Will Run for Rice and Peas

December 6, 2008

At 4:00 am, I woke up to the sound of my phone beeping. The first thought was I hate morning swim practice. Then I remembered that the last morning practice I had was over four years ago back in Ithaca, which seems like a world away now. I picked up my head and remembered that I was in Negril, Jamaica and it was time to get up and get ready to run a half marathon…Great, why do I always put myself through this kind of stuff… was the watered down version of the next few thoughts that went through my mind.

Slowly dragging myself out of bed, I immediately started to regret the three plates of pasta, bread and fruit that I had eaten the night before at the free dinner. But tell me, how was a PCV, living off of a steady diet of mac and cheese (the fake stuff), veggie mince and rice supposed to turn away from the first site of real pasta in almost 6 months? Oh well, that is why I have gotten up so many mornings over the past few months at 5 am, so that I’m ready for this early stuff, right? What is an extra few pounds of pasta in my stomach?

After washing up and a few handfuls of dry cereal, I came back into the bedroom of the house I was staying at and saw my girlfriend, Liza, still in bed…even more motivation to get dressed and go run 13 miles. I paid my money, got my free tee shirt and ate my free dinner, I might as well drink the free water and Gatorade along the course too. I put on my red Cornell running shorts that I have been using ever since my freshman year and my tank top that Liza and another PCV, Tami, helped me decorate the day before. As I start putting my shoes on, Liza sits up and takes a picture, saying that she wants to document the occasion. Great, that’s all I want are pictures at 4:30 in the morning.

Now it’s off to the race. As I step outside for the first time, I’m a little shocked by how cold it is. I have gotten used to Portmore where, even at 5 am, it isn’t much below 75 or 70 at the lowest. Here, it’s probably in the low 60’s. I remember that it is December and I’m walking outside in shorts and a tank top at 4:30 in the morning…just try doing that back in Philly and see how far you make it. I walk the mile or so to the town square where the busses are picking up the runners and volunteers and taking them to the start and water stations. As I run to get on the last bus, I start to here a few laughs after I passed by some people standing on the side of the road.

When I get to the start line, the sky is dark but the organizers have put a whole line of tiki torches along the side of the road to light the first hundred meters or so of the race. A steel drum band is playing in front of a nearby resort and a whole group of runners are getting themselves ready on the road. Among the crowed, I find Scott, a PCV who is running the 10K race and a few other PCVs who are volunteering at the water stations and finish line. I do a few quick stretches, jump up and down a few times, and wait for things to start, hoping that my knee doesn’t start acting up on me. Again, I hear people behind me laughing a little bit.

There is a very short speech and then, at 5:15 am on the dot, the starting beep goes off. Wow, this is the first non-“Soon Come” thing I have experienced in Jamaica. I was really expecting to stand here until 5:30 or 5:45 before taking off. At least we will be able to run most of the race before the sun fully rises and heats the place up.

The race goes by quickly and without any incident, which is always good for these types of things. I run the race as I like to. Start out in the middle of the pack and slowly work my way up through the crowd so that I am continually passing other runners. I know it is a bit cruel to the other runners, but it motivates me to run faster to pass other runners and feeling like they are trying to chase me down after I do it. It is funny though, after passing some people, I hear laughter rather than the usual mumbled curses.

The best part is the fact that the water stations are every mile and, at most of the water stations, there is at least one PCV that I recognized and cheered me along. The other really good part of the race is at the finish line, a guy with a machete is chopping coconuts so that all of the runners can have some fresh coconut water after we finish. Nothing like drinking coconut water straight out of the coconut! The stuff really is better than Gatorade in helping to re-hydrate you.
While I am drinking my coconut water, tired and a bit dazed, I hear a group of people standing behind me laughing and yelling, “Rice and Peas! Rice and Peas! Can we have a picture?” I turned around and walked to them. I held my coconut in one hand, a banana in another, and gave them the best smile possible after running 13 miles. “No, turn around, we don’t want a picture of you, we want a picture of the back of your shirt!”

First Thanksgiving in Jamaica

November 27, 2008

Today was the first time that I have spent Thanksgiving away from my family. Usually we I go to my parents or my grandparents house with the rest of my family and we eat, drink, argue and do the typical family thing for a few days. This year both my twin sister Kelly and I were unable to make it home (Kelly living in Chicago and starting to settle in out there). It was nice today when I was able to call home and talk to everyone in my family and hear that they were all enjoying their Thanksgivings.

The weirdest thing to me is how normal today feels to me. I’m not sure if it is because I am still a little shell shocked by things even after four months or the fact that the weather still feels like the middle of summer or maybe not being around Americans who are talking about Thanksgiving. What ever it is, it doesn’t even really feel like I’m missing out on Thanksgiving this year because it doesn’t feel like it is Thanksgiving to me.

When I woke up this morning for my run (to the sounds Browny, one of the dogs in my yard, barking continuously from 4:30 to 5 AM), one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was that it was Thanksgiving and I needed to call home. After I finished my run, ate breakfast, did laundry and cleaned up around my apartment, I had to remind myself again that it was Thanksgiving and that I needed to call home. I then saw the stick of sugar cane leaning against my fridge that Ms. White, my host mother, gave me this past weekend that I have been meaning to cut. While I was out on my veranda cutting the skin off and chopping the cane into pieces, I started to look around:
This is a picture from my rooftop looking north towards the mountains.












This is the view from my veranda looking west with the Cumberland High School in the distance












I know you can’t tell by the pictures, but they were taken at about 9 in the morning and it already in the upper 80’s and shaping up to be another hot day in Portmore. What is sad is that this is winter when it is as cool as it gets, and I’m still sweating…oh well, things could be worse.

After finishing with the cane, I had a chance to call my parents. They were doing well, at home preparing food and getting a small construction project around the house ready for the family members that were about to show up. This year, the project was to replace the door from the kitchen out to the deck. This is pretty minor to the Thanksgiving back when I was in college where they decided to replace the linoleum floor in the kitchen with tile during Thanksgiving. That was a fun time, getting a hammer rather than a handshake when I showed up the night before Thanksgiving and watching my mom trying to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with a kitchen floor that was torn up.

I was finally picked up by a co-worker at JSIF around 11 and we went up to a school in a town called Christiana, a place way up in the mountains in Manchester Parish where the views are amazing and the air is cool. We had a short meeting with the principal, some teachers and some parents about the reconstruction of the school and a nearby roadway and then it was back on the road to go home. What a hard day of work…

After getting home, it was time to warm up a left over bowl of red pea soup that I had cooked last weekend and a few phone calls to my family back home to see how things were going. It was really nice hearing from everyone, but like I said earlier, it really just didn’t feel like thanksgiving to me. I think it is a good thing because I wasn’t getting really home sick like a few of the other volunteers I know, which is good for the “mental stability” that can be an issue down here.

I guess what I am trying to say in the end is that I do miss my family and wish I was there to spend the holidays with them, but I think I have reached to point where do not need to do so. I am ready to accept situations as they end up without getting upset if they don’t live up to unrealistic expectations. Maybe that is a lot of what my experience here has been a lot about. As much as I tried not to set expectations before coming down, it is impossible not to. When I heard PC, visions of mud huts half-way around with a village of people excited to see me and work with me came to mind. Instead I got a nice house on a tropical island a few hours from the coast of America where there are a lot of very nice people but also a lot of people who are skeptical of my motives for wanting to do PC.

In conclusion, I am thankful for a lot of things and will certainly miss many of them in my short list: The health, support and love of my family, my friends (both in the States and here on the island), being an American who has this opportunity and last, but not least, chicken, rice and peas!

Making Progress

I have finally gotten around to posting some pictures of my travels in Jamaica over the past four months. Most of them are mine, some of them I have taken from other PCVs, but I have been at least been present for all of them. I am not a great photographer, but I have posted a link for another Volunteer who is, and he also happens to live in one of the most beautiful places on the island, so he has some great pictures.

Things have been going well for me lately. Just this past week I was finally able to start branching out and getting other work outside of my primary assignment of JSIF. The first project I started working on is a USAID project in Portland Cottage. The place is a very depressed area of the island that has little industry and, therefore, high crime. It also happens to be one of the lowest lying areas on the island, making it highly vulnerable to hurricanes. During Hurricane Dean last summer, the storm surge flooded almost the entire area (similar to what happened in New Orleans), luckily all of the residents had evacuated. Along with the flooding, the winds damaged many of the roofs on the houses. In one neighborhood of 93 homes, 92 roofs were either damaged or totally destroyed. As a result, USAID is repairing or replacing the roofs. Due to budgetary constraints (Yeay politics) they have asked peace corps to help with the construction inspection. Not very glamorous, but at least it keeps me busy and gets me contacts with USAID.

Other than that, I was finally able to make contact with the high school that is across the street from where I live, Cumberland High School. There was a PCV for the past two years helping out in the IT department, and that is where they want me to help out as well. They have asked me to help them create a web site. I have no clue how to do this, but it looks like I will be learning! They also mentioned helping with teaching literacy at night for adults in the area. I really hope this actually comes to fruition! Again, not that I have any idea how to teach literacy, but PC has a lot of material to help me start.

In non-work related things, how about that election? I know that the people who read this blog have a variety of political opinions, so I will try not to offend anyone. But I will admit that I voted for Obama. I had pretty much made this decision before my service after doing as much research as possible on the two candidates, so it wasn't one of those voting for the party things for me. It was very interesting seeing the election process from the Jamaican view though. Pretty much the entire island was supporting Obama. There were some Jamaicans I spoke with that had done there homework and could explain the reasons that they supported him over Obama. But, at the same time, there were many who had not done any research and liked him simply because he was black. To all of these people that I met, I did my best to explain that there was so much to my choice then that. Some of the understood, some of them had no interest in understanding.

Either way, the way I see it in the end is that our system is made of checks and balances and that, no matter who is the President, these checks and balances will not let the country stray off the course of progress. Some leaders will slow this progress, some will accelerate it. We just have to trust that our elected leaders can come together and continue to move our country in the right direction.

Regardless of your political choice, everyone has to admit that it was amazing to see our country take another step towards this progress in voting our first black president into office. I know that I had a moment of reflection last Tuesday night where I thought just how amazing this moment was when just 50 some years ago, there were laws that segregated the people of our country. Now we have our first black President that has run his campaign on the promise of unity. Let us hope that this progress continues.

That is about it for now. I'll try to do better with the pictures from now on, but please enjoy what is there now.

Readjusting Definition of a “Successful Day”

October 22, 2008

I have been trying to slow myself down and realize that I need to take pride in small accomplishments since I have been down here in Jamaica. Today, I think I finally made progress towards this. I am in Port Antonio for a few days trying to help a small community up in the mountains, Bellevue, finish construction of their community water system. This project has been going on for about six years and has had no progress in the last six months. After finally getting pressure from some members of the local government and some higher ups at JSIF, myself and a JSIF consultant, Nevil, were sent here to help the community finish the project.

We were initially supposed to meet the community members yesterday to go over the list of required materials, go to the bank to get money and then go to the hardware store to purchase the material. Unfortunately, this meeting fell through (not totally unexpected) and was rescheduled for 9 am this morning. This supposedly gave the community members plenty of time in the morning to make the hour long trip down from Bellevue to Porti. Luckily, this meeting happened except it started at 10:30 instead of 9, which is on time in Jamaica time.

A person would think that this meeting would be very simple: looking at the previously approved list of materials, making small adjustments for recent breakdowns, going to the bank and making the purchase…you would think. Instead, as soon as the meeting started, the community members started arguing that the list of materials was wrong and we had to go through each item (type of pipe, fittings, valves, hack saws and so on) and decide what was the actual amount they thought was needed. This new, more “accurate” list was made through a negotiation between the community members and Nevil who all had different opinions as to what was currently installed at the site. “I don’t think 3 fittings are enough, make it 6.” Either way, after about an hour, a finalized list of materials was agreed on and was submitted to the hardware store for pricing. The level of accuracy of this list is will be tested when construction starts next week.

Then came the negotiation on price with the owner of the hardware store. 90% of the prices were accepted without question. The other 10% took about 45 minutes to negotiate, resulting with Nevil calling his contact at his distributor in Kingston to get all of the pipes for about half the price. I’m still trying to figure out why this took 45 minutes, but I have stopped asking questions.

Next came the trip to the bank. Coming from the States, I thought this would be quick matter of 10 or 15 minutes without much hassle, so I stayed at the hardware store while the community members and Nevil went to the bank. After talking to the hardware store owner for over an hour and a half about his travels around the world as an employee for the cruise ship industry, they finally show back up and took another 30 minutes to pay for the material that they have already agreed on.

Now its about 2 in the afternoon and we’re all a bit hungry. We went around the corner to a small cook shop expecting that they would have some fried chicken or curried goat still on the stove. Nope. They had to cook up a new batch of chicken and goat for us, taking another hour. Finally, at about 3 the community members went off to finish some errands before heading back, myself and Nevil visited the Parish Council and made a few other stops on the way back to the Hotel.

I can’t explain why, but after spending an entire day just to purchase some material to finish a water line, I actually felt that something had been accomplished. Back home, this would have felt like an unproductive and a wasteful day. But here, it seems perfectly reasonable that it took all day just to purchase plumbing materials. We’ll see how this new definition of accomplishment holds during my service.

GOOOOOOAAAAAL!

I finally went to my first professional football (soccer) game this past weekend, the Jamaica vs. Mexico World Cup qualifying match. What a game to see. After being defeated in the game at Mexico a few weeks ago, the Reggae Boyz were in a win or go home situation. After going up 1-0 early in the first half, the Jamaican team was able to shut down the Mexican team for the remainder of the game and win their first game, taking a big step towards advancing to the next qualifying round. This was just part of a fun, very non-Peace Corp type weekend.

After another Friday night similar to last week, I was up a little after 6 am to go to the local community pick-up football game. I’ve been going for the past few weeks and most of the guys have started to recognize me and gotten to know who I am. I do tend to stand out being the only white, non Jamaican person, so it is pretty easy for them. Most communities around the island have daily or weekly football games that the guys play in. Depending on the community and the age range, the quality of game can be pretty variable. This particular game is comprised mostly of men in their mid twenties to late thirties who have been playing pretty much all their lives and for at least a few years with each other. Needless to say, they are all pretty good and I have a tough time not falling flat on my face in front of them.

During the first game I went to, I was introduced to the group by my host mother’s son that plays and they all knew my name pretty much right away. But since that first game, as is typical in Jamaica, they have given many different nicknames, ranging from the typical “White-man” to some pretty inventive ones like “tourism” and my personal favorite “Senator McCain.” For the most part, these names aren’t meant as anything derogatory, its just part of Jamaican culture to be very upfront about appearances. If your fat, they call you “fata,” if your skinny, they call you “maga,” if you have a beard and dreds, they call you “rasta,” etc.

Another aspect of Jamaicans is that the entire island is obsessed with Obama. If Obama wins the election, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a national holiday here. I get asked very often about my political affiliation and whom I’m voting for. Come to think of it, I’ve been asked at each game about this stuff. And up until this point, I have always tried to remain some what neutral, saying I’m registered Democrat but haven’t put in my vote just yet just in case I would offend someone that might support McCain. In retrospect, this was retarded. If I didn’t expressly say that I was voting for Obama, then, by default, they figured I must be voting for McCain, and therefore earned the nickname “Senator McCain.” Imagine having one white guy running around in a football game with a bunch of Jamaicans and every time the ball came to me, they started yelling “Senator McCain!” it was pretty funny.

But, at the same time, I also got the impression that it wasn’t such a good thing seeing that none of them actually like McCain. So this past week when I got to the game, I was greeted with “Wagwan (What’s going on) Senator McCain?” At that point, I finally told them that just the day before I mailed in my absentee ballot and had voted for Obama. This then set off a discussion of why they like him for more than just the fact that he is black and all this other stuff which I just sat and listened to like usual. Then I started to notice the most amazing thing, from that point on, they actually started to refer to me by my actual name! I guess that’s all it took to get their respect. Either way, it was nice to finally not have to keep track of 10 different names while playing a game that I’m already at a disadvantage from not having played since I was in grade school.

After the game, I headed into Kingston to meet up with some other PCVs to take a trip to the Bob Marley museum and get ready for the football game. The museum is at the house that Marley lived at in a section of town called Liguanea, where he moved to once he became well known and started making money. Not to get too much into it, but I found it inspirational just to see how much this man had in terms of honor, respect and love from people world wide, yet also how simply he lived. While certainly nice, the house was no mansion. And it was also nice to really explore some of the meanings of his songs beyond the laid back, pot smoking stereo type that is often assigned to his music. He really did do so much to inform the world about the oppression and struggles he and other people like him were going through and at the same time putting that aside and spreading the idea of peace.

After that, it was off to the game. It was great walking into the national stadium and seeing a sea of black, green and gold with easily over 100 speakers spread around the track blasting dancehall music while the teams were warming up. We were able to get bleacher seats not to far up from the field near the midfield area, where we had a great view of the entire place. After the goal, the entire stadium erupted in cheers and the enthusiasm of the crowd never went down for the rest of the game.

Luckily, some of the other volunteers that came into the game were able to get some wrist bracelets that got them access to a section on the track right next to the field where Red Stripe was giving out free booze, hot dogs and cotton candy. Best of all, they were able to take these bracelets off and share the wealth. I was in the last group to go down to the Red Stripe area which near the end of the game. So while we taking full advantage of the free stuff, standing no more than 10 yards from the field, time expired and the Jamaicans won! The entire stadium erupted again and the air was filled with people throwing what ever beverage of choice happened to be in their hands. It was certainly something I never expected to experience during my time in Peace Corps, but I’m glad I did. Now lets see if they can beat Honduras on Wednesday and take another step towards to World Cup.

A Wild Friday Night...

It's pretty amusing to me how "hard" things are down here, even though I'm not nearly as busy or stressed out as I was back home. Before I came into the Peace Corps, I was working a full time job that required 40+ hours of work a week, on average about an hour and fifteen minutes of commuting each way to get to work and taking night classes twice a week after work. I also managed to train for a marathon, travel a lot on weekends to see family and friends and hold down a decently active social life in Philly where I lived at the time. On top of this even, I was able to do a bit of reading for pleasure, averaging about a book a month or even a little more.

Coming into the Peace Corps, I figured that I would not be working nearly as much or nearly as hard, I wouldn't be taking night classes and I wouldn't have the disposable income to have such an active social life. Therefore, I figured that I would have plenty of time to do a lot of reading, catching up on a lot of books I have been meaning to read but haven't gotten around to. While most of this is true, the reading part certainly is not. I've now been here for 3 months and I've completed a total of 1 book. Its not that I don't have the time, its that I'm a lot more tired than I thought I would be. I'm not sure if it is the stress of still adjusting to the new culture and ways of doing things, trying to get used to the never ending heat or just plain laziness kicking in. All I know is that when I sit down to do a little reading, I might make it a total of 5 pages into a book or magazine before I pass out.

This last Friday was a great example. After a week of traveling over a lot of the island, I was in the office on Friday to sit in on a meeting and get a few things organized. Certainly not a tough day. In reality, I don't think I accomplished anything other than working out my travel schedule for next week, which should be considered an accomplishment seeing that it took about 2 hours of talking with 10 different people to get 4 trips planned. Anyways, I was able to leave work around 4 pm, watched the parade of the Jamaican Olympic track athletes in Kingston (the Jamaicans have not stopped going crazy for Bolt for a solid month now) and made my way home by about 5:30 pm. After having some leftovers for dinner on the veranda of my host families house, I figured I would try to relax and do some reading for a few hours, then have a drink or two at the bar nearby before going to bed around 10 pm or so. Nothing to stressful, just a relaxing Friday evening. Well, I sat down to do some reading and the next thing I knew I was waking up and it was 3 am on Saturday morning.

This is not a rare occurence. Almost every night during the week, I struggle to keep my eyes open much past 8:30 or 9. Oh well, I guess I'll soon adjust, or just get a lot of sleep that I have been missing out on for the past few years.

Inspecting a Community Water System, Jamaican Style

Since I’ve been here on the island, I have been getting accustomed to many different ways of doing things. I don’t know if it is that I have started adjusting more and things don’t surprise me as much now, or if it is the fact that I try not to dwell on things that aren’t important to the job at hand, but it wasn’t until last Friday was over that I realized how strange of a day it was compared to my normal days back in the states. The day started off well, sleeping in a little and skipping my normal 5am run and having a bowl of oats porridge for breakfast. The driver from JSIF picked me up a little after 8 and we took off for our site visit to a community called Bybrook, located in the mountains of Portland parish. We were going to inspect a water system that had been installed by the community with funding from JSIF to make sure that it was functioning and could be turned over to the community.

After spending about an hour getting through the Kingston traffic, we finally got on the Junction Road, which leads through the Blue Mountains from Kingston to Annotto Bay. It’s hard to describe the experience of driving on this road. It is a two lane road (for the most part) that runs along a valley with very steep cliffs that are easily more than a 100 feet in places with a lot of blind turns and a few scattered communities on the side. The entire time you can see rain forest on the mountain slopes along with bare patches where there has been a recent landslide. About two weeks ago I was on this road during a rain storm and almost got stuck behind a small landslide. When we came around the corner of one of the sharp bends, we saw rocks and soil completely blocking one lane of traffic and only partially blocking the other. The other passenger and I got out of the car while there were still a few small rocks coming down and threw the rocks that were only partially blocking the second lane over the cliff while the driver managed to squeeze by. Luckily, this past Friday there was no rain storm and no landslides to be concerned about.

We finally met up with our community contact person in a town called Buff Bay, which is on the coast, about 20 minutes east of Annotto Bay. On our drive back to Bybrook we took a turn off the main road onto a typical mountain road that I have become accustomed to driving on. In most places, these roads are only wide enough for one vehicle to drive on, the roads are in varying condition, usually with a lot of potholes making for a pretty slow, bumpy ride. When we reached the town, we picked up another local resident who was involved in the maintenance of the water system. I have gotten used to seeing people who live out in the bush carrying machetes and other knives, but they usually carry them in there hand because how sharp they keep them. He was actually wearing his knife in his pants, with no sheath. Another thing that struck me as strange was that it was only about 11am and Ian was smoking.

I figured that at this point we would get out of the car and start hiking up to the water source, which I had been told was a 45 minute hike up into the mountains. I was mistaken. We then turned off the small mountain road onto an even smaller road leading up into the mountains that I don’t think had more than an inch or two of extra room on some of the corners that, if we fell into, would have been a long, steep drop into the gully. The places of this road where there was asphalt, it couldn’t have been more than about a ½ inch thick. Other places had some potholes that were more than 6 inches deep. After driving on this road for about 10 minutes, we finally came to a point where the driver said he couldn’t go any further (which I would have said was about a ½ mile earlier).

The hike finally began. The hike to the water source was up hill for about 20 or 30 minutes in some pretty dense bush and next to some real steep gullies. The picture (admittedly not a great one) shows one view from the trail of the mountains accross the valley. It gives some idea of what the landscape and the bush is like.

I just followed the maintenance guy as close as I could while he continued smoking and I was trying to inspect the water lines as we passed. It was tough keeping up with him, even though I, who consider myself in shape, was wearing my hiking boots and he was wearing a pair of boating shoes that probably had no traction left on them. On the hike up, the maintenance guy mentioned that he had already hiked up to the water source once today, walking not only the part of the hike that we were currently doing but also the part that we had driven up from the town. This guy was a machine.

We finally got to the catchment which is a four-foot high concrete dam that impounds water so that it can be piped down to a treatment shed and storage tank. The picture below shows the catchment and the maintenance guy getting ready to drain the water. Imagine hauling all that cement, rebar, piping and other suplies up this trail, I know why it took them two years to construct this thing.

While at the catchment, the maintenance guy decided to remove the “silt” build up that was behind the dam. The “silt” was really all sand and gravel and there must have been close to 1,000 pounds behind that he dug out without any question or complaint. This would have worn me out and I would have been sweating buckets by the time I was done. All this work didn’t even seem to phase him.

After about an hour at the catchment, we hiked back down to the car, with the maintenace guy continuing to smoke entire time. While driving down to the treatment and storage tanks, we met a local farmer who offered some of his crops to us. The maintenance guy cut some sugar cane, a small bushel of plantains (large bananas), two bushels of bananas and a sack full of yellow yam and cho cho (similar to a potato). While he was digging up the cho cho, we heard a loud bang come from over by the treatment house and storage tank, which was weird since we were so far out in the bush. When we got down to the treatment house, we saw water gushing out from behind the door. After opening the door and letting the water drain out, we realized that after cleaning out the silt from the dam and unclogging the pipes, the water pressure down at the treatment house was so large that it blew the top off of the sand filter.

We left the maintenance guy at the treatment house and went to get a hack saw to cut the pipes and put a temporary patch on the system. By the time we got back, which was about 15 minutes, the maintenance guy was smoking again and cleaning up the storage compartment next to the treatment shed. I then tried to help in vain while he put a temporary patch on system so that he could fix the sand filter the next day.

After all of this, I was pretty well exhausted and hungry, and all I did was hike the trail and observe the walk. On the drive back, the JSIF driver stopped at a small shop on the side of the Junction Road and we had a cup of fish soup and a plate of fried chicken, rice and peas that I devoured. It was then that I realized how phenomenal Jamaican style rice and peas are and how I’m not sure what I would be doing without them. When I got home around 7pm, I managed to get enough energy to go to a bar a few blocks away and have a few beers. While sitting on the second floor of the bar, zoning out and staring into oblivion with maybe 2 other people in the entire place, a 9 year old boy started talking to me. It caught me a little off guard to see a 9 year old boy in a bar on a Friday night, but as I said before, I’m getting used to these things. Come to find out, this boy lives with his grandparents who live next door to the bar and work as cooks in the kitchen. As a result, the boy spends almost every night at the bar, talking to whoever comes in.

Finally, at around 10 pm, exhausted and ready for sleep, I made my way back home and passed out, getting ready for my Saturday morning football game with some of the local guys in the community. It was far from the most stressful day here, but it certainly sticks out as being unique to me.

Swearing In and Starting Service

Finally, after two months of training, we were finally sworn in as Volunteers last Thursday! 49 trainees of the 52 that showed up on island made it through the full two months. Now I have no more endless days of lectures, no more studying for tests on Peace Corps policy, and no more restrictions on traveling and staying somewhere over night.

In reality, I don’t have too much to complain about with the last week of training. PC put all the trainees up in a pretty nice hotel in Kingston which was set up as a bunch of smaller buildings on a pretty large compound. The rooms were comfortable and some even had kitchens, which made eating during the week a lot cheaper than going out every night (which we can’t really afford to do, especially with the prices in town). It was nice to finally take a shower and shave with hot water for the first time in a few months. The hotel even had a bar and a pool on site which allowed for some enjoyable nights and coffee to help wake up in the mornings.

The week in general was very relaxing. The only hard part was the final exam we had to pass in order to become volunteers. Talk about awkward, we had to sit down in front of a panel of six people and answer random questions about various PC policies, information regarding out assigned agencies, information about reports that we are required to fill out every few months and questions about Jamaican culture and Patios. The test was supposed to take about 30 minutes, but I just couldn’t talk that much about each topic, so I think mine only took about 20 minutes, including a lot of long, awkward pauses. I’m pretty sure that I answered every question wrong, but, just like most my tests in college, I got enough partial credit to pass. Other than that, there was only one day of lectures, a BBQ/pool party at a really nice apartment complex where most of the US Embassy workers live and a few late spent talking with the other trainees.

Finally, on Thursday morning, we all got dressed up in our jackets, shirts and ties (which will probably be the only time I where those things for the next 2 years) and went over to the Embassy to be sworn in by Ambassador. The Embassy itself was very impressive building to see (not to mention a little weird to actually see a bunch of other white people around) and we heard some good speeches from the Ambassador, the PC Country Director and the Jamaican Minister of Agriculture. The best speech, however, was one that one of our fellow trainees was required to give in Patios. It was hilarious to see him say “Big op tu di bassda!” (Give props to the Ambassador)

After the swearing in ceremony was over and we were all officially volunteers, we were supposed to have a few refreshments and then be taken back to our sites by our supervisors from the local agencies we are working with. However, due to the fact that Tropical Storm Gustav started to hit the island on Thursday morning and most businesses were shut down, only supervisors for 9 of the 49 trainees actually showed up. Therefore, the rest of us were loaded back onto the buses and taken back to the hotel to ride out the storm. Other than being let out to get groceries early Thursday afternoon, PC put us on lock down and did not let us leave the hotel for two days; not that we wanted to since the hotel had its own generator and water storage tanks. So while most of the rest of the island had no power and no water, we were enjoying watching movies on laptops and taking hot showers.

Other than the fact that it rained hard for two straight days, the winds were not very strong and there was limited damage around the island. The places worst hit were on the far eastern side of the island, in the parishes of St. Thomas and Portland (where I was originally posted in Port Antonio). One major bridge was cut in half and a few roads were blocked due to landslides. Most of the volunteers were finally sent back to site on Saturday except for those stationed in St. Thomas, Portland and a few other localized areas that had to spend an extra two days in the hotel before they were able to get back to their sites.

When I got back to my site there was no damage in the neighborhood, we had electricity but we had no water until late Sunday night. Fortunately, my host family had prepared by filling two large containers with about 150 gallons of water, so we never had to really go without anything.

The weirdest part about finally being done with training was that I was happy to finally be done with all the lectures and tests, however it a little scary finally being turned out on my own and PC basically saying that the next time I would have to see anyone would be in a few months when they have a large meeting in Kingston for all the volunteers. It finally hit that I would be a lot more on my own than I have been so far. Granted the fact that there is a PC support staff and there are a little under 100 volunteers around the island (two of which live a few blocks away from me) whom I’m sure I will be visiting throughout my service, but it is up to me to keep in touch, up to me to find out how to get around, and up to me get things done. It took a day or so (and a lot of sleep) to grasp this realization and come to terms with it.

The next big test comes next week when I no longer come into my agencies office on a daily basis and start setting my own schedule of traveling to job sites and trying to get work done at home. We’ll see how that works out.

Half Way Through Training

I have finished about half of my training here in Jamaica to become a PC volunteer. The normal PC training program has the trainees kept in one location for the duration of training (2 months), with a few site visits to active volunteers in the field. It is not until the end of training that the volunteers find out what their assignment is and where it will be. However, here things are a little bit different. This is the second year they have tried a “Site Based Training” approach where we were given our assignments and our sites after only two weeks of training. So, after spending the first two weeks on a college campus in Kingston with the other 51 new trainees, we were all shipped off to different parts of the island to be introduced to our sites and our communities that we will be working on for the next two years.

Initially, I was assigned to live in the town of Port Antonio (Porti), which is located on the north-east coast of the island in Portland Parish. As a brief side note, I highly recommend visiting Porti if you come to Jamaica – it has great beaches and awesome hiking very close by. It is not very touristy and its pretty safe. The agency that I have been assigned to is the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) which is an organization that gets money from various international aid agencies and then use this money to construct needed infrastructure on a community level. Examples of the types of work they do are the water collection and distribution projects currently underway near Porti. There are two communities located in the mountains about 5 to 10 miles south of Porti that do not currently have running water. These communities depend on water trucks, nearby streams and small rainwater collection systems to get water. They then store this water in large tanks around their houses for use when needed. This water is un-treated and needs to be boiled if it is to be used for drinking or cooking. JSIF worked with these communities to construct water catchments (small man-made ponds) to collect water at springs in the mountains near the communities. The water is then piped to holding tanks in the communities where the water can be treated and stored for use. The water is then distributed from these tanks to the houses in these communities.

These projects are community run and community constructed. Various members of the communities form a board that is in charge of handling the money given to them by JSIF and is in charge of coordinating the necessary labor required to construct the project. These board members receive training from JSIF on how to perform these duties, however the board member are not paid for this work. Therefore, the role of the PCV is to act as a facilitator to make sure that these board members, who are busy with their full time work and family obligations, are doing what is necessary to get the job done, properly handling the money, and giving technical advice on how to interpret engineering designs that may be lacking in detail. In addition, it is also required that the PCV actually performs some work and trains the community members how to do various tasks that may be new or unfamiliar to them.

So, for the past two weeks, I have been traveling around Porti with the current PCV, seeing these sites, learning how to navigate the town and adjusting to a new host family. Unfortunately, JSIF realized that the current projects in the area around Porti are almost completed and will not be able to keep me busy for two full years. Therefore, at the end of the two weeks, I was transferred to a town called Portmore in St. Catharine Parish, which is located on the south coast, near the middle of the island, about 30 minutes west of Kingston. The types of projects I have been told that I will be working on are reconstruction projects for roadways, schools and health clinics around the Portmore area that were damaged during Hurricane Dean last year. I only briefly met my new host family on Saturday for about one hour when I dropped off my luggage at their house before I was required to travel back to Kingston for another week of training at the college campus.

It has been very interesting being back here on campus with the other trainees after being at site for two weeks. Each of the 52 trainees all had very different experiences, however there are a lot of the same feelings. Some people are living in very small, rural mountain communities where there nearest town is an hour drive on horrible roads and some are in urban areas where they can walk to downtown areas. Some are within walking distance of beaches (as I was in Porti) and some have awesome hiking trails and waterfalls very close by. Some people spent two weeks just trying to talk to people and trying to figure out what people were saying, others spent two weeks working in very structured job with a boss constantly telling them what to do. In general, everyone is a little shell shocked and trying to adjust to a culture that is very different from what we’re used to.

I’m sorry for not giving more detail about my specific situation at this point, but, as I said, I was moved at the last minute and have only had one hour to meet my new host family and see my community. Hopefully I will have more detail in the next few weeks and will also have some interesting stories. I am excited to get back out to site and meet my new family and start working with my agency. So far, most of my experiences have been positive and I am remaining optimistic. Jamaica is a country of contrasts, and it will take a while to get used to it, but I am looking forward to the challenge.

The Start of Training

I have been in training for about a week now and things are going very well. The two days in Miami seem like a blur now - all I really remember was spending a lot of time in a hotel conference room talking about logistics, trying to remember 51 new people's names and eating some good Cuban food.


Arriving in Kingston was interesting. It was only my second international flight, so I was not very used to going through immigration and customs. Some how I managed to make it out of the airport first in the group and met the director and a bunch of waiting volunteers outside. It was refreshing to see so many smiling faces with welcome posters as your first sight in a foreign country. The two things that were immediately noticeable were the heat - even with a strong wind I was pretty much drenched in sweat within a few minutes, and the landscape - seeing the city of Kingston across the bay with the mountains behind it is an impressive sight.


Since our arrival, all of the trainees have been staying in a college in Kingston, having a pretty strict schedule of classes from 8 am to 6 pm and trying to get to know each other at night. One interesting thing is that all of the classroom buildings have open walls that let the wind blow through because there is no air conditioning here. Being in a computer lab on campus right now with air conditioning is a weird feeling. The heat along with all of the new information being thrown at us each day makes for long, draining days. I am happy that the showers only have cold water - it makes it much easier to cool off, even in the morning.


We were taken on a walk-about around the city of Kingston in small groups on Saturday to show us how the transportation system works, how the people interact and to start getting us ready to be on our own. The buses drive fast and full and the markets are loud and exciting. The people for the most part are warm and welcoming, but everyone has to be on guard for pick pockets and theft at all times.


The Patwa language is very interesting and fun to learn. We have been having some amazing teachers trying to help us learn the basics. They are very patient and willing to put up with our many mistakes and questions. I have started being able to pick up some parts of conversations here and there, but it is a very quick language and is not written very much, so it will be a real learning experience. Hopefully I will be able to write a post soon in Patwa and see if you can understand it.


I am excited for some field trips we have coming up soon around the city of Kingston and hopefully going to a beach soon as well. I am also very excited to learn next week were my assignment will be on the island and traveling to meet my host family the week after that.


Finally, on a sad note, I just received word from friends that a former co-worker of mine, Karan, has recently passed away. I am deeply saddened to hear this. Karan was a young man with a very bright future ahead of him. All who knew him knew that he was a funny, intelligent hard working person that made the world around him a better place. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

Saying My Goodbyes

It is a little hard to believe that I am leaving tomorrow for my staging event in Miami and then on to Jamaica on Thursday. I put my initial application in a year ago and its been a long, drawn out wait to this point. Its funny, I was nervous a few weeks ago, and then I got to the point where I was tired of being nervous and just wanted to get started. Now, in the past day or so, I've started to get nervous again. It's probably because I've started saying a few more goodbyes in the past couple of days.

It started at the wedding I went to for a college friend of mine, Jeremy Sample, this past weekend near Scranton, PA (and no, I didn't get a picture of the sign from The Office). The wedding was a lot of fun (hopefully someone will send me a picture that I can post here...). I got to see a bunch of the guys from Phi Psi, got to see Sample's family for the first time since graduation, and, obviously, got to see Sample and Aimee get married. I think that everyone that knows Sample knows that he, more than most people, truly deserves happiness in life. And after meeting his new wife and seeing that seeing that she can put up with the Phi Psi guys (Pauli most of all), I know he's found that. Congratulations buddy - I hope the honeymoon is like the table your brother described in his speech.....

To get back to what I was saying, it was good to be see a lot of friends from college and see how they are doing before I leave. It was interesting to see how each of us have taken pretty different paths in the four years since graduation and to see where these paths have lead so far. We are spread out from Boston to Indianapolis. Most of the guys seem to be in pretty good relationships at this point (which makes me think that I may be missing a lot of weddings over the next two years). There are some of the guys that have been working since graduation, have put in their time doing the grunt work and are starting their ascent up the corporate ladder. There are others that either went straight to graduate school after graduation or went back to school after a few years of work and are looking forward to doing the grunt work. And then there are others (or maybe just me) that have put in four years of work and extra schooling and are in the process of trying to change paths completely. I guess that is the benefit of being in my generation, I'm not expected to stay in the same job or in the same career my entire life - its acceptable to jump around a little. I sure have - this will be my 5th move and 4th job in four years.

Well, I guess it is time to pack my bags and say my final goodbye's. My next entry will hopefully be from Kingston.

Almost getting Kicked Out of the Peace Corps before I Start

To start off, let me say that I am not even a Met's fan....but we'll get to that part.

I woke up around 9:00 AM yesterday and finally got out of bed around 10 or so (yeah, its nice being unemployed). So after bumming around for a while, I finally started to pack up my apartment and prepare for my trip to Jamaica next week. After a few minutes of packing, I realized that I still needed to go through some of my paper work for my staging event. As I was going through the forms and booklets that I received, most of which I had already filled out, I stumble across a "Peace Corps Eligibility" form. I realize that this was not just a check list, as I originally thought, but a form that actually needed to be filled out. As I began to read it, I realize that the form was asking if I have been charged with any misdemeanors or received any citations since my original application and background check. Then I remember back to the end of May....(flash back)

John, a friend of mine at my old job invited me to a Met's game back on May 30th, saying that he had a few extra box seat tickets. Since I had never been to Shea Stadium and I am always looking for an excuse to leave work a few hours early on a Friday, I gladly accepted his offer. John also invited other coworkers of ours, Brian and Karan, with the remaining tickets he had. So we all left work around 2:00 PM and carpooled to Shea Stadium.

We finally arrived at Shea Stadium after sitting in about 4 hours of horrible New York City traffic and had about an hour before the game started. After parking the car, Brian and Karan went off to find a restroom and John and I sat on the bumper of his car and each opened up a beer to do a little tailgating. There were lots of other people in the parking lot drinking their beverages, so we didn't think there was anything wrong until a police car pulled up next to us. Two NYPD officers stepped out and informed us that we were in violation of a public drinking ordinance and were going to issue us $25.00 citations. They also informed us that all we needed to do to avoid these citations was to pour our drinks into plastic cups rather than drink them directly from the can! Somehow drinking out of a plastic cup makes drinking in public legal!?!? So, a few days later I mailed in my guilty plea along with $25.00 and thought the situation was over....(back to the present)

I immediately called the phone number on the eligibility form to get in touch with a Peace Corps Eligibility officer. The person on the other end of the phone was not happy and informed me that the PC has a pretty strict policy when it comes to any drugs and alcohol convictions, even misdemeanors like this. Their policy usually caries a minimum 1 year period from the date of the incident where you become ineligible to serve. This wouldn't have been the end of the world, but considering that I had just recently quit my job, was in the process of packing up my apartment, and was planning on flying to Miami NEXT WEEK for my staging event, I was a little freaked out. I sent in some additional information, filled out some additional paperwork, and spent the next six hours convinced that I was going to have to find a new job and new place to live for the next year.

Fortunately the PC has some very diligent, compassionate people working for them who understood that this was not a major incident that warranted such harsh repercussions. At the end of the day, I received an e-mail saying that I was still eligible for PC service and was allowed to join my training class next week. Looking back, I probably over reacted a bit and shouldn't have gotten so worked up. What was the worst that could have happened - I delay my service a year? Life could be a lot worse. But a lesson for future volunteers - to avoid any hastles like this, be extra careful to stay out of these types of situations.

Weekend with the Payne Family

So I just finished hosting my family in Philly for the weekend and I'm thankful that I'm unemployed right now so I can sleep in and watch movies all day to try and recover. My sister Kelly and her boyfriend Tim flew in from Chicago early Friday morning and the weekend was non-stop until I dropped them off at the airport this morning a little before 5 am. I have to hand it to Kelly and Tim though - they were real troopers and hung out all weekend.

We started off on Friday doing a tour of most of Old City (Liberty Bell, Christ Church, etc.), parts of South Philly (Italian Market) and a little of the Art Museum, walking most of the way... My older sister Susan arrived a bit later - in time for dinner at the World Cafe and seeing a performance by Cas Halley - which by the way I highly recommend.

On Saturday we got a pretty early start so that we could get tickets for the tour of Independence Hall which we missed out on, on Friday. After spending most of the morning walking around Old City and Center City, it was back to the apartment to prepare for the big event - the arrival of my grandparents, my parents and my brother Adam with his wife and baby for dinner. Again - my hat goes off to Tim, seeing that this was his first encounter with the rest of the Payne family, and he took it all in stride. With the help of a few drinks, there was only a small amount of tension and drama that goes along with any family gathering. After dinner, everyone went back to their respective homes except Kelly, Tim and Adam. Saturday night was a good time with a few drinks at my place, going to a few bars in Center City, a stop at Geno's for a cheese steak, a few stops in University City and capping the night off on the balcony of my apartment with a few more drinks - a few "caucasians" Lebowski style.

Needless to say, we were all feeling pretty good on Sunday morning, but managed to rally in time for the Philly's game that started at 1:30 in the afternoon. My parents came back down along with Adam's wife and baby for the game. Unfortunately the Philly's finished up their series with the Angels by getting swept, but it was still a good afternoon for a game. Luckily, after dinner, Kelly, Tim and I went to a bar down the street from my apartment and watched the Cubs finish a sweep of the White Sox, so it all seemed to balance out somehow.

In the end, the weekend had good food, good drinks and good company. I'm happy that everyone was able to get together one last time before I take off next week.

Starting to Get Ready

I've been asked by a bunch of family and friends to try to do something that will make it easier to keep in touch when I go to Jamaica for the next 2 years to serve with the Peace Corps. Hopefully this blog will help me do that and also be a way where I can try to share some of my stories for people who are interested to see them. Please feel free to respond to anything I write.

So the past few weeks have been pretty interesting for me. Last week I finally finished my masters degree at Drexel in Geotechnical Engineering (ie: playing with dirt) after 2 1/2 years of night school and long weekends. This week I celebrated my 26th birthday (thanks to Tom for making the "sacrifice" of going out in Philly with me until 2 am on a Thursday night) and also had my last day of work. That is the third job I have quit since graduating college four years ago. It is probably not an ideal situation to be in, but at least I have been able to see different parts of the country, see how different companies operate and meet a lot of good people. It was tough leaving this job because I really enjoyed working with some of the people in this last year.

Now I have the next two weeks to make sure my life is in some type of relative order before I leave for the Peace Corps. I have to move my few possessions out of my apartment in Philly back into my parents place and also make sure my parents have power over all my "finances" and such. Its fortunate that I don't own much and that Drexel has sufficiently drained most of my money over the past 2 years, so there isn't much to really take care of. Other than that, I'll pretty much be relaxing and having a two week vacation.

Next weekend, my family is coming to Philly to have a graduation/going away/birthday celebration. I'm looking forward to all the drama that usually surrounds these types of family gatherings, but hey, their family and you have to love them. The following weekend, I'll be going to Sample's wedding in Scranton PA, which will be cool to see him and his soon to be wife, and also good to see a bunch of other friends from college.

Then, the Tuesday after the wedding, its off to Miami for two days of orientation and then off to Jamaica for two months of training and two years of service. Sounds a little scary right now, but then again, its the Peace Corps and its Jamaica, things could be a lot worse.