Eight years ago, we bought a run-down, 53-acre farm and have devoted ourselves to fixing it up. I documented the first several years of this endeavor in this blog before the endeavoring itself subsumed the blogging. Now I’m returning to this site to chronicle our upcoming adventure: A sabbatical semester.
Our kids are now thirteen and eleven, and we decided to pursue this long-held idea of spending time in another country. Like owning a farm, this idea once seemed unattainable but has now become a real thing we’re doing. In early January, the four of us will fly to the Caribbean and live there until May. Andrew will be on sabbatical as a visiting professor. The kids will attend local schools. I will live in the ocean, emerging sometimes to write.
Right now, I’m facing our woodstove in the living room with snowsuits and gloves heaped beside it. To our delight, it snowed enough already for sledding, snowshoeing, and an epic snowfort. My enormous cat drools on my lap while I skim a Rolling Stone article about the best eco-friendly sunscreens, trying to make mental calculations: Multiply the value of coral reefs by my guilt in contributing to their demise and subtract the $20 tube of mineral paste our kids will probably refuse to apply on their bodies, plus the cost of replacing it with their preferred regular spray-on sunscreen purchased on the island of Grenada.
By way of a guidebook introduction, Grenada (kind of rhymes with cicada) is a volcanic island where they grow nutmeg, bananas, cocoa, and mostly tourism. White sand beaches adorn the shoreline. Coral reefs teeming with marine life and an underwater sculpture park offer prime snorkeling. Interior mountains are covered with forests and waterfalls. Grenada’s national football (soccer) team is nicknamed The Spice Boys, and the national dish is a one-pot meal called oil down, featuring coconut milk, breadfruit, and salty meat.
Most of Grenada—population ~120,000—speaks English, with several dialects. Their history includes a familiar story of indigenous inhabitants who, despite their resistance, were obliterated by Europeans who then abducted ships full of African people to enslave for their plantations. The late 20th century included a people’s revolution ending in tragedy and an invasion by United States military forces. In the current democracy, Grenada runs under a parliament and prime minister. The government schools, which our kids will attend, have a British-style system, complete with a headmaster and uniforms.
We have rented a little house in the capital, St. George’s—a small city of about 35,000, which is almost ten times bigger than our upstate NY town. From the house, it’ll be about a 15-minute walk to each of the kids’ schools and the beach. Andrew will take a short bus ride to St. George’s University, where he’ll teach in the Department of Biology, Ecology and Conservation. Basically, we have no idea what we’re getting into, but I’ll try to write about it here.
