Happy New Year to all! After a wonderful trip back to New York for the Christmas holiday I returned to Grenada in time for Old Year's Night. Prior to leaving for the states, I met a nice lady (and a couple government officials) in a rum shop in St. George's, two of whom amazingly live in St. Patrick's fairly close to my home. After drinking quite a bit of 'flanka', this lady, Ruby, told me that I must spend the new year at her house. I left saying I would keep in touch, super excited at the possibility of participating in a secret, traditional Grenadian celebration for the new year in the heart of the rainforest. Unfortunately, when I returned, I could not get in contact with Ruby quickly enough :( In an effort to find a New Year's celebration in my area, I spoke to several friends who all recommended going to the capital or Grand Anse (the southern touristy/ex-pat section of the country) for any festivities as many people in the country spend the time at church or home during that night. Or I could spend $110 for admission to the Rex Hotel that requires formal dress (not the the PC packing list).
So, after spending an embarrassing amount of hours making a homemade New Year hat with random scraps of things in my home, I attended a celebration at the Prickly Bay Marina in Lance Aux Epines near Grand Anse with some other PCVs and friends. I recklessly tossed aside my grandma tendencies to have fun and stay up PAST midnight! And fun it was, with friends, live and DJ music, dancing (it was good to dance with people more on my level than with Grenadian ladies who dislocate their hips and 'wine' them around at rapid-fire speed), accidental glass-breaking, fireworks, and knitting! Yes, I couldn't suppress the grandma alter-ego for too long and out came the knitting needles. Knitting while sleep deprived and full of beer proved to be quite ineffective, but it was still my kind of party!
The night ended predictably with a marriage proposal from an elderly Rastaman in attendance who was impressed with my knitting techinique. It's good to be back.
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys travelling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Grenada? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Grenada in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours faithfully
Emilio Fernandez