What a life!!!!

I wouldn't be surprised if we have previous blog entries with the exact same subject name...

It i such a different life down here on the islands. Whenever we get down we feel it right away too. And with each passing day, it becomes more and more obvious..the island life is the life for me!

Let's take yesterday for example. We meet up with 'Shabba man' at around noon at his band's practice room in St. Peters. He is the friendliest guy you could know! We talk for a while in the dirt lot where the practice room is. Chickens and dogs running around. The high schools and primary schools in the area are all finishing around this time and the uniformed children are starting to fill up the street nearby. Shabba tells me stories of how fertile some of the hills on SXM really are and about the rasta community and all the vegetables, fruit and natural herbs they are growing on the island. He also tells me of his passion for helping the youth of the island with music and he shows me some pictures of a recent event he organised. After some good conversation with the percussionst/taxi driver/farmer/teacher, Oscar has finished setting up the sound in the room and we can begin. Shabba leaves us the key and shows me where to leave it for him later. The chickens get fed by their owner and the cocks get greedy and try to chase away the other chickens and have all the corn to themselves. However, there is enough to share and the chickens outnumber the cocks...

Ater a couple songs all the guys in the band are forced to take off our shirts. It is very warm and when OG practices it always gets much warmer very quickly! This must have been our hottest practice session ever actually..

Ok..unfortunately I do not have the pictures at hand right now and I know these pictures will say much more than words. Bruce got a little unlucky you see, his bag is still lost, the KLM messed up on that one and his camera cable was in the bag so we cannot upload the pics we took. I will try and get it done today thogh..so I will add the pictures in the next post..

After the practice we went for a grande dinner at Pineapple Pete's. It was also Hans' birthday so we sang for him with the waiters and Pierre (the owner).

SXM is lovely! We'd love to live and work from here. Maybe someday soon...

Til the next!

p.s. Thank you Shabba, Youmay, Nacio and the One White Chick band for lending us their room for the day!
p.p.s. Thank you Pierre for an excellent dinner at the Pineapple Pete's last night! The food there is truly delicious!!!!