Mini-Vacation

Throughout the year Khaled and I have harbored these fantastic fantasies of an entire summer off. We somehow got it into our heads (at least in my head) that when the school year finished we would have lots more time for resting, going on vacation and afternoon football games with the kids around here. Unfortunately none of this has materialized.
My summer started with the planning of 4-H's largest fundraiser of the year, Seafood Jamboree, as well as grant writing workshops with the women's group, the community club and 4-H itself. Then there were the peanut committee meetings (don't ask). Khaled managed to get himself a new job right at the end of June, so his time is taken up by trying to implement GIS and databasing with interns more interested in chatting on Hi5 (Jamaica's favorite IM service). Finally we helped with group 77 (Peace Corps Trainees) training, by doing small business, IT, VAC and many other TLA (three letter acronym) group presentations, all of which were in the Kingston area.
So last week, to combat the summer overload, we stole away for a mini-vacation. We traveled up to the parish of Portland to Great Huts, where we stayed over New Years, for a little R&R.
This time we stayed in the newly built 'Sea Grape', a bamboo hut on the edge of a cliff, overlooking Boston Bay. Great Huts has a nice outdoors atmosphere. Our toilet was just sitting in the woods, outside the hut, along with our shower and a standpipe to wash hands. No cover or anything. We made the mistake of leaving a roll of toilet paper out there and in the morning it was soaked from the midnight tropical rain. Here is Khaled in front of the bed, which was a strange half-moon shape with a thin foam mattress. We were later told that 'Sea Grape' is a work in progress
We spent a lot of time just hanging out in the water, swinging in hammocks, and sunbathing. Here is the view out the middle door, with a path to the edge of the cliff.
Throughout the week we ate a lot of jerk chicken, as Jamaica's famous jerk chicken originated at Boston bay, where there many great jerk stands. You can just walk to the end of the Great Huts entrance road and get excellent jerk chicken, roasted breadfruit, festival and fish soup, all for cheap prices. We really enjoyed ourselves with some much needed downtime. I even turned my phone off the second day because it kept ringing, and upon answering I would hear the voice of someone I already told I was on vacation...
After looking through the pictures I realized the only one of me is this one, where you can see my legs and feet as I put on after-bite. The room had a bed of pebbles for a floor so in the morning as we sat reading in the 'living' area, ants would come up through the rocks and bite our feet, as evidenced by the picture of me desperately trying to counteract the ant venom.
So now we're back at work. I'm preparing some computer classes for the fall and also a great tree planting in October, which is when Jamaica celebrates arbor day.