A Taste of The Expat Life

Seemingly overnight, we are living the life of expats abroad.  We've been in Grenada now maybe 2 weeks (I say "maybe" because I think for about 5 days I said we'd been here about 8 days; I'd have to look at the logbook to actually tell you how long we've been here).  There is a big enough cruiser community, that it didn't take long to find the grocery and fun events like happy hours and kid-friendly movie nights hosted by restaurants.  That was quite nice and comfortable, but it wasn't much different from the typical cruiser life we'd been living.

But in the last week, we've unexpectedly kicked the expat life into high gear, thanks to the kids. 

First, Hannah had a medical issue that arose on a Saturday night.  Do kids' bodies have some intuitive sense of the most INconvenient time to get sick?!?  She woke up in the middle of the night with symptoms of a urinary tract infection.  So Sunday morning we got on the VHF to ask for recommendations for where to take her.  Quickly we got information about the local public hospital, the local private hospital and a doctor who will see you off hours.  I dinghied over to the nearby restaurant to use their wifi and to make inquiries by Skype and soon we had an appointment to see Dr. Radix just down the road from the anchorage.  I went back to the boat, grabbed the kids and Danny, and then dinghied back to the restaurant so we could walk to catch the bus to Dr. Radix's office.  About 15 minutes later, we were at Dr. Radix's office and had a positive diagnosis of UTI (the off hours appt was just less than USD$100).  Dr. Radix then gave us a ride to the pharmacy just down the road where we got 2 prescriptions for USD$10.  The pharmacy is just down the road from the tourist beach, so we made a day of it by heading to lunch and a wonderful afternoon at the beach.

Our real expat cred, however, started yesterday.  We've met a few young families on boats here and last week discovered that there is a half-day Montessori preschool very close to one of the anchorages.  The school takes children 3-7, and two young girls who live on boats attend.  So yesterday, Danny, Hannah, Rye and I all jumped aboard Mr. Lyons' bright red bus (it's a mini-van type bus) at the marina to ride to the school and let the kids try a day at school.  We rode the bus for maybe 10 minutes through the hilly, bougenvilla-lined roads behind the marina until we arrived at Miss Patty's school.

  

The two little cruiser girls who attend are South African and English, and (in Danny's words) the ride in to Miss Patty's school was like a scene from Mary Poppins, as the girls told us about the school and sang various nursery rhymes with their lilting accents.  "Miss Celia is one of our teachers and she is VERY nice and friendly!!"  The kids seemed to have had a good day, so Danny and I rode in again today to make sure they were comfortable having Hannah in the school.  She had a good day yesterday but they want to wait a week before making a final decision.

We got the kids ready for school and made their lunches while the cruisers VHF net was on this morning.  And, since, paradise is never truly paradise, the last thing we did before jumping in the dingy was to cover the kids with mosquito repellent, as Grenada, like most of the tropics, has quite a bit of Dengue. 

So there we were this morning, the kids covered in DEET, riding in a small red minivan with no seatbelts (much less car seats!), through the neighborhoods of Grenada to send them to Miss Patty's school.  And, oh, we haven't even met Miss Patty yet as she is out of town.  Ah well, we are definitely NOT in Kansas (or Seattle, as it were) any more. 

The important thing is that the kids are both thrilled to be going to school.  And Danny and I are thrilled that we might have a teensy bit of down time from being parents.