Moving to the West Indies

There's a certain amount of egocentrism associated with blogging about one's own daily life. Am I so vain as to believe complete strangers will be interested in reading what will be posted here? I should hope not. Rather, the reason I decided to start this blog is more personal than public. As I have in the past when exciting events are happening in my life, I've decided to keep a journal that I will be able to look back on years down the road to recall these times. Since blogging is a convenient way to store journal records and share them with friends and family that are interested, I thought I'd give it a try.

Yesterday, Jessee and I decided to move to the tropical island of South Caicos in the British West Indies. We had been planning to live abroad since finishing graduate school, but this option only recently surfaced on our radar. In fact, it all happened quite suddenly. I was actually out of town and out of communication for the entire duration of the process (I was kayaking in the San Juan Islands here in Washington State with my job). Jessee found the Caicos job, applied, interviewed three times, and was offered a position all before I even knew about it! Fortunately, she thought it prudent to stall the process long enough for me to return and talk it over before accepting the position. Start to finish, I only had a few days to think it over and decide to go. Jessee only had a few days more than that.

Not only did it come about fast, we have to leave much sooner than we were originally planning. Jessee will leave in less than 3 weeks! I'll be sticking around a bit longer for work, but should be arriving in Caicos in the first week of July. This means we need to move our things into storage, sell all our furniture, find somebody to take over our lease, and pack for (at least) the next year.

Jessee's job is with the School for Field Studies (SFS). I still don't know much about the program, only that it is a study abroad program for undergraduate students. The students come from all different universities to conduct research and study in one of SFS's five locations: Mexico, Costa Rica, Kenya, Australia, and Turks and Caicos. Jessee's position is the Student Affiars Administrator for the Turks and Caicos field station. She'll be responsible for the students' residence and building the community. To tell you the truth, I don't know many of the details on that either.

What I can say is that it's a pretty good deal for us. The job provides us both with room and board, and her with a salary. I'm sure the residence is small, but we do get our own bathroom. I wasn't expecting that I'd be getting my meals provided too, since I'm not actually the one being employed, so that was welcome news. Not to mention getting to live in an "island paradise" completely free! On top of that, we'll have access the program's SCUBA equipment and boats. I'm not sure how that will work yet, but they told her as long as I get dive insurance I'll be able to use it. They're going get her dive certified. I already have a diver certification (though I should probably do a refresher). I imagine (and hope) diving will be my biggest past time while we're living there - honestly, there's not much else to do.

South Caicos is only about 21 sq. KM, one of the smaller islands in the Turks and Caicos chain, and has a population of about 1500. It's located southeast of the Bahamas, east of Cuba, and north of Hispaniola. It's a Crown Colony - meaning the govenor is appointed by the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II - the head of government, however, is the Premier, who I believe is elected by the citizens. From what I know so far, the climate is not as humid as I would have expected - a huge relief. It's still hot - high 80s and 90s - but hopefully not so sticky. There's also supposed to be consistent breeze from the Trade Winds. As you would imagine is the case on small dry islands, fresh water is very scarce - we've been told we'll only be allowed one shower per week (the toilets even use salt water). Considering how much sunblock I'll need to be using, I'm afraid I'll be a bit grimy. I'll just need to get in the Ocean each day... which I suppose will leave me a bit salty.

Considering that Jessee's job will provide me food, shelter, and entertainment, I'm not much concerned that I won't have a job. Besides, I've been saving money for travel. If a job opportunity comes along, I may work, but I'm not too worried about it at this point. I'll have plenty of time to work on my PhD applications, and likely continue my research.