St. Lucia : Jounen Kweyol

Because I know that I will have a lot to talk about over this long weekend, here is a quick blog about our Jounen Kweyol celebration.

This week was a short week so all our lessons we had planned were review for the students. On Tuesday we had a whole school dress rehearsal which seemed like chaos. Most classes got a chance to practice on stage, but some did not. It was a hectic afternoon, but we survived. After school all the teachers stayed back to help prepare the food for Jounen Kweyol. Both schools had to prepare food for the following day, so I stayed on my campus to help with the boullion and floats. This was the snack and lunch for those at Wee Wisdom on Wednesday.

I really enjoyed helping out and actually got to learn how to make floats! Floats are basically fried bread and they are about the closest thing I have had to a doughnut since being here. My co-teacher, Teacher Robin, taught me how to roll, flatten, and fry the dough. At first we were doing it together, but by the end of the night I was frying the floats by myself. After about 2 ½ hours of afterschool prep, I was finally able to leave. It was a long and exhausting day, but finishing off with Sticky Group was nice and I don’t think my bed has ever felt better!

Wednesdays Jounen Kweyol celebration was actually really fun. I had prepared myself for chaos, so it was less overwhelming than La Marguerite. Everyone dressed up in madras, a almost plaid looking pattern of bright colors. I also had madras that I was able to wear thanks to Teacher Mindy who made me a beautiful skirt. It was so fun to see everyone dressed in their outfits!

The rest of the day consisted of a performance and then buying Creole food. While sometimes hard to hear, each grade did wonderful as they embraced the Creole culture. Each grade represented a different month and prepared something special for the month that they were in. Reception did ring games which come in the month of March. I have included my favorite performance from grade 6 who did their performance based on Carnival.