Tyler here making my first post on the blog, Stefanie has dived fully into the swamp of her medical school textbooks so you’ll probably be hearing from me a lot more often now.

Starfruit - one of my new favorites

Last Saturday morning I rolled and Stefanie gracefully leaped out of bed at 6:30am to make our way over to the Saturday morning market in downtown St George’s. Needless to say, that place is a little different early in the morning than it is at night, i.e. a little more our style.

4 months ago, the spice collection in my kitchen consisted of salt, pepper and garlic salt. It then decreased to just salt and pepper after Stefanie threw away my garlic salt. When Stefanie moved in with her kitchen ensemble it ballooned to a mass collection of stuff that apparently Grenada is world-famous for producing, so when we got to the market, we headed straight to the lady who was selling that stuff.

While Stefanie and spice lady were chatting it up I examined my two favorite items – hot sauce and cocoa balls. I can’t wait to bring them home in December to make guacamole and hot chocolate with.

We then moved over to the fruit market and started by grabbing the essential stash of mangoes and figs (bananas). I’ve been craving oranges and to my surprise found someone selling them. They are of course not orange here, but green. I was so excited I forgot to ask what the local name for them was, but I’m going to guess it’s not “orange.”

Next was the part I was really looking forward to, the fish market. We heard rumors that you could get fresh mahi-mahi here for a little under US $3 a pound. They were out, but we bought ourselves a nice chunk of sailfish and a whole red snapper. It was all so amusing; fish lady was very stern and had a large dull machete which was not quite sharp enough to cut through the fish. She solved that by whacking it with a sledge hammer over and over again. Not sure what to do with a whole fish, I made my way over to a man I called the fish master whom I gave 2 EC to clean all the scales off and make it a fillet. While I fully expected him to discard the head for me, apparently that’s not the Grenadian way so when we got home I opened the bag only to see four eyeballs staring back at me; he’d given us both our fish’s head and our friend’s fish’s head. It was a fitting end to an excellent morning.

A lot of people ask what I’m doing while Stefanie is studying here so this is what an average weekday looks for me so far:

After I wake-up in the morning, I brew some English tea (or Irish breakfast if I’m extra tired) and pour myself a bowl of Weetabix, my favorite British cereal that I used to always eat in Africa. I operate my own freelance graphic design business so after breakfast I fire up my computer and get started on my work. I’m really grateful that so far people have been willing to hire me from afar and we’re trusting God to continue to provide for us that way.

Around 10am I usually meet Stefanie on campus after her morning discussion or lab and we work / study together in one of the study halls until lunch time. Eating out is super cheap in Grenada, we can usually buy a hot lunch from one of the stands on campus for the both of us for around US $8. In the afternoon I go home so I can take conference calls and such and then at 5pm, Stefanie either comes home and cooks or we meet at Options, a cluster of roundhouses down the hill from campus that serve different kinds of food from all over the world. Naturally my favorite is the veggie burrito from Mr. Chipotle! Then it’s back to campus for some more working / studying.

Being that Stefanie’s a med student and all, she usually has a little more to do in a day than I do. Since she has multiple absolutely massive textbooks, I’ve vowed to read all 500 pages of Alister McGrath’s Christian Theology: An Introduction in my spare time by the end of the semester. I’m also working on learning the complexities of responsive web design.

East coast friends and family – we’re thinking of you as you sit out hurricane Irene tonight. Good night all from Grenada!

** Wife Edit: Tyler grudgingly gets out of bed to shower pretty much as I am walking out the door for class – just want to make that clear and all. My 6am loud-as-all-get-out alarm apparently has no effect on him  😉  **