Our Final Move

On Monday we made our final move of the orientation process. We had been staying at Bosco Boys' Home for the week, volunteering with the boys and giving the departing volunteers a chance to spend their last week together. At Bosco we were without internet, but now that we have moved into our apartment I will be able to get internet close by, so I will try to post more regularly.

Moving into the apartment means that most of the realities of the year have set in - cold showers, periodical water outages (including when I got in from my run yesterday morning), sleeping under a mosquito net, and eating on a tight budget. As much as it was nice to have those amenities at the other places that we stayed, I understand the importance of living under similar conditions as those that we serve.

To fill you in on my past week, volunteering at Bosco was one of my favorite parts of Jamaica so far.
We spent the days hanging out with the boys on the play field, reading with them in the library, and going to their soccer games. Steve, one of the volunteers from the past year, had been coaching their soccer team all year, and they have been participating in a tournament the past couple of weeks. Natalie, Kathryn, and I went to their last two games (which they won), and we will be going to another this afternoon.

 This was taken in the back of the pickup truck with the team on the way to their game. We fit all of the boys in the photo below, as well as us volunteers in the truck!

I'll try to post some photos of the apartment this week and to answer everyone's emails. It's been great to hear from everyone, and I miss you all!

A final note: Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! (This counts as your card :) )

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.

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.