Dominica: The Original Maverick Country

Dominica decided to get mavericky yesterday: we had a storm and they closed the entire country. That's right, Dominica such a maverick country that they declared at 9:50 am that the country will close down at 10:00am---where else do you hear about closing down an entire country due to one storm in ten minutes or less? I should probably start at the beginning....

Wednesday night, Farley was hanging out in the anatomy lab helping prepare his students for the anatomy lab test on Friday. He came over to my apartment, smelling like formaldehyde and declared, "Are you ready for the hurricane?" I had been locked in my room reading pathology and was shocked to hear THAT! I started questioning him like he was a criminal caught red handed who had been taken to the police precinct without a way to escape. He calmly declared, that our apartment management had placed fliers in the hall and that the school hadn't said anything that he knew of. I promptly moved my cute leather shoes off the floor in hopes of protecting them if a flood managed to climb to the third story of my solid concrete building then I went to bed. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep much as the ocean was ripping and the sounds of waves awoke me throughout the night, despite my ear plugs and my fan and air conditioner being on. Sometime around sunrise on Thursday morning, I heard a noise I've grown very familiar with since moving to Dominica: the rain falling so fiercely that it sounds like someone is pointing a garden hose on full blast onto a concrete driveway. Alas, the storm had arrived. I always attend class, but was wishing that I didn't have to go and could Mediasite (watch lectures on the Internet from on campus or at home), but I get SO bored mediasiting so I got dressed. Looking at the muddy trail, I was proactive and decided to wear scrub pants (rolled up so they didn't get too muddy toward the ankles), my keen sandals and a tank top. Farley came over and coffee in hand we braved the muddy trail.

We made it to class relatively easily, as a break in the rain occurred as we were leaving our apartments. On Thursday, all second year medical students are required to attend CPC, which is a case presentation and review of a certain condition (this week steroids given to pregnant women that are likely to delivery babies prematurely and problems babies have when they are born prematurely). After CPC, we headed to our normal classroom and got ready for another great Behavioral Science lecture. About 9:50, one of the assistant deans politely interrupted the class and said that the dean, after direction from the Prime Minister, is closing the campus as of 10:00am. In fact, the Prime Minister declared that EVERYONE in the whole country should go home unless it isn't safe to go home (then I guess you have to go to a friend's home). Farley and I usually filter water at home, but the water has been too dirty to filter lately so we brought containers to school to fill up, which we did quickly before campus closed. At approximately 10:00 (when we were all to be heading home), the rain started and BOY did it start.

Farley thought it would be a good idea to walk along the street (it is one of the few paved streets in the country) rather than the muddy trail, which was a good idea, but it did mean we had to walk a little further. I'm not sure if any of you have seen this commercial, but I remember an insurance commercial (I believe All State) that had a guy walking with an umbrella against the wind in a storm. That was us. We managed to walk the approximately two blocks and both looked like we had just hopped out of the shower. My rolled up scrub pants were unrolled by the weight of the rain and my cotton clothes stuck to me skin like spandex. We were in the home front when we had to walk down a set of stairs. There was muddy water that was more than ankle deep. I'm lucky a fish didn't swim up and crawl in my pants! After climbing to the third story and safely into our apartments, we decided to take a few pictures.

View of the storm from my apartment at about 10:15am. Note, the storm was so dense at this point, we couldn't see the Cabrits.

View from the top of the apartment complex. Usually the Caribbean Sea near our apartment is as calm as a lake, almost like bath water. However, as you can see, it wasn't calm at all today. I know there are places where the waves get very large on a daily basis, but considering how calm it usually is, this was big. At this point, the storm wasn't as bad; you can now see the Cabrits again.

Here is our sturdy dock. Now, the end has already been destroyed in a previous storm (before we arrived in Dominica), but there was an entire section that broke away (the missing section that is closest to the shore). I watched it floating in the sea about 300 feet down the beach from the dock.

There is a little stream that is by the apartment usually. It is just runoff, but is very small, but not yesterday.

Here is the grassy garden between our apartment and the restaurant. I suspect the overflowing "stream" above caused some of the flooding.

I'm not sure if you can see this well, but there were multiple colors in the sea. The brown color toward the shore, a teal color, then a dark blue, then teal again and finally dark blue again. I think the teal and blue is due to the depth of the water, but I'm not sure. I do know it was really strange looking because it was so clear yesterday and it usually isn't this defined.

After taking pictures, I decided to take a nap since I didn't sleep well Wednesday. Again, it was so loud that I didn't really get to sleep much but it was nice to get to rest. After the rain stopped, Farley decided it would be nice to read on the balcony so we went outside and read novels for fun. I made a late lunch/early dinner (we had pasta with zucchini and "doctored up tomato sauce"). It was so lovely: we had an anti-mosquito candle lit and enjoyed our lunch on the balcony. That's right a candle lit lunch! After that we both buckled down and studied for about five or six hours, but even that wasn't too bad because we were already caught up and got to do extra review and prepare for today's lectures.

Unfortunately, the waves were still very loud last night and I didn't sleep too great. Fortunately, closer to day break the waves seemed to be quieting down, but then it was time to wake up for school. I suppose I can catch up my beauty sleep this weekend. As usual, when there is a lot of rain, the water is brown (similar to the water seen above in the little flood). Apparently, these are the worst waves they have had in Dominica since a big hurricane in the 1980s, so they didn't want people on the beach or even out and about. However, I'm still not sure why they shut down the school and country during the worst part of the storm and had 1,600 students walking home; but heck that's what mavericks do. Mavericks don't follow convention....they wouldn't be mavericky if they did!