Monday, October 27, 2008

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.

Monday, October 13, 2008

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.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

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.