End of November Pictures

Hey Everyone,

Today is the last day of November, and we will be home in 18 days!! We are sooo excited. As the end of our time here gets closer, I've realized that there's a lot about every day life here that I've left out of my blogging. So I'm working on a couple of posts about random parts of life in Dominica, so be looking for those to be posted soon.

In the meantime, I'll give you a quick re-cap on whats been happening in our life the last few weeks. Things have been pretty crazy as we start to wrap up life here. Sam's finished with classes now, so these last three weeks are full of lots of tests. He has a really important test Monday morning, so be praying about that if you get the chance. He is VERY ready to come home and get a short break.

I'm all finished with work now, so I can focus on finishing school and everything else, and also just because I was ready to be done. :) So last week I ran in my first 5k! Pictures of me at the end are posted below. I was pretty happy with my time, 27:40, considering it was my first one and I wasn't training for it at all. So hopefully it'll be the first of many. Yesterday I got to on a hiking excursion with some of the newer spouses on the island. It was really fun. Pictures of that are below as well.

The format on this blog has changed, and so for some reason I can't post the pictures with the words, so all the pictures are below. First off are the pictures from the 4th semester banquet that was a few weeks ago. I had been looking forward to that night pretty much since we first got on the island, and it was really fun. It was nice to get all dressed up and relax a bit with our friends, celebrating completing all 4 semesters on the island! It was a really nice night. There's also some pictures of the spouses banquet, which was a lot of fun as well.

Thanksgiving was nice. We were missing home, but still had a very nice day here. I cooked all the food for us, and it was just Sam and I and James, but we had a good day. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We'll see you in 18 days!!

Love, Katrina

This is me nearly falling to my death (my foot slipped just as I jumped off). Nothing was injured except for my pride (and I did manage a pretty spectacular belly-flop).Fortunately, I jumped again after, and didn't almost die that time, but I don't have a picture of it.

The Dominica shopping experience

As our time begins to draw to a close here, I've realized that there's a lot of little things about life here that I haven't really shared on the blog. I guess I haven't done it because the things here have just become so normal for us.

Life in Dominica is best described as "random," and the stores are definitely no exception. You never know exactly what is going to be in a store, whether its what it normally carries or what it happens to have available that day. Nothing is quick or easy here, so to explain the normal shopping experience, I'll try to describe how I went about getting things together for our thanksgiving meal.

First off I went to the market to get the vegetables and fruits. In Portsmouth, its only open on Saturdays and Tuesdays, but the larger market in Roseau is open every day.

When we first got here, there were only two stores in our area: Tina's is about a 25 minute walk from my house, and her store usually has all the basics, such as eggs, flour, ground beef, butter, and cheese. The second place is James store which is right across from campus. The upstairs floor has mostly household items, anything from kitchen utensils, to school supplies, some clothing, shoes, mops and other random household items. Random very accurately describes everything in every store in Dominica, but especially James store. Half of their items I'm sure have been on the shelves since the 80s, and the other half was imported from China and has Chinese writing all over it. I'm pretty sure the place has flooded several times too, because one time when I went by all the shoes were laid out in the parking lot to dry. The next time i went back, they were all back on the shelves, but their smell was definitely not improved. The first floor has groceries and cleaning supplies. However, here as in all other stores, you have to check all expiration dates on the food to make sure its not too far past the expiration date, you have to check all flour, rice, chocolate chips (if they have them) and powdered milk for either weevols or worms. Also, I have never bought frozen meat from here because the rumor is that the freezers are turned off at night (something I do not doubt).

In the past two semesters, however, we have gotten two new stores. Picard grocery is the smallest but closest. They carry a lot of name-brand items, which are therefore more expensive, but the conditions in their store is very nice. 7-11 opened near James store, and has basically everything that Tina's has, but is a lot closer (quite wonderful).

This picture is of the inside of Picards, the nicest in our area.

This is the inside of James store, the downstairs area which sells groceries.

The outside of James store.

So, grocery shopping. For my thanksgiving shopping, on Saturday I first took the free transport from school for the hours ride to Roseau, the capital. I hit the market first to get the vegetables I needed. Then I headed for the grocery stores. There are two real grocery stores there, and so I had to go to get specialty items that i needed, such as walnuts, whipped topping, cream of mushroom soup and jello. Really special things such as French's onions for the green bean casserole are nowhere to be found on the island--I'll just make those.

So after spending half the day in Roseau, I decided to finish the rest of my shopping at home. First I take a taxi to Tina's because I have to bring back an empty crate of beer to refill it. I am able to get most things there, but she doesn't have any flour or sugar that day, so I head to 7-11. There I am able to get flour and sugar, but I'm still missing green beans. For this I have to go to the shacks, an area by campus where fruits and veggies are sold. Here I can get the oranges and a lemon (miraculously!), but no green beans. So then I head for James store (remember, this is all walking now), and finally find canned green beans. Next I head to another shack that sells apples at $3 EC each, and finally I run by Tomatoes where I used to work and pick up 4 oz. of cream cheese. And then I'm done!! I've finally gotten used to the idea that shopping here is a several hour deal, because no one store has everything, and half the time they don't have the things they usually do. You definitely have to learn to be flexible.

The plan for our lives...

So, a lot of people have been asking, so I just wanted to give you all a quick explanation of what our next step is, and what the next couple years of our lives are supposed to look like.

In January, Sam will be starting his 5th semester, which we are spending in Michigan. This semester will last until the beginning of May, and for Ross students, this is the semester to get oriented to the clinical setting and the healthcare system of the states. At the beginning of 5th semester, Sam will take the Comp, which is basically the final test over everything he has studied so far. This test is specific to Ross, and is extremely hard, because it serves as the "final weeding out" of their students. Those who do not pass the comp (which is 70% first time) will not be able to take the STEP, which keeps Ross from putting out really poor Step scores. The STEP 1 will be taken after he passes the comp, maybe during 5th semester, but probably right after it. This is the first part of the USMLE, the nationwide test that all medical students have to take. This is the first part of it, the second comes after rotations, and the third is after residency.

So, after he has taken STEP 1, he'll start his rotations. Those will last for two years, and where he does them could vary. Each rotation lasts about 6 weeks, and because Ross does not have its own hospital like most medical schools, they have to set up special programs with other hospitals that are already established. That means that there is the risk that would have to move to a different location for every rotation. However, there are some areas, usually big cities (Chicago, New York) where you can live during most of the same time and go to hospitals in the same area. If he likes the program in Michigan, he may stay there for most of them, or we may aim for Chicago or somewhere else. This is what we are going to aim for.

After the two years of rotations are up, he'll graduate (in 2011 at Madison Square Gardens in New York City!!)! After that, he'll start Residency, which will last a minimum of 2 years, depending on what specialty he chooses. This is the point where we'll have the best bet at coming back home. We'll see what happens!!

Alright, hope that helps clear things up for everyone. Things are about the same here right now, starting to count down the days and trying to keep up our motivation. Next week is Sam's last week of class, the rest will all be tests. Looking forward to seeing you all soon! Have an awesome weekend!

Katrina

The big news...

Good Evening Everyone!

I'm sitting here eating some amazing hot dog casserole (yes, I have simple tastes) and I realized I haven't posted our news on here yet. So........

WE'RE MOVING TO SAGINAW, MICHIGAN!!!

We are so excited, so proud of Sam for getting the grades to get us there, and so thankful to God for answering all our prayers!! The best part about it is that nearly all of our friends got in there as well, so we won't be alone. I had done a little bit of apartment searching these past couple months, so when we got the word that we'd be going there, I sent some emails off to the ones that loooked best. The manager from one of them called us like 5 minutes later and pretty much sold us on the place. It has everything we wanted, it's in the best part of town, and turns out is one of the most sought-after places for the Ross students who go there. We're really excited about it.

So, now that the big details are done, I've just got to start working out the smaller stuff, like shipping some stuff home, buying winter clothes (I'm not sure either of us even own a pair of jeans anymore), and wrapping up stuff here. Now that we know, Sam and I have completely different reactions. He is completely ready to check out and move on to the next thing, but I'm more trying to just treasure our time here, and oddly am not in as big of a rush to get home. I did however, already buy a cute pair of snow boots online, and Sam bought himself a Carhartt jacket. :)

So needless to say, we are very excited to move on to the next stage of our lives, for a change in scenery, and a whole new adventure in a new part of the US!! God is faithful, as always, and we're looking forward to what he has for us up in Michigan!

Much love,
Katrina