at the main famous stadium, Kensington Oval. We went to the 8pm match which was the Winward Islands versus Leeward Islands. The stadium is quite large and is really cool. There is a party stand section where you can buy tickets to and not sit in the regular stands. They have music playing all the time and food and drinks. I somewhat understand the rules/scoring of cricket now, but still have a long way to go. Is has just been really fun to attempt to understand the value and centrality of cricket to life here in Barbados. It is far beyond the importance of any sport we have in the US. Maybe slightly comparable to baseball as America's past-time, but not totally since cricket is legitimately a way of life here.

We had our final dinner last night at our friends local rum shop and go to say bye to all the Bajans who helped us out this whole trip and who were our classmates. Some of the students left this morning and everyone else is leaving this afternoon. I will stay here one more night and fly to St. Lucia tomorrow. So excited for the next part of my Caribbean adventure... and if it's anything like Barbados, I'm not sure I will ever spend another winter in the US!

How do people ever leave the Caribbean?!?

So basically Barbados is amazing. The last week or so has consisted of us spending days at different beautiful beaches, meeting tons of local people, eating delicious Bajan food, experiencing island nightlife and island culture. My favorite activity so far has been surfing. Yesterday we woke up early to take two buses($1 each!) to the east coast of the island, which is the less touristy, rougher Atlantic coast. We had heard about a surfing legend who lives over in Bathsheba, the surf capital of Barbados, who gives lessons. So we communicated with him about surf lessons and headed over there. The coast line on the east side is much different than the calm Caribbean sea. The coast was very rocky with lots of waves, not huge waves, but frequent waves, and much windier weather. Snake let us chill at his house for a bit while he prepared the surf boards. Also, Snake is a 60 year old Bajan man who is the last remaining surfer from his generation of local surfing legends. He has a mohawk of gray hair, wore red Ray Ban sunglasses and was missing a bunch of teeth! His other surfer instructor friend, Sammy D., came as well. So basically two of us went out at a time, so I was with Snake for the 45 mins-an hour that I surfed. I had surfed once before but didn't remember it at all. I stood up on my second try and pretty much every try after that. The sea was very rough and the waves were so constant that it made paddling out there really difficult. Despite it being hard and exhausting it was SO MUCH fun. I think I might try to go back next week again...

Other highlights so far have been the food - tons of seafood. We've eaten flying fish (the most popular local food), barracuda (caught one hour before we ate it), mahi mahi, tuna and marlin- sometimes fried, sometimes grilled and most of the times there is DELICIOUS local hot sauce available to eat with all the food here. We've also had phenomenal grilled jerk chicken, sweet potato mash, breadfruit mash and lots of coconuts! The beverage selection here is also awesome. The local Barbados beer is Banks, which is quite light and great when cold (also pretty cheap). You can get imported beer as well and they regularly have a few other Caribbean beers available, like Piton from St. Lucia. However, beer is definitely not the most popular drink here... rum is king. Mount Gay Rum is distilled here on the island and is everywhere. They have different kinds, older/aged/expensive and newer/cheaper. Rum punch is the most popular mixed drink and is served everywhere. I wasn't a huge rum fan in the first place, but rum punch changed all of that!

The beaches here are also phenomenal. All beaches are public so we can go to any beach on the island. Some are more touristy than others, of course, but we have been to some amazing beaches that I thought only existed on post-cards. There are lots of activities to do in the sea as well - swimming with sea turtles, snorkeling, fishing, jet-skiing, tubing, touring the island by boat, etc. Hopefully later this week we are going fishing with some guys who spear-fish here for a living. We won't actually dive with them, but will be able to see how they do it. The sun is hot - every day - so being able to be near the water is crucial. The swimming is so great because it's sandy bottoms and you can basically see everything through the greenish/blue water.

Classes have been interesting too. We are mixed in with Bajan students as well, so it has been really great to discuss sport, recreation, leisure, tourism and culture with the American as well as local perspective. Cricket dominates the sports world here, but we have also seen some soccer games going on as well as a sort of street tennis game in which players crouch down low over a (usually home-made) court that is about the size of two ping pong tables. They have rackets and hit the ball back and forth. Kinda cool... It is basically a mix between tennis and ping pong and bowling.

This upcoming weekend we are going to have local fish fry on Friday and Saturday night at a lime, which is the world here for party. The locals in our class have been great at setting us up with things to do and places to see here, so we are lucky to have that. It's hard to not be labeled and lumped in with all the other tourists on the island because clearly we are, but we are also getting a little different perspective on local culture because of our interactions with the other students and going to events with them. So far, Barbados is amazing - extremely easy to get everywhere, people are so friendly, the food is wonderful and the weather and beaches are beautiful. I think I might be addicted to island life already...

Somehow I am in school in Barbados...

So here goes the next travel portion of my life - the Caribbean. Somehow George Mason allows us to come to Barbados and actually take classes, like real 3 credit classes, while in paradise. We are at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill staying in the dorms on campus and starting class/seminar here at the end of the week. I am currently sitting in the common room of the dorm (third floor) looking out over the cricket oval and watching Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago play a cricket match under the lights in a beautiful stadium. Now I do need to actually learn all the rules of cricket, but I plan on these relaxing viewing evenings to better my knowledge. We did try out the water already today. It's about a 15 minute walk down to the beach and the water was beautiful and warm - didn't really expect anything else.

After the next two and a half weeks here in Barbados, I will head to St. Lucia for the rest of the semester to work with a youth sport for development organization there and also do research for my Masters project. I know, tough life huh?!