School Garden Part 2

We've started harvesting! The school has turnips (radish) and green beans at lunch now. Some of the poorer students are allowed to take vegetables home with them. We've raised J$400 by selling turnips at the market to buy some more seeds. This past week we planted watermellon, tomato, and lettuce seeds along with our sweet pepper suckers. The students are excited to see things growing, the farmers are enjoying teaching the students, and I'm happy to see more nutritious lunches being served.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

This Christmas was my first Christmas away from home. ::tear:: I won't lie. At first, it was terrible and lonely. I got back from a hiking trip on Christmas Eve to find that everyone in the house had gone to town to do last minute Christmas shopping. I made myself pancakes for dinner and went to sleep at 8. When you go Christmas shopping in Jamaica you don't focus on buying presents for other people. You shop for new sheets, curtains, and paint. Why? Because the Christmas tradition in Jamaica is similar to the spring cleaning tradition in America. I awoke at around 5 AM to the sound of a couch being used as a battering ram against my door. (Not a problem because I had gone to bed so early the night before). Time to empty out the room, mop the floor, and wash the walls. Six hours later we went on a tour of each others rooms OOoing and Ahhing over the new made-in-china sheets and curtain sets. Also, every room got a new set of lacy doilys which matched the curtains and sheet sets for the top of the bureaus. If you see a home decoration that has "old woman's home" written all over it you can be assured that its the apogee of Jamaican interior decorating style. For our community's womens' group gift exchange I made sure to get a faceted pitcher set that my great grandmother would love. Yes, I was upset that instead of spending Christmas morning opening presents I spent it scrubbing the floor. However, the morning of hard work was soon rewarded with Christmas fruit cake, (Much better than American fruit cake: its moist.) sorrel, (a purple drink made from this and ginger) and Christmas wine (always administered with the precaution "Mind yuh drunk yuh know."). The afternoon was spent visiting neighbors, relatives and friends and begging the three aforementioned Christmas delicacies. By evening, you could tell that some of our visitors had visited most of the 116 households in the district.



After Christmas dinner (gungo peas and rice, fried chicken, and salad) I joined some of my community members in the shop out front for a Christmas drink of Dragon Stout, Supligen, and white overproof rum all mixed together. It tastes better than it sounds. We put on "holdies" or old time reggae and started dancing, which, as people who know me know is one of my favorite pastimes. One of my best friends in my community, Fitzroy (farmer, red cross volunteer, genuinely nice person) convinced me to go to a party, which I normally avoid due to incessant sexual harassment, saying he would be my protector. He stayed true to his word and we danced until morning. We visited with friends, watched a machete fight caused by two drunken youths stoning a woman's house, and had a genuinely good time.



The next day was the Christmas tree lighting hosted by the chruch. A Jamaican Christmas tree lighting is basically like a talent show to raise funds for the church. The hostess calls random audience members names. If she calls yours you must sing a song. If you can't sing, you dance. If you can't dance, you pay money. As I entered the church one of my friends warned me, "You know they're going to call your name tonight. You better think about what you are going to sing." He was right. As I walked up to the front of the church, I reached my hand into my pocket to pull out the cash I had stored there after hearning the warning. However, once I got up there I had a sudden burst of courage. I found myself saying, "I'll dance." So, to a standing ovation and a lively reggae beat I started dancing. I think I brought more funds than anyone else that night because they called me up for an encore. The rest of the service was wonderful with candlelight singers, skits, raffling of presents off the tree, and the gift exchange. I got a Spencer's gift style revolving lamp with fish on it. Joy to the World!

No man, yuh kyann manage dat. (Yes I can!)

My days seem to consist of several moments of complete confusion strung together by alternating bouts of comprehension and helplessness. I have come to the conclusion that this confusion and helplessness are largely due to my education and living on my own. I have been training my whole life to block out distractions, concentrate on the task at hand, working on computers and in books. I'm very good at blocking out distractions. So good, that I don't see so-and-so's truck parked by the school or notice the new rain-catchment tank in the neighbor's yard. The Jamaicans in my community have superhuman observation skills. A red dot on a hillside is Ms. Daisy. They can hear the bus on the road from over a mile away (although once my host sister did confuse it with a tractor). One woman in the district who is particularly observant (and particularly gossipy) can glance into a passing bus and can tell you exactly who is leaving Westphalia, where they are going, and about what most everyone is doing there. News in general spreads extremely fast here, which I guess might be characteristic of most small towns. (Westphalia had about 500 people.) It's great for advertising community meetings but often leaves me feeling out of the loop. For example, the other day I was wrapping up a conversation with a friend so that I could visit with a neighbor down the street. When I mentioned where I was going, the friend said "Oh that neighbor isn't at home. I think he's at the nine-night in Resource." When I asked him how he knew he said that he heard his voice a while back while were were talking, and the obvious place for him to be going at this hour was the nine-night. He probably got there about 15 minutes ago. Didn't you see a lot of people going up the road through that hole in the bamboo fence? No, I was paying attention to our conversation. I didn't see anyone going up the road, and I didn't hear anyone's voice either. Are you sure it was him? Sure enough, as the neighbor picked up my phone call I could hear the duppy band in the background. He was at the nine-night.

I have had a great many humbling experiences in Peace Corps so far. Not only have I been training to block out distractions my whole life, I've also gotten used to living on my own for the past five years. Now I'm going from cooking for one to cooking for 11. The pot is a lot harder to stir! Turning on a sink is a lot easier than pouring water from a large basin. I'm really fast at working on computers and with spreadsheets, but I'm pretty slow at hand washing. I can open a can easily with a can opener, but the school doesn't have one. It turns out I'm pretty clumsy with a knife. Probably the number one skill that Peace Corps Volunteers should have is skill with a knife. Other skills that would come in handy are construction, farming/machete weilding, and carrying things on your head. In any case, I'm lousy at all these pratical skills. I never realized that I lived such a stoosh life. All of these changes coupled with the stereotype that white people are weak result in me hearing "No, you can't manage that." several times a week. Most of the time its people taking care of me and protecting me, but it gets frustrating sometimes to hear that. Right now there are some things that I can't manage. Hopefully though, at the end of two years, I'll come back swining a machete with a bucket of water on my head, and my community will be literate and have piped water.

Tropical Storm Tomas

Everyone in Jamaica has been listening to the weather with rapt attention for the past week as Tropical Storm Tomas was approaching the island. Peace Corps consolidated the three "most remote" volunteers on the island which, unfortunately, I was one of. Being a volunteer through Peace Corps has many advantages. Complete medical coverage, language training, security and housing support, etc. However, you are also at the beck and call of the Peace Corps. I didn't really have a say on whether I would move from Negril, or on whether I would consolidate.

Luckily, the storm passed over Westphalia with some rain and a slight breeze without damaging anything or anyone. However, we made sure to take all the necessary precautions. I got the call from Peace Corps and packed my bag with all my important papers and possessions. I put all my remaining belongings on my bed, covered them with a tarp, and tied it tightly to the four bed posts. That way, if the roof came off nothing would get wet or fly around the room in the wind. We also made sure to secure the roofs of our houses. Wednesday was spent shoveling rocks into bags, lugging them up the ladder, and placing them around the border of the roof. The sound of hammers echoed all over the community as we happily nailed sheets of zinc over all the windows. Pictures will follow the next time I have access to internet, but I'm heading back up to my community now!

School Garden: A dat wi did wan long time.

GG uses his machete to dig a hole for a schotch bonnet pepper sucker.

The school has talked about starting a garden for a long time. This past week it finally began! Community members brought tools, knowledge, and expertise. The school brought the seed and fertilizer, and the students brought the labor and their questions. So far we've cleared some land, started a compost heap, and planted hot pepper, coco, sweet pepper, plantain, and flowers. We'll use the produce in the school kitchen and if there is left over food we'll send it home with the children that might need it. We've been having a lot of fun even in the rain. I just hope they start listening to my pleading "Please don't run with the machete!!"

Fitzroy shows the students how to protect the sweet pepper nursery from the rain with banana leaves.

Too much information

The view from the school yard yesterday afternoon. This is only half of the rainbow!

I'm still having a wonderful time in Westphalia. I've started learning more about the people who live there: how they act, what they like, and all the familial relations. In some cases, too much. A past principle threatened me with a gun after I wouldn't help him embezzle funds. These are my children but that one was an accident with a prostitute. His mother went to jail for throwing her baby into a pit latrine. I caught those third graders having sex the other day. She stole from him and blamed it on the other guy. My stepfather is trying to sleep with me. Look at his stomach (lifts up his shirt) he just had surgery! That boy steals my crops all the time! I don't know why after seeing me for a month people approach me with all this information. Is it because I'm white? A peace corps volunteer? Would tell these things to any stranger who visits the community? This happened a bit when I was in Negril, but its much more frequent here.

I never really know what to say or how to react. Sometimes I just change the subject. A teacher at the school told me she never acts the information that she hears because she doesn't know it is true. If a child is legitimately confiding in me shouldn't I at least investigate? How would that affect my reputation and my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer? How would I even go about doing anything if there aren't any local authorities in the community? For now I'm listening, forgetting some information, and being as supportive as I can without involving other people.

Smiling faces after eating birthday cake and ice cream.

Put the fun back in funeral!

I recently went to my first Jamaican funeral with Mr. Campbell, or as his friends call him "Youn." He is the president of the farmer's group in Westphalia. His son-in-law's father who lived in the neighboring community of Resource had died at 80 in late September.

Most people in Westphalia will dress up for church but wear their "slippers" (flip flops). They carry ther shoes in a scandal bag (plastic bag) to change into once they get to the event so that they don't get mud on their shoes from the dirt roads. So, off I went dressed in my Sunday best, shoes in my right hand, umbrella in my left. We both made sure to carry our umbrellas, as the frost was thick when we left the house. (Frost = fog in Westphalia.) Even though we both "wouldn't mind if the rain never fall" it did.

It is a long journey from Westphalia to Resource which can be made a little shorter by taking a shortcut. After asking several farmers we found the shortcut and started down the little trail. Everything was fine until the rain started. The steep dirt track turned into a slip and slide. Before I knew it I was doing a backbend with both my hands on the ground behind me. In trying to save my dress from getting dirty, (I wouldn't want to perpetuate the stereotype that white people are dirty.) I had sacrificed my thumb. I wrapped Mr. Campbell's sweat rag around my thumb and grasped my umbrella tightly to stop the bleeding. We stumbled the rest of the way to Resource managing to arrive relatively clean. We arrived at the grave site and a little old man promptly grabbed my hand and started rubbing it on his belly slurring something uninteligible. I later found out that he was the brother of Sadpha, the deceased. Despite the rain, the church was full. (Jamaicans don't usually go out in the rain.) Sadpha had seventeen children and it was very obvious throughout the service that he was well loved and a great defender of his children. I was surprised to see more smiles than tear, people dancing and clapping along with the songs, and a genuine feeling of celebration in the air. As we climbed the hill back to the gravesite, Mr. Campbell explained to me, "Me don't like look pon no dead. Me don't believe so much inna dead. Nobody nuh nutten when dem dead. Dead don't matta. Yuh only a somebody afore yuh dead."

We arrived back at the gravesite where Sadpha's closest friends could be made out through a haze of ganja smoke, struggling to walk straight, and liberally pouring more rum. A crowd gathered around the sepulchre as the paulbearers slid the casket in and started to lay the final concrete blocks around it. A strong alto strain cut through the fog, "If you miss me...Don't come searching." Harmonies from the rest of the crowd filled out the song. "And if you don't see me. remember I'm gone." I started to think, why are American funerals so sad anyway? Mr. Campbell said it well. A person is only a person when she is alive. Death doesn't matter as much as life.