"CNN Junkie" 03/30/2003 I think that I am finally starting to feel at home here. There haven't been any serious bouts of homesickness for quite a while now. The main thing that I have gotten used to is the slow pace of life. I can stroll slowly down the road with the easiest going Vincentian now without wanting to speed things up. I can spend hours at a time sitting on the porch without feeling worried about not doing anything. Basically I think my mind is finally relaxing now that it realizes I'm gonna be here for a while. Last weekend I went on yet another waterfall adventure. A fairly large group of us went to a place called "Hells Gate". It is just north of Georgetown, up the dry river. It is a series of three waterfalls that travel over some smoothed out lava flows. Since it hadn't rained for almost a week, there was hardly any water going over the rocks. My neighbors and I have been having a culinary exchange lately. I've made banana bread, pizza, and chocolate chip cookies. They have brought me things like calaloo soup, dasheen, and last Saturday, "sow". "sow" is basically all the parts of the pig that spoiled Americans like me don't want to eat. It is all boiled together in a very spicy soup. I'm surprised that I am still alive after having eaten it. A new community center opened in South Rivers on Wednesday. It is quite a bit like the one here in South Rivers. I suppose that I'll wind up being in charge of the computer lab there as well. Mr. Lewis, the director of the National Institute of Technology retired a few weeks ago, and it looks like it will be quite a while before he is replaced. That means that unless I do something, the 26 computers there will just wind up going unused. I don't know if I'll try and spend half my time in Colonarie and half in South Rivers or if I'll try and get people to volunteer to teach classes or what. I'll also have to find a way to come up with money to buy extension cords and surge protectors to get all the machines running. Should be an adventure. Other than that, not much else has been going on. I have turned into a total CNN junkie now that the war has started. I get frustrated that they keep saying the same news over and over, but keep watching in case something new happens. It leaves me feeling very agitated.