Has it really been more than two months since I updated this thing?

Hello friends,

Life is good. My job is awesome, the people I work with are great, Mandeville is treating me just fine. Really, the only thing I can complain about right now is the 103.6 degree fever and back pains that are making it impossible for me to sleep.

Here's what's new in my life:

I got another JM$230,000 grant towards HIV outreach. Along with Red Cross trainers, I am coordinating a December 11-13 HIV/Youth Empowerment training for high schoolers in the parish. Its going great. See the following picture for an idea of the preliminary work involved... me and a counterpart in schools doing introductory activities. This one was a stigma/discrimination role play where students were assigned roles (see: tape on back) and tasked with determining their roles based on how other people react to them. Its a good activity to promote discussion about stigma and clear up a few myths about HIV.

I got certified as a first responder instructor and have been teaching weekly classes for the past few months to that end. Very awesome. I am training the volunteers who will eventually staff the ambulance service once it is running (eta... January?). See the following picture for an up close and personal introduction to my Jamaica Red Cross team... they are supremely awesome. My supervisor is wearing the red shirt on the left. My HIV/AIDS counterpart is wearing the yellow shirt in the middle. On the right side in the middle is one of the trainers who will be helping me with the December project. Everyone is awesome... its really nice to work with people who understand volunteerism and are willing to donate their time to projects.

The HIV International Art Exchange I am coordinating with a few volunteers in Jamaica and abroad is going spectacularly well. We are working with Peru, Nicaragua, Morocco, and South Africa in an international art exchange project to promote global discussion about HIV through art. Its awesome. It also takes a lot longer to explain that I feel okay with right now. See an attached submission my friend Patrick got in Peru for an idea of how things are going. The caption got cut off but this one is obviously about condom use...

So yeah. Work is great. It is wildly fulfilling. And it doesn't even come close to describing how awesome the last few months have been. The little nags here and there don't even bother me... everything else is going too well to get hung up anything in particular. Its silly to think back two years and reflect on what I wanted to do in the Peace Corps. My first year was great, don't get me wrong, but the stuff I am doing now is to a point exactly what I want to be doing with my time right now.

Oh, and I interviewed at JABSOM last month... quick trip home and now I get to cross my fingers until March! Pray for me, if you're into that sort of thing.

So, yeah. It was great to see those of you I saw in NYC a few weeks ago and great to see those of you I saw at home. Nine months to go here and I plan to make the most of it.

-TG