Island Med Student

As I am sitting here about to write a blog entry about the last week of my life, I realize that I have so much to say, I could write a hundred pages. However, since I don’t want to bore you or lose your attention, I’m going to try and keep it “relatively” short.

I’ll begin with last Saturday. Micah and I had a going away party at my parents’ farm in Luray, Virginia. My BFF Laura was gracious enough to help us prepare the barn and field for the party and my friends Dav and Doug were kind enough to set up a very sweet sound system for the party.

Not as many people showed up as I had hoped, but the ones who did made all of the preparations well worth the sweat. Tiffani and Ben, if you read this, please know that it rocked that you came and Tiffani thanks for bringing all of your awesome friends!

Thanks to the luxurious above ground swimming pool, nudity occurred quite early in the party with Doug, Dav, and Micah all splashing about in the pool and doing flips and headstands. Actually, I think the pool ended up being the scene of the most fun at the party, though the bonfire and dancing were also quite enjoyable.

Sunday morning we drank bloody marys, hugged, and said our farewells. Once Laura left in the afternoon, Micah and I were all alone and the loneliness and reality of what was happening began to set in. I cried and moped about as we cleaned up and re-packed all of our belongings.

Click Here to View the Photo Essay of “The Dawn of Dominica: Welcome to the Jungle”

Since we had to leave for Reagan National Airport at 2:00 a.m., Micah and I stayed up watching the Discovery Health Channel instead of napping. We arrived at the airport around 4:00 a.m. for our 7:00 flight. After checking in and making our way through security (sans liquids in our carry-ons), we boarded our flight to Atlanta, Georgia a little after 7:00. Since it was only a 2-hour flight, we weren’t served any breakfast, and both Micah and I were becoming exceedingly hungry. Once we arrived at Atlanta, we literally had to run through the airport to catch our next flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We flew for about 3 hours and arrived in San Juan at around 2:00 p.m. By this time, we were both ready to pass out from lack of food, but we had to leave the airport to check in for our flight, which means we had to go through security again. This time, the line was moving at a glacier speed, as we had to go through a special bomb-sniffing machine, which blows puffs of air at you.

Once we made it to the gates, we had about three minutes until the plane started boarding. I convinced Micah that we would die if we didn’t eat something, so we grabbed a hot dog and slice of pizza and stuffed our faces as we ran through the airport. We just barely made it, and we were taxied to the plane in a little bus. This was my first time on a little Dash-8 plane and I was really excited to be flying over the Caribbean Sea in such a little aircraft. Also, not surprisingly, almost all of the passengers were Ross University students.

Around 4:00 p.m. we were over Dominica, but the pilot notified us that we couldn’t land due to cloud cover from a storm over the island. We were re-routed to Antigua, which was only a 30-minute flight away. We landed in Antigua and were told to deplane and wait inside the airport for further instructions. After making it through customs, we were then told to get back on the plane, as they were going to try and land it again on Dominica. After waiting on the plane for about 30 minutes, the pilot told us that we couldn’t land in Dominica because the sun was setting and the Dominican airport’s runway doesn’t have any lights. We had to deplane again and come through customs. The airline officials told us that they would re-book us onto the next flight to Dominica the next morning at 5:45 a.m., and that they were unwilling to pay for a hotel stay or transportation. After pleading, one of the passengers managed to get us a 10% discount at the Amaryllis hotel, if we all agreed to stay there.

We took a taxi to the hotel, got our rooms, and made our way down to the bar and restaurant. Micah and I got to try the local Antiguan beer, Wadadli, which was actually pretty tasty and we had some shrimp cocktail and french fries. After everyone finished their dinner and drinks, we headed back to our rooms to sleep for about four hours.

We all got up at 3:30 a.m. and our 4:00 taxi took us to the Antiguan airport. The taxi driver managed to finagle us out of some money by making up a totally fake story, but we paid him anyway. We checked into the airport and then waited for our flight. It turns out that the Antiguan airport has a wireless internet connection, so all of the students (myself included) whipped out their laptops and began checking their email and surfing the internet. Looking around at the other people and animals in the airport, it was pretty obvious who were the locals and who were the tourists.

We finally boarded the plane at around 6:00 in the morning, and a half an hour and a carton of cherry juice later we were landing in Dominica. The landing was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. As I looked out the airplane window, it seemed as though we were landing on a strip of land the size of playground in the middle of a lush jungle.

Once we deplaned, I headed into the airport where a Ross University Representative greeted me, I got my Visa stamped, and made my way successfully through customs. The only snag was that Micah was missing one piece of luggage, but they told him they would do their best to locate it.

All of the students were greeted outside by Alexis, a very friendly local who was our “taxi driver,” sold us cheap cell phones, and answered all of our questions about Dominica. We all hopped on the little bus as our luggage was packed into a flatbed truck. As soon as we pulled out onto the road, another car passed us speedily on the right, and almost all of us screamed in fright. Alexis told us not to worry, as this was a perfectly normal reaction for Americans as they get used to driving on the left side of the road.

As we traveled from the Melville Hall Aiport to Portsmouth, I stared through the glass of the bus window as my jar dropped further and further. The scenery was amazing, and by amazing I mean extraordinary, and by extraordinary I mean absolutely breathtaking. We saw fields of palm and banana trees, huge cliffs jutting into the air, gorgeous beaches, and lush rainforests. I could barely believe my eyes and I think the sleep deprivation added to my trance-like state.

Eventually, we began to travel through the villages. I knew that Dominica was a third world country, and that poverty abounds here, but I was still shocked by the level of deprivation. People were living in shacks that barely had roofs and there were chickens and pigs roaming throughout the houses.

As we passed each vehicle (mostly vans and trucks) along the road, they beeped at us and our driver beeped back at them, which I soon realized was quite customary. After a little over an hour, we were in Portsmouth passing the Ross University campus and then we pulled into the hotel next door.

We were fed breakfast and I got to try the local “long shelf life” milk, which comes un-refrigerated in a carton. It tasted similar to soymilk, so I think I can get used to it pretty easily.

After a short “pep talk” by the Ross University Representative, a few students, some parents, Micah and I were loaded onto a van and taken on a “housing tour” by a nice man named Thomas. The prices of apartments were very much correlated with how nice they were. The super cheap ones in the $300 – $400 range were located in the not-as-nice part of town, and were much smaller and more run down looking. The places in the $500 – $600 range were in nicer areas and included high speed Internet and other amenities. We also looked at some apartments in the $700 – $800 range. They were all very nice and had incredible views, but were above our price range.

The strange thing about deciding on an apartment is that it was very much cut throat. Since there were about five students on the tour, all looking for the same type of place, and desiring an apartment in the same price range, it became very competitive. To avoid any fighting, Thomas had to mediate the entire process so that everyone came away happy.

Micah and I both ended up liking a place that another student, Leo, liked. However, we went ahead and decided to take it before seeing the rest of the places, so we ended up being the happy renters.

Our apartment is a lovely shade of coral and sits almost at the very top of the banana trail. It’s about a ten-minute walk to the campus, though it’s quite hilly so it feels a lot longer than ten minutes. The apartment is a one bedroom with an adequately sized kitchen/living room, bedroom, and bathroom with a shower. All of our neighbors are either Ross University students, or local Dominicans, who are all exceedingly friendly and helpful.

After we were settled in, and got our luggage from the hotel, Micah and I went grocery shopping at the local store to pick up the bare essential food and water items. Although the national language of Dominica is English, the locals have very heavy accents, and some of them speak kweyol (Creole), a French-based patois, which makes them very difficult to understand at times. The currency in Dominica is Eastern Caribbean Dollars, though we’ve determined that many of the businesses near Ross University do accept U.S. currency.

So, I’m no longer homeless, and my residence is in Portsmouth, Dominica. It all feels a bit strange, and I’m still pretty shell shocked from the whole adventure. However, I have this itchy feeling (and I don’t just mean the the red bumps on my legs) that I’m eventually I’m going to feel quite at home here in Dominica. Welcome to the jungle.