Inspired by a true story, CRUISE SHIPS IN MY BACKYARD? catapults you from the far North of Canada, teaching First Nations children on a poverty-stricken Reserve to a wealthy and tropical Caribbean Island ~ all in one year! How did this happen? What was teaching like in Northern Canada? How did it compare to teaching on a sunny Caribbean Island on the other side of Jamaica? Was the idyllic setting all it initially appeared? When Hillary was offered a teaching position on a remote, fly-in First Nations Reserve in Northern Canada she was totally unprepared for the life-changing adventures ahead. While she enjoyed teaching First Nations children, she did not like having to rely on a decrepit and barely functioning wood-stove for heat in minus fifty degree weather! Teachers were expected to live in ancient log cabins with roofs that looked like they'd collapse any minute! But, the people she met along the way kept her spirit up and made the amazing journey from Canada's far North to the Cayman Islands an adventure of a life-time!CRUISE SHIPS IN MY BACKYARD is a truthful account of a Canadian woman teaching on a remote First Nations Reserve in Northern Ontario. Hillary was not prepared for the frightening lifestyle it required. Minus fifty degree temperatures, snow blizzards, running out of firewood to keep a barely functioning wood-stove lit, medical issues that tormented her at night, a haunted teacherage, scary nightmares, and mysterious footsteps leading out from under her home are just a few of the life-threatening adventures. Finally, at wit's end she halfheartedly responds to an outdated advertisement for a teaching position in the Cayman Islands, never dreaming it may actually happen! But, is the move worth it? Read from the comfort of your home (with a coffee or tea) all the exciting details and interesting people she meets in a journey of a lifetime! *******************CHAPTER ONE*******************Wow! Wow! Wow! I heard myself whisper standing in the tropical evening air on New Year’s Day. I was standing upon a little metal platform attached to an American Airline jet after debarking from the short flight from Miami, Florida to Georgetown, Grand Cayman Islands. It was about eight o’clock in the evening. What a sight to see! I thought to myself drinking in all that was visible in the humid Caribbean air. Is this place for real? I thought ecstatically. It wasn’t so much what I saw, but the entire experience. Warm, steamy air wrapped itself around me like an invisible lover’s embrace. Palm leaves shone and shimmied in the gentle tropical breezes amidst the darkness. My hair stuck to my face and my skin felt clammy but I was here, I thought triumphantly! What a contrast from earlier the same morning where I left the land of snow and ice in frosty Canada with its dismal, overcast-grey-haze and freezing temperatures. Ironically, I missed my original flight because of reading my ticket wrong. Instead of being at the airport for six o’clock in the morning, the plane departed at six o’clock in the morning! My brain hadn’t registered this as somehow my body wouldn’t agree with being at an airport three hours after midnight on New Year’s Eve! But, arriving three hours before an international flight was standard airport procedure – my mistake.Read what happens next!