Sam And Katrina's Island Adventures

Goodbye Dominica...

2008-12-18T04:11:00.001-08:00

"I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again..."

Well, Sam is finished with 4th semester. Our bags are packed. We've gone around and said our goodbyes. Yesterday I took the long walk into Portsmouth for the last time, went to Tina's Store for the last time, walked up the hill to our house for the last time. This morning to celebrate, as soon as the boys got out of their test, we bought cigars and went down to the beach. I soaked up the Caribbean sun for the last time, soaked in the warm sea waters for the last time, they smoked their Cuban cigars for (maybe) the last time. Tomorrow we'll get in a transport and take the crazy ride to the airport...one last time.

Although it seems like we're saying goodbye to a lot, it is definitely bittersweet. Unlike a lot of people here, we have loved living on this island. But as we say goodbye to it now, we both know that we don't have a lot of regrets. The education Sam has gotten here was phenomenal, he has no doubts about his preparedness for the clinical experience in the states. We both have embraced the island life here and have gotten to enjoy a pretty good amount of the scenery, people and culture of the island. Overall, we are both very satisfied with our experience here. Honestly, we wouldn't change it for anything. At this time two years ago, we thought we wanted and needed to go to medical school in the states. Obviously, God had other plans and here we are. And now, although hindsight is always 20/20, we both are sure that He was right. Ross University Medical School and Dominica were the perfect fit for us. We have never felt more content and happy (other than missing family and friends) than we have here, which is probably because that comes with being in the will of God. We will never forget this amazing opportunity.

But as Sam said this morning, we are leaving without looking back. We have finished are time here and are now ready to move on to the next phase of our lives. We are excited to see what God has for us in Saginaw, Michigan, and where he will continue to take us. Although nothing is for sure in this world, through this experience we have learned that God does know best, and he will lead us in the path he wants us to follow. All we have to do is obey. And for that, I am thankful--we serve a great God.

My last picture of Prince Rupert Bay and the village of Portsmouth.

Pictures on the beach!

I think its a miracle--I got one with both of them smiling!!

Sunbathing and a Cuban cigar...odd mix? Perhaps!

Well, now all I can think of is....

"I'll be home for Christmas

You can count on me

Please have snow and mistletoe

And presents under the tree"

We'll be home for Christmas!!

Thanks to all of you who tuned in to this little blog over the past year! I hope this last message finds you all well and hopefully we'll be seeing you soon! Have a wonderful Christmas season! Christ is the reason! All thanks be to him!

Love, Katrina

"Campbells out!!" --Sam

Boiling Lake

2008-12-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

Well, as of today we have 5 days left in Dominica!! We are both so ridiculously excited to come home and walk on carpet, not be bothered by mosquitos, and sleep under blankets. Actually, we are definitely most excited to see our families, the rest are just extra benefits.

I only have a few blogs left before we leave here. One of the things I have wanted to do on the island since I first heard about it was take the 3 hour hike to the Boiling Lake. This is one of Dominica's claims to fame, as it is the 2nd largest boiling lake in the world. The challenging part about doing this hike is getting there, because it is such a long hike. I have wanted to do this hike for as long as I've known about it, but every time I've tried to get it set up something has come up and it just hasn't worked out. But last week, on very short notice I found out that our friends Ryan and Robb (Ryan is the guy who started inLIGHTin, the youth ministry), were going on Wednesday. So, I basically invited myself and so the four of us (Ryan, Robb, Nathan Robb's brother and myself) headed out on Wednesday morning. It rained steadily for the first hour of the hike, which turned an already muddy hike into a VERY muddy hike. We started out with a short climb then a steep descent for the first hour, a very steep climb and a short descent for the next hour, and then a steep descent and another climb in the last hours. The whole trail was stairs made out of logs and cut into the muddy trail. Pretty much every trail here has stairs on it (see picture above), because if it didn't, the trial would be so muddy you'd end up sledding down it instead of hiking, or it would be completely overgrown within a week. We hiked through the Valley of Desolation, which reminded me of Yellowstone, because there was bubbling sulphur pools and vents scattered all throughout the valley, which was really cool.

When we finally got to the lake itself, we couldn't see the actual lake because of the thick steam that was rolling off of it. After awhile, it cleared up enough for us to see the rolling, blue-gray boiling water. It was like nothing I have ever seen. According to the Dominica travel website:
"It is believed that the Lake is actually a flooded fumarole, a crack through which gases escape from the molten lava below, rather than a volcanic crater. The natural basin of the Boiling Lake collects the rainfall from the surrounding hills and from two small streams which empty into the lake. The water seeps through the porous bottom to the hot lava below where it is trapped and heated to boiling point." It was really cool.

Then we turned around and headed back. The total six hours of hiking stairs definitely wore me out, and my calves certainly felt it the next day!! I am so glad I got to go though, it was a cool experience and I can now say that I "conquered the rock!"

Because of all the rain that day, the mountains were covered in a thick fog. Even though it blocked some of the scenery, it was very beautiful.

There's still a lot of fog in the air, but below it you can see steam rising from the mountains--that's coming from the lake.

These are the awesome guys that allowed me to tag along with them! Robb, Ryan, and Nathan.

The Valley of Desolation. The trail (although it was hard to find) cut through this on its way to the lake, which you can see putting off steam at the back of the picture.

Group shot!

And we made it! This is me in front of the lake.

It was hard to get a clear picture of it, but here you can see the water boiling in the middle, as well as the cliffs surrounding the lake. It was pretty amazing.

That's about it!! I'll probably update you all one more time before we leave the island. Hope everyone is enjoying the cold weather and the preparations for the wonderful holiday season. We're looking forward to seeing you all soon!!

Love,

Katrina

End of November Pictures

2008-11-30T05:15:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,

Today is the last day of November, and we will be home in 18 days!! We are sooo excited. As the end of our time here gets closer, I've realized that there's a lot about every day life here that I've left out of my blogging. So I'm working on a couple of posts about random parts of life in Dominica, so be looking for those to be posted soon.

In the meantime, I'll give you a quick re-cap on whats been happening in our life the last few weeks. Things have been pretty crazy as we start to wrap up life here. Sam's finished with classes now, so these last three weeks are full of lots of tests. He has a really important test Monday morning, so be praying about that if you get the chance. He is VERY ready to come home and get a short break.

I'm all finished with work now, so I can focus on finishing school and everything else, and also just because I was ready to be done. :) So last week I ran in my first 5k! Pictures of me at the end are posted below. I was pretty happy with my time, 27:40, considering it was my first one and I wasn't training for it at all. So hopefully it'll be the first of many. Yesterday I got to on a hiking excursion with some of the newer spouses on the island. It was really fun. Pictures of that are below as well.

The format on this blog has changed, and so for some reason I can't post the pictures with the words, so all the pictures are below. First off are the pictures from the 4th semester banquet that was a few weeks ago. I had been looking forward to that night pretty much since we first got on the island, and it was really fun. It was nice to get all dressed up and relax a bit with our friends, celebrating completing all 4 semesters on the island! It was a really nice night. There's also some pictures of the spouses banquet, which was a lot of fun as well.

Thanksgiving was nice. We were missing home, but still had a very nice day here. I cooked all the food for us, and it was just Sam and I and James, but we had a good day. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We'll see you in 18 days!!

Love, Katrina

This is me nearly falling to my death (my foot slipped just as I jumped off). Nothing was injured except for my pride (and I did manage a pretty spectacular belly-flop).Fortunately, I jumped again after, and didn't almost die that time, but I don't have a picture of it.

The Dominica shopping experience

2008-11-26T07:49:00.001-08:00

As our time begins to draw to a close here, I've realized that there's a lot of little things about life here that I haven't really shared on the blog. I guess I haven't done it because the things here have just become so normal for us.

Life in Dominica is best described as "random," and the stores are definitely no exception. You never know exactly what is going to be in a store, whether its what it normally carries or what it happens to have available that day. Nothing is quick or easy here, so to explain the normal shopping experience, I'll try to describe how I went about getting things together for our thanksgiving meal.

First off I went to the market to get the vegetables and fruits. In Portsmouth, its only open on Saturdays and Tuesdays, but the larger market in Roseau is open every day.

When we first got here, there were only two stores in our area: Tina's is about a 25 minute walk from my house, and her store usually has all the basics, such as eggs, flour, ground beef, butter, and cheese. The second place is James store which is right across from campus. The upstairs floor has mostly household items, anything from kitchen utensils, to school supplies, some clothing, shoes, mops and other random household items. Random very accurately describes everything in every store in Dominica, but especially James store. Half of their items I'm sure have been on the shelves since the 80s, and the other half was imported from China and has Chinese writing all over it. I'm pretty sure the place has flooded several times too, because one time when I went by all the shoes were laid out in the parking lot to dry. The next time i went back, they were all back on the shelves, but their smell was definitely not improved. The first floor has groceries and cleaning supplies. However, here as in all other stores, you have to check all expiration dates on the food to make sure its not too far past the expiration date, you have to check all flour, rice, chocolate chips (if they have them) and powdered milk for either weevols or worms. Also, I have never bought frozen meat from here because the rumor is that the freezers are turned off at night (something I do not doubt).

In the past two semesters, however, we have gotten two new stores. Picard grocery is the smallest but closest. They carry a lot of name-brand items, which are therefore more expensive, but the conditions in their store is very nice. 7-11 opened near James store, and has basically everything that Tina's has, but is a lot closer (quite wonderful).

This picture is of the inside of Picards, the nicest in our area.

This is the inside of James store, the downstairs area which sells groceries.

The outside of James store.

So, grocery shopping. For my thanksgiving shopping, on Saturday I first took the free transport from school for the hours ride to Roseau, the capital. I hit the market first to get the vegetables I needed. Then I headed for the grocery stores. There are two real grocery stores there, and so I had to go to get specialty items that i needed, such as walnuts, whipped topping, cream of mushroom soup and jello. Really special things such as French's onions for the green bean casserole are nowhere to be found on the island--I'll just make those.

So after spending half the day in Roseau, I decided to finish the rest of my shopping at home. First I take a taxi to Tina's because I have to bring back an empty crate of beer to refill it. I am able to get most things there, but she doesn't have any flour or sugar that day, so I head to 7-11. There I am able to get flour and sugar, but I'm still missing green beans. For this I have to go to the shacks, an area by campus where fruits and veggies are sold. Here I can get the oranges and a lemon (miraculously!), but no green beans. So then I head for James store (remember, this is all walking now), and finally find canned green beans. Next I head to another shack that sells apples at $3 EC each, and finally I run by Tomatoes where I used to work and pick up 4 oz. of cream cheese. And then I'm done!! I've finally gotten used to the idea that shopping here is a several hour deal, because no one store has everything, and half the time they don't have the things they usually do. You definitely have to learn to be flexible.

The plan for our lives...

2008-11-21T17:42:00.000-08:00

So, a lot of people have been asking, so I just wanted to give you all a quick explanation of what our next step is, and what the next couple years of our lives are supposed to look like.

In January, Sam will be starting his 5th semester, which we are spending in Michigan. This semester will last until the beginning of May, and for Ross students, this is the semester to get oriented to the clinical setting and the healthcare system of the states. At the beginning of 5th semester, Sam will take the Comp, which is basically the final test over everything he has studied so far. This test is specific to Ross, and is extremely hard, because it serves as the "final weeding out" of their students. Those who do not pass the comp (which is 70% first time) will not be able to take the STEP, which keeps Ross from putting out really poor Step scores. The STEP 1 will be taken after he passes the comp, maybe during 5th semester, but probably right after it. This is the first part of the USMLE, the nationwide test that all medical students have to take. This is the first part of it, the second comes after rotations, and the third is after residency.

So, after he has taken STEP 1, he'll start his rotations. Those will last for two years, and where he does them could vary. Each rotation lasts about 6 weeks, and because Ross does not have its own hospital like most medical schools, they have to set up special programs with other hospitals that are already established. That means that there is the risk that would have to move to a different location for every rotation. However, there are some areas, usually big cities (Chicago, New York) where you can live during most of the same time and go to hospitals in the same area. If he likes the program in Michigan, he may stay there for most of them, or we may aim for Chicago or somewhere else. This is what we are going to aim for.

After the two years of rotations are up, he'll graduate (in 2011 at Madison Square Gardens in New York City!!)! After that, he'll start Residency, which will last a minimum of 2 years, depending on what specialty he chooses. This is the point where we'll have the best bet at coming back home. We'll see what happens!!

Alright, hope that helps clear things up for everyone. Things are about the same here right now, starting to count down the days and trying to keep up our motivation. Next week is Sam's last week of class, the rest will all be tests. Looking forward to seeing you all soon! Have an awesome weekend!

Katrina

The big news...

2008-11-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

Good Evening Everyone!

I'm sitting here eating some amazing hot dog casserole (yes, I have simple tastes) and I realized I haven't posted our news on here yet. So........

WE'RE MOVING TO SAGINAW, MICHIGAN!!!

We are so excited, so proud of Sam for getting the grades to get us there, and so thankful to God for answering all our prayers!! The best part about it is that nearly all of our friends got in there as well, so we won't be alone. I had done a little bit of apartment searching these past couple months, so when we got the word that we'd be going there, I sent some emails off to the ones that loooked best. The manager from one of them called us like 5 minutes later and pretty much sold us on the place. It has everything we wanted, it's in the best part of town, and turns out is one of the most sought-after places for the Ross students who go there. We're really excited about it.

So, now that the big details are done, I've just got to start working out the smaller stuff, like shipping some stuff home, buying winter clothes (I'm not sure either of us even own a pair of jeans anymore), and wrapping up stuff here. Now that we know, Sam and I have completely different reactions. He is completely ready to check out and move on to the next thing, but I'm more trying to just treasure our time here, and oddly am not in as big of a rush to get home. I did however, already buy a cute pair of snow boots online, and Sam bought himself a Carhartt jacket. :)

So needless to say, we are very excited to move on to the next stage of our lives, for a change in scenery, and a whole new adventure in a new part of the US!! God is faithful, as always, and we're looking forward to what he has for us up in Michigan!

Much love,
Katrina

inLIGHTin

2008-10-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

I think this is a record for the most blogs in a month!! You all should be proud of me!!

How's life back in the land of seasons?? I can't even describe how weird it is to me to have lived for a year and a half experiencing the same weather!! I mean, sometimes it rains more, sometimes is hotter or cooler, but always the trees are green, always we're wearing shorts and tanktops and DYING when we wear anything more. I have worn pants three times in the past year, and a jacket not even once. Sam is very ready for some cold weather, but I'm a summer girl and love it. I am however, ready to be a little cold for once, but mostly just to have something different. Already we are dreaming of hot chocolate, snow, using actual blankets, and taking hot showers. Things you never knew you'd miss!

Well, we did finally get our applications for 5th semester and ranked our preferences as first Saginaw, MI, second Miami, FL, and third, Roseau, Dominica. At this point, we'd pretty much be ok with any of them, but are hoping more for Saginaw. If you get the chance, please pray that we get accepted there, but especially that we end up in the same place as James and Mary and Marc and Ericka as well. The friendships we've made here have been amazing. I have such a cool group of girls that I hang out with. We're supposed to about our placement for 5th on or before November 5th, which is the day after Mini 2. I'm expecting we will hear no earlier than that date, so you all can start bugging us about it right after that, but we'll also try to let you all know, cuz we're going to be so excited!!

In the next posting below this, I've included some of the pictures from the first inLIGHTin ministry we had on Friday!! It was kind of crazy leading up to it, because I was in charge of securing enough donations from the area to be able to feed everyone, but miraculously we did have enough food and it went really well. Someone counted over 100 kids participating in one of the games, so we had plenty of interest!! It was great!! The ministry is intended to target teenagers, but because of different school things going on that day, we ended up with mostly elementary aged kids. it was fine and a lot of fun, but we're hoping to find a way to draw in a much older crowd in the next coming weeks. Pray that we would find where they're at and just be very aware of what their needs are right now, and not try to force our agenda's on them. The one's we managed to talk to seem to really just desire relationships, well, the girls anyway. The men in this culture are a whole different issue and need a lot of guidance. You can see last weeks posting for more info. So our first week was definitely a success in some aspects, but also really gave us an idea for what to expect, and what we need to do. Another area of prayer is regarding the woman who is currently renting the building we're using. The owner gave us permission, but the renter, who runs a cafe/bar there in the evenings, was not very happy to have us there. About halfway through she invited a bunch of men in who started drinking, so we had to ask them to at least go outside to drink, and then everyone started arguing and no one was happy. Fortunately, most of the kids were outside and weren't aware of what was going on, but we know is this going to be an issue that we have to deal with before next week. Please pray that the woman would be open and accomodating to us, and that we can work out something that's good for all of us.

Well, that's about all our news! Both of us are just plugging away at school and trying not to think about Christmas too much. We love the island and don't mind being here, but have both realized that a year is too long to be away and are starting to get really excited to go home. Pray that we would be content here and just cherish our last two months here on this amazing island. Feel free to send us an email and catch us up on what's going on in all your lives! Let us know what we can be praying for you, and know that we are SO EXCITED to come home and see you at Christmas!!

Love to all,

Katrina

inLIGHTin pictures

2008-10-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

These are the pictures from our first inLIGHTin ministry!

Here's part of the team, hiding in the shade waiting for the door to be unlocked. When the owner showed up to let us in (15 minutes before we were suppossed to start), he told us we looked like refugees camped outside.

Ryan praying before giving the message.

We played chubby bunny for one of the games. The kids had no idea how to play, so Ryan and Liz had to demonstrate!

Although she's obviously not from the age group we were targeting, she's so adorable! Where there's free food, anyone will show up.

Playing capture the flag in Portsmouth's awesome park/cricket field/football field/everything else field.

October news and hurricane...

2008-10-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sorry I'm not more consistent in updating this thing. I always have things in my mind to write about, but I don't usually get the chance to sit down and write them out to you. I think the rest of this semester is going to be relatively not-busy for me, so maybe I'll get better with the updates.

Life here has been changing and busy. Sam had his first mini of semester 4 and did really well!! He's really picking up the material well because its new and doctor-ly, so it keeps him interested. It was a huge relief to have this first mini go well though, because it takes off some pressure for the rest of the semester. Even though he has a bit of senior-itis and is having trouble staying motivated, he is enjoying this semester. He's been doing a lot more hands-on stuff through physical exams in class, as well as going through some clinic rotations at the hospital in Roseau. He's ready to head on to the the next step though and actually be in a hospital full time.

I finished my first set of classes for the semester, and am now enjoying fall break! It's been really nice to have the week off, I think I needed the break. I'll be starting my last round of classes and then I will have a degree in December (God willing)!! I know its going to feel really good to have this part done with.

The sad news for us is that our friend Mary left last week to go back to the states. She's about 5 months pregnant now, and needs to be closer to home for medical care. It was really hard to see her go and a little tough getting used to life without her here, but its good that she can be back home now. Continue to pray for her and the baby's health (everything looks good so far), also pray for our friend Ericka who's about 6 months along and has a high risk pregnancy. Before Mary left I got to put together a little baby shower/going away party for Mary. It was a lot of fun and turned out pretty well, even with our limited resources. The pictures of that are below.

In other news....there is a young pastor who just moved here as a missionary with his wife who is a student at Ross. He has been led to start a youth ministry in the town of Portsmouth near the school. One of the biggest problems in society is the youth, because most of them are raised in fatherless homes, and end up having children of their own at very young ages. Overall they are just kind of neglected by society here. So pastor Ryan has been led to minister to them! Its going to be a very exciting ministry, because it is obvious that God is with him and will use him to accomplish great things here in Dominica. I'm excited to see that God is working in the people here and am excited to jump in behind. So, next week, Friday Oct. 24th will be the first meeting of in-Light-in. We have no idea how many kids will come, but we have a place, we have some volunteers, and we have some ideas for how to reach them, and we'll see what happens. We would really appreciate you all praying for this as it gets started, because the need here is so great. We are relying solely on donations for food and other supplies, so pray that the community responds generously. We have no idea what to expect with this, so your prayers would be greatly appreciated!! If you want to check out Ryan's blog and get a feel for where his heart is at, check it out at: www.millertimejedidiah.blogspot.com

I think that wraps up most of our news! Actually, as I write this right now, we are experiencing our first hurricane! It actually didn't hit our island directly but passed a bit north of us, but it has definitely still affected us. The rain and storm surge were so bad last night that when we woke up this morning, pretty much the whole island was shut down. The prime minister told everyone to close their businesses and stay at home. None of the transports are running because near the water, the roads are blocked by boats and other debris that have been left in the road by the waves. There were also a lot of mudslides blocking off some of the other villages. It's pretty exciting. The doors are open in our aparment, and even from all the way up on the hill, I can hear the waves. The beach is almost a 10 minute walk from our house. So its pretty impressive. The water is completely brown, but we've actually had electricity for most of the day, for which I am very grateful for. I had to work still today (the owners make TONS of money when everything else is shut down), but tomorrow I'm hoping to go take some pictures of the water before it dies down too much. I wish everyone could have seen the rain we've had. It's just amazing to me coming from dry Colorado. If Grand Junction ever got as much rain as we've had here in the past 2 days, I think it would go back to being a lake instead of a valley! We've actually had rain every day for at least the last month. It's been pretty amazing. I'm actually not sick of it yet, although everyone else is, because I enjoy the change.

Ok, I'll wrap it up. That catches you up on our news! Oh, for all you who are wondering, we still don't know where we'll be living after Christmas. They keep telling us "you'll get an email this week," and then it becomes "oh actually it'll be next week." And that email is just to give us the applications for either Michigan, Miami or here in Dominica, then it will be a few weeks after that before we hear where we've been accepted. We plan on applying to all three places, but we're hoping to get into Michigan. The program and living conditions there seems to be the best option. So keep that in your prayers if you don't mind. You can be sure that we'll let you know when we do finally hear!!

Ok, that's it! Check out the pictures below, and send us an email to catch us up on your news if you get the chance! We love and miss you all....

Katrina

Baby shower and goodbye

2008-10-15T07:11:00.000-07:00

Mary's baby shower! Even though we weren't able to buy cute baby things, we still managed to have a fun party complete with cakes and lots of riends. Everyone enjoyed being able to support Mary and the baby, as well as say goodbye to her before she left. Overall I'd say it was a success!

Before Mary left, the four of us went out for a nice dinner at a restaurant on the beach. It was nice to spend some time together with the four of us, without having to cook!

This is a picture of all the girls in my Bible study! Almost all of us are spouses, and its really nice to have a good group to fellowship with.

This is Charlie, the cat we're watching for a couple of months. The sink is one of his favorite places to sleep!

And of course, I have to include a sunset picture!

New Apartment

2008-10-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

Well, we have moved (again), but are still in the same apartment building we have always been. The last two semesters we were in a double because of family coming to visit, but since everyone has been here who is coming, we decided to switch back to a single. it's pretty small, but we actually really like it. If there's one thing Dominica has taught us its that we don't need a lot of space or a lot of things to be happy. We're really happy in our comfy little apartment. Mary and James live right next door, so that makes it a lot of fun too.

Kubuli was following me around as I took pictures, that's why she's in almost every shot.

This is the kitchen. As you can see, the fridge is VERY SMALL (it's the small white thing to the right of the door in this pic, the microwave is on top of it). I though it would be a problem, but so far it really hasn't. It makes me wonder why everyone thinks they need those monstrosities we have everywhere in the states. For families they're obviously necessary, but for Sam and I, we're fine with the tiny one. Who would have thought...

One of Kubuli's favorite pastimes is to destroy cardboard boxes. It's very strange for a cat...but she loves it!

One year in Dominica..

2008-09-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!!

Sam and I are in the middle our two week break between third and fourth semesters, and are certainly enjoying it!! It's so nice to have my husband back, and for him to just have some time to relax. This marks the one year date that Sam and I have been living in Dominica. One whole year!! We can't believe how fast the time has gone.

Last Saturday, we got on a plane and headed north two islands to Antigua! It's another small island in the West Indies, but is a little more developed than Dominica, much flatter and drier, has terrible tasting water, and has much better beaches. We got a great deal at the all-inclusive resort, the Jolly Beach Resort, and it was AWESOME! It was just amazing to us that we could go into the restaurant for dinner, leave without paying, and have unlimited drinks all day long! The resort was really nice. It had 2 pools, 3 nice restaurants that required reservations, an open buffet for every meal, 2 open bars, one of which was a swim-up bar in the pool (where we spent a lot of time!) and an amazing beach. Sam convinced me to just stay at the resort the whole time, so we didn't get to see much of the rest of the island. But it was ok because we really just needed the time to relax and do nothing. Here's a bunch of pictures I took while we were there!!

A view of the rooms, from the pool.

Unfortunately, we didn't buy the strongest sunscreen available, and so we both got VERY burned. Hence, Sam is wearing a shirt on the beach by the end of the trip!!

Ah, cuban cigars...

The beaches were GORGEOUS! Pure white sand, bright turquoise water...it was amazing. I saw a big jellyfish one day, but fortunately didn't get stung by it!

Sam at the bar, thoroughly enjoying our "free" drinks!

We were in the "supersaver room," but it had a king bed and a view of the ocean and we couldn't have been happier!

Looking a little toasty...

Sam and I being our usual goofy selves...

Beach towels and wraps for sale on the beach

One of the unfortunate results of having lots of kids in the pool all day long....eventually somebody is not going to make it to the bathroom to go #2....so everyone had to get out while they "cleaned" it (we don't know if they actually did anything about it, just woke up the next morning and it was open again...). But the sea gulls sure enjoyed having it all to themselves!

This is a picture of what our whole vacation was like!

And of course, if you're in Antigua you're going to see a sailboat.

Well, that gives you a pretty good glimpse of what our vacation was like! Once we got back home, we rescued our cat who had been living outdoors for 3 days (the cleaning lady let her out), who was very hungry and lonely. We also moved into a new apartment. It is right next door to our old one, just a single instead of the double. We're enjoying being in a smaller place, even though the fridge is made for midgets, and are getting ready to help James and Mary move in next door (they needed a smaller place too). We have one more week of freedom, then we start our last semester!!

Hope everyone had a good labor day and enjoyed the time off. Be sure to pray for Nikki as she gets settled in to life in Peru. She just started a blog, so if you'd like to check it out, its: http://www.nikkidtravel.blogspot.org/

Miss you all! God bless!

Katrina

Finals, birthdays and goodbyes

2008-08-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

These pictures were supposed to go below with the others, but hey're being annoying. The top one is from Larissa and Michaela's going away party (two girls in the center, Larissa's holding her daughter Azariah). The second was taken at Larissa's birthday party at my house, at the top from the left: Michaela, Ralna, Meg's daughter, Me, Meg. Bottom from the left: Mary, Alia, Larissa, Schlomit, Katie and Nellie.

Hey Everyone!

I hope this blog finds you all well as you wrap up your summers and get ready for another school year. Things are going well down here, the weather has been even more hot and humid than usual, and school is keeping us both busy.

Sam is in the middle of finals. He's done with regular class and has just been studying like a maniac for all his tests. So far he's taken 3 in the past 9 or so days, and they've gone pretty well. Tomorrow (monday) he has Mini 3 and then on wednesday he has his final and then he's free!! Pray for him these next couple days. He's getting a little burned out and so it's hard to stay focused. He's very ready for a break, which he has definitely earned!

I finished my summer classes (yay!!), and have now started my fall semester, with no break between them (again). I'm excited for the new semester and classes, especially since its my last semester! I'm hoping that the load isn't too much with work and stuff for the next few weeks. For the next 8 weeks I am taking intro to cross cultural missions, fundamental theological issues, and history of the Christian church part 1. This will be the first time I take 3 classes while working, so pray that I have enough time to stay caught up with everything.

That's about everything going on in our lives. We are SO READY to have a little break. We're excited to get off the island for a few days (going to Antigua!), and to have some time to relax together.

Alright, as usual I've attached some pictures from the last couple weeks. These first few were taken on our 2nd anniversary!! Sam was able to take the evening off and we made reservations at this little place called the Iguana Cafe. It's a tiny little shack on the side of the road, but I'd heard the food was amazing, so I called them the day before to let them know we were coming. It rained all day that day, but we still managed to get all dressed up and call a cab to take us there. It's run by a really sweet woman and man, who opened the place just for us that night, and waited on us hand and foot. They were so sweet. We both ordered lobster ($45 EC for a giant bowl of it--that's only about $17 US) and it was delicious. The only problem was, as you can see it's mostly open to the air with no screens or anything, and because of all the rain, there were a TON of rain flies. These things are attracted to the light and they just swarmed it, and therefore, also us, the whole time we were eating. Definitely annoying, but didn't ruin the whole night. After dinner, we both realized we'd forgotten our phones, so we had a nice walk home (it had stopped raining, fortunately), and I managed to make it all the way home in heels without twisting my ankle, which if you knew what the roads looked like here, you'd know that's quite the feat, especially for me.

Last week was my friend Larissa's birthday! Mary and i put together a little party for her at my house. We stuffed about 15 people in my tiny house, ran out of plates and forks, but had amazing food and fun company! It was a lot of fun to hang out with everyone. Unfortunately, Larissa is fourth semester which means she's leaving us! =( I've realized lately how many great friends I have here, but that a lot of them are leaving this break. I'm especially going to miss my workout buddies, Larissa and Katie. Also, pray for Mary and James over this break as they decide whether or not Mary should come back or stay in the states for the next semester, since the health care here isn't all that wonderful. I don't know what I'd do if Mary didn't come back!!

From the left, Katie, me, Nellie, Larissa, Mary and Alia.

Me, Larissa and Mary!

These last few pictures were taken at a going away party for our friend Heather. It's so sad how close you get to everyone here, and yet how quickly we have to say good-bye to each other.

From the left, Larissa (holding her daughter Azariah), Sarah, Elizabeth, Heather, Liz, Ashley, Ralna, Me, Mary.

Me, Larissa (and Azariah), Liz and Sarah.

Mary, Liz, Ralna and Ashley. Such a great group of girls!
Ok, that's all from us!! Good luck to everyone as you start the next year...We miss you all so much! Christmas seems a little far away....

God bless,

Katrina

End of July

2008-07-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

Wow, so I guess it's time I give everyone an update! How are things at home? Having a nice hot summer? I can't believe summer is technically almost over for you all. Things down here stay about the same, always school and always hot. But it's going well.

Sam has finished Mini 2 and is focused on several different tests for his behavioral class. This week he had a test on physical exam technique on monday, and on thursday will be tested on interviewing and health history taking. The semester is starting to wind down, only 1 1/2 more weeks of class for him, and then 2 weeks of tests and finals. Then we're free!! For TWO WEEKS!! It's going be awesome. Although we can't go home for such a short period of time, we decided to take advantage of our location and booked tickets today for a trip to Antigua! We'll only be there a couple of days, but we'll be doing the whole "all-inclusive" resort thing, so it should be super nice. We're looking forward to the break.

School is going well for me. Please be praying for my shipment of books for the next semester, which starts in three weeks. My mom is mailing them to me this week, so PRAY that they get here quickly and that I don't have any problems starting my LAST semester. Yes, I just have one more semester before I graduate with a bachelors in religion! I'm excited. I'm enjoying the classes very much. I'm taking a Revelation/Daniel class and a Romans class during this session. It's been really interesting, I can't believe how much I've learned, not just this session and semester, but the whole last year, studying God's word. It's amazing how much there is to learn from one Book. I'm not sure anyone on earth will ever completely know and understand all that is contained in it.

Our other news is that I got a job! For the past 3 weeks now, I've been working at the Tomato Cafe, a cafe run by a Canadian couple that serves the students and faculty. I only work 3 shifts a week, so it's very manageable with my school schedule. I enjoy the work, the people and the little extra income it provides. So far so good! I'll try to take pictures this week and get them posted on here.

Well, that's about it for us! Hope all is well back home! We really miss everyone there, and are starting to get ready to come back to the states. We love living in Dominica, and thanks to God's grace have been content here. But the comforts of home are starting to sound awfully good...Christmas is going to be wonderful! Best wishes to all of you reading this, thanks for keeping in touch!

Katrina

P.S. Sam and I will be celebrating TWO YEARS of marriage on thursday, the 31st!! We have been blessed beyond what we could even imagine, God has given me such an amazing man! I never dreamed I would be this happy. Thanks to all of you who have been there with us and supported us!

Here are a few pictures I've taken this month. The woman in the first picture is my friend I told you about in the last post. The picture was taken in her garden in front of her house. Continue to pray for her health and comfort.

This is a picture taken during our after-mini celebration dinner. The electricity went out for several hours, so we had dinner and played cards by candle light!! Not at all uncommon around here, but a bit of an inconvenience when we have people over. We made the best of it though (and tried to keep the boys from burning the place down)!

Beach celebration!

2008-06-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

We made it through Mini 1!! Sam came through with flying colors! It's really nice to see all the hard work he's put in these last few weeks pay off. Now that mini 1 is out of the way, the rest of the semester is going to fly by. We're already half way through!

We celebrated today by going to Batibou Beach on the other side of the island with James and Mary. It was a much-needed break. The beach is beautiful, on the Atlantic side and completely secluded, we had it all to ourselves. The boys built a fire and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. The boys ran around and chopped random things with their machete's while Mary and I relaxed on the beach. It was a GREAT way to spend the afternoon.

On Friday, I had the privilege of going on a community outing for Friends of Espwa, the hospice and palliative care organization I'm part of. I met a wonderful lady who has been living in the area her whole life. She is largely alone now, and struggles a lot with loneliness and has a lot of health issues. If you could think to pray for her, she would really appreciate it. On Thursday we had a huge thunderstorm, and the roof of her house leaked all over her bed. Now that it's hurricane season, she's really afraid of being safe in her house through it. I was able to read some of the Bible to her, because she is unable to read herself which makes her really sad I think. But she was a very friendly lady who would really appreciate you all praying for her.

On Thursday, we had an awesome thunderstorm! Although we get lots of rain, this was the first time really we'd had any significant lightning and thunder. But we certainly got it on Thursday, and it continued to rain pretty much all day Friday. It was beautiful. I still love the rain, even though we see it a lot more frequently down here than in GJ. The downside of rain here though, is that it really overwhelms the water system. Usually the water will just turn brown and be un-drinkable for a couple days, but this time they shut it all the way off! We were without water for a full 24 hours, and it's amazing how much you miss it even for just that short amount of time. We had drinking water saved, the hard part was not having water for washing, showering and flushing the toilet. But it finally came on again this morning, so it is much better! Although it still isn't clear so we're boiling it before we drink it, but at least it's available!

That's pretty much all of our exciting news. Things are slowing down a little now, but not for my school schedule. Kubuli is recovering well from getting fixed, Sam took her stitches out tonight. It's raining some more, so hopefully we'll keep our water! Hope you all are enjoying your summer back home! We miss you lots!

Love,
Katrina

June 9th Update

2008-06-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

Time for another update!

Well, 3rd Semester is well underway and Mini 1 is sneaking up on us quickly. Fortunately, the work load is much more manageable for Sam this semester, and he's enjoying having some new subjects to study. This semester he has pathology, microbiology/immunology, behavioral science (a little bit of intro to clinical medicine) and pharmacology. Things are going well so far, we'll see how it all looks after the mini, which is Monday the 16th.

Classes are going well for me. I'm finally into the upper level courses, and while I'm really enjoying the material of the class, the workload is a lot more than it has been in the past. I am really trying to stay caught up. Starting next week, my classes for next session will be starting, so I'll have a double load for 2 weeks--that will be fun (not).

A couple of weeks ago we got to have Danae and her friend Nicole come for a visit! It was really nice to be able to spend some time with my sister, as well as Nicole. The three of us rented a car and went gallivanting around the whole island. It was really fun! We got TONS of catcalls, got lost several times and managed to not fall in any ditches! I've added a bunch of pictures that I took while they were here. This first one is taken on the beach right by our house, the first night they got here.

One of the funnest things we did was go River Tubing on the Layou river with the faculty spouse group! I don't have any pictures of us actually on the tubes, but it was a lot of fun. The guides were a lot of fun, the river was relaxing but still fun, and we had a great time! The Layou River is one of the biggest in Dominica.

Sisters!
Danae and Nicole, standing on Scott's Head Point, looking over the Atlantic.

Danae climbing the ruins at Cabrits.

The next couple pictures are from one of the coolest things I've done on the island. This is the Riviere Cyrique hike, and basically all we had to do was scale a cliff down to a secluded beach where a waterfall fell into the waves of the Atlantic. The climb down was pretty intense. There were a few ropes and one rope ladder that were there to help us get down the vertical part, along with the roots that covered the cliff face. We made it down though, and once our legs stopped shaking, we were able to make it to the beach! It was so cool!

Nicole heads down.

There's Danae...down the first part of the cliff.

This pictures shows how the roots were able to help us down.

This is the rope ladder. The scary part about it was that as soon as you got on it, it pulled away from the cliff!

And we made it! It was definitely worth the trip! The fall was beautiful, but so was the beach! We got to play in the splashing waves, collect sea shells (cuz this is the Atlantic side), and have a picnic, all on our own private beach. It was awesome.

The beautiful Sari-Sari falls. Even after we made it there, we weren't able to stay very long because there was already a group of like 6 guys smoking pot there, so we didn't linger. Lol. That's a pretty common sight here, unfortunately.

Bonfire on the beach! Sam and James were able to come down after class and join us for some hot dogs on the beach as the sun set...it was really fun.

On their last day here, we drove the Northern Link Road through the volcano. This is a picture of the Cold Soufriere Springs in the middle of the volcano crater. Yes, the water was cold, but it was coming directly from the volcano...you could tell from the smell.

This is the volcano crater that we drove through. It's hard to tell in this panoramic shot, but the area was a complete circle.

We got so lost going to this pool! And the sad thing about being lost here, is that anyone around knows your lost. For example, we drove through one village to get here, and had to loop aroudn a couple of times, and all over the streets were people just watching. Fortunately though, they're friendly enough to point you in the right direction...you just have to listen! When we got there the water was really cold and really deep, and...it kind of freaked us out. But it was a fun day still.

Poor Kubuli had a rough day on Saturday. I had to take him to Roseau to get neutered. It was a long day and he didn't like the box I had to carry him in, but after I left him at this random building that supposedly was a vet's office, I had about 6 hours to blow in Roseau. Finally the vet called and said they were done but, did I know that my cat was a female?? Sam and I had thought she was a boy for the last 5 months of her life! But I finally I got bring home a very unhappy, female cat to recover. It was a long day but unfortunately was necessary! We don't want any more kitties!

Well, that about wraps up our news! It's really hot here now. I keep thinking I'm going though menopause or something, because even just sitting at the desk in our house all day I'll just be covered in sweat! But we still like it here for sure. We're definitely missing family and everyone back home. Hope everything is well, and we'd love to hear from anyone! I don't know if anyone even looks at our blog anymore, but for those that do, we appreciate it!

Take care,
Katrina

Semester 3!!

2008-05-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends!

We are officially in 3rd semester!!! it's hard to believe that our time here in Dominica is already halfway gone. Sam successfully completed 2nd semester and is happy to be moving on to third, which is supposed to be a lot easier compared to 2nd. So that will be a nice change. I complete my spring semester on Friday, and just today started my summer classes! I have two more semester to go before I am finished. Exciting times!

Well, it seems I have a lot to catch up on, so we'll go back to the month of April, the birthday month, even here in Dominica. Mary's birthday was on the 16th, our friend Gretchen's was the 12th, and mine the 26th.

This first picture is on my birthday. Finally 22! Everyone here teases me because I'm the youngest spouse that we know. So everyone was happy to see me getting older. lol.

The birthday girls! Our friends threw us a joint party, with homemade chocolate cake!

This is a good picture of most of the girls I hang out with. Starting from the left in the back is Mary, Katie, Meg, Priyanka, and Gretchen. In the front is me, Ericka, and Larissa. Such a fun group!

Mary and I with Rachel, our bible study leader. She left the island this semester and is now moving on to life in Michigan. She'll be a great resource when I start looking at what's next after this.

Mary and her birthday pie!

Now for pictures from the break. We were so blessed to have Mom and Dad Campbell come for about a week and half! it was wonderful have a bit of home come down here. Overall it was a very relaxing visit. We got to see so much of the island, which was really good for Sam because since he's been in school he hasn't been around very much. And mom and dad didn't even know what day of the week it was...which means it was the perfect vacation. We were so sad to see them go, especially knowing that we won't be home again for another 8 months. Here's a bunch of pictures I took over their trip!

Here's Dad swinging through the jungle on a wild vine! (sure....)

We happened to hit the Carib territory as the same time as a big tour group from Venezuela, so we got to see a cultural dance show that they put on. It was pretty neat.

Dad, Sam and I swimming the chilly waters of Emerald pool!

The view from behind the falls at Emerald Pool. The water was a little too cold for mom to get in, so she got to take the pictures.

One thing everyone who visits loves down here is the fruit! We bought more grapefruit, pineapples, and mangoes this week then I think we have in the past month! It's plentiful and delicious, and often you can just pick it on the side of the road and don't even have to go buy it!

The crafts of the Caribs...definitely popular among the tourists.

Sam and his dad being their usual weird selves at Ft. Shirley. Mom and I with the view of campus, Portsmouth and Morne Diablotin in the background. It was a perfect day!

The small village of Soufiere, tucked beneath the mountain.

Scott's Head Village, located on the southern tip of the island.

Swimming in the pool at the base of Trafalgar falls. The water was crystal clear and rather shockingly cold. It was so beautiful. By going under water and opening eyes, you could see the water falling in the pool and a dark cave behind it. It was quite the experience.
After cooling in the pool, we got to warm up in the natural hotsprings that were right on the trail leading to the falls.

Floating on Indian River, the place they filmed part of Pirates II.

Dad thought he'd help out our guide, Leo the Lion.
Pineapple!!

Well, I think that just about catches you up! Unfortunately we're missing all the graduation fun back home, but hope that you all are enjoying it! We miss you all a lot, but at the same time are blessed to be down here. God is good and we thank him every day for his faithfulness. Take care everyone!

Love,

Katrina

Beginning of April already!

2008-04-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Happy April!

Hello all!! I'm amazed at how much I have to write about! Our lives have been pretty busy the last few weeks as the pace picks up for Sam coming into the end of the semester. I know I say this alot, but I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by this semester!! When we left home in January the year we would be gone was looming ahead and seemed like a very long time. Now, realizing that we're already in April, I know that 4th semester is going to come racing up on us. It's crazy.

Like I said, Sam's been really busy getting ready for the final 10 tests he has in the next 2 1/2 weeks. As I write right now, Sam, James and Mark are in the next room enjoying my homemade pizza (and oatmeal cookies!) as they study physiology. They've been at it for almost 6 hours now. School was pretty good to me this week, last week was a lot busier though.

On Sunday, the lady who cleans Mary's house offered to bring her to her church, so Sam and I tagged along. We loved their service! It was quite different from our church at home, a lot LONGER but also a lot more active, animated and just overall very moving. It was a small congregation and we definately stood out. They welcomed us by name from the pulpit, but even if they hadn't everyone knew that we were there and were obviously new. But worship was very powerful, the preaching was challenging and easy to listen to, and the people were so welcoming. Everyone gave us hugs, asked about Sam's school and were just very friendly. As we left, Sam told me that this was a church he could easily see us becoming a part of. So hopefully that will happen. It felt like we were part of the family. It was very refreshing.

On Thursday of last week, I went on a hike with a couple of other spouses here. We went to Middleham Falls, which is near Roseau. It was a beautiful 1 hour hike in to the islands tallest waterfal. It's supposed to be 150 feet tall, and wow was it impressive! The hike was a lot of stairs and mud and tree roots, so it was really fun. I don't think the pictures really do it justice, but I put them on here anyways so you can kind of get a feel for what it's like.

Yes, that's the trail.

And so is that.
And this...

This is the whole group that went (not including me). In the front is Chicka, then Ericka, Denise and Mary. This is on the road looking down the valley towards Roseau.

This is the only way I could get the whole falls in the pictures. It's three pictures stitched together!
In the pool at the bottom of the falls, a beautiful rainbow formed in the mist that was falling.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to go on on a community outreach through Espwa Domnik, the establishing palliative and hospice care group in Dominica. The purpose of the visit is both to help out/encourage people in the Portsmouth area who have health issues and are mostly alone and also to give the med students a little bit of patient interaction. I am obviously not a med student though, so I just went to visit with people. I got to go meet a wonderful lady who lives in Portsmouth. Her name was Ma Martin, and we had a really nice time visiting. In this picture, we were having afternoon tea, eating an amazing easter cake she had left over. She used to own a store in Portsmouth and is quite a baker. The cake was delicious. In the cups is Vitamalt, a very unusual but very popular drink down here. It was a really neat experience. Espwa Dominik is the first palliative care/hospice organization ever organized in Dominica. This past semester we've been fundraising to buy two morphine pumps to help some terminally ill paitents here. When we get them, they will be the only morphine treatments available on the island. The health needs of this country are incredible.

Now I've just posted some random sunset pictures I took this week. This is taken at the beach near the house. I think every student at Ross has a picture like this, but it is beautiful nonetheless.

The sunset one night from our front porch.
Kubuli and I enjoying the sunsetting behind us!!

Well, I think that about wraps it up! I'm going to Roseau tomorrow and Sam is studying, so that's about all the excitement our weekend will hold! Hope everything is well with you guys back in the states. We love you and miss you!!

In Him,

Katrina

Easter!

2008-03-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!!

We hope you all had a marvelous Easter rejoicing in our Lord's victory over death! I love having a day to just focus on what he has done for us. I have been studying Soteriology which is the doctrine of salvation, so the holiday was very timely. We are so undeserving of God's grace and abundant love, and I am overwhelmed by everything he has saved us from. He is risen!!

Our Easter was really nice. Our church group was having a sunrise surface on the beach that I was super excited to go to. Those who know us though know that between Sam's love of sleep and my luck with alarm clocks, it was highly improbable that we would make it, and that is exactly what happened. We slept right through the alarm, and missed our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to an Easter sunrise service on the beach. So instead we went to the regular service on campus and 11 and it was really nice. The choir sang and it was amazing. (Who would have thought that med students could sing?)

Before church, I working on the Easter meal because we had invited Mary and James and the Grenata's over for dinner later. I was just about to put the cake in when, i discovered that we had run out of gas!! This may seem a bit strange to you in the states, but our stove is hooked right up to a small gas tank, exactly like what we use for our grills in the states. And yes, mine decided to be empty the morning of my biggest cooking day in a long time. So after panicking for a few minutes, I called Mary and she promised to send her gas tank up after she was done cooking her part of the meal. So Sam carried the tank up to our house after church and we were able to finish the meal without any major mishaps.

The meal went really well. We loved being able to enjoy the company of our friends and just relax and eat yummy food!! Everyone was really excited because we ordered a ROAST, yes, a BEEF roast from a company here. Beef is such a treat, so we were all pretty much beside ourselves with excitement. It turned out really well and was a nice break from the usual chicken, fish and ground turkey.

So our Easter was very nice and relaxing, but also very Dominican in it's little surprises. I was reminded by how blessed we are down here, to have such awesome friends and the ability to put a delicious meal on the table. Sam is doing well in school, and we are both so happy. God is so good to us, and we are so undeserving.

We hope your Easter was just as wonderful!! We definitely missed being with family, but I'm sure you all had a nice day too. Enjoy the spring weather that is coming your way (hopefully)!

Love,
Katrina

Sam is excitedly preparing the beef!

Our friends Mary and James, helping with the preparation.

The easter table! Going to Sam's left: Mary, James, Ericka, Nicholas, and Mark. And then all the wonderful food!

BEEF!!!

Middle of March

2008-03-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

How is everything at home? Sam and I are doing well. I am no longer on spring break (sadly), and I cannot believe how fast it went by! It really didn't even feel like a spring break. I just did my usual stuff, plus more fun activities, minus the school work. It was nice though. I was able to go to the beach a couple of times, because the weather was really nice! But I also stayed busy babysitting, hanging out with Mary, and doing stuff for the Spouses Organization. Sam has been really busy because on Monday he took Mini 2. He got the results back yesterday and we were pleased! It definately went a lot more smoothly than the first mini did, so it was nice to see a little bit of a return for all the hard work he's been putting in. Fortunately for him this week is pretty light, so he has a little bit of a chance to rest up before the final 10 tests left in the semester. (yes, it's going to be CRAZY.)

Classes have started back up for me and look like they're going to be pretty busy. I'm taking Theology Survey II, History of Life, and a class on the gospel of John. They should be interesting though, I just have to stay dedicated to getting everything done at a reasonable time. This is the first session that I've had 3 classes going at the same time.

Kubuli is getting big and is crazy as ever. We're trying to break him of his hand/foot biting habit, because he's now gotten big enough to make it hurt! He doesn't seem to learn very quickly, so it could be a long process. :(

We're sad that we don't get to come home for easter! It'll be weird being away from our home church and family, but we'll make do. The reason for celebrating is still the same, and we're going to have some friends over here for dinner, so I'm sure it will be fun.

That's all for now. Hope things are good with you all, we miss you a ton! Come visit!

Katrina

Spring break!

2008-03-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

I can't believe we're already well into March! We were noticing on the calender the other day that you guys were changing your clocks again. We don't have daylight savings here but it seems like it was just a few weeks ago that you changed them back! It's crazy how the time just flies by down here.

Well, lately things have been slowing down for me and speeding up for Sam. He has his second mini on Monday, and had a lab practical on Friday. After the mini there's only 4 more weeks of class, then 3 weeks of solid tests. It's going to be crazy for him at the end of the semester here. I just finished my classes, and am on spring break! I start back up again with new classes on monday, but for this week, I am a free woman! It's really nice to actually have some extra time on my hands to just do whatever I want! So I've been spending the time daydreaming about where we're going to travel next semester! Third is supposed to be a pretty light semester, and so we're hoping to take a few weekinds to do some island hopping. So this week I'm goign to try to get a feel for where we want to go. We'll see what happens.

This weekend was really nice for us. On Saturday we went to the Grange Home for the Aged here in Portsmouth and just spent some time hanigng out with the people living there. Like any nursing home, the people are pretty lonely and just love to have visitors. It was kind of fun to go see their facility, it was back outside town a little bit and very open and airy. We were pretty impressed, considering the government gives them very little to live on every year. Hopefully we can keep going and figure out a way to help out.

On Sunday, Sam took a little break after church and I dragged him to the beach! For some reason he has decided that the beach is boring and hardly ever goes anymore, but I still love it so on Sunday I was able to convince him to go. Our snorkels are out of commission, so we just spent the time soaking in the perfect water, and then, like the mature adults that we are, we had a sand fight and then built an awesome sand castle and tried to protect it from the waves. It was a lot of fun, and I think he diceded that maybe it isn't as boring as he thought. :)

Anyways, that's about all for now. Pray for Sam as he prepares for this next mini, which he really wants to do well on. Everything is going to be pretty crazy for him for the next month and a half, so just pray that he'll stay focused and motivated and that all his hard work will pay off.

We love and miss you all lots, and look forward to hearing from you soon!

Love,
Katrina

Here's a recent picture of Kubuli. He's getting so big!

I was able to go to Roseau last week to do some stock-up shopping, which I haven't done for over 2 months! It was a really good trip, I just spent a lot of money. What you see is about $400 EC worth of groceries (plus some that didn't fit in the picture). Yes, things run a little expensive here.

Kubuli loved playing in all the grocery bags. I made bagels!! Mary and I tried all last semester but they never turned out quite right. I finally found a recipe last week that turned out really good! This week I'm going to try to make them again, this time making cinnamon-raisen instead of plain bagels. Aren't they awesome looking??

Random Tuesday Night thoughts

2008-02-26T14:36:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!

You're probably amazed that I'm putting up another post so soon after the other one, but my schoolwork and everything is pretty slow this week and I felt like writing you all again!

Right now I'm at home alone, Sam's in lab and won't be home till late. It rained really hard here the past couple hours, the temperature is just about perfect. It was beautiful. However, my calm evening is being interrupted by my crazy cat who is running all over the house, climbing up anything he can get his claws in and even jumping up to catch random spots on the wall. He's a little bit energetic tonight.

We had a nice weekend. Saturday was spent just relaxing from our last few busy weeks, and that evening we had a couple of friends over for dinner, that we hadn't had over before. It was really fun and refreshing to hang out with them. Sunday I was busy babysitting all day, but Sam was able to take it easy and get some studying done. Yesterday I had some nasty stomach flu thing, but today I'm doing a lot better. Hopefully Sam will be able to stay away from it.

The past couple weeks I've been on a committee that is putting together a welcome/orientation packet for all the future new students/spouses/faculty/staff that are coming to Dominica. It's quite the project, a book totaling about 42 pages so far, but will be a huge improvement to the information that we received, which was nothing. But its had me thinking about how much has changed since we first came down here. I was so exciting to move here, I kind of came into it blind, which actually helped me handle the adjustment. I saw it all as positive, new and exciting, but for the people who don't, it can be a really rough time. But as I look back at it, and cannot believe that we are already in 2nd semester, I know that I would not change this for the world. I absolutely love living here in Dominica. I wonder how it will affect the rest of our lives, when we come back to the states and then maybe leave again, many years down the road. I'm excited to see what changes we come up against in the next 10 months we have here, and what changes will happen after we leave Dominica. That's the part that is just a complete blank. Sam and I can honestly say that in January of next year, we have no idea where we will be or where the months after that will take us. We're excited to go new places, but also would enjoy coming back home. Who knows what will happen? Fortunately, there is Someone who knows. And He is the only constant figure through all the changes. What a great God we serve!!

Anyways, enough of my wandering thoughts for the evening. I better go make some dinner for Sam and James when they get out of lab tonight. Love and miss you all so much. Take a look at some more of the pictures I posted of Gramma and Lexie's trip. We had so much fun with them here!

Our landlady owns a bunch of orchards/banana fields around our house, and we get free reign! So the last night they were here, Lexie and I went and picked a huge basket of grapefruit and she squeezed probably 30 of them using our little citrus juicer and made us all fresh grapefruit juice! It tasted really good and I think she was quite proud of the work she put into it.

There's a tree in the Cabrits National Park that has these terrible spikes all the way up the trunk. That's Lexie's hand trying to give perspective to their size.

And maybe she got a little too close...

My beautiful little sister sitting on a bench at Cabrits :) Looking down on Fort Shirley from the East Cabrit. This is the only part of the fort that has been restored.
Gramma & I with Douglas Bay and Morne Aux Diables, on the northernmost part of the island behind us!
Lexie & I, with Portsmouth in the background.

Colorful fishing boats in Scotts Head, the very southernmost village on the island.

This is Scotts head, the very southernmost point on the Island. On the left side you can see the Atlantic Ocean. On the right is the Caribbean Sea. We were amazed at the contrast between them. It was incredibly windy coming off the Atlantic, the waves were huge, it smelled strongly of salt, and was a bit "cold." The Caribbean had no waves, barely any smell, and was nice and warm. It was a cool experience to stand in between them.

The village of Scotts Head, looking back from Scotts Head Point.

Looking up the West Coast towards the main part of Dominica.

This is Lexie in the Atlantic Ocean... ...Now she's in the Caribbean Sea!
My beautiful little sister.
Me standing in the Atlantic Ocean!
My beautiful Valentines Day bouquet from my amazing husband!

These last few pictures are taken by my Gramma! This sign was posted on the passenger side of the car we rented. Definitely an important reminder!!

Here I am driving (well, sitting in the drivers seat) of the awesome car we rented. I love driving here, it was quite the adventure, but I can now say that I have conquered it!! We all got to snorkel at Champagne Bay. It's called Champagne Bay because one of the volcanoes we're on vents in the area, creating tiny little bubbles that come up through the rocks. There is also a ton of sea life to see here. It was so much fun to swim through the bubbles in the crystal clear water and look down on hundreds of colorful fish, sea sponges, sea urchins and tons of things that we had never seen before. It was so amazing!

That's all for now! Hope all is well back home. Bye!!
~Katrina

The Craziness of February

2008-02-23T06:12:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!

Well, so much for my update every week. :( sorry about that. Better late than never though, right? Things have been pretty exciting for the Campbell family these past few weeks. We'll start at the beginning. Sam's birthday was on the third, and although he had to study for the upcoming mini, he was able to take a little bit of time off and we went out to a nice dinner. We found an awesome little place right on the beach where the visiting sailboats dock. The atmosphere was great, the food was awesome, and we really had a good time.

The view from our table at the restaurant, Big Papa's.

Our other big news is that there's a new addition to the family!! While we were at the restaurant for Sam's birthday, there was a little cat there that had 3 kittens, and they were so incredibly cute that we had to take one home. It was actually Sam's idea, but he had no difficulties convincing me. We took him home and tried not to get too attached for the first few days because we weren't sure if we could have pets in our apartment. But the landlady said it was fine, so he became ours! He had a rough first week. The first couple days we thought he was too little to eat solid food, so we had to force feed him these nasty milk-replacers that I made him, nearly starving him until we figured out that he likes chicken! Then after he started eating his weight in food every day we decided he had worms, so he had to go on medicine for that. He also had to take a couple baths because we wanted to make sure he was clean and bug free. And on top of all that, we thought he was female and called him a "Her" for the first week of his life with us!! He seems to have recovered from all the abuse though, and is now healthy and adjusting to life with us quite well. We named him Waitikubuli, which is the name the Carib's chose for Dominica before it was Dominica, but we call him Kubuli for short (which also just happens to be the name of the local beer here, but that's just coincidence....o:) ).

These pictures were taken his first couple days with us.

Bath time! He wasn't a big fan.

The hightlight of the month was definately the visit of Grandma Lou and my little sister Lexie!! They were here for about 10 days and we had an awesome time. They loved getting away from cold Colorado, spending some time at the beach, and just discovering Dominica. We loved having them here. Unfortunately, they were here the week before Sam's mini, so he wasn't able to do alot with us, but the three of us managed to get around and stay busy. For four of the days, we rented a car! Driving here is quite the experience, and although it took me a little while to adjust to driving on the wrong side of the road AND the wrong side of the car, I quickly picked it up and learned to honk every time I went around a corner, not let my heart jump into my throat every time I passed a roaring truck on the tiny twisty roads, and learned to maneuver on the tight crowded streets in town. I loved having the freedom to just go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. It was a sad day the day we returned it to the rental agency. It was wonderful seeing Gramma and Lexie though, and it was really hard to see them go. They did say they would recomend that other people come out and see it, so....keep it coming!!

Gramma at Emerald Pool

Gramma and Lexie at Trafalgar Falls.

This is one of the two falls at Trafalgar Falls, which is now one of my favorite places in Dominica. They are sooo beautiful.

Indian River, one of the places Pirates of the Caribbean II was filmed.

Well, our last piece of news is that Sam had his first Mini of the semester. He said it was harder than any other mini he has ever taken, and he didn't do as well as he had hoped for. It still turned out ok, but he wasn't as happy was he wanted to be. We've been told that 2nd semester is one of the hardest, and we're starting to believe it. Just the amount of work that he is expected to do is incredible. I definately don't envy him.

That about wraps up our news. Hope everything is going well with everyone back home. We miss you all lots, and hope that more of you come to visit us! Love you all!

Love,
Katrina

Kubuli likes the computer, unfortunately.

Sea Urchins and Lobster...

2008-01-28T17:05:00.001-08:00

Hello again!

I told you I'd be better at updating our blog, and so far it's going well! This has been a good week as Sam and I get settled back into our routine. Classes are going fine for Sam, his hardest class right now is Neuro, which just tonight he says he has finally been able to get his head around and get all the memorization, etc. done. So he's doing well. My classes are going fine, I got my first speech finished for speech class. I really do hate public speaking, but fortunately I only have 2 more speeches to give before I'm done!

I had an exciting find this weekend... I just happened to run into a guy carrying a big bucket of random kinds of fish, and also.....lobster! I was so excited! I didn't get any that day because he'd already sold it, but he told me that he fishes everyday and gets lobster most days, so all I have to do is call him! I'm really excited. It's very frusterating to me that we live in the middle of the ocean, and yet can't get any seafood except for fish. So this is pretty exciting!

This weekend we were able to just relax, study, go to church, and go sailing! We joined the sailing club this year because we can use the boats whenever we want, without having to pay by the hour. So we went with Mary and James and another friend and took the boats to Secret Beach (in the other sailing pictures). It was really nice and fun until I decided to take an exploratory swim around the other side of the cove. The water was really clear (as usual) but I thought it was deep, when I saw the bottom turn dark, which means I was swimming above rocks, which is where sea urchins live. So I decided to turn around, but in the process let my feet sink too low and sure enough, I found a sea urchin!! For those of you who don't know (see the picture below), these are long spiny creatures that leave their spines in you when you disturb them. They hurt like heck, but are not poisoness. I was lucky to only barely touch it, so I only got 5 or 6 spines in my toe, whereas some people get hundreds of them. Sam was able to get one of the spines out, but the other ones all broke off in my toe. So now my job is to soak it in vinegar as much as I can, and limp around until they work their way out or simply dissolve. It was not much fun, I would advise doing your best to stay away from sea urchins!

That's about it for us! We're getting really excited for Gramma Lou and Lexie coming to visit in a few weeks! We finally got the video taken of our new apartment, so check out the link for that if you're interested. Hope everything is good at home, we miss you lots!

Love, Katrina

This guy is NOT my friend, although they are pretty sweet looking!

This is a really cool moth we found one night.

Someone's gorgeous sailboat. I took this from our front porch.

This was a really creepy spider we found on our wall one night... Sam screamed like a girl! :)

This is the Sam's study room. Notice the huge white board on the far wall. He loves it, and it works out well because he can study at home a lot more often now.

This is our back porch

The bedroom

Our dining room/study/TV room

My kitchen!

First post of 2008

2008-01-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!

I know it's pretty pitiful that it's already the 20th of January and I'm just now posting my first post of the year, but I have decided to be better at updating this thing every week, so it is going to improve...don't give up on me!

Well, after an awesome but short visit home for Christmas, we are back in Dominica. We had a great time catching up with our families and everyone else back home, and were very sad to leave. But once we actually landed in Dominica, we remembered how much we really do loving down here and then it was ok to be back, even though we stillr eally miss our families. I for one do not miss the cold weather, but Sam definately does. Actually, it has been really nice weather down here. Today is a very comfortable 80 degrees, and we are just laughing at the 1st semster students who think it's hot.

This semester we are living in the same building as before, but we were able to move upstairs to a two-bedroom apartment in anticipation of the guests we have coming soon. It's nice having a little extra room, but we have discovered that it's a lot harder to make feel homey, especially on our budget. All-in-all though, we really like it and have settled nicely. Our friends Mary and James moved closer to us too, so that makes life a lot easier.

Yesterday we went into Portsmouth for the start of Carnival season here in Dominica. We're not exactly sure yet of the origin of this holiday, but it is a prelenten celebration with parades and music and tons of colorful costumes. The parade we went to lasted about 3 hours and went through Portsmouth, and the reason it took so long is because it was a "jump up." Basically, it started as a parade with dancers and musicians and people in costume, but the idea is that the hundreds of onlookers (who are encouraged by plenty of available Kubuli) join in whenever they want. So by the end of the day, there were just hundreds of people dancing in the street following the very slowly moving trucks with the band on it. It was quite an impressive sight, definately something Sam and I have never seen before. I took tons of pictures, and will begin the hunt to find a reliable Dominican photo developer, because I took them all with film because we've been having battery difficulties with our awesome digital camera. So once those come I'll definately put it up. The whole day was pretty amazing. Dominicans will take any excuse to party, and they certainly do it well. This was quite the production.

Other than that, we are just settling back into our routine here. Sam's already working on a stack of lecture notes about 6 inches tall and excited to keep moving forward, even though the amount of work between now and april is a little daunting. Last semester turned out well for him, so we're excited to keep moving forward. Classes are going well for me as well, although I have a speech class this year that I am not looking forward to. This is my last semester with any gen-eds, from here on out I can focus completely on my religion major, which is exciting.

Hope all is well back home, we really miss you all a lot. Stay warm!! :D

Katrina

Christmas Update

2007-12-25T17:38:00.000-08:00

Well, Sorry we haven't posted very often over the last few months... I've been crazy busy with school, and Trina... well... she just hasn't updated the blog. anyway, we are home in Colorado, and Christmas has been awesome. We got a new camera from Santa, so we should have plenty of new pictures, and I finally got around to putting our cabrits movie up on youtube, so check the video links for the new movie. That's all for now - first semester went off without a hitch, and I'm looking forward to getting back and learning more. Merry Christmas to everyone, and a happy new year.

-Sam

Finally...an update

2007-11-23T15:04:00.000-08:00

One Saturday, Sam was able to take the day off so we bought a Cutlass and went to Cabrits. It was really nice to spend a day together.

This is Mooch, the dog who has adopted us. She'll eat everything but lentil stew.

Sam had to buy a machete, or cutlass as they call them here, because pretty much every man has one, and uses it to do every project you can imagine. Here we tried to get some coconut milk, but they weren't ripe yet. :(

The beautiful Caribbean Sea.

A big hermit crab

Me, the cutlass, and a coconut

Hey Everyone!!

I cannot believe it's already the end of November! The time has just flown by, as is obvious since the last time we wrote on here was the beginning of October! Things have been going really well for us here, and we just love living here!! Sam's been keeping busy with school, but so far it's paying off. He only has 3 weeks left until the final test for the semester, but between now and then he has a bunch of tests. So he will continue to be very busy, and is definitely ready for the break! I have been keeping busy myself. My classes are going well, although a little bit busier in this half of the semester than they were at the beginning. My theology class is really interesting, giving me a lot to think about.

In the midst of school and the everyday stuff, we have been able to get out and enjoy the island and relax a little. We've been able to go sailing several more times, mostly during the week because I babysit most weekends. One saturday Sam took off after his last mini, and we took a transport to the capital and just spent the day exploring. It was fun to just wander around the streets and see what was there. We found a place called "The Spice Man" who sells a bunch of different spices, as well as tons of flavored rums that he makes. He's a really neat guy who will give you samples constantly if you wanted them. We ended up buying 2 different rums, but will definitely be back. His shop is a really cool environment. We payed a little extra to eat at a nice restaurant, where we had a creole dish made with fried octopus, with okra on the side. It was very different, but very good. Although the capital isn't exactly glamorous, it has it's own character that is really starting to grow on me.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Mary and i put together a trip with a bunch of the other spouses to go through the Carib Territory and take a couple of short hikes to some waterfalls. There's a bus driver that is affiliated with the school who we usually hire to take us on trips, his name is Theo. He took us on this trip, and is a wonderful guide. He knows Dominica inside out and there were several times he would stop on the road, jump out and run into the bushes, and then come back with some random branch or fruit. He brought us bay leaves, oranges, showed us a cocoa pod, and even got one of the girls an herb that he said would cure her asthma. He's a really sweet guy, and is really careful to protect us spouses whenever he takes us places. We got to see some more of the island and get to know the other spouses more, so it was a really cool trip.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and although they don't celebrate it here and so Sam still had class, we were able to have a nice celebration. Mary and I braved the Dominica "grocery stores" and found enough stuff to make a relatively American Thanksgiving, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie. It was a lot of work, but we had fun. It was Sam and I, Mary and James, and our friends Marc and Ericka and their son Nicholas, and then another couple joined us for desert. It was really fun, but we still missed family. But for our first holiday out of the country, it was really fun. That's about it for us! We are so excited to come home for Christmas!! T-minus 3 weeks...we're getting close. We cannot believe how fast the time has flown by here, and are very ready to see family, eat beef, go to a real grocery store and be cold!! Love you and miss you all!!

Katrina

Another week...

2007-10-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

well folks, i meant to update this on monday and now here it is Saturday and I'm finally doing it! Better late than never, I suppose. This was kind of a crazy week.

Last weekend it RAINED. and when I say rained, I mean, I never knew that much water could come out of the sky for that long! It wasn't a tropical storm or anything, but we certainly got wet. Which shouldn't be a problem, except that Dominica's water supply system, whatever that may be, somehow gets overwhelmed when we get a lot of rain. We've noticed before that the water pressure gets really low and you sometimes can't shower for a couple of days but can still do things like wash dishes and flush the toilet. But we got so much rain this weekend that we lost our water completely. For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of a procrastinator, and although I'd been told that you should always have 4-5 gallons of water around to drink, I hadn't exactly gotten around to it. And when the water runs out like that, of course none of the stores have any left to sell. But we did ok in the drinking department, because it was only out for the night and part of the day. The problem was, this was the night my body decided to have diarrhea issues, and we couldn't flush the toilet! Yeah, it was pretty bad. I felt like a true Dominican as I made trips back and forth to the little river by our house carrying every bucket i could of muddy rain water up to the house so that i could flush the toilet. All I need to do is learn how to balance one on my head while carrying two others in each hand, and then i'll fit right in! That was a lesson learned. STOCK UP ON WATER!!!

On Monday, my friend Mary and I ventured out to the other side of the bay to a national park with a bunch of hiking trails and old fort ruins. We loved the chance to get outside, hike around and explore our island a bit. The fort was used by the british to defend the ships in the port against enemy attackers. In the eighties they restored the main part of the Fort which you can see in the pictures. But if you take a variety of hiking trails through the forest, you find the rest of the fort that is overgrown now. They are absolutely beautiful. We definatley are planning on returning again, because the view from the top of the Cabrits (the hills surrounding the fort) are supposed to be amazing. The nice thing is that the area is only about 3 miles from here, so it's easy to walk to and free to get in. Like I said, it was wonderful to get out and explore and do some hiking.

The rest of the week Sam was focused on studying. He had his first anatomy lab practical on friday afternoon which he is "cautiously optimistic" about the results. He said he thought it went pretty well, but we won't find out what the actual results are until next monday. The major test is this coming monday, his first "mini" over all the lectures they've covered so far. Keep him in prayer for that--he's put in a lot of study hours that should pay off well. We're excited to see how he's doing so far.

We've unofficially added another member to our family--her name is Mooch. She appeared on our doorstep last week sometime, and because you can see every single bone in her body, and could tell that she has puppies somewhere, I of course had to feed her. She's a very friendly dog and is actually really polite about getting food. She will just randomly show up, I'll feed her and she'll sleep here for a couple hours and then go back to wherever her babies are. We aren't allowed to have pets in our apartment, so she just stays on our porch. It's kind of fun having her...we'll see what happens when she shows up with 8 little puppies, all wanting food!! Sam already swears we can't keep any, but we'll have to see. :D She left today before I could take her picture, but she'll be back and I'll get one then and post it for you all to see.

well, that's about it for now. I'm finishing up my last couple weeks of these classes, almost ready to start the next two. I've also been babysitting quite a bit. Last Saturday I got to take 4 of the kids i babysit with one of the dads and mary and go visit a dominican fruit farm! It was on a hill in the rainforest, but was really cool. Next time I'll bring a camera.

We really miss you all back home. Hope everything is going well, hope to hear from you soon!

Love, Katrina

Update 9-29

2007-09-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, one month down. I am hitting the books trying to get ready for my first round of tests... lab practical on Friday and our first marathon 5-hour-every-subject-covered exam (ironically called a "mini" exam because it is not a final) on Monday. The amount of information so far is pretty crazy, but I'm loving it, and so the long hours are ok. The island is still awesome -Trina and I are finally figuring out the places to buy stuff, and last night we went to an independence day celebration for the island... which is a little weird because their independence day is in november. Oh well, these people don't need much of an excuse to party - they all get together at the park and put up grandstands and a stage and random people sing and play music and everyone dances. There is plenty of beer and grilled plantains stuffed with salt cod (sounds weird, I know, but it is actually pretty good). that's about all that's new - we're hitting our stride with school and life on the island, and life is good. hopefully we'll get pictures posted for you guys soon, but since the digital camera broke, all we have is Trina's film camera, and we have no idea where to develop film here, much less get the pictures scanned to post online. anyway, if we find out, we'll get them posted, if not, there may not be new pictures until December. Hope is all well back home in the States.
-Sam

Settling In...

2007-09-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!!

We hope this new post finds everyone back home doing well. We are starting to settle into a routine here, which is good. Sam is almost done with his second week of school at Ross and as he says, is maintaining his 4.0! (which is pretty easy to do when you haven't had any tests :) ). The White Coat Ceremony was last friday and it went really well. The Prime Minister of Dominica was there and welcomed the students. This class is made up of almost 400 students, so the place was packed. Us spouses got pushed to the very back row and were not able to see anything, but it was still pretty cool to be there. Even though we ironed the patch on his coat on the wrong side, Sam looked great in his white coat. Pictures are below.

Since Sam is busy for most of the day, I have been having to entertain myself. Fortunately, we've made friends with another couple that's been married for about the same time as we have, and so I hang out with Mary (the wife) while Sam and James are in school. We've been spending lots of time "shopping," which mainly consists of long walks to the random small grocery stores and buying a few more food things and random pots and pans to make our latest cooking experiment. We made cookies the other day without any measuring cups or a cookie sheet, and they actually turned out really good. Everyone was excited to have them and we've already gotten a bunch of requests for more. Yesterday was the first meeting for the spouses club here on campus, and it looks like that's going to be another fun thing to do here. I'm anxious to start hiking and seeing the other attractions on the island.

All the people here have been so nice and welcoming. We're really settling in comfortably. We have dinner with James and Mary almost every night, Mary and I are taking yoga classes on the beach twice a week, and we've also joined a christian group on campus. Today, we're signing up for other various organizations such as AMSA (american medical student association) and the sailing club!! Life is good here. We really miss everyone at home, and really wish you could all come out here to see this incredible place!!

More updates to come as we head out for more adventures! We love you all and miss you TONS!!

School Again...

2007-09-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

Well, this past week amidst orientation Trina and I did some sea kayaking and snorkeling. Trina flipped her kayak twice and lost her shorts at the bottom of the sea. She says it's sad, but I still maintain that it is in fact hilarious. we went to a secret beach only accessible from the ocean, only it wasn't very secret and there were a zillion people there. The first day of classes came and went today, and there's nothing much to report on that front... suffice it to say I'm not making people refer to me as "Doctor" just yet. Oh, and trina broke the camera, so there's no new pictures. we are probably going to go to rousseau and pick one up next week. I'm way excited to be starting up with school, so the reality of how much I have to learn hasn't quite set in yet - I'm just loving life right now. I'll post again on saturday and let you all know how white coat and everything goes.

2007-08-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

We have officially survived in Dominica for one whole week!!

All in all, things are going very well, we are really liking the island, the people and everything else we've discovered so far.

Now that we are more settled into our apartment, the past couple of days we have spent exploring different parts of the island. The school has sponsored a variety of tours for the 1st semester students, so that has really helped us get around (for free!!!) and meet some of Sam's classmates. Let's see....

On Friday we took a bus down to the capitol city of Roseau. It is about an hour's drive over curvy narrow roads, but the views were magnificent. All along the coast are scattered little villages of brightly painted houses that are tucked into the lush hills overlooking the coast. Although we don't have a lot of white sand here, the water is still crystal clear and is always beautiful. the capital itself is very unique. A third of the islands population lives here, and most of the streets and buildings look like they haven't seen a bit of change since they were first built. Walking in them feels like you've stepped back in time for several decades. While there we found a Dominica-version of Walmart that had a little of everything for very decent prices. It was reassuring. The one thing we have had difficulty securing so far is meat. We have the basic staples, but so far any kind of meat is few and far between. Next Saturday we are planning on going to the open market in Portsmouth, so hopefully we'll have better luck there.

On Friday night the school sponsored a bonfire at the beach. It started at 7 pm (which is already dark here), and so we showed up at about 7:45, waited around at least another half hour, and then they finally started burning something. I wish we had brought the camera, because boy do they know how to have a bonfire. They started by stacking logs into a square until it was about 15 feet high, with the middle open, and then they laid palms from the palm trees over the stacked wood, making the whole structure probably 20 feet tall. Then they just lit it and left! they definitely don't have to worry about things burning there that aren't supposed to be burning, but still it was quite the experience. Continuing on the whole fire theme...the best way to dispose of trash here is to burn it, because they don't have a lot of land to spare for a landfill. So walking through town you can almost always catch the smell of burning trash, but it is actually a really good smell. The weird thing is that you'll also see just random columns of smoke coming from the mountains, as people get rid of trash, but I always have to do a double take whenever i see it, and try not to get excited. :)

On Saturday we went with the group up to a place called Syndicate Falls, which you can see in some of the pictures. It was at the end of a beautiful little hike through the rain forest, which was really nice.

Yesterday, (Sunday) we took a tour along the east coast of the island, which winds through Carib territory. The Caribs in Dominica are the only original people group that was here when Christopher Columbus landed. They still face a lot of economic hardships, but they weave beautiful baskets. They also make Casava bread, which is made from the root of a casava plant. It was very good. While we were there we also got to see a native dance performed. After going through the Carib territory, we went into Morne Trois National Park and walked to the Emerald Pool. This was a beautiful pond that was VERY cold. But we tried to enjoy it while we were there, because it is probably the only place on this whole island where you can feel cold.

So now we are back home and ready to tackle orientation this week. Sam's classes will start on Monday, but this week is just orientation, registration, etc. It was been really nice having some time to just relax and explore here, we're definitely glad we came down early. Things will be a little different once he starts classes, but we're excited for him to get started.

We hope everything is going well back at home. We are definitely starting to miss everyone, so keep us updated on everything going on in your lives. We will keep posting pictures and stuff when we do something interesting! That is, as long as our camera holds out (I discovered that perhaps taking the camera to the beach is probably not the best idea, after our one outing almost killed it. So pray that our camera hangs in there for awhile longer. lol). Anyways, we love you all and pray that everything is going well for you--bye for now!!

Love, Katrina

We have arrived!

2007-08-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

We made it!!! It is now Tuesday night, we have been in Dominica since Sunday afternoon, and are just now enjoying having a place to call home that has an internet connection. The flight to Dominica went well, although landing here is definately an adventure. The runway is very small, and the plane has to circle down over the mountains and the ocean, come down over a mountain, hit the runway and stop before it lands in the ocean (literally). The airport here is one decent sized room with 3 desks in it, one where the Ross University representative sits to welcome you, one for the customs desks, one for the inspection and then the door leading out to a little parking area where taxis and buses await your arrival. We have posted pictures taken on the ride in. Everyone drives on the left side of the road with the driver sitting on the right side of the bus, so that takes some getting used to, but from what we've seen so far, the left side is more of a technicality. On the curvy, narrow road coming in we generally just drove in the middle until another car comes racing around the corner, in which case both drivers hit the brakes just enough to pull off to the left side and bit and allow the other to pass with maybe 5 inches to spare. It is quite the experience.

The first thing you notice here is the humidity. As soon as we stepped out of the plane it was like stepping into a "wet blanket" as Sam describes it. We are hoping that we adjust to that well, right now the most valuable thing we own is the fan we paid about US $30 for. The scenery here is amazing. It is definately a thick, steep jungle. The banana trees took the largest beating from Hurricane Dean, so hopefully that doesn't hurt the locals too much. You can see pictures of them all blown over. Everything else appears to have stood up well despite the hurricane. The people are prepared for them. A lot of the windows across campus still have boards over them, and the beach is strewn with what we imagine to be excess debris, but those are the only obvious signs that we can see of a hurricane passing through. Another thing that I love about the island is that all the buildings are painted in bright yellow, green, purple and pink. They look absolutely wonderful.

We were able to find a good apartment on the second day we were here. The school brought all us new arrivals on a tour of the available apartments, and it was obvious that everyone was going to be fighting for the cheap ones, so we grabbed what we could in a hurry, and lucked out. Although it isn't big it has everything we need: screens and burgler bars on the windows, kitchen, internet, bathroom...the basics. We will try to get pictures up soon. It is very nice and I think we'll really like it. The best part about it is the view. From the front porch we can see down the mountain over part of the "town" and out onto the ocean. Absolutely stunning (Katrina's favorite part). And in the back, there is a nice, healthy avocado tree (Sam's favorite part).

The food here has been good so far, although we haven't found any genuine creole food, which is supposed to be the dominant style. Everything right around campus is geared towards the students, so there is quite a bit of variety. So far we've found lots of chinese, some indian, some pizza and a bunch of "shacks" as they're called that supply basic american food for the students all day long. The best thing we've found so far is the fruit. It's everywhere, and it's amazing! So far we've tried Bananas, mangoes, pineapple, starfruit, guava (not our favorite), passion fruit, avocados (which technically are a fruit, i think), canips, and tomorrow we're going to try bread fruit. all of it is abundant, and very cheap, so we are likely to eat a TON of it.

Although it is an adjustment, I think we are really going to like it here. Sam is really excited to be a medical student, and we love what we have seen so far of the island. I have started working on my class work (and by working I mean, I've logged on, looked at everything i have to do and then started writing this) which started on Monday, and it seems like that should go pretty well too. We'll try to keep you all updated as we continue to explore the island. We have the rest of this week to run around on our own, then next week Sam starts his orientation stuff, and classes will start for him next Monday. It's so exciting!! Thank you all for your prayers as we carry out our new life here...We love and miss you all and are thinking about you! Please comment and send us emails and stuff, so we can keep posted on everything back at home. Bye for now!

Katrina

Still Here...

2007-08-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well, Hurricane Dean is still trying to drown our little island, so we are going to go exploring in Puerto Rico today! I talked to the guy at american airlines and he said (insert Desi Arnez accent here) "Ha! amigo... you are not going anywhere today." We got on a flight tomorrow at 11:00, so hopefully that will go through and we can carry on with our plans. For now, Puerto Rico!!

Hello Puerto Rico

2007-08-16T19:16:00.001-07:00

Well, We made it into San Juan without a hitch. We missed the storm headed for texas, and all our bags and stuff made it in. The hotel network won't let us get onto skype, so if you are waiting for us to get on, well, don't bother at this point. Everything is good here, but we're not sure what is going to happen tomorrow. Ross closed campus and opened its hurricane shelter today, so that doesn't sound good... but AA says our flight is still on, so we have no idea what's actually going to happen tomorrow. If we do fly tomorrow, we'll pretty much go straight to a hurricane shelter to wait out the storm. It will make the apartment buying process easier... if it still stands, then bingo - home. Anyway, I'll try to post again before we leave to keep everyone updated. Miss you all lots! Adios!

Leaving!

2007-08-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

Well, The day has come. We are headed out to Denver today, and our flight leaves tomorrow. Trina and I are WAY excited - There's just one problem... There is a "tropical storm" that is headed straight for Dominica that is supposed to be a category 2 hurricane by the time it reaches the island chain. we are supposed to land three hours or so before the hurricane reaches the islands, but we may be spending some extra time in an "extended layover" in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Good times.

Our first Blog

2007-07-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are - we just finished arguing over whether or not we should start the blog tonight... let the record show that I won (Sam). So we are currently T-minus one month from leaving Colorado behind and starting a whole new adventure in life together. Hopefully this thing will help us to keep everyone up to date on our lives and vice-versa.