At Site...

Soooo, I got placed near Falmouth, Trelawny, on the north coast of the island working with the Ministry of Education guidance department. I have been at site since my last post, and have been loving it. My host family is great – my father is a bishop and my mother is a pastor. They are both very kind and have been helping me with my transition. My house brother is a great guy who has shown me how to cook breadfruit, scale fish, and fry fish Jamaican style. Sweet.

A road near my home, with an old sugar silo on the left

The good thing about being placed in the GC dept of the MoE is that I will have a relatively structured job with specific expectations and be working with a group of people who want me to have lots to do. The bad part is that during summer session, there isn’t much for me to do. But that actually might be a good thing right now – I have had a lot of time to network and meet people around town, as well as get familiar with my surroundings and try lots of new food and visit lots of beautiful places. A lot of people have had rough situations to deal with, but I really haven’t had that experience. My host family has been great, and I got a placement and job very similar to what I wanted, so as of right now I am quite content with my situation.

A random goat, in a field. Quite explanatory, really.

The reason for the length between posts is that I don’t really have a high speed internet source to post pictures online. I AM however, fortunate enough to have a 56k connection in my house, which is how I am posting right now. My room is quite nice, all things considered – significantly nicer than my junior year room at Williams, and nicer than my senior year room at Hoxsey. I have my own bathroom and own private entrance, and the temperature here is quite similar to back home. I have enjoyed peace and quiet and a beautiful neighborhood, and have been able to go running during the days. At night the area isn’t well lit and I have heard some rather troubling stories about security, so I am trying to be home by night and reading before bed.

Hurricane damage to a field near my house.

I have visited a few very nice beaches since getting placed up here—for those who don’t know the north coast and west coast are generally the ‘touristy’ areas of Jamaica, but Falmouth manages to have the scenery of the north coast without the bustling tourist crowd, allowing me to get around town without being hassled for the color of my skin, while still enjoying beautiful scenery and trade winds. The trade winds are key. Kingston has none, and is the weather is stifling there. I guess I do get people shouting, “MoBay! MoBay!” in my direction every now and then while walking around town, but these calls have decreased significantly as people see my face around and realize that I am not another tourist. Anyways, yes. It is quite enjoyable up here.

This Friday is Emancipation Day, one of the major holidays in Jamaica. It should be a scene – I hear Falmouth closes down its central square and has a huge party. Should be interesting.

Another random field...

SOO, yeah. Not much else to report… if I was doing better about posting I would have more interesting things to say, but hopefully you enjoy these pictures, and hopefully I can get a more regular/easy way to post in the near future.

Love,
Tommy

P.S. Jerk Pork is delicious, especially with the skin still on. Except for the hairy parts. Also, Jackfruit is delicious. And eskovich fish is delicious (I think that is how you spell it) – a whole fish fried with oil and seasonings that you eat with your hand. Guinep is still my favorite new fruit.

P.P.S. Ocho Rios isn’t the best. Don’t go there unless you want to get ripped off. There are better tourist spots that are less oppressive.

Training

It has been almost two weeks since my last post, so I guess I sort of fail on that once a week thing. Long story short: training is exhausting. I have been waking up at 5:45 to 6:00, going for a run (minus the days I have been dealing with multiple days), and starting a 7 AM to 7 PM training day. Also, I have been sleeping around 9:30 to 10:00, but it has been getting earlier every night.

 

There really hasn’t been much to report – lots of classes, lots of insecurity about where and what I will be doing, and a lot of closure, actually.

 

It has been somewhat of a roller coaster ride. I made the mistake early of thinking I knew what I would be doing, and where I would be multiple weeks before I was to actually find out (this Thursday…). I freaked out for a weekend, then realized that knowing where/what was not what I expected at this point anyways. And then I heard about a billion (actually more like 4) really inspiring stories and visited a local school to see education problems first hand. It was quite the experience.

 

Anyways, I am updating because Patrick has been hounding me to do so, but as of now, nothing really new to report. It was a pretty sucky last few days for other reasons entirely, but the weekend was decent. I got to Hellshire Beach on the south shore of Jamaica, and was privy to warm (slightly warmer than home) waters, nice people, and delicious food. And by delicious I mean red snapper cooked whole and seasoned amazingly. You pick at it with your fingers. Oh, and we also had spiny lobster. And there were dudes just walking around the beach with buckets of oysters to sell on the spot, and shrimp too. And you could buy coconuts and have a dude cut it open with a machete on the spot for a delicious treat. And Red Stripe. In the ocean. Delicious. You can see where my priorities lie (same place as always, with the food).

 

So yeah. I am trying not to start thinking about where I will be until later this week. They are holding a ceremony on Thursday, and we leave for our sites on Friday after meeting our counterparts/supervisors (they are coming from around the island to meet with us – pretty sweet).

 

Shout out to Chris Beeler, as putting up with non-site based training would kill me. Three months before finding out where I am going? I can hardly stand two weeks! I guess I am impatient.

 

I miss you all…

Thanks Jenn for the Serious Eats shout out

Thanks Will for being a bro, and meeting the baseball all stars

Thanks Catie for putting up with me as long as you did… :)

 

 

Oh and yes, curried goat and ‘aki and saltfish’ are delicious.

 

And patois lessons are going smoothly, or rather as smoothly as one may expect for less than two weeks…

 

Arrival

What a day.
What a long day.

I woke up at 4:30, nervous as ever, yet ready for the trip to Jamaica.
My roommate and I were packed and in the lobby by 5:30, and after a brief wait we were at Miami International before 7:00. Breakfast was Pizza Hut (a great last American meal…) and after the plane (naturally) got delayed, we found ourselves taking off around noon and arriving in Jamaica about 40 minutes later (gaining an hour). Oh, and we flew over Cuba. So I’ve seen Cuba.

Out the plane window looking at the Port in Kingston

Customs was a scene. It took easily an hour and a half to get through the line – a horde of 52 (predominantly) white Americans in a sea of Jamaicans. There was a cute little girl behind me in line with her mother – the girl had quite the lungs. She was running in and out of the line and laughing and playing with everyone nearby. Finally leaving customs, we retrieved our bags and headed outside to be greeted by about 15-20 current Jamaican PC Volunteers, all of whom were awesome. Yes, all of them, WAJ. We mingled and talked about the island and programs for a good amount of time, and after a picture we left the airport. I had a huge grin at this point – the nervousness was slowly being replaced by ecstasy.

Driving away from Kingston Intl.

The drive from the Airport to our college (the site of our training for the Kingston portions of the next two months) was something else. Jamaica is exactly how it has been described. The contrast between rich and poor areas was quite evident (mostly poor for this drive). One thing that struck me is that a majority of homes seemed to have iron rods sticking out the top, as if the family had hoped to build two floors but had run out of money midway through the project. Lots of these. Lots of Red Stripe ads as well. Oh, and gas is sold in liters, and runs about $65 JD per liter. Fun times.

Average house on the way

We arrived at the college, had a quick (much appreciated) snack, and started immediately filling out forms. The last thing, interestingly, was subscribing to a Digicel (local cell phone) service and walking away from the first day with a cell phone. Very odd. The entire process was in a room in the mid 90s with close to no ventilation. I experienced sweating in places I didn’t even know were possible. Enough said there.

Lugging my (far too large) bags up the street, I headed to my room. All things considered, quite decent. It would be something like a one-star hotel, which by PC standards is actually quite luxurious. Electricity, running water, and double beds. I’m not really sure what I think about all of this – I think to some extent having these luxuries is inhibiting my ability to accept I have actually just committed my life away for over two years. I caught myself thinking, “I hope these sheets are clean…” And then I realized… “Hey, I have sheets, and I am doing the Peace Corps. Anymore is sort of greedy.”

After my first cold-water shower of Jamaica (completely refreshing—I wouldn’t have used hot water given the option) I went to a cafeteria for an introductory Dinner. I was actually lucky to have taken a shower – I found out soon thereafter that the water gets turned off every night at 8 pm and is turned back on at 5 am. Apparently that happens a ton of places the whole island wide. And I wasn’t even the worst off – a lot of people will be getting their first Jamaican showers nearly 24 hours after arriving in country after a full day’s activities. Anyways, we met the U.S. Jamaican Ambassador, the Country Director of Jamaica Peace Corps, and important people for training. And we had our first Jamaican Dinner – and I just now realized I forgot to take a picture (sorry Jenn!). Some local fried fish (delicious) and some jerk chicked (amazing) with rice and lettuce. And quality Guava juice. After all the intros and more mingling, it was time to head back to the room, where I find myself at this moment. I am writing in MS Word because despite what I had believed there is no internet in the dorms. There IS a computer lab on campus though, so I should be able to get online and post this sometime on the fourth. Hah! July 4th will be spent from 7 am to 7 pm doing training, and then likely falling asleep immediately.

The view out my window...

And on that note, I am going to fall asleep immediately.
Enjoy the pictures! As soon as training begins tomorrow I probably won’t be posting more than once a week (I already said that I think), but I will try to get you all some decent pictures when I get a chance.

Breakfast at 7 in the morning… hopefully Ackee and Saltfish!

Love,
Tom (That is my new name, I think – something about being more professional… how times change.)


P.S.
I'm posting this on the fourth... Happy America Day! Also, I'm freaking out fairly officially now. I think I am getting anxiety thinking about what project I will end up with, and where I will be. We just finished our first 12 hour training day, and I'm exhausted. I did have saltfish for breakfast (delicious) and in the afternoon had an assortment of fruits I had never ever ever even heard of (also delicious). But yeah. I am freaking out, as I had a very brief conversation with my project director that completely made me rethink any idea of the project I felt I was heading for. So, I went for a run on a partially overgrown but awesome dirt track nearby, and the profuse amount of sweat followed shortly by another cold shower made me feel a little better. Sadly just a little bit. But hey, I'm in Jamaica.
If someone asked me, "Ou yu do?", I might respond, "Me aarait." Alternatively, if someone asked me, "Evriting kool?", I might respond, "Ya man, me kris." Yeah, I'm learning Patois.
I miss you all very very much.

12 Hours Left (and counting)...

Welkom!

Glad fi si unu!

Good to see you!

I think that might be correct. 11:30 Miami time, and the only reason I am not asleep already (I need to be awake at *gasp* 4:30 to leave the hotel 5 hours before our flight... PC policy) is that this time change is killing me. Also, I miss Nemo. Also, he asked me to say that. Though probably still sort of true.

The first two days of my Peace Corps experience have come to a close, and so has my staging. PC staging was a whirlwind of meeting cool people, participating in strange icebreaking exercises, and after a day and a half of general training, finally starting to hear some country specifics. As it stands now, I think the training class (52) people will be told their exact assignments in the coming days, and definitely within the next two weeks.

What I know: I am one of three HIV/AIDS advisors in the 52 person class. We are all working in the youth sector, along with about ten more general youth volunteers. The first one, Grace, passed her nursing boards three days ago, and is awesome. The second, Amy, is equally awesome, having worked in an HIV/AIDS clinic at UCSF for the past year. I think those details are correct. Regardless, with my EMT experience we make a pretty powerful team. 

One of our staging exercises was an anxieties/aspirations session. While informative, it might have actually created a lot of anxieties I didn't have, or otherwise brought to the surface issues I was somehow avoiding. I am quite nervous at this point - in a good way though (I think) - and am as ready to go as I ever will be.

Honolulu today was 86 degrees, and Miami was 90. I think Kingston will be around 92, and the forecast is thunderstorms. And hurricanes until the end of November (one of those newfound anxieties).

I did hear some interesting news as far as keeping in touch -- I should have wireless internet during the Kingston portion of my training. That means for the next two weeks, I should be able to stay in relatively decent communication. Also, as of tomorrow my 808 cell phone will be turned off indefinitely and I will have a new Jamaican number and be looking into international calling options.

This is the last post I will make (obviously) before leaving the country, and also should be the last blog entry I make without some ridiculous story about how I made a fool out of myself, which will naturally happen.

My dad sent me a song on iTunes today, "Jamaica Farewell" by Harry Belafonte, which was awesome, and the first of many things today that brought me close to tears.

For those of you I got to talk to, and those of you I didn't, I will miss you all, keep checking the blog (I hope to update about once a week) for new information, shoot me an email, or otherwise stay in touch. Thanks for the memories (even though they weren't so great). Hah. Ok when I start quoting Fall Out Boy I know something is wrong.

Bed time here--

Love,

Me