Fun at La Haut Resort in Soufriere

Here we are having a blast at La Haute in Soufriere.

Old Church Doors Repaired, Canabelle Soap can move in!

(Marcy and Mama)


Hello All,

The Old Church has been secured (for background on the old church search for "Old Church" in the blog search bar in the left corner) an amazing amount of work went into it from Community Club, the 7th Day Adventist, Peace Corps, Sunbuilt, and the Catholic Church.

The Double Doors one both sides were rebuilt with all new wood for the bottom half. The main double door to the square has been secured rebuilding the bottom panels with new and old wood strengthening the frame. The exterior single doors have been repaired and new lock has been purchased. The building has electricity and lighting now.

Double Door Facing the Sea before and after:





























































Double Door Facing the Village before and after: (notice the bright shiny new lock)














































Main Double Door Facing the Village Square before and after:














































(above) Painting the Stage with the young men.

Side Door Facing Village before and after:





























With the Old Church secured Canabelle will be able to move in to being producing larger quantities of soap and we can pursue licensing through the Saint Lucia Bureau of Standards for export.

PS thanks Bonnie and Connie for the donations you made directly to Canabelle Soap, we now have the heavy duty printer its awesome and the backup external hardrive, and of course a brand new heavy duty blender, your AWESOME!

Private Barefoot Beach Wedding Locations, Taking Votes Now!

Hello All,

Me and Marcy have scouted our private beach wedding locations. We are torn between two private beach's that are both located in Anse La Verdue. Help us choose by voting for Beach One or for Beach Two. The winner is where we will have the private beach wedding.

Private Barefoot Beach Wedding Option One:


Private Barefoot Beach Wedding Option Two:


Oh and lastly a video of Scrappy, Marcy's Moms dog, he seemed to roll in the sand more on Beach two if your looking for his vote :)

Projects Update Part One (What the heck have I actually accomplished??)

After talking to my Aunt Tina she challenged me to tell her what projects I have actually finished, from my blog she sees a lot of projects started but she is not sure where they are at and wants to know what I am accomplishing. I think that is fair so I am going to go through the different things I have been working on and where they stand currently.

First I am going to give a quick summary of each group and or project. Then I will go into detail on the 6 main ones.

The main projects and groups I am working with are:
1. The Anse La Liberte Sea Turtle Sanctuary, working with the Saint Lucia National Trust to develop the 133 acre preserve near Canaries into a Sea Turtle Sanctuary and Bungalows for eco-tourism.
2. Canaries Creole Pot, the vendors and members responsible for biweekly street party.
3. Canabelle Soap Co-op, an 8-10 member co-op of mostly unemployed women producing all natural soap.
4. Canaries Community Club, the local development group for Canaries Village.
5. The Old Church Development, working with the Catholic Church and Community Club to renovate the old church into a craft and gift market, leaving the upstairs area for Canabelle soap.
6. The Rabbit Project, a project to provide training, rabbits and supplies to boost the income of the poorest families in the village.

Other small projects of note that have already been finished:
A.Cricket World Cup for Canaries, helped write a proposal that provided $36,000EC to help fund activities and development in Canaries for Cricket World Cup.
B. The National Development Foundation Canaries Kids Camp, helped organize, plan and work at the Canaries one week kids camp.
C. Navy Work Day, applied and received funding and volunteers to help repair part of the Old Church Building from the US Navy and Peace Corps.

Project One: The Anse La Liberte Sea Turtle Sanctuary

This project has had most of my attention for the past 2 months. It is an incredible vision for development between Canaries and Anse La Raye. It will help save a species from extinction, add a valuable product to the Saint Lucia tourism package, provide employment and training and help in other conservation work the Trust is involved in.

Thanks to Anderson Lake for listening to my idea, for being the first one to believe in it and most importantly passing it on to the right person.

Thanks to Bishnu Tulsie for having the vision to make this project reality, most things in life start as really great ideas but end there because it is so hard to find someone to share the vision. I am thankful that I had someone who could see the potential of this project and also act on it by funding my trip to Bequia to do a feasibility study. Lastly I need to thank Orton King for sharing his passion, his labor of love, saving the Hawksbill from extinction and educating the beautiful people of the Caribbean.

Currently the rough draft of the proposal is done, it includes concept drawing for every component of the project that I am quite proud of, these were done through Google Sketch Up and Google Earth, thank you again Google Team for the amazing software. I cannot go into any more detail on the plan for confidentiality purposes except to say that we are in the process of building support for the project across the island.

With the proposal, concept drawings, Turtle Sanctuary DVD and the respect and reputation the Saint Lucia National Trust we will most likely be successful.

Project Two: Canaries Creole Pot
Canaries Creole Pot has certainly been a tremendous experience to me, an experience learning how to network with the Ministries, main sponsors (Distillery, Brewery) through Mrs Edwards example. The street party has had its up and downs with vending booths not being delivered, rain storms, and a few less vendors. However it is strong in the fact that we now have nearly complete sponsorship to cover our street party costs. The other exciting part is the funding from the Basic Needs Trust Fund, through Lisa and our former CDO Urania Joseph we were able to pursue these funds of some 37-45,000 EC. I have been caught up in the Sanctuary project and I will be working with Creole Pot to begin gathering the 3 estimates we need to fix the Jetti for boat traffic and the estimates to fix the main bathroom on High St.

I will also be pursuing the ministry of planning to receive permission to put up some billboards to advertise the street party.

One other setback I must mention was the start of a shuttle bus service from Soufriere to Canaries. The idea was to bring more visitors to the street party by providing transport. It never really took over even after 2 months of advertising on the radio a few times and pushing it with fliers and a loudspeaker advertisement every other week. I am still trying to figure out what I am supposed to learn from that failure, I will have to get back to you on that one :)

Creole Pot is also working with the Distillery and Tourism Board to receive our own permanent tents which would be a huge step forward. Each tent costs around $6,000 EC were asking for 8. The Brewery is going to help by providing a shipping container near the playing field to store our tents and tables in. I expect the Street Party to develop to a new level in the next 6 months as we work on the venue improvements.

Project 3: Canabelle Soap Womens Co-op
We are making progress here, thanks mainly to Bonnie and Connie and Bonnie's Mom.

With funding they raised we have been able to purchase a heavy duty blender and food processor, safety gloves and glasses, and external hardrive to back up their soap design templates and soon a new color printer from the states.


The President of Canabelle thanking Bonnie and Connie.


Our next step is to put together a proposal to submit to the government, and the Taiwanese, Japanese and Canadian Development groups to gather funding to take Canabelle to the next level in their product and production. The proposal was perhaps 70% done before I passed it on to Hallie the new Canaries Peace Corps volunteer. My hands are in too many fires at this point and she needs the proposal writing experience. She is doing a great job finishing some of the financial figures now and I look forward to seeing it soon so we can begin submitting it.

We still have not had a chance to move Canabelle into the Old Church, the upstairs area is not safe enough and the repairs to the doors have not been completed to the point that the building will be secure. After the National Stake Holders meeting on the 15th I will pushing Community Club to organize the completion of this.

Will wrap up the other 3 projects in another blog entry later, thanks for reading people!

Wedding Date August 15th in Saint Lucia.

Due to the overwhelming response of people needing dates as far in advance as possible to save for tickets and request vacation from work. We are setting the Wedding for August 15th 2008 in Saint Lucia. That will be a Friday so that people just coming in for the weekend have time to enjoy the gorgious island before they fly back Sunday or Monday. If your going to come down I would personally recommend flying in Saturday the 9th and fly out Sunday the 17th so you can really enjoy the Caribbean while you are here.

We will be contacting groomsmen and bridesmaids next month. Invitation will probably go out in March.

See you all in 7 months!!!!!

Engaged!

Hello All

Me and Marcy are engaged, hard as it is to believe she said yes ;)






This is the email I sent to my family trying to decide how to ask her.

"I had a couple of ideas on where but I wanted to hear from you what the feasibility is and if you have any other suggestions.

One idea. Rooftop of the condo (how is the view?), have a little table set up there for two, a champagne chiller filled with ice and two good bottles of the bubbly, as far as lighting I know candles would be to dangerous, any suggestions?

Second idea. Get an old wooden box/looks a bit like a small treasure chest, put it in the bottom of the pool at the shallow end, she had to get it and from that starts a scavenger hunt that would end at the rooftop with the champagne or to another spot on the beach about 50 yards out that has a sign done underwater with rocks or something that says will you marry me? That will work because I have snorkel equipment coming in a few days to Jims and Cass's that I bought online since my fins are shot and Marcy needed some.

Maybe something with the Chief Billy swamp tour again with the gators? Talk to the owner and have him take a baby gator, tie a string with the ring on it to the gators tail and then let it go in the welcome center after our tour. We come in where the baby gator is and he hands Marcy a net and a pair of scissors and tells her there is something on its tail that she may want but she had to catch it first. That would be funny! Then after she catches it I drop the knee and do the proposal."

And here is the feedback from the family.

"Dear Leo,

Some interesting concepts but I do not know how feasible they would be. The roof and the pool sound good the views in both spots are great but you will need the cooperation of the weather for both. Gator does not sound like a good idea although it would be a chuckle.

Here is one that Uncle Bruce and I both vote for, can not say for Cass and Jim. I like the idea of it being in with the regular presents and wrapped box within a box, within a box etc., as a matter of fact we have purchased such a box it stacks six inside and each are decorated. Sue will be there and she has requested that if you ask in front of us that she could watch as well. I guess it would kind of be the proposal that neither Cass, Sue nor I received. Now if you are not sure she will say yes you might not want to ask in front of people of course you may desire privacy as well. What ever you choose remember that this is about love and it is a moment that a women never forgets something she will tell everyone and share with your future children. You do not want to make it a joke, women take this very seriously. If you do it on present day we could all be "in" on it and make sure we are not laying around in our jams, etc., maybe we could get some pix. Anyway it is up to you, I hope you have not given to much away the surprise element is always great."

Thankfully I listened to their advice. We all went up to the roof of condo which looks out over Naples Florida with the everglades stretched out in front us with the gulf of mexico in the horizon. I took her off to side just out of my families view. I told her that their is no one I want to spend the rest of my life with then you, will you marry me baby? She told me to #$%# off laughing and began to walk off, I grabbed her hand and pulled her back to me and she said, "Of course baby, I love you!"

We came back to my family and popped a bottle of Perrier-Jouet.

Here is a video immediately after Marcy said yes to marrying me, my family chipped in together purchasing a custom set of Perrier-Jouet Champagne where the bottle has been hand painted along with the classes. It was incredibly special. Thank you to my family for making this all possible.



The wedding ring was the same one my grandfather gave to my late grandmother and it is beautiful. I also was able to get a set of diamond earrings for her thanks to a friend of the family. Thanks MIKE!

Here is my beautiful bride to be.






Shooting pool in the Condos entertainment room.


Family Pictures
Aunt Tina


Uncle Jim and Marcy




So will be talking about what date to set the wedding, all friends and family its time to start that quarter jar to fly down for it!

Love and Peace to you all!

Nick Klinger and the Haircut Confession

Me and Marcy tried to persuade him to grow it long and strong while in Peace Corps where having long hair does not effect your corporate aspirations.

We tried with arguments like, "when will you ever be able to grow your hair long, you know if you ever tried to grow it long in the US no one would ever take you seriously.

Despite all this he decided to cut because "she says I am more attractive with short hair".

Personally I thought it was lame and that she should love you no matter what your hair looks like especially since his dad grew it long before he was married.

BUT, he stuck with getting cut because he promised her.

I would call that love.

Radio Interview in Saint Vincent on the Turtle Sanctuary

Here is a radio interview I did with James and Amanda two PCV's running a morning talk show on one of the local radio stations in Saint Vincent. I was able to record part of it, unfortunately it did not capture the whole broadcast where I thanked Orton and went into more detail about the purposes of the Turtle Sanctuary. Thanks James and Amanda, ps do you have a copy of the whole version?

Click the link below to hear the interview in QuickTime.


2007-12-19 09-50-21.mp3


Yours in community and development work,

New Concept Drawings for Anse La Liberte Turtle Sanctuary

Here are the new concept drawings for the Anse la Liberte Turtle Sanctuary. They represent all my learned experience from spending a week and a half working with Orton. Some things cannot be shown like having the building on 10 degree slope for drainage or having the bottom of the pool shaped in a slight cone to the middle to aid in drainage and cleaning. These drawings will be used as we work with NGO's and Ministries on the island to develop this project and secure funding, like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words or a concept drawing for that matter.

These drawing represent 48 hours of continuous work on the pc and are correct to scale. Sorry Marcy for doing nothing but this. Thank you google for allowing this software to be free so I could do this work.

The Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary on Bequia Island, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

I had an amazing time with Orton at the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary. Its impossible to cover all that I learned, the video above does the best job. I produced the video using Adobe Premier (took 12hrs to make) and I recorded everything on my little Fujifilm Z3, an amazing little camera that is serving me well. http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/z/finepix_z3/index.html

I will be working hard this week writing a proposal for Saint Lucia to have a sanctuary along with revising the concept drawings.