A Grenadian Funeral

Meena and our family during happier times

Over a month ago our friend Meena's grandmother died, she was 83. On Thursday we attended her funeral. It took so long because her children live in the USA and Europe. Thy had just been here in February for their father's funeral, so Meena lost both grandparents in a year. Meena's father and mother both live in Grenada.

When we arrived at the funeral we were about 5-10 minutes late. The funeral was held in a church in Grenville. The whole inside the first and second stories were full and there were many people outside also. We were outside with Meena and our neighbour Janice. It is different from a Canadian funeral where mourners and ministers are very subdued and quiet. Grenadian funerals people are more emotional, they cry loudly, they wail and moan. The preacher was shouting. It was sad.

After the funeral we went to the cemetery and I got out. Janice was a little superstitious about the graveyard, she wouldn't even look at it. So Owen and Janice stayed behind. At the cemetery Meena's dad had held all his tears in but at the burial he got very sad, it was hard to hear him crying.

Something very different is there does not seem to be any taboos about standing on graves or markers. People stood on them and cleaned their shoes on them, I could not do that. In Canada that would be very disrespectful, but know everywhere is not the same as Canada.

Then we went to the grandmothers house for the reception or after party. It was like a kitchen party with beer and people visiting. They invited 30 but about 60 people showed up. We stayed until about 7:30, so we didn't get home until 8:45. We came through the centre of the island over a huge mountain- Grand Etang.

I was glad I went, it was an experience. And most importantly Meena was glad I went.

My new after school pursuit

At school I am taking a Technical Drawing class after school on Wednesday from 2:30 to 3:30 and on Saturday from 10:30 to 12:45 (2 hours and 15 minuets). On Wednesday we did engineering , I learned how to make a flower out of circles (using my compass). I also learned how to make a bisector line.

compass for architecture

On Sunday I learned how to convert inches into feet (plus the symbol for both) and the other way around. I also learned how to convert imperial into metric and use my scale ruler.

My supplies include:

• Dodge viper note book:
• T-Square:
• 2 Set Squares (large 60 30 degree and a 45 degree):
• Geometry Set:
• 0.7 and 0.5 Mechanical Pencil:
• Eraser Guard:
• Calculator:
• Scale ruler (architects/engineers):
• Paper tube:
• 14 x 17 sketch pad:
• soon a drafting table (people at NEWLO are making me one):

I really enjoy these classes!

                                                                                          

Port Louis

 

 

From our house we can see the port. Dead in the middle of the picture above is the quartermaster's building. There is a 7-10 minute walk from our house to the port we go often for our walks there mainly because its one of the safest places in Grenada. The port is a very fun place to go because on the way we walk down a goat path (its quite steep). There are tons of boats but there are about 4 mega yachts. 

At the entrance of Port Louis there is a small guard gate. I think it's not finished they have a huge plan to put houses, restaurant and hotels  on the land (if you want a lot for your house be prepared to pay $500,000 to 10,000,000 US dollars for a lot less than 2 acres ). 

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bathrooms: 1) This is the sink in the men's washroom at the port.

2) The toilet in the men's washroom with a very cool way of flushing.

3) The urinal (don't know why I put that there but...). 

4) my favourite sink is in the women's washroom (my mom took that picture).

yachts: There are few MEGA YACHTS  in the port the one below is my favourite its called PICNIC 

                                                                        PICNIC

                                                            PILAR ROSSI (George Town)

                                                             other huge boat forgot its name

                                                                   Pilar Rossi (George Town)
grounds

Quartermaster's building from the ground!

Lots of happy buildings, you can see the castle thing from our deck and also most of the colorful buildings. 

There is a restaurant that is called YOLO which stands for You Only Live Once. It is a really beautiful restaurant and we might get pizza from there sometime this month,

TV Free!

Today is 35 days since I watched TV.

We do have a tv here, but we chose not to use it. It is sitting on the floor beside my bed. We don't run it because it would cost lots of money to run and we don't need one.

I used to watch football, The Amazing Race, Once Upon A Time and HGTV shows (because I want to be an architect when I grow up). I do miss watching football and HGTV.

Instead we will watch Netflix on the computer and on the weekends we watch the highlight reel from the CFL. I also miss the time we would spend watching Amazing Race and Once Upon A Time as a family. My Ama comes over and we all usually watch together.

It is OK not having tv, I don't really miss it that much because we have Netflix and we are able to go to the beach after school a couple of times a week.