Fruit Walk

Today, as I walked home from Polyground Primary School, I met two little boys who gave me a tour of all the trees in the neighborhood. One of the many wonderful things about Jamaica is that most trees here bear edible fruits. The biggest of them all is the Jackfruit which is about the size of a watermellon but grows from thick stems right out of the trunk of the tree. The inside of a jackfruit is rows of flower-like fruit whichs tastes like a sweeter version of cantelope and smells like a combination of gym sock and flowers.Pawpaw (or papaya) also grows straight out of the tree trunk. It has a distinctive taste that you either love or hate. I can only eat it dried. Behind this Pawpaw tree shade cloth is spread overhead of some plants. Greenhouses in Jamaica are designed to keep the sun and heavy rains off the plants and usually employ shade cloth.This is a cashew tree. As the boys tried to point out what a cashew pod looked like the neighbor's dog jumped at the fence and sent them running back down the hill.

Breadfruit is a common breakfast food in Jamaica. The most common way of cooking it is to cut an x in the bottom and roasting it over an open flame. A Jamaican might be called a roast breadfruit which is black on the outside but white on the inside.
The boy on the left climbed this apple tree and picked me the sweetest, juiciest Otaheite apple I've had yet.

This is what Ackee looks like growing on the tree (from the Jamaican national dish ackee and saltfish). Ackee is by far the most common tree in Ewarton. The second most common trees are orange trees. Lorna usually squeezes a gallon of orange juice a week from the trees in our backyard.


My favorite Jamaican fruit is mango. Zoom in on the picture to see if you can find them!

Another very common tree is the coconut or jelly tree. One of the little boys informed me that when they're whole you call them jelly and that the insides are called coconut. One of the best ways to rehydrate on a hot day is to buy a frozen jelly from the jelly man and to drink the coconut water.


They showed me a grapefruit tree, a tamarind tree, an almond tree, and a cherry tree. The cherry tree was laden with red cherries but I couldn't see them until I got within five feet of them. They also pointed out the green banana tree. While they look like smaller versions of the yellow bananas we see in the grocery store, these bananas will never ripen. Instead, they are peeled (make sure to coat your hands in oil or they will stain you) and served boiled.I had a fun walk home and learned much more than I would have without my new friends!

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!

7 hours to Negril

Peace Corps trainees visited current Jamaican Peace Corps Volunteers this week. I was lucky enough to be sent to Negril, the unofficial home of the best sunsets in Jamaica. (More on my time there later.) This post is dedicated to getting there which was quite the adventure!

The majority of training so far has been dedicated to our safety and security. This, of course, entailed extensive courses and demonstrations on riding buses and taxis, handling money, and dealing with harrassment. This weekend was the test: could I navigate across the island in one piece? The plan of attack was to head north from Ewarton to Ocho Rios and then follow the coastline west transferring in Montego Bay and Lucea and finally arriving in Negril: three transfers, four vehicles.

In order to avoid the hassle of finding seats for 13 of us on the crowded buses to Ocho Rios, Andy a fellow trainee, had arranged with her host mom's family friend to shuttle us for $300J each. Thirteen smiley American faces dutifully appear at the community center at 7:00, but, in true Jamaican style, there is no a taxi. At 7:30 we call the driver.

"Mi soon come."
"How much longer?"
"5-10 minutes."

Shift weight, chit chat. It starts to rain. At 8:00 we call again.
"Ya man. Soon."
"How far are you?"
"5 minutes"
"But it was 5 minutes last time!"

At 8:15, after another rain shower, two buses pull up. Finally. 13 not-so-smiley American faces dutifully pile into the buses. The driver of the first bus points behind him at the smaller blue bus.

"Why you friend a guh inna dat bus deh?"
"I don't know why they're boarding the other bus. It's not with you?"
"No suh!"

Before the driver can explain the situation the second bus takes off. It becomes clear that the first bus was the one we chartered and the second bus had inconveniently pulled in at an unscheduled stop. Our driver isn't happy about the $1500J pay decrease; we're not happy about the 1 1/2 hour wait. We decide we're not paying any more than $300 a piece to get to Ochi. He decides he isn't going to take us for any less the the promised total. Is he serious? Yes. 8 downtrodden American faces glumly plod down the street to the taxi stop.

"Anyone going to Ochi?"
No, but we can catch a bus at the bakery up the street. As we walk up the hill we hear the short beep beep! of taxis behind us. The cab drivers will take us to Ocho Rios after all. 5 once-again-smiling American faces and their bags pack into each taxi in the Jamaican tradition of "smalling up."


After about 3 miles we inexplicably pull over in front of a shop. Mark, the trainee in the passenger seat, informs us that the driver must be thirsty because he's asked the shop owner for some water. Andy and Mary release signs of relief that the water is not for the car just before the driver lifts up the hood. It is for the car. Water is poured; steam billows upwards. Someone points out the gas gauge is on empty, and Andy starts a rousing chorus of the Blinking Bus - a clever kids song which curses Jamaican transport. After several more words with the shopkeeper the driver shuts the hood, starts the car, and we continue up the mountain.


The next stop is a farm stand where more water is brought out. This time the driver gets an egg and black pepper too. Mark now knows better than to assume the driver is hungry. The driver cracks the egg, an pours it into the radiator followed by the black pepper and water. What!? Amazingly, the leak is fixed!

We start up the road again. The driver pulls into the gas station at the top of the mountain and alleviates our second fear by filling up the tank. We buy a paper: a new U.S. ambassador has been appointed to Jamaica. Hurray! But Oh no! the leak has opened up again. We add another egg at the next farm stand (I'm still not completely comfortable with that), but the hole is too big this time. The driver stows 2 large containers of water in the trunk. Things must be serious now. I naively wonder what fate has in store for both us and the car as the driver accelerates further up the mountain.

We come over the top of the hill and pull into the first driveway on the left. A hand-painted sign on the door says Ratty's repair shop. At this point, 1 1/2 hours have passed and we've only stretched our legs once. We unfold ourselves from our smalled up position and settle down near the shed out of the rain but under a wasps nest. We decide that flagging down a bus to take us the rest of the way might be a good idea. Unfortunately, this happens just after a bus to ocho rios passes us. I carefully position myself out of reach from the spray of puddles by passing cars and keep my eyes open for buses. I don't see any before the driver finishes epoxying the leak.
"We'll get there." He reassures us. Somehow I don't feel reassured. Fortunately the rest of our travels are relatively smooth, with only the normal heart murmurs when our bus veers into oncoming traffic while passing a car or when a pedestrian starts hitting the side of the van, makes kissy faces at the window, and yells at the driver to stop the van. I will forever remember how to fix a radiator with egg and black pepper!

Euarton, Bauxite, etc.

I've been living in the mountain community of Ewarton for several days now and slowly but surely losing my Patios instinct. A large portion of the community is very well educated and have been taught from an early age not to speak the once-perceived-as-inferior Patois. I'm staying with Nurse Bowe, her husband who works in agriculture with the orange groves nearby, and their live-in helper Lorna who looks 34 but is older than my parents. They have 4 dogs that can smell food a mile away and posess a diverse set of vocal talents with which they serenade me into the wee hours of the morning. The Hellshirians warned that I would be bored out of my mind because Ewarton was all farms. There is a lot more fresh produce and gardens. Mi nyam ackee an pawpaw yessideh. Di fruit dem come fram di trees backa wi ouse. (I ate ackee and papaya from the trees behind our house yesterday.) However, Ewarton has a small town with restaurants, a bakery, supermarket, and several shops which seems like a bustling metropolis compared with Hellshire. In fact, Ewarton has the feel of a small industrial town rather than a farming community. Large cane laden, diesel guzzling, horn honking trucks barrel down the main road throughout the day. Up until recently a main employer of the town was the Bauxite factory located just tapside of Ewarton (tapside=patois for up the mountain and next to).

Bauxite is processed to form aluminum, and constitutes a major part of Jamaica's economy along with tourism and agriculture. Jamaica has the second largest bauxite industry in the world behind Australia. Bauxite is strip-mined in St. Ann and transported by rail to a processing facility similar to the one in Ewarton where it is heated with a basic solution to dissolve the aluminum.

This process produces a lot of red ferruginous sludge which is deposited via trucks and conveyor belts in nearby pits. Due to the global recession and increasing government levies, the plant stopped production last year and laid off many of its remaining employees last week. However, under normal operation the plant is very much a part of people's lives with its overpowering smell and alumina dust in the air. One of the more active agriculturists in Ewarton, thinks that there are a disproportionately high number of children with asthma in the area due to the dust.

Ewarton's Alumina Factory

Bauxite Industry Waste Pit

Yesterday was the first time I've seen rain in Jamaica and the Ewarton farmers were very grateful for the end of a long drought. Driving through the countryside today brought the effects of the drought into full view. Rivers that usually flow over a foot deep are dry (below) and brush fires have been common as flames from burning trash catches and spreads through a field. The fruits are less abundant and dwarfed. Many houses have had to use their reserve tanks of water stored on their roofs or go without water during the past weeks. Fortunately, the gravilicious (patios for greedy) plants were able to quench part of their thirst between yesterday and this afternoon.

All Good Things Must Have an End

Mi nuh wan de maka dem fi juk mi. (I don't want the thorns to prick me.) The hardest part of picking up gyaabage (patois for garbage) was avoiding the thorny shrubs it collected under.

On Monday morning Peace Corps group 81 did our first service project!! It was great to finally be able to say thank you to the people of Hellshire after enjoying their beaches and eating their food for two weeks. We thought for a long time about what we should do and when we should do it. In the end we decided to do a neighborhood cleanup. Some volunteers were concerned that this would be like a house guest taking out the scrub brush and cleaning the toilet at the end of a dinner party. However, I think we avoided that faux pas.

Tina, Adam, and I decided that our garbage bags would fill up quickest at the football (soccer) fields. Several of the football players expressed their thanks for our efforts and two of them even postponed the game to help us pick up some of the trash. Even though there are many areas we couldn't get to, it was a successful operation in my opinion.


Later that evening, Sandy, Bev (a friend who occasionally works for Sandy helping with the cooking and cleaning, first on the left), and I visited Two Sister's Cave: Hellshire's main attraction after the beach. The caves are filled with bright blue freshwater which some of the trainees swam in. We arrived at the gate house three minutes before closing where we met Auntie Claire (a good friend of Sandy and tour guide at Two Sisters' Cave, second from the left). We quickly donned our construction hats and processed down the wooden steps towards the water. There was a carving on one of the walls believed to be chisled by the native Tainos: the oldest known human population on the island. On the way back to the car I saw a brown and white Patu (Patois for owl). Owls are very majestic creatures and this one seemed only slightly disturbed when the security guard pointed it out by hitting it with a stone.


On Tuesday night we roasted half a goat and half a pig. The town ate dinner together as a send-off social. Goodbyes were flung out of bus windows as we were shuttled up the mountais to Euarton.

Mi go Pon de Road

Another busy week in Hellshire! It's hard to believe I'll be relocating on Wednesday. Two weeks has passed so quickly.

At the beginning of the week I watched Life and Debt, a documentary about the effects of globalization in Jamaica which suggests that the U.S. and IMF economic policies are fueling the fire of Jamaica's poverty. I highly recommend it to anyone who is visiting Jamaica. The film was released in 2003, but many of the problems still exist. While their outputs have declined, "free zones" (basically U.S. subsidized sweat shops) are still in existence. Many Jamaicans choose to drink the cheaper imported powdered milk supported by U.S. farm subsidies instead of fresh milk produced by Jamaican dairy farmers. In a televised debate this week, the minister of finance stressed the government's continuing desire to revive the Jamaican dairy industry. In general, Jamaicans rely heavily on imported goods. This is largely due to stipulations placed by the IMF to eliminate tariffs on imported goods and to charge farmers and entrepreneurs high interest rates.

I tried the Jamaican national dish: saltfish and ackee this week. Ackee is a Jamaican fruit which when cooked resembles scrambled eggs in both appearance and texture. It is usually served for breakfast. It was tasty and amazingly similar to eggs and very not eggs at the same time.


On Thursday Sandy had a get-together with some of the neighbors. We roasted fish, danced, and had an all around vibsy time (the opposite of fenky-fenky vibsy means lively, fun, and energetic). Chrissy dances with her friend Shawnaque while (from left to right) Miss June, Miss Pam, Bev, and Sandy watch. I was shockingly returned to my youth when all the young girls performed a self-choreographed dance to the latest hit single. All I could think was Whitney Houston and DiCocco family parties.


Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays in Jamaica, and it seemed like everyone in the Kingston area took the opportunity to seek refuge from the steaming pavement at the Hellshire Beach. Several trainees and I took a walk up into the hills behind Hellshire park on Good Friday morning. Looking out from the hillside, the ocean was speckled with brown heads and voices from three different churches mixed together as they rose to meet us.


Saturday entailed a group visit with some of the host family members to the National Gallery of Jamaica which was decorated with Jamaican artwork such as Horsehead Masquerade by Osmond Watson.
Next, we wound our way to Fort Charles in Port Royal where we leared about the original Captain Morgan (Henry Morgan, buckaneer) and explored the Giddy House. An earthquake sunk half of the house into the ground resulting in a giddy experience if you attempt to walk around inside it. One of the host family fathers warned me not to enter, because he was convinced that a duppy caused the dizziness. So far I haven't had any negative side affects, unless you count an intense urge to dance to all Jamaican music.

I attended a Pentecostal Church service on Easter Sunday which was just as vibsy as our Thursday fish roast. I arrived late, left early, and still managed to stay for almost 3 hours. The first half of the service bubbled with ebulliant singing and dancing to a four piece band. Everyone was dressed to the nines, with most of the women wearing elaborate hats that would make my Nonnie jealous. in the midst We were joyfully greeted, prayed for, and welcomed. The pastor solemnly ended the last song and launched into a tirade against sin which, after an hour, ended in passionate persuasion for salvation. Quite different from the Catholic masses I grew up with, it seemed to fit the enthusiasm and joie de vivre I've witnessed on this island so far.