{"id":3543,"date":"2018-05-08T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T14:51:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T18:51:57","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-grenada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-grenada\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Grenada … Featuring Maxine @ The Rogue Storyteller"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It’s time for this week’s So Your Character is … Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last week’s  So Your Character is from Argentina … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span>
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<\/span> Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span>
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\nHello there! I\u2019m Maxine and I\u2019ve been running a book blog called The Rogue Storyteller for a little over a year now. I\u2019m in the final year of my pre-veterinary medicine program (and then have four more years of veterinary medicine) and really want to work in wildlife rehabilitation. I\u2019ve lived on the Caribbean island of Grenada since I was two weeks old and it\u2019s the only home I\u2019ve ever known. In my free time, I like to write, read, and play my ukulele. <\/span>
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<\/span> What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/b><\/span>
\nGrenada is 22 miles long, about 12 miles wide and 12 degrees north of the equator. We are a tri-island state, meaning two nearby islands (Carriacou and Petit Martinique) are dependent on Grenada. The island is home to approximately 100,000 people, 100+ bird species including our endemic Grenada dove, the Mona monkey, armadillos, manicou, turtles, and more. Grenada is known as the Isle of Spice due to our plentiful spices and for many years we were the number one global supplier of nutmeg. <\/span>
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<\/span> Grenada is truly beautiful and untouched. We don\u2019t really have any specific tourist areas or events and so when you visit Grenada, you will be truly immersed in our culture, whether you come for Carnival or to visit our beautiful beaches and waterfalls (but you have to leave your hotel). We also produce the best chocolate you will ever taste, from cocoa pod to packaging, and we\u2019ve transported it around the globe by sailboat. We\u2019ve also won a prize, including eleven gold medals, every year for the last nineteen years at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.<\/span>
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<\/span> Tell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nGrenada is a volcanic island with the calm Caribbean Sea on the west coast and the rougher Atlantic on the east. We have two seasons, wet and dry- so it rains half of the year and not the other half. There is a hurricane season but we are just below the hurricane belt and tend not to be hit by major storms. We\u2019re known for our beautiful reefs and our coral restoration project in the Underwater Sculpture Park, where you can dive or snorkel. <\/span>
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<\/span> Hiking up Mount Qua Qua in Grand Etang rainforest is also breathtaking. Around the month of May, you can visit Levera beach in the north to see the endangered leatherback turtles come onto land to lay their eggs at night and you may also see some baby turtles hatching. Grenada is a developing country but you cannot build above the height of a coconut tree (six stories) and we have very little light pollution so the stars are always shining brightly. We also have the best sunsets I have ever seen in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nTell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nOur national dish is called oil down and it\u2019s like a stew with lots of provisions, meat, and vegetables in it. I personally really love stew chicken, fried breadfruit, Lambie waters (which is a broth made with lambie\/conch) and aloo pie. <\/span>
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<\/span> We also have the sweetest plantains and bananas, as well as many tropical fruits you wouldn\u2019t find in an American supermarket, such as golden apple, cashew (not the nut), breadfruit, wax apple, damsel, and skin-up.<\/span>
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<\/span> Tell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nEnglish is the official language but the island does have its own dialect and it\u2019s not uncommon to find people who speak French patois, a variation of French (historically, the island was controlled by the British and the French, whose rule went back and forth seven times each). We have many phrases I\u2019ve never heard outside of the Caribbean so I\u2019ll just give a few examples: If I say, \u201cI gone to come back\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m going down the road\u201d, don\u2019t wait for me to come back. I may have driven an hour away or gone out and you probably won\u2019t see me again for the day or even the week. If you\u2019re nosy then you\u2019re \u201ctoo maco\u201d. A friend of mine has also contributed \u201ctete prap\u201d, meaning bra. <\/span>
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