It is ironic that precisely when I have the most to write about, I have the least amount of time time to write about it.
Here goes the Reader's Digest Version (well, as short as I can make it) of the events of the last little while.
1. Robbed
My roommate and I came home after some training for our job, and were laughing about this or that as we walked to our individual rooms when I heard, "Oh that's funny, my fan fell over ..." and then I heard, "Molly I can't find my lap top." There was no urgency in her voice, just curiosity and surprise. But then as I walked to the living room, I realized that my laptop wasn't where I had left it either. With more urgency from the back room I hear, "Molly! My computer's gone!" And I yell back, "Mine is gone too, I can't find my laptop!" We meet each other by the front door horrified looks on our faces as the reality set in. We had been robbed.
In that same instant, I remembered that one of my roommates was supposed to be home. I ran upstairs, my heart beating quickly as I rushed up to her room,yelling her name, and fearing the worst as I opened the door. No one was there. "She's not in her room!" I screamed to Hayley downstairs. We called Judy, and told her what had happened, and she said that she had just barely seen our other roommate. Phew! We knew that she was safe. Then we ran downstairs and called the roommate who was the occupant of the third and final room in our home. After a search of her room we realized her things had been taken as well.
A few minutes later, the five of us, and Judy, are standing outside of our home ... each of the three victims (miss j, miss h, and me) fought back tears at least once or twice as we waited for the Virgin Islands police department to get to our house from down the street. We had no high hopes for seeing them in a timely manner, as it had taken my roommate three calls to 911 before she was even able to speak to anyone.
The crooks had walked away with: 3 laptops, a $400 watch a roommate had spent an entire year saving for to buy for her boyfriend, 2 video cameras, and just for a special 'we want to make this day really suck' a $12 fan from my roommate's room.
They hadn't taken anything from upstairs because we realized that they had opened the door upstairs and had seen our roommate sleeping upstairs, and decided to high tail it out of there.
The cops came, and then a forensics specialist with no sense of humor ... and who refused to even chuckle at any of my clever -if I do say so myself- 'we got robbed' jokes.
The day though was finished by us deciding to go ahead and still enjoy the evening by keeping our initial plans, and going to the Brew Pub in Christiansted for some Halloween festiveness. So an hour later Snap, Crackle, and Pop, accompanied by a Ninja (complete with real machete, taped to make it safe though) and Oscar the Grouch left to go party it up. We were going to do a 5 person Halloween thing ... but ninja and Oscar the Grouch decided that they had no desire to be one of the Spice Girls ... so I ended up being a very happy Pop as I danced around and got plenty of sympathy for my long lost laptop from a lifeguard, a hospital patient, and Elmer from the Jetsons ... it ended up not being such a bad day afterall.
2. Gunshots
Hmmmm ... I'm not sure how much I want to say about this considering I have family who read this ... let's just say I was in F-sted with a roommate and a pirate (yes, a pirate ... please envision Captain Morgan ... what can I say I live in St. Croix) ... and things got a little tense with a mystery fourth person ... who let out their anger in the form of two gun shots fired into the air after we turned the corner away from him.
3. Flat tire in the rainforest, no spare, and it was raining
One of my most favorite places in St. Croix is VISFI ... it's a bit of a rough way there though, but well worth it once you're walking around the grounds. They have a cool tree house, a community center, and showers that were built facing the rainforest so that you can take your shower amongst the trees (pretty cool if you ask me). On our way out though I reversed over some bamboo and I heard a pop, and what sounded like rushing air. I knew something was wrong, and when I exclaimed my concern, both of my roomates said 'Don't worry about it, it's just sounds of the rainforest' it was raining but they were talking bologna to make me feel better.
Anyways we didn't get too far before we got stuck in the mud and when I got out to push, I noticed that not only was it raining, and muddy on the road, but indeed, what I had heard was not just 'a sound of the rainforest'. A bit of an inspection later, and we realized that we didn't have a spare ... and we and the truck were now stuck in the rainforest with no way back. Like sad little kids we walked back to the farm in the mud and the rain, feeling rather pathetic. We realized that we had made it farther into the rainforest than any of us had first thought, but finally reached back to the community center with muddy feet and drenched clothes. The owner took pity on us, and an hour or so later he took us in his monster truck out of the rainforest and all the way back to our house. One roommate rode in the cab with the farm owner and his columbian friend Ray, while I road in the bed accompanied by another roommate, a large truck tire, tools, and a cooler full of Corona. It had been stressful, but it was nice to feel the uncharacteristically cool air rush against my cheek and look at the darkening sky around me all the way back to my house.
4. Flaky Hippies
There is a Hippy friend of mine. Who I love (sometimes) ... but who has destroyed any romantic notion that I have ever had about hippies. He was supposed to help me house sit, and was therefore the most logical person to call about helping me with the truck. I called him that night and left an message, then I called him the morning to ask him if he could help me out, "sure, just give me a couple hours and I'll be there." So I stayed home from church waiting for him and a couple hours turned to a few, and then more, and then he texts me and postpones until the following day.
So Monday, again I wait all day and at 4 pm (which in St. Croix is really the end of the day because it's pitch black by 6 pm) he calls and says that he won't be able to do it that day but will help me out the next. So Tuesday comes along and I realize the game we are playing, and I call a tow service to try and get them to help me get the truck out of the rainforest (remember, there is no spare) but the tow truck driver says he won't be able to help me out because of the condition of the road ... it's been raining, so I don't blame him.
I call my hippy friend again, and this time he lectures me about having left it in the rainforest because he says the truck battery and etc. have most likely been taken away by rainforest pirates (who are apparently waiting and hiding carefully in the trees, for such oppurtunities). This of course, making me worry more than I already was ... and I was stressing pretty heavily at this point ... seeing as how it is not my truck. He then follows this up with a story about how one time when he and his friends got a flat tire, and they had no tire and no money, and he and friends were stuck in the rainforest and they just got out and 'played the guitar for like six hours, and then it got fixed.'
Apparently this was supposed to be some guide for me as to what I was supposed to have done in the situation I had found myself in on Saturday night ... with no real answer as to how everything magically got fixed ... perhaps the guitar had magic powers? or perhaps the whole 'flat tire' thing was a drug trip, that faded after six hours of playing guitar in the rainforest and so everyone could just drive away?
After that, I gave up on my hippy friend. I no longer like hippies.
5. The flood (and little Tsunami)
It had been raining hard all morning long. So hard in fact that it was hard to hear other people talking in the cottages the sound of it on the roof was so loud. We were amazed as we watched little streams and puddles form around the property ... we were awed as the morning progressed, and so did the amount of water and the streams turned to rivers, and the puddles into ponds. At this point we began speculating whether or not the children would be sent home from school early. Our eyes got big as we then saw the rivers turn into raging ones, and the ponds into lakes. Water was everywhere, up to our ankles, up to our knees.
I wasn't working but had just dropped by the cottages when the rain began ... but neither cottage parent was at work on the girls side ... so I decided to stay and help. We split up four Americorps members between two vans, the Social Worker assistant and I were going to drive across the island to pick up a girl who was going to school far away, and the other two were going to pick up the little kids closer in. We were driving to the highway, but as we drove the water that we were driving through was getting higher and higher, both of us lifting our feet as the water got deeper ... somehow believing this would help. Then all of sudden the van began to lurch forward, sputtered and fell silent in the middle of the water. I took off my shoes, rolled up my jeans, sang out a peppy, 'Don't worry, I'll push us." and opened the van door.
Now the van that we were in was pretty high off of the ground, and so I was surprised to see the water lapping at the floor of the van, almost getting in when I opened the door, and was even more surprised as I landed in the water that it was to my knees and part way up my thigh as I waded through it. But I got behind the van and pushed against it. It was then that I realized pushing a van by yourself is hard enough ... but pushing a van through high water? That was REALLY difficult. Thankfully, thanks mostly to the height of the van, it didn't take too much psuhing before we reached slightly higher ground, and the van sputtered to life again. I ran barefoot through the water to catch up with it and get in, waving my hands at little sedans trying to drive through that there was no way that they would make it.
We continued on to the highway ... where we began driving, but had to suddenly stop when we saw cars burried in water up to their windows. We wouldn't be able to pick up the girl from school. This much we knew. So a few calls later and some juggling,and we worked it out that the other two (who had been stuck in traffic on Centerline for half an hour) would pick up the girl on the other side of the island, and we would pick up the younger children. The engine still wasn't working at full capacity after having stalled and we didn't want to take chances with the water. We picked up the first child, a thirteen year old, who was able to make it to us easily. Then we went and picked up a six year old boy and his nine year old sister from school. He smiled as I picked him up in my arms and pulled his sister along in my other hand through a little water to the van. Another child, who had brought a little pink umbrella to school that day, stood waiting for me in her wet auditorium, but was suprised to see me in the day light hours as she exclaimed, "Miss Molly?" quizically, but happily. I swept her up in my arms, umbrella and all, and ran back to the van. Now, only one more child, and one more school to go to. Here though the water was deep and had a pretty strong current. I left my shoes and forged through barefoot again, not bothering to fold up my jeans, that were saturated all the up to my thigh with water. The women 'sucked their teeth' (a Cruzan thing) at the sight of me, barefoot asking for my three year old. Robbie* thought it was all good fun and tried to wiggle out of my arms though and play in the water as I carried him over through the current, almost falling a couple times ... in part the result of the excitement of the solid three year old in my arms.
Before the day was over I saw stranded stalled out vehicles, an SUV that had the back window kicked out being dragged out of the gut (a woman had been trapped in a water surge, and had to kick the back window out to escape), and came home to three inches of water in our own home. Not caused by the flood, but by our cistern overflowing in our house (so indirectly caused by the flood). (The three inches covered the entire bottom floor of our home ... that's A LOT of water.)
Now, keep in mind, the truck is stuck on a muddy/dirt road in the rainforest still ... I pretty much believed at that point that the truck has been washed away forever. [thankfully I was able to take care of everything the next day, and it was all okay ... phew!]
Unfortunately, in Frederiksted we also had a little tsunami that day that took a lot of beach road with it, as well as a local woman. It was an unbelievable day in St. Croix.
6. Sprained Ankle
A result of the flood, of course, was a lot of overly saturated ground, and a couple of days later, I was walking on some grass ... that all of sudden didn't feel connected to the ground beneath it, and I had a pretty impressive slip in the mud. As I fell, I heard a snap and then a pop in my right ankle (this, not being a reunion, did not include crackle). I let out a loud expletive (it had been a rough little while, don't judge) believing that I had just broken my ankle. I looked to my right and a woman was stiffling a laugh as she watched from her SUV. I wiggled my ankle though and realized that I could move it, got up, and while it hurt a little I could stand on it. And so I walked to the taxi van area, took a taxi van home (having to sit on a plastic bag because my bum was completely saturated with mud ... and let me just add, it was my only pair of dry jeans after the flood). After getting some groceries and walking home, I decided that it wasn't that bad of a sprain until a roommated commented on the large egg shaped swell on the outside of my right ankle. Thanfully the ankle is still on the mend, and my right ankle is looking less and less like a kankle every day.
7. Parasites
Just recently I discovered that I have Blastocystis Hominis cysts ... a parasite currently ravaging my intestine. Not entirely sure though that this is completely bad ... as I have just recently lost 10 lbs. ;) Although, will, of course be taken care some time this week. But people are starting to call me the Queen of Bad Luck, seeing as how I have grown up in third world countries, and never had parasites ... but a few months in the VI and I am the only one of my roommates with parasites. C'et la vie, I s'pose.
Things haven't been altogether bad ... and I can at least be confidant that I am busy living life, with all of it's ups and downs. :)
