Let's take a trip

There are a lot of things about Jamaica that I have sort of a love/ hate relationship with. Right at the top of that list is Jamaican public transportation (usually just referred to as public). In a lot of ways, the public transportation system here is incredible – you can get to the most remote corners of the island on public and it is usually relatively cheap. But in many other ways, it is incredibly frustrating sometimes – it requires a lot of patience, a lack of need for personal space and usually a good sense of humor. Either way, it’s a huge part of my life here, and so something I should explain to those who want to know what life is really like in Jamrock. So, come, let’s take a trip on public, shall we?

As Negril is in the westernmost corner if the island, I happen to live as far from Kingston (a.k.a. – Town) as possible. Despite this, I often have to go to the Peace Corps office in Town for various reasons. The trip is about 150 miles or so, but often takes me upwards of 6 hours. Usually I have to be in Town sometime in the early afternoon, and so to make it anywhere near on time, I wake up at about 5am. I take a quick shower, get dressed, maybe grab a small bite to eat and head out. If I’m awake enough, I’ll remember to take an Alieve or two before I leave, or throw the whole bottle in my bag – my knees and back will thank me at the end of the trip.

So by about 5:30 or so, I’m heading down my lane to wait for the first of a few taxis. I’ve explained this before, but in Jamaica, taxis run like buses. They are usually regular 4-door cars, but they drive on a specific route, and people get on or off anywhere along the route for fixed prices. Licensed, insured taxis can be identified by their red license plates while private cars operating as taxis have white plates. It is usually preferred to take red plates, but in certain areas this just isn’t realistic – getting a red plate is a lot of money and work, and so a lot of drivers just don’t do it. Thus, you are sometimes left with no choice but to take a white plate. Anyway, back to the trip. After about a 2 minute walk down my lane, I reach the main road that goes down to Negril and I wait. Sometimes I luck out and get a drive in just a minute or two, other times it takes as much as half an hour – you just never know. But eventually I get a ride and after about a 5 minute drive I make it down to Negril for J$90 – just over US$1 (total vehicle count so far: 1, total cost so far: J$90, approximate total driving time: 5 minutes).

From here I have a decision to make – I can either get to Kingston via the north or south coast, and there’s a continual debate over which route is better. To go south coast, I have to get to a town called Sav, about half an hour south-east. But the road from Sav to Town is awful, and the bus park in Sav is very slow. So if you don’t get a full bus, it might be 2+ hours until the next one leaves (more on why this is so later). The north coast road is much, much better, but it’s a little longer. However, the buses on this route tend to fill faster, making the overall trip time pretty equal. I like the smoother road, so I usually take the north coast, through Montego Bay (MoBay).

So, decision made and off to MoBay we go. First stop is a town called Lucea, halfway between Negril and MoBay – there are no public buses/ cars that go straight from Negril to MoBay. I usually end up waiting for a Lucea taxi in the Negril bus park for at least 10 minutes, as it’s so early that most drivers are still asleep in their beds. But eventually a taxi will come, and at least 3 of us will pile in. The drivers like to make the most bang for their buck, so they like to put at least 5 passengers in their car – 1 in front and 4 in back (yes, this is in a standard 4 door sedan type car). Often times, there are 2 people in the front and more than 4 in the back, especially if a few of the passengers happen to be small kids or teenagers. There is no real comfortable way to sit 4 in the backseat, but the best way to do it is to have one of the two people in the middle (usually women), “sit up”. This means one of them moves up in the seat so that they are just on the edge of the seat and their knees are sort of at an angle. Usually it is the smallest or the youngest woman who does this. As long as the other passengers in the car aren’t selfish about their space or aren’t too fluffy (a Jamaican term for larger ladies, usually used in an endearing manner) this actually always terribly uncomfortable. But sometimes it’s just downright painful.

So, now we’re all “smalled up” in the car. Comfortable? Good, because we’ll be like this for about half an hour on this leg. The driver makes his way out of Negril and towards Lucea, to the north-east. If the car’s full, he’ll drive as fast as he can, passing other cars, buses, trucks or anything in his way (drivers are almost exclusively men). Often around blind curves. Yes, this is dangerous. No, he’s not going to slow down, so it’s best to just sit back and relax as best you can. (It’s a true sign of a PCV’s integration when they get out of a taxi saying “Man, he was going way too slow! Only passed like 2 people on the way!”) If the driver doesn’t have a full car, he’ll slow down at every person he passes and honk, asking if they need a ride in the direction he’s going. At one point, one of the passengers will say something like: “Wan stop driver”, or “let off”, or simply “right up here driver” to signal that they want to get out. They pay their fare, get out, and if you were smalled up, you and the rest of the passengers can now readjust. But don’t get too comfortable – the driver will soon pick up someone else, so it’ll be time to small up again. After about half an hour in this car, you’ll reach Lucea. You get out at the park (each town has a central bus park where most of the buses/ taxis gather and load, and it’s usually just referred to as the park), pay your fare and make your way to the MoBay buses. (vehicle count: 2, cost: $290, driving time: 35 minutes).

Now, time to be alert. The MoBay buses all queue up in one area, and it should be that the buses load in order that they come in, one at a time. But this isn’t always the case. So as soon as you get out of your taxis, you will have “loaders” come at you asking if you are going to MoBay. Loaders are people who are paid by the drivers to load their bus fast so they can get back out on the road. They’ll use any tactic necessary to get you into their bus: flattery, intimidation, rushing you, grabbing your arm/ bag/ sweater/ etc, they’ll lie to you about where the other buses are going – anything. This sometimes leads to fights between loaders, but usually it’s just understood that it’s part of the job and unless someone does something really out of order, the different loaders are relatively civil to each other. The key to dealing with the loaders? Stand your ground and don’t let them fluster you. You never give them your bag – that’s pretty much agreeing to go in whatever bus they put you in. And you definitely don’t want to lie to them about where you are going to get them off your back – that’s just asking for trouble. When the first loader approaches to asking if you’re going to MoBay, it’s best to say yes but also explain that you are getting on the fullest bus, no matter whose it is. Usually if you are firm enough and very clear about that point, he’ll ease up a bit. Not totally, but a little. So look around and find the fullest bus going to MoBay you can and get on. Different routes have their own areas to load in, and each bus/taxi also has their route printed either on the front or side so you know which bus is going where.

Now, we’re moving up and no longer in taxis, but in “mini-buses”, 15 passenger vans. But since this is Jamaica, there will be about 20 people in this vehicle, so once again, get ready to small up. If you’re lucky, you get a real seat, even if it is squished. If not, you get a “cross-seat”, a piece of cushion on a hard board that is spread across the 10 inch space in the “aisle” of the bus for you to sit on. These are by far the worst seats on the bus, as they are the most squished and there is no back to lean against. If it’s a long trip, it might be worth it to fight for a better seat or to wait for the next bus to load, but since this one is only about half an hour, I usually just take whatever seat I can get. So once the bus is fully loaded and more people are squished on than seems possible, you’re ready to go. Even though this is a bigger vehicle, it works exactly the same as the taxis, so there will be stops to let some people off and then on throughout the ride. By now, it’s about 6:30/7, so people will be more lively and talkative on this ride. It’s generally way to curvy and squished to read on the buses, and a few people will listen to headphones on the way. There will usually be music playing anyway – often the radio, but sometimes the pick of the driver which is pretty much like musical Russian roulette. But there’s usually a good amount of chatter, and noise to keep you entertained on this short leg. And before you know it, there you are: MoBay. After a few standard stops on the outskirts of town at different ports or factories, you’ll make it to the park. Once again, you make your way out of the bus as gracefully as possible (not always easy after being squished and likely losing circulation in at least one extremity), pay your fare and look for your next bus. (vehicle count: 3, total cost: $470, driving time: 1hr, 40 min)

Now, since MoBay – Kingston is such a long route, the drivers are much better at queuing and staying in order, so you don’t have to be so defensive with the loaders. So find the line of Town buses, make your way on to the first bus and get comfy – you’ll be here for a while. This is a much bigger bus – one of those that’s about 10 – 15 feet long and would usually seat about 25 people. They can easily sit 4 people across a row (with one unlucky passenger in the “jump seat” that folds down into the aisle), but often 5 get squeezed across. A lot of people also have big bags, boxes or other things, especially on the longer hauls. These are all creatively squeezed in somewhere. Some people make a fuss about being smalled up too much, especially if one of them happens to be fluffy. But usually it’s just understood that this is the reality of public.

If the bus is almost entirely full, you’re in luck and you’ll leave out pretty soon. If not, well, that sucks. Buses and taxis usually don’t move until they are full. Well full. I’ve waited for just over 2 hours for buses to load. It can be one of the most infuriating things in the world. Especially in the mid-day, people just aren’t travelling as much or as far so the buses take forever to fill. Sometimes the people try to convince the driver to get going anyway, but that’s usually a futile effort. And again, people don’t really read or listen to ipods, and since you already stand out enough you probably shouldn’t either. It’s not a hard and fast rule that you can’t, but you just generally don’t (the newspaper is one general exception to this). So be patient. Stressing it will do nothing but raise your blood pressure and give the Jamaicans something to tease the whitey about.

While the bus is loading, there will be plenty of vendors coming to sell you various items. Usually it’s some sort of snack or drink, or phone credit, but sometimes they pop up with really random items. Manicure sets, toothbrushes, underwear, DVDs, CDs, jewelry and more are all common items that are usually sold in the major parks. It’s pretty nice though – if you want a bottle of water, you know you don’t have to wait too long before someone walks up to the bus to sell you some. Or if you want an excuse to stretch your legs after sitting for so long, go and get one yourself.

So once the bus is full and people make their final adjustments, the bus is ready to move out. This is the long part of the trip. It’s at least a 4 hour ride, so let’s hope you’re comfortable. If not, you can try to adjust a bit, but it usually doesn’t help so just get used to it. Just like on airplanes, your neighbors can make or break your trip. Hopefully you’re not sitting next to someone too fluffy or selfish about their space, someone who smells or someone who will attempt to hit on you the entire time. But it’s all just luck of the draw on public.

The other nice thing about the north coast route is that they always make a pit stop about halfway through. So after about 1.5 – 2 hours, you’ll stop at a gas station with a bathroom that’s surprisingly clean for the circumstances, and a nice little store. After about 10 minutes, it’s time to pile back into the bus.

This is always my least favorite part of the ride. The first 2 hours or so on a ride are fine. A little boring, but nothing I can’t handle. But after about 2 hours squished into a bus, I tend to start loosing the will to live. I just don’t want to do it anymore. But I don’t really have a choice, so I have to just go with it. Hopefully there are people on the bus to make the ride entertaining. Although, just like the neighbors, this is definitely luck of the draw – they can make or break the trip. Some common topics of conversation on buses are: problems in Jamaica, politics (if this is the topic, best to keep your head down and make a few ambiguous nods), music, religion, dating, differences between men and women in general, the sex lives or preferences of different passengers, etc. Keep in mind that generally everyone on the bus is strangers. But in Jamaica, that doesn’t mean you can’t talk loudly and publicly about the last person you slept with or your preferred positions – many Jamaicans just aren’t phased by that kind of conversation. If you have a good group of people on your bus, these conversations definitely make the trip go faster.

But often times everyone is relatively quiet. In that case hopefully the driver makes good time and you don’t hit any traffic. About 3 hours into the ride, people will start getting off at various towns. On the long rides, it’s understood that you don’t get on that bus unless you’re going at least half way. On these rides, in addition to the driver, you will also have the ducta (short for conductor). He is the one that collects the fare and also the one who tells the driver when people want to get off along the way. About a half hour outside of Town, he’ll collect everyone’s fare. I’m always kind of impressed by this. He collects generally in order, but makes change for people as he goes and keeps track of where people get on and off and how much they owe. If he doesn’t have the right change at the moment, he’ll get as close as he can and then give you the rest when he gets it. In general, drivers and ductas are really honest about the fares and actually don’t try to rip people off. You’ll get your exception to this, for sure, and that’s always really frustrating. But generally they are really honest about giving you the correct change and telling you the correct fare if you ask.

(One quick aside: in Jamaica, it is standard practice to identify strangers by their job. So if you don’t know your taxi driver, but want to get his attention, you refer to him as “driver” – this isn’t at all condescending. Same with the ducta. The guy who sells small bags of nuts in the park? Nutsy. The fruit vendor? Fruitsy. It also works with physical characteristics – someone with dreadlocks is simply called Rasta, a light skinned person is brownie or browning, an Asian person is Mr or Mrs Chin, an Indian person is Coolie, someone who is particularly dark is blackie. This is a weird thing to get used to, but it’s not done to be politically incorrect and is actually really useful. If you want to point someone out, why not just use the characteristic that makes them stand out the most? When you say “That whitey over there” it’s much easier for everyone to know who you’re talking about than if you say “That man wearing the blue shirt”.)

Once you start making to the outskirts of Town, pay attention. At one point, the ducta will call out “Anyone for three mile?”. That’s the stop you want.

As the bus is getting closer to downtown and the main park in Kingston, the ducta will call out “Anyone for Three Mile?”, and this is the best spot to get off. The bus will go straight to the main park in downtown Kingston, but there’s no need to go that far. And by this point, I’m always so ready to get off the bus that I’ll stop pretty much anywhere. So I get off at three mile. The ducta has already collected my fare, and for the first time in at least 2 or 3 hours, I can actually stretch out my legs – sometimes a pretty painful process. (Vehicle count: 3, total cost: $1,120, travel time: 5hours, 40 minutes)

Now, once again there’s a choice to make. I can either take a regular taxi to the PC office, or charter. Chartering is just hiring a taxi to take you and you alone straight to where you’re going. It’s a lot more convenient, but a lot more expensive. There are always about 5 – 10 drivers waiting to be chartered at three mile, and they all know PC. So anytime a whitey gets off the bus, they automatically start yelling “Peace Corps! Come with me, Peace Corps!”. If you decide to take one of these guys, it will take about 15 minutes to reach the office, but it’ll cost about $500 – almost as much as the whole MoBay – Town trip. But usually the drivers are really nice, and like most Jamaicans, making small talk with them is really easy (if not exhausting after 5+ hours of travel). You never, ever have the same conversation with Jamaicans twice, so it’s always interesting to see where the conversation goes. And before you know it you are at the Peace Corps office! If you’re lucky, you have some time to rest and stretch out before you have to do whatever it is you came in to do. (Vehicle count: 4, total cost: $1,620 (about US$12), travel time: 5hrs, 55 min).

But sometimes I’m not in the mood to pay $500 to charter, so I continue on public. To do this, I have to walk past all the drivers waiting to be chartered, which can be pretty difficult. Just like the loaders, they can be pretty aggressive. But just beyond them, there are regular route taxis that go to Halfway Tree – the major transportation hub in local destinations in and around Town. Usually this driver doesn’t wait for a full 5 person load, and leave within a few minutes. Sometimes there’s less chatter in a route taxi but again, it’s all luck of the draw based on the driver and other passengers. Kingston is a really confusing city, and I’m always really impressed that the drivers know it so well. And it seems like I never really go the same way twice. After the 4 – 5 hour trip from MoBay, this 10/15 minute drive in a not smalled up car is always nice. And it’s only J$80 to Halfway Tree, a much cheaper option. (Vehicle Count: 4, total cost: $1,200, travel time: 5 hours, 55 min)

From Halfway Tree, you can either get in one final taxi to the area of Town the PC Office is in, or you can walk. Walking is about 20 minutes, and the ride is about 5 – 10 depending on traffic. If you opt for the taxi, when you reach the office, you’ll have been in 5 different vehicles, spent $1,280 and driven for just over 6 hours (remember, that’s not counting time spent waiting for the rides!).

Either way, it’s an exhausting trip. But at this point, it’s probably only about noon or so, and you still have a half day’s worth of activities and errands to take care of in Town. Not to mention socializing with any other volunteers who happen to be in the area after that. Needless to say I usually sleep pretty well and pretty early on travel days. And my average stay in Town is usually just about 18 hours. If you’re in Town for official PC business (meetings, Dr appts, etc), they put you up in a hotel and even give you per diem. But this adds up pretty quick, so you can usually just get one night, maybe 2 if you’re lucky. Meaning that the next day, you’ll likely have to make the whole trip in reverse! And yes, that is just as depressing as it seems. After a half day of travel, waking up the next morning knowing you have to do it all over again is a bit demoralizing. But at least at the end of that trip, you can sleep in your own bed – sometimes my only motivation to get back on that bus.

This was a rather long post, so congrats for making it all the way through! But it seems fitting that a long ordeal like this gets a long post, no? And stay tuned for a post in the next few weeks too – this year is my first and only Jamaican Christmas, and I’ll definitely share the experience with all of you! Till then, Happy Holidays to all!

How to fill every "whitey" stereotype in 5 minutes or less!

I think I mentioned this in my last post, but recently I've started working in a school once a week. The amount that I've learned in just a few weeks has been amazing, and it's really helped me to understand Jamaicans and Jamaican culture a lot better. To be totally honest and politically incorrect, Jamaican schools are a mess. I am planning on doing a whole post on schools, and that soon come. But for the purpose of this post, suffice it to say that I've seen a lot at the schools that makes my sick for a lot of reasons - teachers using belts as their primary discipline tactic, 10 year olds who can barely write their own names, students embarrassed in front of the whole class for the smallest transgressions, and much more. But yesterday, I saw something that truly made my skin crawl. And the most ironic part is that it has nothing to do with Jamaicans, just with naive and ignorant white people. Life is funny.

After school finished, I was walking down the road with some of the kids, chatting, joking, and having a good time. There's a central spot nearby the school where the kids go to get their taxis home (there are no school buses in Jamaica, so people who drive taxis through the different neighborhoods come to take them too and from school, and the kids pay about J$50 each way - about $0.60). It's organized chaos - there are about 150 students in this little area, but the kids usually go with one of the same 2 or 3 drivers every day, and the drivers know where to let the kids off. But collecting all the kids they are supposed to collect, squeezing them in the car (at least 8 kids, usually more like 10, in a typical 4 door Civic type car), collecting the fare, etc, is a bit of a circus. But it actually works pretty well.

Anyway, the students and I approached this taxi area, and as we were about to go our separate ways, a car with 3 white woman in their late 20's and one Jamaican man drives up. The women were wearing matching tye-die t-shirts and seemed very, very out of place. I was walking away and I saw them approach one of the kids I had just been talking to. They draped this brand new, really nice backpack around his shoulder, took a few pictures each and walked away. I could not believe my eyes. And of course before they made it back to their car, a fight had broken out with all the kids trying to get their piece of the bag (which, I found out afterwards, also had a brand new soccer ball and notebooks inside). The Jamaican the women were with had to come over and mediate, meaning he yelled at the kids to behave and told them that the bag was his and his alone.

I was in shock about what I had seen - could they really be so ...I'm not even sure what the word is. But I think white is the word I'm looking for. Not in color, but attitude. You just come here, give a kid a bag, take some pictures and walk away? Never to be heard from again? And you think that's helpful in any real sense? Really? Stop pretending there's anything altruistic about this and just admit to yourself that you're real goal has nothing to do with this poor Jamaican kid you are "helping" but with making yourself feel good and having some cute pictures you can put on facebook to show off to your friends.

I couldn't just walk away, so I went up to the Jamaican who had brought them up, and asked where they were from. "Colorado" he said. And I asked what they were doing here, and he gave some vauge answer about helping. I asked if they were working at the school or just giving things away, and the Jamaican said no, just giving things away. In response I muttered "That is not what Jamaica needs". He didn't really hear me, but I didn't want to get into anything, so I just walked away, ignoring the women. I wanted to make it clear to the whole of my community and especially the kids that I had nothing to do with this whole thing.

Then I went over to the kid who had gotten the backpack to ask if he had ever seen those women before. He hadn't. "Well, did they say why they gave that to you?" "Because they saw me talking to you, Miss." Greeeaat. Pick the one kid out of 150 that the only other whitey is talking to and single him out with a random gift for no good reason. I truly hope that the kid misunderstood the situation, and that they had a better reason for giving it to him. But who knows. And at this point, I was so upset at the whole situation that I had to walk away before I went over and made a scene with the women. Who were still standing awkwardly by their car, about to be mobbed by kids wanting a backpack for themselves, or money, or candy or really anything.

Now, I know that on the surface my reaction might seem pretty harsh. They were just trying to do some good, right? I do understand that, and yes, I'm glad this kid now has a new backpack. But there is so much wrong with the whole situation that I don't even know where to begin.

For one, they know nothing about the kid except that another whitey was talking to him. I barely know anything about this kid - he's not one of the ones I work with on a regular basis. He seems like a good kid, but he could have easily been the biggest bully in school. Or the richest kid in school. They had no idea.

More importantly though, they are just feeding into a mentality that is awful in Jamaica. There's a sense that all white people are rich and have something to give to everyone here - I can't tell you how often people beg me for things. Anything. Sometimes they actually need what they're begging for, but often times they just want to see if they can get something out of you. It's a game of sorts. In fact, the kid who they gave the backpack to had just finished asking me for $50 for his fare home, despite the fact that he knew I had just seen him put more than that in his pocket right before asking me. But it makes sense. If people are constantly coming and giving you things, why do you need to work for anything? Eventually someone will come along with something. Whether it's a new backpack for a student, a new computer lab, a new road for the country, or a meal. It's actually a demotivator in Jamaica. Now, if these women had come and spent some time with the kids and given the bag as some sort of prize, that would have been different. Still a little weird, but at least there would have been interaction and incentive for the kids, instead of just this random gift.

Not to mention that in a selfish way, it just makes my job harder. I don't have any material things to give anyone, or any money. But I will gladly spend the day with almost anyone in my community who is interested in learning something from me. Or even who just wants someone to chat with. And that's why Peace Corps is such a great model. It goes back to that old cliche - give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. Teaching takes more time, yes, but usually the investment is well worth it in the end.

The last point I'll bring up is the lack of cultural knowledge. These women probably had no idea the kids would start fighting right away. But talk to anyone who has worked with kids here at all, and they could have seen that coming a mile away. And there's a good chance that when the kid went home with his goodies, telling the parent about the white women who came to give it to him and him alone, they aren't going to believe him. Best case scenario, they laugh it off and let it go. Worst case, the kid gets beat for lying and stealing the bag from someone else. And then the parent will probably take the bag for themselves or, more likely try and sell it, because what use is a nice backpack when you can't put food on the table?

I could go on and on about this. And I realize that it goes deeper than just this one instance. But this was such a clear example of a lot of what bothers me about relationships between developed and developing countries and their citizens. And I know there's no right answer. Like I said, these women thought they were doing good. The kid now has a nice new backpack (hopefully he still has it). But, I don't know. It's just such a bad way to go about "helping", and will make me think a lot harder anytime next time I try to "help" people in a one-off situation like this.

Summer Update

As usual, I am long overdue on an update. While you should be used to it by now, that's no excuse and this was an exceptionally long lag between posts. I’m sorry. I will try to recap my summer in one post. Ready? Go.

China - the last post was so long ago that I was actually on a different continent when I wrote it. I was in China for the first week or so of June for the FEE Annual Meeting (see last post for a 2 sentence synopsis). It is incredible that I had the opportunity to travel to China as a PCV and something that I am very grateful for. I learned a lot at the conference, and had a wonderful time traveling around Hong Kong. Luckily people in HK spoke enough English that I could get by. Travelling solo is not really for me, especially in a country where people don't speak enough English to just start up a conversation, but it was still an amazing few days. And yes - the food was awesome. The flavors were surprisingly similar to American Chinese food, but the ingredients were definitely different. My favorite dish? Pineapple & chicken fried rice. I know, not exotic at all, but totally delish. Since I'm not really sure what else to share about the trip, I'll just share some photos - they tell the story better than I could: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2336320&id=5301199&l=0d29e0a7d3

On my 46 hours of travel back from HK (yes, 46 HOURS), I was lucky enough to have a 12 hour layover in New York! My sister Morgan was nice enough to lend the use of her apartment (even though she was not there herself) and my mom was nice enough to pick me up for some QT, and so I could use a washer and dryer, eat a good Italian meal and take a shower. I landed in Jamaica exhausted, but overall really happy to be back.

July seemed to fly by, and ended with an exhibit at the Denbigh Agricultural Show. It’s like a state fair, except for all of Jamaica, and it’s a pretty big deal. Each parish has their own pavilion where they display the accomplishments of the last year and try to out-do the other parishes. In true Jamaican style, this involves a competition to see who has the most impressive pavilion. (Want to get a Jamaican to really, really work hard on something? Make it a competition.) NEPT was asked to do the environmental section of Westmoreland’s display, and I have to say, I think we did a pretty good job. We had a huge table display of the Negril Great Morass (Wetland) and used it to explain what a morass does and how important it is and what activities take place in the morass (farming, building, dumping, etc). It was really interesting talking to Jamaicans about all this – most of them had no idea. And while I’m not sure how much behavior change will come of it, it was promising to see how interested they were in it. It was an incredibly stressful weekend – we spent all night Friday setting up and not sleeping, had to stand and talk to people all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday and there were a lot of frustrations that came out of lack of sleep, cultural differences, heat and the like. But overall it was something that I’m happy I did…just something that I never really want to do again. Oh, and no, Westmoreland didn’t win. We came in a disappointing 7^th. I think this was a bit unfair, but yes, I am biased.

As a result of the lack of sleep, stress and drama of Denbigh I spent the middle half of August pretty sick with a bad respiratory infection. After a few trips to the doctor (including one memorable trip where I was sent to a quarantine room while waiting to see her because I was coughing so much), a week of bed rest, plenty of soup and a course of antibiotics, the infection passed and the rest of August went by pretty slowly and uneventfully.

September brought a new school year and a new secondary project for me. I now work one day a week in my local school. The school is what’s called an All Age School, and it houses students from grade 1 – 9 (the ages of these grade are roughly the same as in American schools). There are 500 kids in the school and I have to say, Jamaican schools are a lesson in organized chaos. The fact that any kid learns in the environment is a testament to his or her own determination more than anything else. That may seem a bit harsh, but I can barely focus when I’m sitting in on a class! I’ll likely be teaching kids in grade 4 and 6, helping them with a sort of small group tutoring sessions. At the end of the school year, kids in both of these grades take big tests (grade 4 a literacy test and grade 6 a test called GSAT, which decides where they can go to high school). So getting those kids ready is a huge deal. I’m not at all qualified to work in a school and have not really ever done anything like this before. I’m kind of just figuring it out as I go though – something I’ve learned to be very good at through Peace Corps. I could go on and on about school and the intricacies of it, but I’ll save that for a post of its own in the coming weeks.

The end of September/ beginning of October brought Tropical Storm Nicole to Jamaica. It was 5 days of rain and about 2 of pretty high wind. Luckily, the damage was relatively minimal, but the flooding was huge. The road leading up to my school was totally flooded out and for about a week after the storm the students who live below the flooding just couldn’t go to school. People who lived above the flooding could get into town a different way, but this turned what was normally a 10 minute drive into a 30 minute drive. The water has since been pumped out from that area and things are mostly back to normal. After making it through a relatively minor storm, I take back all the times I ever said I wanted to see a hurricane – I definitely don’t, and I’m glad hurricane season will soon finish!

And the middle of October was spent in the states on a wonderful 2 week vacation. Even though I wasn’t able to pull off a birthday surprise for my mom (how did I ever think I could?? That woman knows everything!), it was a great two weeks spent with family and friends. I got to see my mom’s condo in Burlington, which is really nice and in such an amazing town. I also spent time in NY and DC – two of my favorite places. I got to see friends, eat amazing food (the culinary obsession this time around? Salads and craisins.). The amount of choices that confront Americans everywhere was a bit overwhelming, but it was a good way for me to recharge myself for the rest of my 6.5 months in Jamaica.

And that, my friends brings us up to today. Coming back was hard, and I feel like a lot of the other volunteers are in a bit of a slump right now. We have just over 6 months left, which is a long time, but will go by fast. We have a lot of decisions and transitions coming up but can’t do anything about them yet. We still want to do work but don’t want to start any new projects since we probably won’t have enough time to see them through. It’s a strange time in a PCV’s service. (but then again, when isn’t??) But! There’s a lot to look forward to in the next few months. Some amazing concerts, at least 1 visitor, possibly 3, a repeat of the Reggae (half) Marathon, Christmas and New Year’s and a possible sprint triathalon among others. The 6 months will be up before I know it and I’m trying to remind myself of that every day! I promise my next post won’t be in another 4 months, but until then, there are two more links I wanted to leave you with.

The first is the latest newsletter that I put together for NEPT:

http://nept.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/september-newsletter/

And the second is some more pictures from my summer:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2358707&id=5301199&l=d1e81e6cbb

China? China.

Yes, that's right - I'm in China. Hong Kong to be exact. How and why did I get to China you ask? Well, it just so happens that Green Key (the eco-certification program I'm developing with hotels) is part of an international organization, FEE - the Foundation for Environmental Education. FEE runs 4 programs in addition to Greek Key, and there are member countries around the world. Once a year, FEE has an Annual General Assembly, and this year the meeting was in...you guessed it! China. And I got to go. Pretty neat, huh?

Everyone was so nice, and I learned a lot from just sitting in the meeting and just talking with everyone. The first day, I had lunch with a Kenyan, Moroccan, Brit, Cyrprus...ian(?), Greek, Tunisian, Slovakian, Jordanian and Matla...n(?). It was one of the coolest experiences I've had in a while.

The conference finished yesterday and now I'm playing tourist in Hong Kong for a few days. I only got here yesterday but I already really like Hong Kong a lot - it actually reminds me a lot of Manhattan. I spent yesterday walking around, getting to know the city and browsing in the street markets here. It's such a different lifestyle than Jamaica, and I'm not sure I could live here, but I'm really glad I'm getting to see it, if only for a few days.

More updates and definitely some pictures to come when I get back to Jamaica this weekend.

Long overdue update

My apologies for lack of updates for the past month. I’ve moved houses, and no longer have internet at my house. And I’ve actually been busy at work, leaving me little time for blogging! But I’ll try to get back on track with more regular updates. For now, the biggest update I have is my new house, which I absolutely love.

Before I get to that, I should mention that May 15^th was my 1 year anniversary of Swearing-In! That means I’ve gotten over the 1 year milestone, and let me tell you, it feels awesome. I feel like my projects are at a good point, that I have a lot of traction with them and that I’ll be able to get a lot of work done in the next year (11.5 months, technically. But who’s counting?). Most importantly, I really understand the culture now and I really know how to work and get things done and relate to Jamaicans. That’s something that is vital to any successful Peace Corps service, and I’m so happy to have reached that point.

The other big change for me this past month was moving to a new community! I moved to Negril in August, and was living on the Beach Road – a strip of all hotels and no community. I didn’t realize until a few months ago how lonely it really was, and although I really enjoyed living close to my landlords, I decided to move. I found an apartment I really liked in a community I knew I liked, got Peace Corps approval and moved in on May 1! The main house on the property is a HUGE 8 bedroom, 2 story house. There’s an older married couple who live in the main house, and they don’t even use the second story of the house – it’s just for when guests and family come to visit. There are 2 kitchens in the house (one for each story), 2 huge living rooms (again, one for each story) and a huge dining room. It’s crazy big. And my apartment? It’s the maid quarters. Yup, around the back they built a small, semi-attached studio and had it for a live in maid. But to my luck, they haven’t wanted to hire one yet and wanted to make a little extra money, so they decided to rent it! It’s the perfect amount of space too. My own kitchen, bathroom, bed room and even a veranda that has become more like a living room. The veranda has a long zinc roofed overhang, and sitting out there during a rain storm has become one of my favorite past times. And lucky for me it’s rainy season!

But more than just a good apartment, the best part has been having neighbors and a community. I live about halfway down a lane that’s loaded with people, and they all knew my name within a week of me moving in. Not so hard to learn one white girl’s name I guess. But learning all their names? That’s something I’m still working on. Soon come. My closest friends on the lane so far? The two little girls from next door, Shea and Sabrina. Shea is 3, Sabrina is 5. They are adorable, and start yelling my name as soon as they see me walking down the lane (maybe part of the reason everyone knows me…) They come over my house as often as they can, and are making good use of the two coloring books that I brought down! I’ve introduced Sabrina to go-fish and memory, two games that she loves. I’m gonna start watching cartoons with them (educational, don’t worry!), and maybe even doing some crafts. They’ve given me countless tours around the neighborhood, and introduced me to all their friends (I’m totally a hit in the 3 – 7 year old demographic, by the way). All the adults love to see me walking around with the kids too – they get a total kick out of it. And of course they use it as an excuse to say that I should have a brown baby and stay in Jamaica (specifically Good Hope). I think it’s a compliment, but it’s not a piece of advice I’m planning on taking... But it’s been a great move for me, and something I should have done a while ago. I do miss my old landlords, but the tradeoff was well worth it.

Before I go, I should also say that none of the civil unrest that went down in Kingston last week really affected me much. Peace Corps has all volunteers on a travel ban and a 6:30 curfew due to an upswing in crime, but that should be lifted soon. Things seem to be calming down for now and hopefully it’ll stay that way. I’m planning on writing a more detailed post about the whole situation later this week, so I’ll save my thoughts for that. But thank you to everyone who emailed and called asking how I was – I really appreciate it. But like I said, look for another update about it soon!

NEPT April Newsletter

I recently put together another newsletter for NEPT, my agency and I wanted to share it with you. The easiest way to see it is to go to the NEPT website and click the link from there. It should be easy enough to find, but it was posted there on April 16 if you need to search for it.

You can also take a look around the website if you want - one of my co-workers put it together and it's awesome!

www.nept.wordpress.com

Enjoy!

Just another Sunday

“Did you hear what happened at 23/7?”

“No, what happened?”

“Well, it’s kind of not there anymore…”

23/7 is (was) a bar about half a mile from my house. It was a really cool place – a bar right on the beach that never closed, had amazing pizza and a truly laid back vibe. There are plenty of bars on the beach in Negril, but this was one of the rare places that would let you sit at the bar for hours and didn’t really care how much you ordered (which is key for PCVs who make less than $10/day). When you did order, they had delicious drinks, awesome pizza and cold, cold Red Stripes ready. In short, it was one of our favorite places to hang out, watch the sunset and play bananagrams.

But all good things must come to an end, right? I got a call from Eric today (fellow Negril PCV and fellow 23/7 patron) who informed me that the bar was no longer there. “Um, what do you mean, not there?”

Apparently, late last night the owner (a middle aged Canadian man) got into a huge fight with a Jamaican – I think over a girl. The fight involved machetes and baseball bats and the Jamaican man got pretty cut up. He was taken the hospital to get all his cuts stitched up, but as far as I know he’s gonna be alright.

And the owner? He was caught by the cops at the airport while trying to flee the country. He’s in jail now, and no one is really sure what’s gonna happen to him.

After Eric relayed all this to me, I took a walk down to the bar to see what happened. The bar was a completely open bar, with a big thatched roof, lots of tables and chairs a big circular bar and thick, wood bar benches. Well, the tables and chairs were all gone, the flags, posters and signs on the wall had been taken, the alcohol was long gone and the bar itself was being taken apart by 2 Jamaicans who are planning on using the wood in their house. One of the bar employees was trying to sell off the equipment that was left – huge gas tanks, industrial stoves, etc. He has no idea what’s going to happen to the land or the property, and said he didn’t have enough money to try and take it over. (He did ask if I wanted to invest some of my money and go into a partnership with him. Thanks, but no thanks.) It’s a prime spot right on the beach and a good amount of property, so I can’t imagine it’ll stay vacant for long. I guess only time will tell.

In the meantime, it looks like we’ll have to find a new spot for bananagrams. There’s never a dull moment in Jamaica…

1 year mi de!

Last week was actually a pretty big deal for me and the rest of my Peace Corps training class (big up Group 80!) It has officially been a year since we started our Peace Corps service. It has been, by far, the fastest year of my life. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that I’ve been here for a year, and neither can most of the people that I talk to about. Now, I could get all deep and emotional about this, but instead I’m going to steal and idea from Sara Ray. She’s a fellow GW alum and a fellow PCV serving in Macadonia. For her one year anniversary, she wrote about the day she had arriving in PC and the day she had one year from that. I really liked the idea, so I’m going to do the same.

March 17^th/ 18^th, 2009:

I woke up around 4 am on the 17^th for my trek to JFK. My mom and I got my 3 big bags in the car, and pulled out of the driveway in the dark. I wasn’t really sure what to think, or what to do with myself. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to keep all my expectations in check and just make it on to the plane. And after a sad goodbye and an anxious wait, I was in the air on my way to Miami for staging. I don’t really remember much of the plane ride, but the next memory I have is standing on the sidewalk in Miami waiting for the shuttle to the hotel. There was an older man standing about 50 feet down, and I decided to go out on a limb and ask if he was with Peace Corps. He was. We rode together to the hotel to meet the rest of our training class, making small talk along the way. Here was the first of many expectations I had to adjust – I assumed that almost all of the volunteers would be young, like me, but in actuality, half of my training class is 50+. We got to the hotel, I got to my room to freshen up, rest and regroup. After about an hour, I timidly went downstairs for lunch, registration and “staging”. Like most orientations, staging sucked. It was boring, involved a lot of paperwork and felt never ending (thankfully it was only a few hours). While sitting in a room listening to headquarters staff drone on, I remember thinking how unfair it was to make us sit through this – I just wanted to get to Jamaica already, and this extended layover was not much fun. I did have a good time getting to know the people in my training class though, and after walking around Miami a little bit and having a couple pints of Sam Adams in the hotel bar (it was St. Patty’s day after all), we headed up to bed. I was nervous, and didn’t know what to expect. The people in my training class were nice, but was everyone just on their best behavior? Would I like Jamaica? Would I be good at whatever job I was placed into? Would I fail miserably and come running home after a few weeks? I went to bed with all these thoughts swirling, but thankfully was able to get a decent night’s sleep once, enjoying my last night state side.

I woke up on the 18^th a bit confused. Was this actually happening? I had waited so long to get to here – it had been over a year since I had turned in my application, and about 6 months since I had received my invitation to serve in Jamaica. It was a little surreal that today was actually the day I was going to Jamaica. Again, much of the day is a blur, and I only remember flashes. Being in the lobby at 7:30, bleary eyed and wading through everyone’s luggage to sign in. Walking through the airport with a new friend trying to find breakfast. Taking group pictures in the airport. Figuring out who was sitting next to each other for the flight. One distinct memory I have is sitting next to a big Jamaican woman on the plane who tried to convert me to Christianity, and I remember thinking “If the typical Jamaican is anything like this woman, this is gonna be a rough two years.” (Thankfully, she is one of only a few who have tried to “save” me.)

After about 90 minutes, Jamaica was suddenly underneath us and we got our first glimpse at the rolling hills and lush, green landscape. All of the fear and apprehension I felt was suddenly gone. I was giddy. I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing. I kept thinking “We’re here! We’re here!”. We were greeted at the airport by Peace Corps staff and current volunteers, took some pictures and loaded into buses for our drive to the Peace Corps office. There were current volunteers with us, and we all kept harassing them with questions. I was amazed at how much they knew about Jamaica, and how easily they were able to rattle off facts from food to geography to politics to language to sports and more. It was overwhelming. I tried to take in as much of the information and scenery as I could, but suddenly we were at the Peace Corps office. There were snacks and tables after tables of information and forms to fill out - information on medical issues, safety, phones, money and other various things were thrown at us faster than we were able to absorb it. After a few talks, lots of welcomes and a tour of the Peace Corps office (which I still find a bit confusing), we were taken to our hotel to rest for the night. We had a few Red Stripes (what else?), had some dinner, chatted for a bit with each other and with current volunteers before retiring. It had been an exhausting few days, and I went to sleep with my head spinning. I was a little nervous, a little overwhelmed, but mostly I remember being excited and content. I was finally starting this adventure that I had waited so long for.

March 17^th/18^th 2010:

I had been a bit tired lately, so I decided to sleep in a little bit on the 17^th, and so didn’t get out of bed until about 7. It was the second day of a two day workshop I was attending in Mandeville – a town high in the hills in central Jamaica. Mandeville is very cool this time of year, and I’m sure the unusual feeling of sleeping comfortably under two blankets (albeit light ones) factored into my decision to stay in bed. Eventually I got up, took a freezing shower, and headed off to breakfast. The workshop was focused on the first draft of a Protected Areas Management Plan that the Jamaican government had recently put together. They had put this whole plan together and failed to consult the NGOs at all. It is the NGOs that work and often manage these protected areas – whether officially or not, and so the input from these groups should be seen as vital in putting this plan together. It was a small workshop – only about 10 of us from different NGOs who had come together to put together a response to the draft. We had spent the first day talking about our reactions to the draft, and this day was spent talking about next steps. There was talk of how to approach the national committees, and of putting together an organized network of NGOs. It was a small group, but it was an interesting mix of Americans, Jamaicans and even a Swiss man to spice it up. Some had been involved in the environmental movement here for decades and some (like me) were very new to the scene. It was fascinating to be a part of, and by the end of the day I was seriously thinking about extending my service for the first time since I had landed in country a year before.

The workshop ended by about 3, and I drove back with a co-worker and a friend of his. It was about a 3 hour ride, and we spent it chatting, resting, listening to music and enjoying the scenery. I remember my first car ride alone with Jamaicans as awkward and a bit forced. In contrast, this ride home was easy, light and mostly enjoyable. I finished the day off with a patty (Jamaican empanada or calzone), and went home to catch up on some emails and some work (yes, work!).

I was back to my normal wake up time of 6:30, went for a run, ate some breakfast and rode my bike into work by about 8:30. I had planned a workshop with a partner agency that day for some farmers, so I spent about an hour getting myself ready, printing out agendas and making a few calls. We had never set an exact time for the workshop (just “in the morning”), and at the beginning of my service that would have been a huge stressor. But by now, I’ve learned to just roll with it. We made it to our venue – a local church – by about 9:45 and were ready to go by 10:15 or so. Our partner for the workshop had promised 40 farmers, however none were there when we were ready to go. Again, this is something that would have had me very stressed out a few months ago, but instead I just waited patiently, went over my presentation and made small talk with some of the people around me. However, I did set a cut off time for my patience – 11:30. But as luck would have it, at about 11:15 farmers started to trickle in. by 11:30, we had about 25 farmers and were ready to go.

Like almost all events I’ve been a part of in Jamaica, this one got started much later than I thought it would. But once it got going it was a really good event. The farmers were receptive and engaged, and the four presentations (including one from yours truly on biodiversity) went over really well. We were through by about 3:00, and I headed back into the office for an hour or two of wok, emails and gchatting (I had had a productive morning, after all!). I headed home at about 5:30 and spent the rest of the evening reading, cooking and watching an episode or two of Entourage – my latest obsession. I went to bed at my typical time of about 9:45, and I slept well that night – it had been a good day, and a good anniversary.

Part II - Our Solution

The good news is that we have a plan. The bad news is that it’s a really expensive plan, it’s a lot of work and it will take a long time. But there’s a plan, so let’s focus on that. What this plan involves was the focus of a two hour meeting last week, and there’s a lot to it. But, essentially, it can be boiled down into two main components. The first is an emergency fire plan that would allow us to quickly locate and put out fires. This is a short term solution that is designed to tide us over until we reach the second part of plan. This is a program to rehydrate the morass and get it back to something resembling its original state.

The fire emergency plan has several components to it. We will need to build fire towers at strategic points throughout the morass so that we can pinpoint the exact location of fires when the break out. We also need to buy vehicles that can go into the swamp and get around to get to the fires (swamp buggies were an idea that was thrown out there, and I’m really hoping I’ll still be around in time to take a ride in a swamp buggy). A lot of these fires are in places that are simply inaccessible, and so the fire department has to wait until it gets to an area that it can access, which is likely close to houses or businesses, opening up a whole nother lever of danger. We are also going to work with the fire department and the local communities to educate them about fires in the morass and what can be done about it. A lot of people just don’t understand the dangers of the morass burning, and don’t know how or why these fires start. Hopefully through quick action to stop fires, and public education we can lower the impact and amount of fires while we work on part two…

Part 2 is a lot more complicated. It involves rehydrating the morass and restoring it so that it can become something of a healthy and functional wetland. The most effective way to do that would be to just dam up the canals that were built 50 years ago, but since that’s not going happen, we have another plan. One thing that complicates rehydrating the morass (well, there are several things, but anyway…) is that there are actually 1,000’s of small canals in the morass that were put in for farming or other drainage. So while the water runs out of 2 major canals, it will also run out of these smaller ones. And we know these are out there, but we’re not sure exactly where because there are no good GIS maps of the morass. This also means that we don’t know exactly where the hot spots are (no pun intended…) for the fire. So we’re not sure exactly where the most strategic place is to pump the water into. We’re going to generate those maps, but that takes time. We’re hoping to have them done by next summer so that we can start implementing this rehydration plan as soon as possible.

The other main complication is what water to use. There is a large sewage treatment plant nearby the morass that could be used, but in the current state, the water is not treated beyond the initial level. Raw sewage needs at least 2, if not 3, treatment phases before it can be safely put back into any system. No one can seem to answer the questions of why the plant is so dysfunctional, or if/when it will be functional. Using treated effluent would be ideal for this project, but we are not sure if that is going to be possible, and I’m not sure what the backup plan is for this.

Overall, rehydrating the morass will mean a lot of monitoring, and long term management of the system as a whole. It’s a lot to take on, but it’s vital to the health of Negril and Jamaica. The good news is that there is a lot of support for this project. We are working with an American wetland scientist to design the whole plan, and we had over 40 people from 30 agencies present at the meeting we put together to present the plan. Everyone was supportive, and that’s a huge plus. Hopefully that support will be more than just lip service support, but only time will tell on that one. We are looking to have a lot of this project grant funded, and are also looking into ideas for the project to sustain itself over time, such as an environmental tax paid by hotel guests or a trust set up for the morass. We are finalizing the grant for the first phase though, and hopefully I’ll be able to give you more positive updates on this soon.

For me, this whole situation has made clear something that I’ve thought for a while. Nature is pretty amazing, and has developed ways of making systems work which are far more complex and interconnected than we can imagine. If these systems are left alone, they can work for decades and centuries without a problem. But when people come in and think they can outsmart nature, they pretty much always end up just fucking things up. And once you do that, there’s really no turning back. Inevitably the impact is going to be larger than you had imagined, especially in the long term. And trying to put these systems back into something resembling their natural state is time consuming, nearly impossible, and extremely expensive. I’m not totally against human expansion, but we need to recognize that there are some spaces that we just need to stay out of, and we need to start being smarter about our growth as societies. We need to figure out ways to work with nature and stop trying to defeat it all the time. Because when we play that game, nature always seems to win in the long run.

There's a quote similar to this from one of my favorite books, We Wish to Inform You. The book is about the Rwandan genocide (depressing topic, but wonderful and wonderfully written book), and in the intro, the author talks about a conversation that he had with a pygmy in a bar in Rwanda while doing research. It doesn't fit as well as I had hoped into this post but it took me about 30 minutes to find, so I wanted to share it anyway:

“Humanity’s struggle to conquer nature," the pygmy said fondly. “It is the only hope. It is the only way for peace and reconciliation—all humanity one against nature.”

He sat back in his chair, with his arms crossed over his chest, and went silent.

After a while, I said, “But humanity is a part of nature, too.”

“Exactly,” the pygmy said. “This is exactly the problem.”

Part I - The Problem

So, here’s the thing about a wetland…for the most part, it needs be wet. There are some wetlands that dry out seasonally, but then they fill up with water again. But here’s the other thing about wetlands…they are usually in between dry lands and coasts. Meaning they are in prime development areas. But you can’t build in a wetland, and even if you could, no one would want to live in a wetland (or morass as it’s called here). So what do people do? They drain wetlands and swamps to build cities. This happens all over the world all the time, and it’s pretty much always a bad idea.

As a bit of background, a large portion of Negril used to be a wetland. The Negril Great Morass still occupies a large chunk of land to the east of Negril, but it’s drying out rapidly. The soil in the Negril Great Morass is peat – decayed plant matter that has formed a spongy, very absorbent and very nutrient rich soil. The soil can literally hold 3 times its weight in water. However, when the peat is dry, it becomes a very flammable. So much so that the Royal Palm Reserve, a part of the Negril Great Morass that my agency manages, was originally developed by the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica for them to complete a feasibility study on harvesting the peat for fuel. When the morass is healthy and functioning well, the soil is so wet that when you walk on it, you feel like you’re walking on a sponge. But because of the way Negril was developed, as well as some other environmental degradation that has happened in and around the morass, it is not healthy and functioning well – it is dry and getting drier.

There are a few reasons for this, but mainly, the drying is a result of the development of Negril in the late 1950’s, early 60’s. The developers decided they wanted to drain the morass to allow for more land to be built on. Their plan to do this was simple – dig out two canals on the north and south side of Negril, and since water naturally takes the easiest route available, it would drain out the canals into the ocean instead of getting filtered slowly and naturally through the peat soil of the morass. Their plan worked wonderfully – so much so that over 50 years later, the canal on the south side of the town is a full, permanent river about 15 feet wide that is constantly flowing. This is causing the morass to continue to dry out at a rapid rate – something that is dangerous for many reasons, one of which the residents and visitors of Negril saw today.

Small fires are a relatively common site in Negril, and around Jamaica in general. People tend to burn their trash (a horrible practice that deserves a post of its own, but I’ll stay on topic for now), and burn their fields to clear them (a lot of people farm in the fertile soil of the morass). Sometimes fires happen as a result of accidents or carelessness, and once in a while that happen as a result of natural causes like lightening. But more important than how they happen is simply that they happen. And sometimes, like this week, they happen in a big way.

I was driving to a nearby town with some friends Sunday night, and we saw a big fire burning in the fields in the morass, and decided it was probably either a sugar cane or ganja field that someone decided to clear by burning, or an accidental fire. Either way, it was definitely man-made. We could see the orange glow of the flame all the way in Negril, at least 10 – 15 miles away. The fire was still burning today, and it burnt all day. It might still be burning for all I know.

What I do know is that it burned a huge section of the morass. All day there were huge clouds of smoke floating over Negril, and there was ash falling from the sky at several different times. It was a little apocalyptic and disturbing to say the least. For a large part of the day, the fire was in a section of the morass that is inaccessible to vehicles, and so the fire department couldn’t get close enough to try and put it out. Eventually it came a little closer to the road, so they were able to get to a part of it.

The really scary part is that even if they do get the visible parts of the fire out, it’s unlikely that they’ll get all of it out. The dried out peat tends to burn and smolder, and unless it is inundated with water, it will burn for months. That’s not an exaggeration – we’ve tracked fires in the morass that have literally burned for over 6 months. So it looks like today was only the start of some major damage to the already threatened morass.

I hate telling stories like this without some sort of hopeful solution at the end. And I’ll have that for all of you, just not today. NEPT, my agency, has been working on a strategic plan to re-wet the morass and restore it to a level of health that will prevent these fires from happening in the future. We’re working with consultants and experts to develop these plans, and we are actually having a meeting about their plans later this week. So please stay tuned for Part II in a few days – I’m looking forward to hearing about what we can do to help the morass, and I’ll be sure to update when I do.

Smoke from the fire billowing across the road - this

was taken from my office parking lot in the center of town.

Birthday and Donkey Races

When I was a kid, I was always jealous of those kids who were able to have pool parties or parties at Splash Down (the local water park) for their birthdays. Being that my birthday is in February, I never really had that option. But! Then I moved to Jamaica, where it’s summer all year round. So this year, I was finally able to have my summer birthday. It was sunny, warm and wonderful all day just as I had always hoped. And my dogs were even quite in the morning, meaning I wasn’t woken up at 5:45 by them barking their heads off! (Something that happens more often than not.) I was flooded with emails, calls, texts, Facebook posts and even a few cards throughout the day, and each one of them definitely made my day a little bit better. I even had a HUGE piece of cake at work, and managed to make it most of the day without getting “flowered” (it’s a Jamaican tradition that on your birthday, everyone throws flower on you…sometimes after spraying you with beer).

After work I went with a few friends to go cliff jumping. Negril is a seaside town, and there are 2 sides to it – the beach side, where I live, has a 7 mile long, white, sandy beach that is great for relaxing and leisurely beach days. The other half is several miles of jagged rocks and cliffs jutting out into the water. There are many, many points along here to jump off the cliffs into water, most being at least 20 feet up, if not more. Like I said, I’ve never had a summer birthday before, and I was excited to take advantage of finally having one. A few good friends agreed to join me on this excursion, and we decided to go to the “lighthouse” at Negril Escape, a very Peace Corps-friendly hotel whose manager we work with on a pretty regular basis. We all know how much I like clichés, and we all know what they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words. So let me shut up and just show you a picture of my friend, Eric jumping off the lighthouse:

After a few jumps, we headed out to a local spot for some great jerk chicken, another piece of cake (it was by birthday, after all) and another Red Stripe or two before heading home for the night. And yes, my friends did manage to flower me right at the end of the night with the help of a local store owner.

A few days later, some volunteers and I volunteered at a local community event – Donkey Races! It’s a fundraiser put on by the Negril Rotary, and it was a fantastic day. It’s just what it sounds like – donkeys racing around a circular track. And yes, there were jockeys. There were several heats and several rounds, and I got to see many donkey races throughout the day. Each one was more entertaining than the last was. Some of the donkeys just sprinted around the track, some bucked their riders off, some refused to move, some turned around and went backwards and some just walked and took their sweet time. We all helped out throughout the day and definitely took the time to enjoy watching the races. Again, this is something that needs to be seen to be believed, so please watch this video to get an idea of the day:

I’ve also posted some recent pictures online, and here’s the link if you’d like to check them out:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2309230&id=5301199&l=14096fe197

Mi have fi respec all di farmer man who grow it proper

For those loyal readers of my blog, you may remember an entry I had back in September (October?) where I talked about farmers and farming and what not. We've been back to visit those same farmers a few times since then, and on our last visit, I started seriously thinking about how amazing the whole cycle of farming is. I should also add that I had just finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food (which I highly recommend), and I'm sure that has something to do with it too.

I don't think many of us, especially Americans, really take the time to think about where our food comes from. We see an enormous bounty in every supermarket we go into, and a lot of people don't take a second to realize all of the work that has gone into getting each of those pieces of produce onto those shelves. I thought I had an idea about what farmers went through, but after visiting farms here and talking with farmers, I realized that I had only a tiny, tiny grasp of all the work. So I wanted to tell you all a little bit about what the farmers here go through. I'm sure for the big industrial farms in the states, it's different, but I have a feeling that for small, family farms in America, it's pretty similar.

What I'm learning by visiting all these farmers is the vast amount of work that goes into farming even a half acre of land. You have to clear the land, prepare it for planting, create some kind of water system, acquire the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. Once all of that is in order, you have to work 7 days a week, every day of the year to keep up with the weeds and pests, and with the needs of the plants. These farmers are out there from early in the morning, and work right through the day. And in the Jamaican sun and heat, that takes an enormous amount of energy. Just walking around on these farms for a few hours exhausts me, and I am doing no hard work at all. And these farmers have to be there every day, putting in several hours a day. If they are not, the weeds take it over, the pests will eat it, or as in one unfortunate case, someone will come along and steal their crop. And the farmers here usually don't have any tools – just a well used machete in most cases.

Most of the people we meet have been farming their whole life, and the store of knowledge that each one has is incredible. That's the other thing about farming that amazes me – you can't necessarily just use the same method that works for one crop on your next crop. Each crop you plant has to be planted at a certain time, a certain way and has unique needs. And each pest that might come to feast on your crops needs to be dealt with in a certain way – whether organically or with chemicals. Hearing them talk about all of this is dizzying. Farmers here often plant peppers, tomatoes, root crops and calallo (similar to spinach) on a small plot of land, but each of those crops need to be planted and worked in a different way. They need different amounts of water, different nutrients, and different levels of attention. Like I said, dizzying.

Then there's reaping it. How farmers know exactly when their produce is ready is still beyond me, but somehow they do. Then they have to get it from their farm to market. Many of the farmers we have talked to have said this is the worst part about their job – they can't usually find a fair price for their crops. Many of the farmers here sell their crops to a higgler, or middle man (“miggle man” in Patwa), and they are kind of forced to take whatever price he gives them, knowing he's gonna mark it up like crazy. They can't sell directly to the hotel, and can't always get to the market themselves, so they are kind of stuck. Even getting the produce out to the road is hard sometimes – farmers have to farm where there is land, and sometimes that's in the middle of the bush. So it's a lot of hard labor just to get things to a road where a truck can pick it up. Again, it's dizzying just to think about.

Despite how intelligent these farmers usually are, they are often uneducated in a traditional sense. Many are near illiterate, and I don't think we've met one who understand the economics of running a business, which is what farming is for them. No one has really taught them bookkeeping or accounting, and they usually have no idea if they are turning a profit – they only know if they have money in their pockets today or not, and they usually don't have much of that. It saddens me how much society over looks the farmers. Without farmers, we would be in some deep trouble. And there aren't a whole lot of young farmers out there either. Understandably, the youth don't usually want to be out in the fields doing hard work all day. When you really look at it, farming is a noble profession, but it's not usually seen as such.

I've thought about it, and I don't think I'd last 2 weeks as a farmer. But I'm glad there are people out there doing it, and I'm glad I've gotten to know just a few of them.

Back to Jam-Rock

After an amazing and dizzying 19 days in the states, I have made it safely back to Jamaica. Being home was fantastic – I saw almost all of the friends and family that I wanted to see, made it across 5 states, ate more food than I thought was possible and was colder than I had been in 10 months.

Being home was, strangely, not too strange at all. I expected a lot more in terms of reverse culture shock, but didn't experience much after the first few days. Though I must say that the one thing that I wasn't ever able to get over was supermarkets. There are pretty modern supermarkets in Negril, but the scope of American supermarkets is just astounding. And the idea that you can get fresh strawberries, pineapple, bananas, and any other fruit you want in New York in the middle of winter just floored me. In Jamaica, there is plenty of diversity in the fruits that are available, but once they are out of season, they are out of season, period. You have to wait a whole nother year before they are back. But in America, you can pretty much get anything you want any time you want. The convenience of American life may have it's issues (is it really worth flying bananas in from South America just so I can satisfy a craving?), but overall it is pretty fantastic. I had gotten used to a much simpler lifestyle here, and I knew that I would be returning to it, but for a few weeks it was wonderful to over indulge in American culture. (read: mostly American food).

As much as I enjoyed being home, being back has been, for the most part, wonderful. I won't ever be able to see Jamaica as home, but I really do like it here. It took me a long time to feel comfortable here, but after a while, something about this island just kind of grabs you. I have just about 16 months left of my Peace Corps service, and I am very much looking forward to it. There is so much I still want to do, professionally and personally that I am just hoping 16 months will be enough time. If the past 10 months have been any indication, the next 16 are going to fly by at record speed. I still can't believe I've been here almost a year already...it has been, without a doubt, the quickest 10 months of my life.

One of the things I missed most about Jamaica while I was home was the vibrancy of the place. There's a feeling here – in the music, in the food, in the language and the laughter – that somehow feels more alive, more real. I didn't realize how dependent I had gotten on that feeling, and it feels fulfilling to be back around that sort of energy. I can see why Jamaicans always end up coming home, even after 10, 20 or 30 years spent abroad, and why they are always so content when they do.

Before I go, I want to share two things with you all (all 4 of you...). First, is NEPT's brand new website (full disclosure – I had nothing to do with the making of this site): www.nept.wordpress.com. Keep up to date with what we are up to and check out our newest newsletter! (Which I did have a whole lot to do with).

And lastly, a picture from a recent concert. There's an annual reggae concert here called Rebel Salute that's an all night affair – about 20 artists preforming from 9pm Saturday until about 9 am on Sunday. A whole bunch of us went, and it was a great night. The artists were great, the crowd was enthusiastic but respectful of each other, and the whole event was really well put together and well ran. One of my favorite artists, Tarrus Riley (check him out, seriously – he's awesome) preformed at sun up and it was an unreal way to spend sunrise. We were all exhausted, but it was more than worth it. I'm already excited to go back next year and do it all again - hopefully with Alicia! But here's a picture of the crowd and the stage an the sun coming up behind the mountains that I took from the back of the venue: