Oriana’s Blog
Hello, hello! It’s Oriana and it’s hard to believe that
today was our last day in St. Kitts. Just
a friendly reminder to all the eager parents that we are arriving at DULLES
airport on Thursday June 20 at 11:45pm. Having arrived later than the rest
of the group I feel like my trip has only just begun and I already find myself
getting ready to go home. Our last day consisted of a tour of St. Kitts’ sister
island, Nevis and a bonfire dinner at our beloved Spice Mill restaurant. We had
an early start to the day, as always, and met our tour guide at the hotel. We
were pleasantly surprised when a van pulled up with Bullis’ motto written on
the back; “Caring, Challenging, Community” along with “Bullis School” written
on the side. Thenford Gray was our guide and he was joined by a man he referred
to as his “colleague”; a local pastor from Nevis. We boarded our “Bullis van”
and made our way to the ferry stop. After a bit of a wait at the stop, during
which we played Charades, we boarded the ferry and began our journey towards
Nevis. The ferry ride was pretty smooth, with only a few small waves rocking
the boat. After about a half hour we arrived at the Nevis ferry stop and
unloaded. Dodging and politely rejecting the many offers for taxis we made our way
to our first sightseeing stop. As it turns out Nevis has quite a strong
connection and presence in American history as Nevis was the island that the
Founding Father Alexander Hamilton was born on (Dr. Romeyn, I thought of you
when we visited his birthplace).
Our first stop was the Alexander Hamilton museum where we
were able to read up on Hamilton’s childhood in the Caribbean and the history
of Nevis. As was apparent from the museum one of the reason’s for Hamilton’s
success was having spent his childhood in the Caribbean. After leaving the
museum we walked through the town, which was called Charlestown, and were able
to appreciate the colonial architecture and colorful spirits of the town.
We passed by the location where the Nevis slave market had
been and then we stopped off at the Nevis sports museum. As was apparent from
Thenford Gray’s enthusiasm, sports, especially cricket, are a large part of
life on the island. Thenford Gray summed it up pretty well when he said,
“Cricket is next to religion here.” He was very proud of Nevis and St. Kitts’s
presence in the West Indies sports league and he was extremely knowledgeable of
all things cricket. At the museum a TV had been set up where they were
broadcasting the cricket game between South Africa and England(unfortunately,
England was winning) and Thenford took the time to give us a quick lesson on
the rules of cricket.
After the sports museum we went to visit the local Jewish
cemetery and got some background information of the Jewish community on Nevis. After
visiting the Jewish cemetery we boarded our van and made our way to the baths.
These baths are hot water springs where, during colonial times, people would
come to heal themselves. Some of the baths are still in use today as we found
out when we went to look at one of the baths and came across a young lady who
was in a state of undress as she was about to enjoy the bath and tested out the
water ourselves (only with our fingers, no full body bath). We were all
surprised at the very high temperature of the water and all came to the
unanimous agreement that it was “hotter than a hot-tub.”
After our stops at the bath we made our way up the mountain
to visit the old sugar-cane plantation turned hotel “Montpelier.” It was a
beautiful hotel, with lots of light and wonderful decorations (i.e. the pool
was painted pink on the outside much to my delight!). It has also had the royal
stamp of approval; William and Harry chose to stay at Montpelier when they came
to visit the island. After Montpelier we made our way to our lunch stop.
After a very enjoyable lunch stop we went to visit another
plantation turned hotel; The Golden Rock. It had a very unique look to it; and
it seemed to have an Asian influence. Both hotels were very open and there was
lots of fresh air and natural light. After visiting Golden Rock we boarded our
van again and returned to the ferry stop. We returned to St. Kitts, this time
staying in the van and sleeping, instead of outside on deck. Once we returned
to St. Kitts we bid Thenford farewell and got ready for our dinner.
As this was our last night together everyone got dressed up
and we were a pretty good-looking group of youngsters. We had dinner at Spice
Mill at which time the one end of the table started a game, which turned into a
long, intimate exchange of compliments. Each person went around the group and
talked about something new they had learned about everyone else in the group.
The game began in the restaurant and was then moved outside to the bonfire. It
was a really beautiful, touching end to the trip and illustrated how well we
meshed as a group. Sitting there on the beach the flames throwing moving,
mysterious patterns over the sand and our faces made me think about the larger
lessons learned on this trip. Looking back on it, it has been such a fulfilling
experience. This has been such a good trip and we all agreed that we were a
really good group. Thank you guys for a wonderful experience and I will
treasure the memories and moments we had here.
Oriana Theo
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