Don't Look, Mom!

Here are some photos from ziplining at YS Falls!

Friday was one of our final days of orientation. We had meetings in the morning, but the afternoon was spent at the Bosco Boys' Home where they performed several short plays for us. Jen has been volunteering there teaching them drama for several months now, and this was their culminating performance. When we got there Natalie and I immediately ended up back stage where we fixed costumes and offered support to all the boys whose nerves had brought them to tears. None of these boys had ever been in a play before, and many suffer from low self esteem anyways, so there were plenty to coax onto the stage. Despite needing a little nudge out onto the stage, the boys came off the stage beaming, so proud of themselves for what they had accomplished. One of the boys, Clayon, who had cried a good amount before the show, threatening to quit and not go onstage, followed me around for a while after his performance (in which he hadn't said a single one of his lines), proudly remarking that this was the first play he had ever been in. It was really great to see what Jen's presence had done for these boys this year. The self confidence that she brought to them was apparent in the pride they showed yesterday, and they are definitely going to miss her and their drama class.

Albion Gully (photos)

Today's two photos are from our first service day in which we went to the Bosco Boys' Home and Albion Gully, the very small rural community so named due to its location in the gully of two mountains.

 In this photo I am reading and talking with two of the kids that live in the gully. The kids there were extremely welcoming and full of energy and excitement to see us.

This photo is of Omario. We hiked with the kids up to a cave, and he walked all the way down to the cave with no shoes on, so when we got there I became his taxi (not to mention he was pretty scared of the bats that we had disturbed).

Finally, I want to wish my grandmother a very happy 29th birthday! (Ironically, she really is still that young at heart!) I miss you, Grandma!

Happy Birthday, Natalie!

As I write this, there is a large lizard crawling across my wall. It's better than the cockroaches we've been finding in the bathrooms, but a bit of an adjustment!

Anyway, today was one of my favorite days in Jamaica thus far. Natalie, one of my fellow new volunteers, lucked out in that her 22nd birthday coincided with our day off this week. We used that opportunity to go to YS Falls, a beautiful series of waterfalls a little over an hour from Mandeville. The landscape and geography here is like nothing I have ever seen before, and YS Falls was just as amazing. There we spent the day ziplining over the falls, jumping in the water off of a rope swing, and hanging out in the pools at the bottom. It was definitely a needed day off, and we had a great time! I can't wait for people to come visit so that I can take them there again!

Kathryn was the photographer at YS Falls today, and I am yet to get her pictures of all of the action. The good news, however, is that I have gotten all of the pictures from the first three weeks in Jamaica, so I plan on posting a photo (or two or three) each day for the next couple of weeks! It's going to take some self control to keep from posting them all at once, as I am so excited to finally have them. Anyway, here are today's photos. These are the series of photos that was taken in an attempt to record Natalie's birthday night. I couldn't choose just one, since I thought they were all pretty funny.  This is the group for the coming year; from the left is Brendan, Kathryn, Me, Natalie, and Sean. (Special thanks to Tricia, the director of the program's assistant, for all of her pictures from this month, including these.) I might not have the YS Falls photos, but I do have these post-Red Stripe and Appleton ones which are just as valuable!

In case anyone was wondering, that is a Burger King crown that Natalie is wearing. As our volunteer stipends limit our out-to-dinner choices, Natalie made an economical birthday dinner decision (and tempted us to steal a crown for her).

Food Update!

Once again I've failed to post for a while, despite everything that has gone on in the past week. From learning to drive manual in a Town Ace van to riding through Coronation Market in Tivoli Gardens (the oldest market in the Caribbean, right in downtown Kingston) to attending a steelband concert, this week has been full of diverse array of experiences.

This is the van we're learning to drive.  

(I stole the photo from Jen's Facebook and wanted to give her credit!)

During this past week we found out the service sites that will be our primary locations for the coming year. I will be based in the community of Cross Keys, where Michelle is currently the volunteer. As this will now be the program's second year in Mandeville, they are looking to branch out beyond the initial sites, and therefore I was also given the communities of Knockpatrick and Prattville. On Friday I spent the day in Cross Keys with Michelle doing home visits and getting to know the priest out there, Father Patrick. A pretty young guy from Kenya, Fr. Patrick seems like he will be a lot of fun to work with this year.

Since I am going to have all year to discuss my experiences in Cross Keys, I'll save you from the rather boring anecdotes of initial encounters. Instead I'll entertain (or try to entertain) you by introducing all of the Jamaican foods that I have had so far, many of which I never even knew existed before arriving. (I haven't taken any pictures of what we've eaten, but if you click on the name of the food, I've linked to a photo on another website). As someone who loves breakfast foods, I was shocked at some of the foods that are common for Jamaican breakfast. For example, the national dish here is ackee and saltfish. Ackee is a vegetable that grows in a shell that looks a little like a flower, but which when cooked looks a lot like scrambled eggs. I liked that dish, but I definitely would have preferred to eat it for lunch or dinner, as I'm not used to eating something that salty that early in the morning! Another breakfast food that we have had is bammy, which is sort of like a bread made out of cassava (also known as yuca). They serve it with baked beans, which is good because it is sort of plain without it. Another popular food is boiled green bananas; I never even knew that green bananas were edible. When we were served that for breakfast I expected it to taste like a banana, but it is very tasteless and starchy, almost like a boiled potato. I didn't dislike boiled green bananas, but I don't think that it's something I'll ever decide to cook for myself.

There are so many more foods that I have tried, but I'll save them for another time. For those of you that were waiting for this, my pale skin got its first sunburn today, as my left arm hanging out the window for the hour drive was disastrous. I'll be sure to wear sunblock tomorrow on our day off adventure (and I promise I'll post about that sooner rather than later)!

Long Overdue Update!

I realize that I have been remiss in posting updates about Jamaica, but one of the causes of this is that there are so many different topics about which I could post that I am slightly overwhelmed in making up my mind. I could summarize my current day-to-day activities (which I will refrain from doing since for the most part they simply consist of various lectures and meetings), or I could reflect on our service day this past Friday. Rather still I could describe some of the many observations that I have made about Jamaica and Jamaican culture. With so much that I want to say and my inability to choose a topic, I fear rambling about nothing at all.

That being said, I’ll do my best to explain Friday. On Friday the three volunteers who will be leaving in a few weeks took the three new volunteers to their various service sites. We started at St. John Bosco, a boys’ home for boys who have juvenile records, who were living on the streets, or who were removed from their respective home situations. They range in age from seven to eighteen. The experience at the school was great. Jen, one of the current volunteers, teaches a drama class to the boys, so I helped with that for a while. Unfortunately for them I had to sing a solo and play "Helper B" in the short time that I was there, subjecting them to my lack of vocal and dramatic skill. I then went to the library with Michelle, one of the other volunteers, and there I read and talked with many of the boys, which I really enjoyed. Steve is one of the current volunteers, and he coaches football (soccer) at the school, but since the weather wasn’t great, we didn’t get to hold practice with him. Instead he took us to some of the homes in the area with very poor or sick residents, as he visits them periodically to offer his support. In the afternoon we went to an area, in which Jen volunteers, known as Albion Gully. This is a very small, rural area situated between two mountains. There are only a handful of families there, but there is a small Catholic mission church in the gully. While there we held youth group with the kids. We also read, colored, and sang with them. We ended the afternoon there by hiking with them to a cave that was hidden back in the side of a cliff. It was a great day overall, as it was great to get a glimpse of what the next year will bring.

Most days since we have been here have been spent in meetings and lectures, so the service day was a great change of pace. Today we were given the daytime off before a Civ-like lecture on the History of the Church in Jamaica (including a history of the Reformation and the history of England since about 1550). Luckily we were able to take advantage of our time off by spending a couple of hours at Treasure Beach during the day. We drove a little over an hour to this small beach on the south coast of Jamaica where we got lunch at a little beachside restaurant called Jack Sprats before swimming in the little cove. It was the first time in my two weeks here that I have even had the need for sunblock!

There are so many other entertaining things to touch upon, from the food to the roads to the language to my bobsled ride (kidding - that one was for Bennett), but I think for today I’ll just leave you with a little bit about how in Jamaica I might as well be Lady Gaga with the amount of attention that we all illicit when we are in public. I hadn’t given much thought to skin color before I left and the fact that I would stick out, but we are extremely visible at all times here, and the people are not afraid to let us know that they have noticed (and I know, my extra pasty skin isn’t helping it much). Whether it was the man that proposed to me in the grocery store the other night, or the numerous “Hey, Whitey!” calls that I got from passing cars on my run this morning, the visibility and attention is going to take some getting used to over the next few weeks!

I haven't been very good about taking pictures, so I will have to get them from the other girls another time, but for now here are some of the photos I've taken this past week.

 Reading to some boys in Albion Gully.

 This photo is of the three current volunteers who will be leaving August 1st. From the left they are Michelle, Steve, and Jen. This was taken at a dinner with the Mandeville Support Team.

 From the left it's me, Sean, Natalie, Brendan, and Kathryn. These are the five that will be here this year. Sean and Brendan are staying for their second year. Sorry it's not the best picture, but it's the only one I had!

This is Treasure Beach. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo until the clouds had rolled in and we were out of the water, but it was beautiful.

This One's for You, Dad!

I woke up to an email from my father this morning asking me to update the blog. I would have been inclined to ignore him, except THOSE CAPITAL LETTERS THAT HE CHOSE TO USE WERE JUST SO INTIMIDATING, so here I am. Consider it a Fourth of July gift, Dad.

The last few days have definitely been our busiest yet. Saturday we had a speaker all day, but Saturday night we went to dinner at a Jamaican woman's house. The PVI program used to be based in Kingston, and when it was there they had what they called a "support team," which consisted of a group of Jamaicans who were pretty active in the community and who could advise the volunteers. (We have one in Mandeville, just it consists of different people). Even though the program has moved to Mandeville now, many of the former support team still make it a point to open their homes to current volunteers. It is for this reason that we had an enormous dinner in a beautiful house in Stony Hill on Saturday night. We had a great time and all really enjoyed ourselves.

Sunday was very busy. We were up early to get to mass at Immaculate Conception, the Catholic Church out of which the former volunteers in Kingston were based. Immaculate is associated with four mission churches, which are very small churches in areas where the people do not have the means to get to Immaculate for mass each Sunday. It is at these mission churches and the surrounding areas that the previous volunteers worked. After mass at Immaculate we all split up to go with the member of the Immaculate congregation that would be overseeing the mass (or service if it was not a clergy member) at the mission church that day. Kathryn and I went to the mission at Tom's River with the deacon from Immaculate. It was definitely a great experience. The church there was very small given what we typically picture for a church, as the interior was not much bigger than the living room at my house. There were not a great deal of people there, yet they sure filled the church. While we waited for the service to start one person would just start singing a chorus and everyone in the church would join in and sing with them. People remembered the former volunteers and were excited to greet us. The service started on time, but it wasn't more than 5 minutes in when the 87 year old "grandmother" of the church collapsed. Kathryn and I were definitely thrown into the experience as we helped a few members of the congregation to try to restore her breathing and consciousness. Luckily we were able to get her back. Calling a rescue was never an option, as we were in a pretty hard to reach location without the means for that sort of healthcare. Someone did call the woman's family to pick her up and bring her either home or to a doctor, but we didn't get much further past that. After about an hour of reviving this woman and getting her comfortable to wait for her ride, we started the service again. It was amazing the amount of enthusiasm and life that was in this small church. They had a complete drum set to accompany their singing, and you would have never known that there was a small amount of people there with the noise that they produced. Kathryn and I accompanied the children and their teacher to the table outside where they sat and did Sunday School during the Gospel and homily. The kids were my favorite part of the whole day, as they loved us. We were probably more of a distraction than an aid during Sunday School, but it was great to talk to them and to get so many hugs. Despite the scary start to our trip to the mission, I really enjoyed the whole experience.

After the missions another member of the old support team had us all over for lunch. The food at these meals has been great - definitely not what we will be eating on our budget in Mandeville! Anyway, after that lunch we finally made the trip out here to Mandeville. It's about a 2 hour drive from Kingston, which isn't too bad. The apartment in which we will be living is still occupied by this year's volunteers, as they do not leave until August 1st. Because of that, we're currently staying at the retreat house that is on the same property. It's nice to finally be in Mandeville but tough to still be living out of a suitcase!

I was happy to find out that we are not ignoring the Fourth of July; the current volunteers have actually planned a cookout for tonight. Given that I have only had meat options at some meals so far, I may even have my first hamburger in 4 years tonight. I mean it would make my Fourth of July a little more American, given that I'm in the wrong country and there won't be any Budweiser or pie! Happy Fourth of July to all of you! It's been great to hear from everyone (when it's more than one sentence in capital letters), so if there's anything you want me to post about or explain more about just let me know! And I'll definitely try to get some pictures of the grounds or apartment in the next week or two!