Another week

It has been another average week in St. Kitts.  It started with a relaxing day on the beach that proved to be perhaps too relaxing, as I proceeded to fall asleep for over an hour.  Of course 30spf sunscreen only goes so far on skin as pasty as mine and I woke up red and sore and imprinted with a perfectly shaped white bow on my back where my bikini was tied.  Consequently, the remainder of the weekend was spent dowsing myself in skin cream in attempts to calm the burn.  Then on Sunday I ran out of cream. This being a highly religious country, all shops were closed so I did what any resourceful person would do: I used vegetable oil.  Surprisingly, it seemed to work quite well; the burn is now gone, although the bow still remains.    

In between vegetable oil treatments, I fought with my roommate: Mr.Lizard.  Mr.Lizard is in general a pretty good roomie: he is quiet, clean and contributes to the housekeeping by keeping the bug population down, but lately he has shown a lack respect for my personal space.  The shower was his territory each night, we agreed on that, but Sunday evening I found him coyly crawling across the wall in the hallway.  That was it.  It was time to kick the disrespectful reptile out and block him and change the locks (i.e plug the hole he climbs through).  I tried to shoo him out the high window in the shower, but he would never scamper higher than halfway up the wall before ungracefully retreating.  After about the 15^th attempt, I clued in.  A couple days earlier I had CLR’d the tiled shower.  You know, the powerful cleaning agent that removes calcium, lime and rust stains along with half your brain cells?  I think the chemicals hurt the poor guy’s little sticky feet!  Feeling horrible and worrying that I have now caused the poor lizard irreparable damage, I retrieved an empty jar from the kitchen to catch him and release him into the (relatively) chemically-free wild.  Of course, when I brought the jar down, I accidentally chopped off the last fifth of his tail.  Are all lizards capable of growing back their tails, or is it only a certain species?  I am going to go with all. 

So that was my weekend.  The work week was even less eventful, but did culminate in a fancy office lunch in honour of our boss who sadly had been recently laid-off due to budget cuts.  Last year, St. Kitts was forced to beg millions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with the massive debts they incurred from a series of devastating hurricanes.  St.Kitts is currently the third most indebted country in the world and is forecasted to be among the economically slowest growing countries, if not THE slowest growing country, in the world for the next five or so years. 

The thing with IMF is that they have stringent stipulations to their low-interest loans that are intended to help the country in question to get back on track financially.  For this reason, these loans are known as Structural Adjustment Loans (SALs) and although well-intended, every International Studies scholar worth their salt will seriously contest their effectiveness.  In regards to St. Kitts, the IMF “encouraged” the government to instate a new 17% tax (applicable to pretty much everything) that will come into effect this Monday, November 1^st.  This of course means that the cost of living skyrockets in a nation that already has a poverty rate of over 30%.  Moreover, small business will be forced to close and larger business forced to downsize.  The government itself had to cut its civil servant force by one fifth.  My boss, a woman who dedicated 20 years to her position, was among the individuals laid off.  Her husband’s job is also in peril.  The timing could not be worse as she is struggling to pay medical bills for 3 months’ worth of cancer treatment in an American hospital.  It was a sad day in the office and I felt oddly intrusive and out of place as I had only known this woman for a short period of time – and was the only one who did not quote scripture in her farewell speech.