30/5/83

Had a nice busy weekend. Friday night there was a wine tasting & Cheese party at Cal & Joanne's. Very well attended, especially for a PC function. Must’ve been 30 plus people there. I got fairly blasted. It's never a good idea to mix several different types of wines from Boone's Farm to Liebfraumilche. But it was fun, fun, fun and now I finally met all the PCVs here in St V. 

Saturday night there was a farewell party at Mrs Douyon’s (cocktails and dinner). She is such a wonderful person and the perfect hostess. Sitting on her back porch sipping martinis felt a bit too much like ‘home’. Reminders like that are vaguely unsettling not because of the feelings but because of the place. Makes me want to go home so I can feel those things within proper surroundings. 

Sunday we got up to Duncan's to visit and to meet the new PCV’s staying there. It's nice not to be a rookie anymore. I tend to chatter-box a bit too much and not listen enough. Sounds almost like Cliff & Marie. Anyway, Dave & Max seem like nice enough guys and seem to be relieved to be here. They had similar complaints about Jamaica. Hot, dirty, uncomfortable. I guess even Sligoville gets warm this time of year. They were glad to leave there and seemed as happy as we are to be here rather than there. We only talked to them briefly while we rambled with Lanie & Alfie and tried to placate Hildred.  We’ll be having the welcoming party at our house this Saturday so we'll get more of a chance to talk about St V, Jamaica and training. We move one step forward in completing our service here. 

We saw “On Golden Pond” last night. And saw is very descriptive since the audience was so noisy that we couldn't hear much of the dialogue. Very vexing but such immaturity is no surprise. The lack of interpersonal sensitivity is a major problem here and is evidenced by people being unable or unwilling to emphasize with touching movies like “On Golden Pond” (Kung Fu movies are popular and understandably so. They require no emotional input). Anyway, the movie itself triggered lots of homesick responses within me and reconnected me with the importance of relationships in our lives. In this country where relationships are shallow and immature for the majority such a movie was a juxtaposition of cultures. Interesting perspective. It made me wonder too about Dad & Mom and how important my relationship with them is. Though they are not immortal, it's difficult for me to conceive of losing one or the other of them. And perhaps the moral of the movie is that a solid relationship can even transcend death. It is better to have had a loving relationship and lost it, than to have never shared in that experience at all. That the ‘risk’ of building a relationship is far less than the tremendous loss of losing a father or mother and having never known them. A word of wisdom for the Vincentians.