BY CAROL J. WILLIAMS Los Angeles Times ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada -- Mass is still held in the cathedral, as long as it isn't raining. School has resumed for many of Grenada's children, although most classrooms lack real roofs and some remain shelters for the homeless. The wheels of government are turning again, but Parliament meets in a university auditorium because its ravaged century-old building will need repairs costing millions of dollars. More than two months after Hurricane Ivan tore through this lush Caribbean island nation, ripping off roofs and toppling walls from nearly every building, much of life is still being lived al fresco. "They say God can see them better since the hurricane," Jacqueline Antoine, a Grenada native and pastoral counselor with the Los Angeles-based Foursquare Mission, said of worshippers at the gothic Roman Catholic cathedral. Most homes remain without electricity and phone service as snarls of downed lines still dangle across roadways. Ground-floor shops in St. George's two-story strip malls have begun reopening, despite the roofless, uninhabitable upper floors. Government workers go to offices each day, although many have had to crowd into the ministries that weathered the hurricane better than the main glass-and-steel complex still in need of extensive repairs. Most troubling for islanders who had been expecting a record year in tourist income has been the near wipeout of hotels and the thousands of jobs they sustained. Along the Grand Anse waterfront just south of the capital sprawls a scene of structural carnage. Blown-off roofs, collapsed walls, mangled window frames and flattened cabanas make clear it will be years and millions of dollars before the hospitality industry recovers. Tracy Hagley, formerly a full-time reception worker, was called back to the Flamboyant Hotel over the weekend but for only five days a month until at least late December, when half of the rooms are set to reopen. The single mother is the sole supporter of her three-person household, now living in a tool shed. "At least we have a roof over our heads," she said with mustered optimism. At the Grenada Grand Beach Hotel, one of the few able to take in even a handful of guests, the red-tile roof survived on only two of half a dozen buildings. In the dining room, a 6-foot-square swath of ceiling is missing and the mangled rattan blades of an overhead fan conjure the image of a swatted insect. Throughout the nearly empty resort and its demolished neighbors, the most visible signs of life are lizards skittering in the sand and clouds of mosquitoes rising from pools of standing water. Still, the achingly slow recovery shows forward motion daily. Charter fisherman Dexter Mitchell, gesturing to the turquoise waters and blond beaches, says he is ready to take out paying customers as soon as tourists return. "The leaves are starting to come back on the trees, and there's grass growing again," airport employee Ashford Hall said. "It gives us hope... . It was so depressing when everything around us was bare and brown." Reprinted from Kansas.com