Christmas Curtains, White Man Hair, and Grapefruits!

Host Mom: What are you doing with your curtains for Christmas?
Me: What am I doing with what for Christmas? (I thought I heard her say curtains, but since the question left me baffled, I couldn’t be sure)
Host Mom: Your curtains. Are you going to change them?
Me: Umm…I hadn’t really thought about it. Why? Is that something that’s typically done?
Host Mom: Uh huh. I have some for you. You should put them up in December.
Me: Oh…ok. Thanks. That’s nice of you. Remember I’m leaving December 11th to go home though, so can I put them up sometime soon?
Host Mom: No. You should wait until December.
Me: Oh…ok. I guess it would just be nice to be able to see them myself.
Host Mom: Nah. Put them up in December.
Me: Ok.
Host Mom: Yeah, you can put up the new ones after you take out the ones there now and wash them.
Me: Oh…yeah…perhaps I should do that (people wash curtains??)
Host Mom: Yeah, you should. It’s been over a year and they’re really dirty.
Me: (laughing) Alright. No problem.

Oh, my beloved host mother, how I come to love thee more and more with each passing day. She never ceases to crack me up...

Over the past year or so I have heard a lot of interesting comments regarding my hair, particularly from kids. Here are a few quotes from kids illustrating the different musings of “white man” hair.

- “Mommy look. He’s got hair on his arms and legs just like the dog.”
- “Your hair is nice. Real nice eh. I like to see that.”
- (after feeling the bristly touch of my goatee) “Mesye! You know what they doing with that? When you die they does come and take that and make steel wool with it.” (for those of you non-domestic types, steel wool is the shiny, metallic scrubbing device for dishes).

So eating grapefruits has become a full time job as of late. The tree outside me house is bearing grapefruits as if extinction was imminent and it was putting up its last fight to produce as many as possible. Even though I frequently climb the tree, eat about four a day, and give them to my neighbors, some are still dropping from the tree and spoiling. And, as you can imagine, watching perfectly good fruit go to waste takes quite a large toll on my emotional well being. If any of you reading this and have a cold, come down to St. Lucia and we’ll cure that in no time…

Even though I’ve been struggling with my job in the fruit department, volunteer work has been going reasonably well lately. After a bit of a hiatus, the composting project is getting back on track, thanks be to God. We’re still trying to secure all of the funding for the project, but are making some headway with different organizations. I’m pleased with the progress of a few my violin students. Some of them have improved quite a bit and can play Creole folk songs quite well now.

I’m getting excited to go home for Christmas. It will be nice to see friends and family as well as be able to celebrate Christmas as I am accustomed to. I’ve been playing my Christmas music and bought some cheap lights to get revved up for it.