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

The clouds come to my room

I have said goodbye to Hellshire and hello to Woodford. The landscape is very different; Hellshire was walking distance to the beach and Woodford is in the Blue Mountains. I liked Hellshire and the community very much but I have always felt much happier in the mountains than by the beach. Everything is green and blue everywhere I look and the clouds come and go, sometimes covering all around so I can't even see the mountain in front of me.

So, I live with a family of three; an older woman in her 80's, her niece on her husband's side, and the niece's daughter who is 14 and really enjoys throwing salt on slugs (I can't really blame her, it looks kinda cool when they shrivel up and fall off the wall). The house they live in is really amazing and the yard is full of plants like coffee, banana, mango, peach, pineapple, tomato, mint, scallion, ginger, garlic, gungu peas and there's probably some that I am missing. This is a farming community so I can see all these plants plus cho-cho, cocoa, coconut, guava... growing everywhere but I can't tell where someone's land starts or ends or if a tree had been planted by someone or if it's there on its own. A lot of people here have their farms on government owned land so I guess it's illegal for them to be there but it doesn't seem to be a big deal and some of them have had their farms for decades. I think that there are benefits that people get that own their land that they don't get but I don't really understand. The cost of coffee gets tricky, and seems to be very political , so I really try to stay away from that topic although I did have one farmer break it down for me and at some point it becomes impossible to make money off of coffee. Most of these farms are hillside farms so it's also really difficult to go up and down to take care of crops.

Yesterday and today my PCT neighbor, Alice, and I went to shadow farmers. We got to plant a few things but mostly we just talked with the farmers and got a lot of information. Having a small farm doesn't bring in very much money and most of them do several things, it seems most of them are carpenters.

I would post photos from that last 2 days but it takes too long with this internet so maybe some other time.
Leita!

This isn't your father's Peace Corps...

A lot of us, when we start the Peace Corps application, imagine ourselves eventually living in difficult conditions where we have to gather water and carry it home to take a cold bucket bath or find ways to adjust living in a mud hut with no electricity. That is not the case here in Jamaica, and in a lot of countries now. Some do end up in places like that, but it's becoming more and more common to go to areas that have running water, electricity, internet and maybe even cable. Right now the 36 of us are in a more developed area, think middle class suburban, for 2 weeks where we have all of those amenities I mentioned. Here, I not only have running water but hot running water, a washing machine (although we are supposed learn to wash by hand) a screen on my window (no wonder I'm being bit up less than some of the others) and reliable internet (not everyone here has that though). Things will be a bit different when the sectors split up and the 12 of us in Green Initiative go to Woodford and then I don't know where on the island I will be placed to serve for 2 years. I can say with confidence that wherever I end up it won't have everything I have here. Even if  I could have the chance to have everything there is no way I could afford it on my volunteer budget.

When El Salvador got cancelled and I got Jamaica as my new placement I was a little bummed. Well, a little more than just a little but I did my best not to let it show and to stay positive about it. There are a few of us who did not have Jamaica as a first choice but ended up here because of cancellations or medical reasons. I can't speak for everyone one else, but after being here about a week I am really happy that I ended up here. Although we don't and most likely won't have the hardships that we were looking forward to when we started our application ( I understand that might sound strange to some) there are a lot of great things we can do with people here. I know I am still in a bubble right now though and that things will get more difficult, but I'll take it as it comes and right now I will enjoy the good days.

Summer and Autumn

     I know it's springtime, or almost if not, but that's not what I mean. Yesterday group 83 met their host families. Our country director, Carla Ellis, made it a fun game where we each got a piece of paper with a word or words on it and we had to find the person who had the word that went along with it, my word was "Toots" and I was glad that the other person knew what she was looking for because I had no idea. This person would be our host family and we would be their trainee. I felt like a puppy finding a home when my host mom said to her friend "look, we got good ones." It was cute though, and she was joking of course, and we were all excited and happy. But let me back up a bit and let you know how I got to this point from when I left LAX at 1:15pm on Monday.
   
      The plane ride went smoothly and I arrived in Atlanta on time and met up with two other girls to share a towncar together to the hotel. I know what you are thinking... towncar? Fancy right? Well we decided not to take the limo (which was offered if we came within a 3 mile radius of the hotel). Orientation was the next day at 12:30pm so I woke up at 9:30am to eat breakfast and get ready, and that's when the long few days began. I fell asleep a little late and had my alarm set for 1:25am to make sure I had time to get ready for our 2am checkout. I ended up waking up way too early and not being able to fall back asleep so I only got 1 hour of sleep. 2am was checkout and 7am was our departure from Atlanta to Miami. We didn't have much time in Miami to get food, but at least we didn't have all of our luggage to carry (36 people with 2  years worth of luggage), we had just enough time to go to the next terminal and wait a little. We got to Kingston and are taken straight to the PC office where we fill out paper work, turn in information, got a little money and finally eat some pastries and finger sandwiches. After, we were taken to the hotel and finally had our first real meal of the day at about 5:30 (6:30 Atlanta time), I think. It's still not time to rest though. We were taken back to the PC office and there were some speeches, some singing and dancing. We've arrived in Jamaica on their 50th anniversary as being an independent country and it's also 50 years that Peace Corps has been in Jamaica, so that was what this party was for. Everything was really nice but I almost fell out of my chair a few times because I was falling asleep (only 1 hour of sleep). We left the office around 9 (I think anyway) and we were all finally able to fall asleep to wake up at 6:30am and get ready for the day. We had training on Thursday and Friday; we set up bank accounts, got phones, shots and lessons on money, safety and health. That brings me up to date to last night and meeting my awesome host mom and her daughter Summer... See??

      I have more to say on my first day around town and my thoughts and feelings about being in Jamaica but I'll save that for another time. Tomorrow, the beach!

     

This is for my friends

With just over a week left I have started saying my goodbyes and although I have been a pretty emotional person in the past I have kept myself pretty composed lately. There was a brief moment that I teared up as I gave my goodbye speech to my 3 month old nephew, but to be fair he is really adorable and he made it difficult. My first goodbye was in Oakland and my second was last night at a dinner party thrown by my friends where the gave me this amazing gift

Now I have to make my rounds to all the Tia's and get my blessings, make sure all my little cousins can write me letters, and have one more big goodbye at a bbq before I leave. Plus some packing and maybe a trip to Disneyland squeezed somewhere in between.
Thanks again to all my friends for all the love... and for finding my blog. Don't forget to subscribe so that you can keep up to date with everything in Jamaica.

Goodbye El Salvador, Hello Jamaica

I am sad that I am no longer going to El Salvador, or any spanish speaking country for that matter, but I am happy that I will still be able to do environmental work. Instead of leaving this month I will be leaving in March. I am very happy that I got placed to quickly. Hello Jamaica, I've heard many great things.