Beach Corps

When I tell Americans I'm serving with Peace Corps in Jamaica, I usually get a reaction that's some variation of "Wow, that's lucky! Two year vacation!" While we've been working hard on our training projects, some of the past two weeks has felt a little more like "beach corps" than Peace Corps. I realize now that being a tourist in Jamaica isn't as easy as I had originally thought. Like everything in life, there are positives and negatives.

First the positives:
When I visited Pat Woodcome, a current Peace Corps volunteer in Negril, we went swimming with goggles which was awesome! Even though she insisted there wasn't a reef where we were swimming I got to see different types of coral, sea urchins, rockfish, a skate, and fish of all different colors (my favorite were the ones with blue heads and a yellow collar). It was really neat when a school of minnow-sized fish swam through our legs. They were so graceful; I wouldn't have known they were there if I hadn't happened to look under the water at that moment. The sunset in Negril rivals all the vacation sunsets I've seen (except for maybe Sedona where the sun reflecting from the red rocks made your skin glow). Cliff jumping at Rick's Cafe and a Kumina band got rained out but are definitely going to be used as an excuse to go back.


Dunns River Falls were exquisite. It is a series of waterfalls that eventually dumps right onto the beach. We saw a doctorbird (Jamaica's national bird), a hummingbird, about 20 large purple polkadotted and orange striped spiders, and a few egrets.

Juxtaposing the pristine river was the concrete steps, gazebos, and snack shops on the bank. The natural beauty of the area was tarnished by the sound of toilets flushing and the man with his donkey dressed in flowers asking for donations. Watching the other white people process up the falls in a large group made me feel dirty, like I was taking advantage of Jamaica or Peace Corps or something. We are here to work and serve in a place where most people come to party and relax. I felt an extreme need to shout "I'm not a tourist! I live here!"

Some people have a hard time understanding that we're not here on vacation. While I was picking up trash in Hellshire, and again while building a greenhouse in Walkers Wood this week Jamaicans told me that I should be enjoying my time on their island; I should go to the beach and have fun! While a white person in Jamaica will never have trouble finding a cab, it can be irritating when every taxi that drives by beeps at you while you're trying to walk.

Volunteering is also a tough concept to understand. While we were constructing the slow sand filter for the community center in Ewarton one of the community members who was helping us asked for a tip and was incredulous that we weren't being paid to work. I don't want to be just another white tourist in Jamaica. I want to be a Peace Corps volunteer! I think that the first step in reversing the white tourist stereotype is avoiding places like Negril and Dunns River Falls. However, It's a tough balance that I will have to learn living here. On the one hand I want to experience the true Jamaica: falls without the photo shops and hair braiding stations. On the other, I'm supporting the Jamaican workers by going to Dunns River Falls instead of a remote waterfall where there is no admission fee. Fortunately, I think my dilemna will be resolved for me after training because the Peace Corps budget will be too small to go to places like Dunns River!