20 Times around the Sun

Cristina said a prayer that God would forgive those who stole from us last night. That's the right attitude. I had already forgotten about it.

I haven't written enough about Darlene, but I'll save that for later.

Cristina and I went with Angie to the MTV Tempo concert in Nevis tonight. It was alright, but it was fun just to go.

We must have arrived between acts. The emcee was telling the under-20-year-olds (not me!) that they can achieve any dream they have as long as they work hard in school. He really drove the point home. I sure hope they listen. But then he moved on to a theme that the next artist continued: the urgency of "all the ladies" to "have a man" by any means necessary, even "stealing her friend's man." Despite what I said previously about the friendliness of many people on the street, juxtaposed to that is a extreme lack of manner and morals among some of people in my generation. That's why we're doing putting the moral empowerment curriculum in the schools. It might take at least a generation or two to see major changes though. It puts the work Cristina and I are doing in perspective. As Darlene said, we shouldn't be attached to seeing quantifiable results, and just serve the community to our full capacity.

At 9:45 p.m. – the true moment that I turned 20, Cristina gave me a magnet with Psalm 51:10 on it. That's the first verse I "memorised" for Bible study.

The first group was all about praising Haile Selassie and relishing in Rastafarianism. It was pretty amazing how into it a lot of the men were. Angie Stone was next. Both were American performers, even though they are selling this MTV Tempo thing as a celebration of Caribbean culture. I really hope they are sincere and it's not just about making money for MTV. We left after that because the concert was boring and it wasn't worth staying until the end to hear Wyclef and having to deal with lots of traffic.

In the carride back to Angie's apartment (we had to wait for the concert to end to catch the ferry), she told us about some wonderful tidbits about pregnancy – menstration complications, morning sickness, and the out-of-this-world, give-me-the-drugs, I-think-I'll-pass-out labor pain from the contractions, not the birth itself. Good to know.

Thanks to all my friends! Your comments, wall-writings, and emails make me feel special.

Darlene babysat while we were in Nevis.

Hooray for dusk!