Zen and the art of... Bee Keeping??

Working with bees is oddly calming.

The first time I went to an apiary was when I shadowed another volunteer while I was still a trainee (refer back to ‘Boas, Bees and Babies’) and it was on the terrifying side. Having hundreds of stingers buzzing around your body can definitely bring up your anxiety, but it didn't keep me from wanting to work with them. At our second workshop we had a hands on demonstration and a bee flew into my ear and stung me, but that still didn't keep me from wanting to work with them. When you work in an apiary you will smash some bees and you will get stung, just accept it and go on.

Currently we have 11 hives with 10 to 15 frames in each and they’re all growing strong now that flowers are blossoming. One hive lost the queen and has created a new one. One hive is super productive, and super wild and aggressive. Some hives are growing slowly. Some hives are very neat and calm.  Others are building wax beyond the frames and connecting or making clumps. They are all the same type of bee, living in the same apiary, having access to the same blossoms, but each hive body has its own personality and level of productivity.

Every week I go out there I learn more. Knowing when and where to move frames. Understanding why some cells are capped or why some are different colors. How to spot larvae that are only a few days old compared to larvae that are close to maturity.  How to tell the difference between a worker (female), a drone (male) and Queen Bee. Spotting a queen bee in a hive is like spotting Waldo in a super hard game of Where’s Waldo, but when you do and you see that she’s healthy it’s very reassuring.

Bees are very intelligent creatures and they pick up and react easily to scent and energy. It’s very important for you not to have strong body odor when you go to the apiary and it’s also very important for you to keep calm when you are around the bees. If you are frantic then the bees will pick that up as a threat and will attack you. If you are not covered then it wouldn't be surprising if they went up your nose or in your ear to terrify you. Trust me, it’s scary having a bee buzzing around inside your ear.

You can learn a lot from bees. They are fascinating creatures; so small, yet so important to the entire life web. When you are around a large amount of them they can trigger terror or create calm. Have you ever watched a bee die after it has stung you? It’s a slow and seemingly agonizing death (if a bee can feel agony). It reminds me of those samurai stories where the samurai will take his own life to protect his honor. A bee simply wants to produce more honey or produce more bees and live in harmony with life around it, but she will take her own life if it’s to protect her honor.

… a little too anthropomorphic? 

One of those days

I have started and scrapped at least 4 blog entries since the last time I wrote. I am more comfortable and my days are becoming more normal. I want to put up pictures of projects, but thatwill come later when I have internet on a computer.

When I first got my invitation to Jamaica, when I first landed, when I first got to site I had huge doubts as to what I was doing. I had several "I have made a huge mistake" moments. I know that even though I don't feel like that right now that I will continue to have moments like that in my service, but now I have days like today to look back on and remember why I'm doing this. I started an envionmental club at the primary school at the beginning of the school year and a couple weeks ago one of the teachers got an email inviting the school into an island wide competition for environmental clubs. This makes my work so much easier now that there is an incentive. The group heading the competition came today to check out the school and drop off trees and after talking for a while the man said "you're lucky to have her" and the teacher and principal said "yes we are." It could have just been in the excitement of the moment, but it was niceand it made me feel welcome here. I will have days where I will have doubts and might want to leave but today I had a "this is where I am supposed to be"moment.

For the competition we have an art part of it and we get extra points for coming up with something unique. It has to go along with the theme of the environment and the three r's. I was thinking of doing a hanging garden using plastic bottles and making origami cranes out of old posters. Any ideas on something to add or anything completely different? We have a few months to work on it. Leave ideas in the comments or email me. This isn't cheating, it's using my resources. We're going to win.

Little piggies

July 7^th

DISCLAIMER: If you are squeamish about blood and guts do not continue with this blog. Seriously.

Today I got to witness a pig get killed and butchered. I have never seen anything like this before. I’m from Southern California. I’m pretty sure that some of my friends back home have never even seen a pig in real life and don’t  know that they have long bristly hair and make horrible death squeals (when no one is even bothering them).

 I’m in the environment sector, with a title like “agroforestry director of planning and planting” … or something like that (not really). I never got around to remembering because it really doesn’t matter. Anyway, a lot of my friends in the group have experience on farms and some of them have raised, killed and butchered animals. Not me. My mom brought home a baby chick one day (I don’t really know what she was thinking). I placed it on my cat so that it could ride him like a horse. That didn’t happen. I bawled. I had a funeral. Cats and dogs? Ya, I can do that. Chickens and pigs? wahhhh?? Looking back on that I wonder what my mom would have done when the chick started getting bigger. There was barely space for the cat. I think she didn’t think things through, like me with the chick, but I was 10. What was her excuse for creating a scarring moment in her child’s life? Ha, nah just kidding. I’m fine, Ma.

Now, back to the reason why I started this very special entry. I’ve skipped the kindle this time and have had to come to an internet café just to make sure you all can see the pictures.

As I walked to the kitchen to pour myself some cereal for breakfast someone yelled to me to put on my slippers and come to the killing bed. Oh, and to bring my camera. Wait. No, that can’t be right. “wait, wahh? To where, now?” I didn’t think I was hearing right. I put on my sandals, grabbed my camera and went to the backyard where the men were tying up the pig to pull it to a tree.

Let me just say, I’m not putting up these pictures and telling you this story to gross you out (well maybe a tiny bit) or for you to think that I am some horrible person that takes pleasure in the suffering and killing of animals. Where do you think your meat came from? Those factory farms are not nearly as nice as this. And the suffering of those animals goes on a lot longer than the few moments this pig felt before it got knocked out. And don’t forget the human and environmental suffering as well. (Rant over). I’m showing and telling because it was a really interesting experience and I thought that’s what you all wanted to hear!

I’m going to skip the killing part now that I look at the pictures. Someone else took pictures of that part. I couldn’t even watch. But there was an ax, squealing, a knife and loads of blood. This blood here:

It’s like from a horror movie.

They scraped off the hair

And hung it up

Innards. I decided to skip the pictures of the guts spewing out from within because maybe they are little graphic for some.

Two halves of a whole.

I really wanted to show more but then I realized that maybe it was a little too much blood and guts. You get the picture anyway. These men worked quickly and skillfully. It was amazing to see the butcher put his knife in just the right spot to drain the blood and not damage anything.  I thought it was going to be more gruesome but after the killing it was really interesting to watch them work. I told a friend of mine about how I was watching this being done and he said something like “it makes you not want to eat pork anymore right?” But it’s the opposite. I haven’t eaten pork in a really long time but if I knew that the pig was raised and killed like this than I have no problem with it.

Alright so on a lighter note; at my group meeting tonight they had a game where the kids had to find bible verses and since I forgot my bible :/ I sat and doodled and I came up with this poem to share with you:

See the wind make things go

Not unlike the rain makes things grow

Let’s go

Let’s grow

Let’s become more, more, more

Lizard Food

Jamaicans are afraid of lizards. I should say, most Jamaicans that I have met are afraid of lizards. My host family in Woodford left a lizard who got stuck in the kerosene lamp for an entire day before they decided to ask me to take it out. Then freaked out when I pushed it out with my hand. I was sitting on tha veranda,where I currently live, watching a lizard walk across a pile of magazines when my host sister went to grab one, freaked out and slammed the magazine in her hand down on it. Tiny guts everywhere. My host family won't let me leave my window open at night, I'm guessing because of the lizards and not the fear of someone breaking in. There is a gate surrounding the yard that is locked, 3 dogs, a light right outside my window, metal bars that cover the entire window and the window I want to leave open is slated. There is a chance someone could get through all that and grab stuff through the slats with a coat hanger, apparently that has happened to a pcv before, but my guess is that it's the lizards and mosquitoes that they are more worried about. Last night my door leading to the veranda got slammed shut and there was yelling. When my door opened again I went out to ask what happened. "There was a lizard" "You're not scared of lizards?" "She's not scared of them" If there was a giant kimodo dragon climbing on my wall I'd probably freak out a little. First, because how is it even staying on that wall and second because they look like baby dinosaurs. Actually, I'dbe more afraid of finding an ostrich on my wall. Seriously, have you seen one of those up close, behind a 2 foot wall that it could easily jump over? Anyway, back to the lizards. They are pretty lizards, anywhere from brown to bright green. They stop and do push ups and stick out their bright orange neck skin. Harmless lizards that just want to lay in the sun and eat bugs. I tell people people who are amazed by my attitude towards lizards (I do feel like hero when I shoo those little creatures away from someone, both for the screaming human and the lizard) that they eat the annoying mosquitoes and they are not going to bite you. Well they might if you try to catch one like I did when I was a kid and got the nickname "Lizard Food" for a while. I'm pretty sure that was a different kind of lizard though.
So anyway,don'tforget about me. Send me postcards and letters and I will return the favor : ) I will eventually figure out how to get letters here so it won't take forever to receive them.

free fruit!

I know it's been a while since I last posted and you've all probably forgotten me by now. I don't have internet but my kindle can connect by cellphone reception so that'swhat i' using and thats the reason for aythin that is misspelled or mashed together.
I have been living at my site for two weeks now and have felt so many different emotions day to day. You get warned about the ups and downs butall you can do is try and prepare yourself. But anyway, let me tell you about the good because there'sno need to brimg up all my worries right now, there will be time for that later.
My days are not as full as they used to be during training and there is definitely notas much structure as there used to be, not really any at all. My days are mostly a little somethimg and a lot of down time. I have gone to see the yam farmers, seen the men at the timber worksite, gone to the primary school to see the kids\teachers and check out the garden site,and a whole lot of just getting toknow people in my community. i have a lot of ideas on what i can work on with my group here but theres no need to rush into anything.
The community i live in is a smal and rural town in the mountains. It takes me about 20minutes (after waiting fora taxi) to get down the mountain to the closest little-big town to buy groceries. One day i wanted to go down to buy some eggs and veg but there was a tree that fell over and was blocking the road so nothing bt motorcycles could make it down. Peace Corps doesnt allow us to ride on motorcyles for safety reasons and I told the guys that i would get deported if I rode them (i wouldnt ride them anyway since i havent been on one sice my dad dropped me off of his when iwas small and ruined my brand new shoes). On my way home i told my troubles to a rasta man. "No eggs, no veg, tree blocking the raod..." No problem! He knew a guy that sold eggs and took me to his house then he took me down the road where i could get some onion, tomato and garlic. So a good thing happened out of a road block and i got to know someone a little more.
I will try to blog more often because its difficult to gather my thoughts and type on this thingfor too long.
One moe thing I like about this community; all the free mangos,bananas, apples and coconuts  

Boas, Bees and Babies

Earlier this week I got to shadow a current PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer). This is something that every PC trainee in any part of the world gets to experience. It’s an exciting, stressful, and nerve wracking experience.  From the moment we land in whatever city we land in for staging we have someone telling us what to do, where to go, what to say and eat and wear… This is the first moment since signing our life to the US Gov’t that they let us go on our own and figure things out for ourselves, and hope that they did a good job to prepare us. How well did I do???
 MONDAY
My day started at 5:30am when I woke up with not enough time to brush teeth, change clothes and make a breakfast that I didn’t even feel like eating once it was done. The closest PCT (PC Trainee) and her host dad came to pick me up when I still wasn’t ready but they waited for me to rush around, run down the hill, run back up to get my umbrella and then run back down. We would normally just walk to the square but he kindly insisted that he drive us and make sure we were ok. At 6am we waited with most of the other GI PCT’s (8 of us) for the mini bus taxi to pick us up. It comes, we small up, we make it to Papine and find a second city bus for the Kingston country bus park. In Kingston we met up with some of the others from the youth sector and split up to whichever bus we needed. Since I ended up tossing away my scrambled eggs for the dogs or a mongoose to eat I was getting hungry so I bought some plantain chips. There are people, usually men, who go in and out of busses while it waits and sell things. It’s usually snacks like plantain chips, juice or donuts but sometimes more random things like belts. The 3.5 hour bus ride was pretty uneventful and it was really nice to see more of the country and the man next to me added a nice soundtrack to the ride with his phone playing Shania Twain and Enrique Iglesias. We got to Sav-La-Mar and met with some trainees from the education sector and the current PCVs and got pizza for lunch (yay!) then me and my PCV bought stuff for dinner and breakfast and took 2 more taxis to where she lives. So in total: 2 busses 3 taxis and about 6 hours of travelling. I was pretty tired from travelling so the rest of the night was pretty uneventful.

TUESDAY
A lot got packed into this day since it was the only full day I had to spend with the PCV. The gist of it is school garden, boa, eco-tourism hike, bees, bush doctor, boa again, spaghetti.  The boa was a pretty big deal; the local media even came out to do a story on it. The PCV showed me her school garden and on the way back a young guy wanted to show us a snake in a tree. “Not a snake in your pants, right?” –PCV. The way Jamaican men talk you really need to make sure, but it was a real snake. I attended a meeting with a group that the PCV works with on local eco-tourism (I completely forgot their name). It seemed like it was a pretty productive meeting, but what I really liked was the food that the PCVs rasta boyfriend cooked (or “spiced”). Her boyfriend took me and a few others on the shortest trail and pointed out endemic and medicinal plants. On the way back I got to see his bees. They gave me a suit and I got to get close to them. It was kinda scary but really exciting to have the bees flying all around me. I got to meet a rasta bush doctor that had the cure to pretty much everything growing on his land and then we went to go see the boa again, by now they had caught it and put in a bag with an egg (to eat I assume).

Adding cardboard for smoke to calm the bees

A little nervous

The bees

WEDNESDAY
I started early again for the long journey back home. The PCV walked with me to where I would catch my first taxi and on our way a guy holding a baby followed us. It’s common for men to yell out things and most of the time it’s something as they pass by or if you are nice and then ignore them they’ll leave you alone. This guy was persistent.  It went on for a while but basically he was holding out his baby saying “look how cute this baby is, I made it and I can give you one too.” Basically… Anyway, this time around I was on my own. It was the same route but being able to ask for directions in English was very reassuring, I admire the PCTs that have to travel knowing the local language minimally. I wasn’t sure what bus to take once I was in Kingston to go to Papine but I just asked around until I got to the right one. I didn’t remember where to get off but I hoped that I would recognize something and luckily I did. I took a taxi with 8 people up to Woodford (it was a hatchback so there was one person in the trunk). Bam! Did it and was the second person to make it and I was the furthest away.  Pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to get back and now I feel more confident about getting around the island.
TODAY
Poop jokes are pretty funny no matter where you are.

Have you ever heard of Blue Mountain coffee?

Blue Mountain coffee is supposed to be the best coffee in the world, I'm not a coffee expert but it is pretty good. If you find it in the states you can get it for $30-$40 a pound. I am currently living in the Blue Mountains and my host mom has a lot of coffee trees. She harvests and roasts some to sell and some to keep. She let me help with the process.

Blowing the husks away from the bean

Taking out the bad beans

Roasting

Grinding

Fresh ground Blue Mountain coffee