First Two Weeks in Bellevue

I’ve been in Bellevue for a little less then two weeks now and I’m enjoying myself so far.  I would like to think that I’ve been here long enough and had enough different sites to know when I have found a good place, and I think I have.  Bellevue is a small rural community of about 600 people in the mountains about 15 miles south of Port Antonio.  If you don’t mind smalling up in a taxi for about an hour on really bad roads, the people are nice, the food is good and the views are amazing.  From my house, I can see down the Rio Grande Valley all the way back to Port Antonio and the ocean.  I finally have batteries again, so I’ll take pictures when I get back to site and post them as soon as possible.

 

Like I said, the community members are really friendly.  One reason for this is that they had a volunteer living in the community a few years ago who everyone really liked, so they have a good view of volunteers already.  Another reason is that, with the community being so small, everyone knows everyone and most of them help each other with their farms and raising animals. The hardest part so far is trying to remember everyone’s name.  Walking down the street, I have been getting into a lot of conversations with people who know me and who I’ve met before, but can’t remember.  A few more months a few thousand more awkward conversations and I’m sure it will sort itself out.

 

My host family has been a real highlight so far.  They are farmers who have a sizable piece of land and grow yams, dasheene, bananas and coffee (yes, blue mountain coffee) along with some random fruit trees like papaya, mango and pair (avocado).  They also raise goats and chickens.  I’ve already seen my first goat butchered and will be seeing the first round of chickens go next week.  Also, in a few weeks, one of my host brothers will have a birthday and said he wants to butcher a hog, definitely looking forward to some nice fresh pork.  I’ve enjoyed eating with the family and learning more about real Jamaican cooking.  There is never a shortage of yams and dumplings at dinner. 

 

As for work, it has been the typical Peace Corps experience of “easing” into the process.  I’ve been able to get involved with the maintenance of the community water supply system, which is a pretty big task, trying to maintain a few miles of pipe through some rough terrain.  In addition, the principal at the school has been enthusiastic about letting me help with literacy and computer lessons.  It is just beginning now, but I’m looking forward to getting more involved with the school.  I can’t say I’m looking forward to all the frustrations that volunteers have in schools, but it is better then commuting into Kingston on a daily basis.

 

So that is about it for my first two weeks.  Can’t wait to get back to site.

A Busy Few Weeks Doing Not So Much

I never thought that I could be so busy when I’m not really doing much. For the past few weeks, I have not been doing too much in terms of work because I am in the process of moving again….for the last time!!! All I’ve really done is help to put together some group grant applications totaling about $5 million Jamaican (a little over $50,000 US) for projects for other volunteers and typed up a disaster plan for the basic school up the street from where I currently live. The best part about doing work at the basic school was going out and spending time in the school with about 20 little kids who are 3 years old and dressed up in school uniforms, just about the cutest thing you’d ever see.

Then, a little over a week ago, I hosted my first visitors with my sister Kelly and her boyfriend Tim came down for a week long visit. It was a great trip! I took them up to Portland Parish and showed them Port Antonio, San-San beach and parts of the Rio Grande Valley. The highlight of this part of the trip was definitely visiting Jesse and Josh in Comfort Castle with Kelly, Tim and Liza and hiking to the Dry River Water Fall. As we were hiking into the bush to get to the water fall, a group of about 15 Pikini (Patios for children) who looked like they had just finished a mud fight, ran past us and beat us to the river. We all spent a while swimming around and jumping off the rocks. As soon as I get some pictures from Liza I’ll be sure to post some.

After that, I took Kelly and Tim to the Riu, outside of Ochi to get them checked in for their last few days of vacation. By some miracle, the guy gave us three all-inclusive bracelets when Kelly had only signed up and paid for two. Kelly and Tim said it was cool for me to stay with them, so I spent three days eating tons of food, drinking tons of booze (a few too many White Russians as usual) and sleeping on the floor. Its certainly a different side of Jamaica being in a resort with all tourists, still trying to “process” it, to use the PC lingo.

All in all, it was a great trip and I really enjoyed myself. It was a lot of fun trying to teach Kelly and Tim some Patios and having them chat a little to the taxi drivers and bar tenders. They certainly were troopers handling the “smalling up” on public transportation so well. I had a few days after arriving on island before getting into a bus, they had about 30 minutes. I’m sure we’ll have even more fun the next time they come and visit…..

Now I’m back in Parottee trying to get packed up to move to Bellevue on Monday. The only problem was that I haven’t done laundry in about 3 weeks and yesterday I didn’t have power or water all day. Hopefully Lauryn, an awesome PCV that lives about a mile down the road and has a washing machine, will have power and water tomorrow or else I’m going to be spending my first day at my new site hand washing almost every piece of clothing I currently own.
One last note, my new house has one of the best views I’ve seen in Jamaica. It is out on the edge of a mountain that is looking down the Rio Grande Valley almost 15 miles to Port Antonio and the Caribbean Sea. Stop by if you want to see a great view, meet some cool people and experience some of the worst roads in Jamaica.

Contemplating Another Move

I was a bit of a nomad after graduating college: 4 states, 3 jobs, 2 grad schools and 1 car with a lot of mileage.  I guess it’s not a surprise that this lifestyle has followed me into the Peace Corps.  I am about to move my 3^rd site: Black River.  It’s not my fault that one of the only places Peace Corps does not let me live is where JSIF’s only office is.  So, after about 8 months of commuting into Kingston more then I should, I’m moving out west to work with community groups on maintenance training and disaster preparation, or something like that…

I’ve noticed that I’m trying to convince myself that this is the right thing to do, almost like the decision to join Peace Corps in the first place.  I know that my current work with JSIF that consists of writing training manuals and power point presentations is not very fulfilling and not exactly what I should be doing, but it has become comfortable.  I don’t struggle to find stuff to do on a day-to-day basis; I can always go to the office and find something to do or I can sign up for a field visit and check out a few sites.   Moving is going to require more self motivation to find projects and people to work with.

I’m certainly going to miss the ease of living in Portmore.  I have two grocery stores in walking distance, fruit and vegetable stands nearby, a cool Rasta that sells fried fish and festivals on my way home from work and consistent water and electricity.  Most of all, I’m going to miss my host mothers: Ms. White and Ms. Susie!  These two ladies are great to me, they always keep me rolling in citrus and cane, they’re always up for a random conversation and they take down and fold my clothes if I’m not home during the day.  I’m certainly going to miss them.

I’m also going to miss the easy access to the rest of the island and both Spanish Town and Kingston that living in Portmore gives.  This has been really usefull when traveling to help other volunteers at their sites.  I have multiple choices of transportation at all hours of the day and night, seven days a week.  Where I’m going to live is off the main road, has only a few taxis and, from what I hear, almost no travel on Sundays. 

Oh well.  The whole idea is that I’m going to start working more directly with the communities that need help rather then working for JSIF to help them help communities.  It’s going to suck trying to gain the trust of new groups of people and learning a new part of the island, but it’s also going to be fun gaining the trust of new groups of people and learning a new part of the island.  It’s also going to be great being within walking distance of a swimming beach!

I don’t know what I would do if I actually settled down a bit, but I don't think I have to worry about that happening for a while.

Gully Creepin'

January 10, 2009

Ever since coming down here, I have had a pleasant break from engineering. The hardest thing I have had to do so far is climb up on a platform where a concrete slab roof was being prepared and help someone I work with check the rebar placement against the design. However, as I have started to get my bearings a little more, I have been getting more involved with things at my work and with other PCVs. One such thing is to get involved with a PC committee called the “Nuts and Bolts” committee, which is comprised of a group of engineers (civil, mechanical, chemical, and maybe a few others I can’t remember) and other technical volunteers who try to help other volunteers around the island with problems the find at their sites.

At a meeting a few months ago, Bill and Gail, two volunteers living in the community of Castleton, St. Andrew, in the mountains along the Junction Road about half way between Kingston and Annotto Bay, mentioned that a section of their community was experiencing significant erosion problems with one of their gullies. Since I was the engineer who lived closest to the site, I was chosen to go and take a look at it. During my first site visit, I met with the volunteers and a few community members, took a general look at the community and the gully and thought that it didn’t look too large and expensive nor to technical and time consuming, perfect for a group of volunteers with no money and a two year time limit. Therefore I told the volunteers and the community members that I would “soon come” back to take some measurements of the gully so that we could get a better idea of what the cost and scope would actually be and really get to work.

Well, in Jamaica, “soon come” can range from 5 minutes to never, so the fact that “soon come” in this case took about a month and a half (which included the holidays) was a pretty short amount of time. This time I returned with two other engineers (Tiffany and Scott – a cool married couple from Ohio), a 100 meter long tape measure and a slight case of sleep deprivation from the night before (you have to try to have fun any time PC puts you up in a hotel in Kingston for free). After meeting up with Bill, Gail and their daughter Jill who was visiting for a few days, and after Scott changed into a sweet pair of knee high water boots, we took the 5 minute bus ride down to the bridge that you had to walk over to get to the community. Did I mention that this community has no vehicle access? The only way to get there by walking over one of a few pedestrian bridges in the area.

We had a brief meet and great with some volunteers and we quickly got to work. We all climbed into the gully and Scott and I worked the 300-foot tape, Tiffany worked the bamboo stick with foot markings on it for elevation, Gail recorded the chaos while Bill and Jill tried to get more information from the community members who came out to help. Unfortunately there had been a hard rain for a few hours during the morning before we started, so the gully was running with a few inches of water. This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem except for the areas where there were steep 5 foot drops or the areas where there were 2 foot deep pools. At one point, I was standing on a rock after taking a measurement, talking to a community member and getting ready to wheel in the tape. I made a slight shift in my weight and my feet slipped out from under me. I then proceeded to slip three more times within a minute while standing on the same rock trying to wheel in the tape. I never claimed to be a quick learner.

A few minutes later, about 20 meters up the gully, we came to an area where the gully is about 5 feet below the surrounding ground surface. This also happens to be the area where the gully has a few pools that are about 2 feet deep. Rather then getting out of the gully and walking around the pools to the other side, I figured that it would be a good idea to stay in the gully and try to shimmy over the pools. I had about 10 community members (mostly old ladies) and PCVs standing at the top, each telling me to go in different directions or do something differently, and I had my feet half way up one gully wall and my hands propped up on the other side, trying to hang onto the tape measure and not fall into the water all at the same time. It’s not too hard to guess what happened a few seconds later…

The only pair of pants I had brought with me for the weekend were now soaked above the knees and my water proof hiking boats were now full of water. After hearing a bunch of “Me did tel yu fi do dis…” I got my last measurement and Scott kindly offered a hand and drug me up and out of the gully.

After finishing with all of our measurements and talking with the community members, we all grabbed some chicken rice and peas from a cook shop and sat in the botanical gardens near by while the sun dried us out a bit (yes, it is January and it is still in the 80’s during the day here). Not a bad way to get back into “engineering.”

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.